Activity

From 02/13/2018 to 03/14/2018

FO 08:56 PM Bug #63 (New): Svideo issues in v20 on board v1: I am getting a green basic screen sometimes. Seems to be a bad state somewhere since its resolved when I switch to NTSC and back. I suspect something related to the antic highres changes. Easy to reproduce so I can look what is wrong wit... foft

FO 09:55 PM v20: Now that the flash chip works I've been doing a few long overdue firmware improvements.
So v20 is out with:
* Devices and settings split. Settings is on F11, Devices on F12.
* Hotkeys to go to file selectors quickly on devices (1,2,... foft
FO 09:41 PM Feature #53 (Closed): Add version number to settings: Added board version, date and core version (need to update VERSION file manually on build) foft
FO 09:40 PM Feature #58 (Closed): Maybe consider moving CART selection closer to top in F12 menu ?: foft
FO 08:46 PM Feature #58: Maybe consider moving CART selection closer to top in F12 menu ?: Was getting tempted by a bigger rework, including settings in json: https://github.com/quartzjer/js0n
More work than my interest on this today! foft

FO 09:56 PM Feature #58 (In Progress): Maybe consider moving CART selection closer to top in F12 menu ?: On second thoughts, one more feature to add here.
Updating of roms on the flash by loading/then save all. foft
FO 09:54 PM Feature #58 (Closed): Maybe consider moving CART selection closer to top in F12 menu ?: foft
FO 09:39 PM Feature #58: Maybe consider moving CART selection closer to top in F12 menu ?: Added support for filtering in the file selector. Also added hotkeys to the device menu (1-4 and C). foft

FO 10:05 PM Feature #58: Maybe consider moving CART selection closer to top in F12 menu ?: M25P (54MHz max), N25Q (108MHz max) I think. Thinking I should really move away from the M25P (or equiv) for v2 fix, its pretty bad. Large sectors and slow. foft
FO 10:03 PM Feature #58: Maybe consider moving CART selection closer to top in F12 menu ?: Well, I can increase the clock speed of the spi communication. I'm only at 25MHz and think I can go to 100MHz. But not sure how much time is spent in spi overhead and how much time waiting. foft
FO 09:54 PM Feature #58: Maybe consider moving CART selection closer to top in F12 menu ?: Doh. Writing in 256 byte chunks increasing destination address each data, but not increasing data pointer! Oops! So working now, but takes 7 seconds to save (v1, v2 not tested). Not much I can do about that on v2 (256KB sector size) but ... foft
FO 09:12 PM Feature #58: Maybe consider moving CART selection closer to top in F12 menu ?: Loading of profiles is working (no hotkeys yet).
Saving is failing... I have to read 256KB of flash to sdram then rewrite with a diff, guess that is failing somewhere. foft

FO 10:17 PM Feature #58 (In Progress): Maybe consider moving CART selection closer to top in F12 menu ?: Following the flash support, decided to split the menu into two parts:
i) Device emulation (disk + cart + usb stuff)
ii) Settings (video settings + rom + ram size etc)
+ removing the quick select menu.
The device menu is thus much ... foft
FO 04:44 PM Feature #37 (Closed): SD card insertion support: foft

FO 05:22 PM v19: Continuing the theme...
I checked that I can read/write from the spi flash chip. Had to use the altera serial flash loader since the pins are not directly exposed. Turned out I could use the existing spi master I'm using for the SD ca... foft
FO 05:19 PM Feature #62 (Closed): Store settings in spi flash: foft
FO 05:19 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: Tested as v1, working fine. Though I noticed that the i2c code hangs v1 (devices do not exist, I thought it'd be harmless...). Modified the platform register. foft
FO 12:32 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: Wondering about whether to put a file system on the flash chip. Such as spiffs, which is aimed at flash chips and low memory.
https://github.com/pellepl/spiffs/
Probably overkill.
foft

SA 10:12 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: sadosp wrote:
> foft wrote:
> ...
|
/ \
sadosp
SA 10:12 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: foft wrote:
> Saving working too:)
\o/
sadosp
FO 09:37 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: Saving working too:) foft
FO 09:10 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: Step 1 done...
I add the settings to a jic file at a specified address.
Then I made the firmware load this if the 'settings' file is not found on the SD card.
Next step, saving!
foft

FO 10:07 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: Next step...
Add default settings to the jic. Then I can try reading/writing it. To write apparently I need to erase a page (to set to all 0xff), then write a page (to set some bits low). Reading looks trivial, though perhaps I have dif... foft
FO 10:01 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: sadosp wrote:
> foft wrote:
> ...
Nah, just means I messed something up before which the SD card didn't care about (surprisingly).
foft
FO 10:00 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: Yep, that was it. I can read and display the flash device id now.
The paves the way for saving settings, also it makes it fairly simple to load and flash a core from the SD card. That is for later... foft
SA 09:42 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: foft wrote:
> I thought about it and currently _believe_ the problem is that cs_n is raised in between bytes (rather than at the end of a command sequence). I think I'm doing this without problem on the SD card, but for the flash it doe... sadosp
FO 06:55 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: I thought about it and currently _believe_ the problem is that cs_n is raised in between bytes (rather than at the end of a command sequence). I think I'm doing this without problem on the SD card, but for the flash it doesn't work. foft

FO 10:28 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: Tried with 9f since I'm not sure ab is supported. Same result.
Got the scope on it and checked that the commands and chip select are correct. Look to be, but data out looks weird. Driven low, then gradually climbs like when there is a... foft
FO 09:11 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: I found out I'd connected the hardware (in the vhdl) wrong, so no dice.
Reconnected what I thought was correctly, but no luck...
port map(
asmi_access_granted => '0', (never granted, always used by the fpga)... foft
FO 08:20 PM Feature #62: Store settings in spi flash: Think I have the hardware side connected, trying to talk to it now via firmware. Fingers crossed! foft

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