Replay2 update

It’s been an exciting two months learning about the new Intel Agilex5 and the RK3588 used in our new Replay2 platform. The design and schematic are nearly completed – after a number of last minute changes/improvements. Samples of the part are on the way...

Replay2 Teaser

It’s been a long time coming, but we are really excited to announce that Replay2 will be based around the Intel Agilex5 FPGA.  

Replay2… the saga continues

It’s been a long time coming, but the desk is clean and ready for the first hardware prototype, hopefully December ’23……. Good things come to those who wait.    

Namco CUS34 – second mode.

I’m fully focused on Replay2 currently, but just a quick update on the Namco CUS34 replacement. I really wanted to complete the alternative mode used on ToyPop and Libble Rabble. Using my 20 year old bit of vero-board, I can compare the replacement and real chip...

Namco CUS34 reverse engineering

I’ve been shipping Namco CUS34 replacements for a while and the majority of the engineering work was done over 10 years ago. Reverse engineering the silicon by decapsulation of the die, taking pictures and manually tracing them is best way to understand what is...
New toy – Agilent N5998A HDMI/DVI Analyser

New toy – Agilent N5998A HDMI/DVI Analyser

Well, more time has passed. I had surgery on my jaw a few weeks ago in an attempt to remove part of a wisdom tooth that was left behind a few years ago. I’m in recovery, but it really knocked me out for a bit. We are making good progress on both the DE10-nano...
Replay2 and DE10-nano support

Replay2 and DE10-nano support

Sorry it’s been a bit quiet here for the last few months. I had to move flat three times since January and all the retro kit has been in storage. Work has been intense and it’s only the last week or two that life is calming down enough to get the Retro...

CRT Characterization and Emulation

I think many people agree that retro hardware looks best on CRTs from the same period. The downside is CRTs are expensive, bulky and hard to get hold of now. I’ve got a small Sony PVM I use for testing, and a large Sony broadcast monitor that is most often used...

Scramble video output analysis using Python and Spice

I wrote the first FPGA Scramble/Frogger core way back in 2007 (when we were all a lot younger)….     It’s been ported to all sorts of other hardware with little changes, but when we were moving it to our new build system I took the opportunity to...

Gearing up for Replay2 Production

Replay2 is still in layout and a few things are awaiting design closure (primarily memory configuration). The FPGA chosen is a Xilinx Ultrascale+ device (super fast) with Quad core A-53s, dual R5s and a Maii GPU. The CPU section has DDR4 DRAM, and the FPGA most likely...

68060 Ethernet and SD card support

Our resident coding genius Erique has been hard at work finishing off driver support for the DB. Source and the ROM binary can be round here : https://github.com/FPGAArcade/amiga_code Please also take a look at the FAQ here: How to install and setup the 060...

Github release repository and Crystal Castles core!

Still a lot of work going on to move the codebase to the new github repositories and roll out multiplatform support – initially for the Arduino Vidor. Some binaries have been put here while we faff about https://github.com/FPGAArcade/replay_release  ...

68060 Daughterboard rear I/O shield arrives

While there is a lot of exciting new stuff going on, I’m still trying to finish off some old commitments. Thanks to some CAD help from the team and the fantastic guys in Taiwan we have received the laser cut ATX I/O panels. Contact me if you want one. It only...

Amiga RTG source and driver released.

Hi all. We’ve released our RTG HDL files and Amiga driver code.   https://github.com/FPGAArcade/amiga_code https://github.com/FPGAArcade/replay_amiga   This uses some primitives in replay_common. This is just a code dump to support the other projects while we...

Paula and Denise decapped and scanned

I forgot to post that I sent ceramic variants of these chips to be decapped and photographed. Denise: https://siliconpr0n.org/map/csg/8362r8/mz_mit20x/ Paula: https://siliconpr0n.org/map/csg/8364r4/mz_mit20x/ Both join our Alice chip from before :...

Forum rework

The old punBB forum has served us well, but is now looking a little dated. While most of the developer chat has moved to Slack, the forum is still a useful public archive, and will become more useful as we roll out the Arduino and Replay2 hardware support. I’m...

Replay2, Vampire V4 and DE10-nano (MiSTer)

I made some comments in a post here regarding FPGA selection for Replay2 Replay2 …. the saga continues One of the reasons we have been targeting the Arduino Vidor board is to get a low-cost alternative for Replay1 for people to play with – that is actually...

Vidor USB debug

Here “Erique” the world renowned Amiga demo coder is doing some actual hardware debug. I think he got a bit over excited if I’m honest…. The Vidor currently has some limitations with it’s USB OTG support, primarily connecting a hub...

Replay build system

Coming from an ASIC background, I generally don’t use the FPGA tool IDEs. Sure they have a place for debug, but for consistency especially when using source control systems, scripting is the way forward. Both Intel and Xilinx have good support for TCL in their...

Arduino Vidor 4000 springs into life

The very talented Arnim Laeuger has been working with our new Replay framework to bring his games to the Arudino Vidor 4000 FPGA platform (called V4 from here down) The Vidor is a low cost FPGA board available here : https://store.arduino.cc/mkr-vidor-4000 To support...