Friday, April 1, 2011

Major Update - Video to come soon!

Did some major updates the last weeks. (I know it's April 1st, but no jokes here!)

Video: 
The AD725 for color-video is here and working. Now it finally looks like a real C64!

Serial I/O:
Yes, I was finally able to hook a 1541 and load stuff (just finished this morning around 3am)!
From the things I've already tried, I need to say that I was positively surprised how good the implementation already works (remember: all debugging so far was made using 8k-Cartridge Files from 1982/1983 only!).

As far as I can tell, fastloaders seem to work fine, also the Sprite- and IRQ-Timing (VIC) seems to be cycle exact (IRQs are stable and borders open as they should). The first Side of We Are New/Fairlight runs almost perfect (except heavy gfx-glitches on the "disco"-part). The Last Ninja II works without any visible differences to a real C64. Also interlace-modes (tried from Soiled Legacy/Resource) are working fine with no visible difference to the real thing. So it will pass emusuxX0r for sure :)

There are still many issues to fix. AGSP/VSP-Stuff just cannot work properly as of now, so is sprite stretching/crunching. Also xScroll is still a little buggy on some modes, so are the CIAs.

Tonight I need to invest some time into "Hardware". Currently I connect 5 Pins of the FPGA thru a 3.3 <-> 5V Level Converter directly on the CIA2-socket of an old C64-Board (with removed CIAs). From there, I connected a 1541. This method just leaves a big mess on my desk, and there is no place left to hook a second C64 which should serve as a "DJ" for my 1541 Ultimate.
I need to rebuild parts of the C64-Board, so I can connect a Floppy directly. As an old 1541 just went up in smoke yesterday, I can use the parts from there ;)

Test-Setup: the FPGA is connected to the CIA2, which goes to the floppy...

Close up. The board in the front is the AD725 converter.

"Final" Test-Setup: the C64-Board Board is powered by the FPGA now, and the Floppy is connected to....

..an 1541 Ultimate on another C64, which is connected to....

..my PC with a Grabber-Device....

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