Date   : Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:09:50 +0100
From   : kortink@... (John Kortink)
Subject: BBC FPGA Boots to BASIC... almost...

On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:15:36 +1100, Mark McDougall wrote:

>[...]
>
>You may have heard of the C-One computer - it was supposed to be an 
>FPGA-based super Commodore 64 - and actually made it as far as a commercial 
>product, albeit never officially getting past beta status.

I'm not sure if you could call it a 'commercial' product,
but hey. The problem with the C-One is it's way behind by
now, in terms of FPGA capacity.

>[...]
>
>And causing a lot of interest is a recent release of Minimig (Amiga 500) 
>including a 68K core within the FPGA. It's still got some teething problems 
>at this point...

I read somewhere it was being picked up by a commercial
party. I suppose that should give it some speed in the
right direction.

>It's a great idea, and something I am quite interested in, but personally 
>I'm leaning more towards a generic hardware design that is capable of 
>emulating more than 1 retro platform, rather than something purpose-built 
>for only 1 machine.

That would be cool if it were a one size fits all situation.
It's not really if you prefer putting the new board into the
original enclosure(s).

>On this note, I'm becoming more interested in the BBC now that I've been 
>studying the design - it's certainly an interesting platform. Over the next 
>few weeks I'll endeavor to implement the basic functionality as completely 
>as possible given my current time constraints. Who knows, someone may pick 
>up the ball at some point in the future and produce a "super BBC"?!? ;)

The idea has been discussed before on this mailing list. ;-)

More of a selection of 'drool' scenarios, really.


John Kortink

-- 

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