Re: Rebuilding the PCB for a vector game

On Wed, 5 Jan 2000 13:45:18 -0600 , you wrote:

>G'day Zonn and all,
>
>Originally, my FPGA project was intended to create a cheap drop-in
>replacement part for the Cinematronics motherboard. Using a 586 to emulate
>the motherboard is also a viable option now that computer prices have been
>dropping in the last few years.
>
>In fact, I'd say that using the 586 is a better general solution to my FPGA
>since it'll require less maintanence over the years as computer systems
>evolve. Now the parallel cards might be hard to fix/replace five years from
>now, but that's more of an interface issue.

By parallel card, I meant printer ports. Most of the new boards have one
built in, you must then buy one of the "Add two parallel port" cards.

The only "real" problem I foresee in this is the timing for the Cinematronics
monitor. That may take a satellite processor (like an AVR) to handle the
timing with the resolution needed. The timing resolution of the PC clones
probably does not allow for the accurate pulses needed for the line drawing
hardware. Even doing timing in a hard coded timing loops is screwed up by the
586 internal caches.

This is one of the projects I'd like to try as soon as I find a house with a
*big* garage to move into.

-Zonn
Received on Wed Jan 5 14:13:00 2000