Heaven/TQA Posted June 23, 2007 Share Posted June 23, 2007 seems... there are some news: http://vbxe.atari8.info/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted June 23, 2007 Share Posted June 23, 2007 Too bad its not in english... I tried translating a little manually but the translation is coming out incoherent... Tomasz says something about needing to finish the GTIA, have him contact me, I have the original chip schem's for the GTIA and I can help him finish if he wants... Curt seems... there are some news: http://vbxe.atari8.info/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 (edited) I guess that this is a 'plug in' replacement gfx board for both antic and gtia or one or the other and essentially giving near PC alike gfx capabilities...i.e resolutions over 300/200, 16.7m colours (or truecolour like Atari falcon), gfx chips to have it's own ram (for more extensive/elaborate DLI/interupt routines) and enhanced PMG capabilities (i.e more then 4 players/missiles) as well as other things Will the onboard gfx chip (whatever it is) be totally programmable, unlike Antic (which is only partly programmable) Is there an o/s planned to utilise the extended memory map of the vbxe, or is/are there extensions to the existing o/s to allow xl/xe users to utilising the gfx chips additional capabilities Edited June 25, 2007 by carmel_andrews Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redb3ard Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 Too bad its not in english... I tried translating a little manually but the translation is coming out incoherent... Tomasz says something about needing to finish the GTIA, have him contact me, I have the original chip schem's for the GTIA and I can help him finish if he wants... Curt seems... there are some news: http://vbxe.atari8.info/ Curt, do you have those as paper docs, and could you make those available to the public somewhere? And you do have the other chips too, I assume, Pokey and Antic? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted July 4, 2007 Share Posted July 4, 2007 Hello guys Maybe somebody could tell us, what's being said here: http://atariarea.krap.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3933 There are a lot of new postings, but unfortunately, I don't understand Polish. BTW the newer postings start at page 15. Greetings Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miker Posted July 5, 2007 Share Posted July 5, 2007 Well, revision 1.0 of VBXE is ready. The main problem is to pack all the features in one chip. Now Electron uses EP1K30 for testing purposes, which is not enough to implement standard GTIA features into VBXE and therefore some additional chip (A16) is needed. Second revision of VBXE will be based on EP1K50. Additional informaton: standard Atari resolution will be kept. Now one 14.18 MHz cycle is used to read video data and second one is used for blitter operations. There is option to increase resolution but there will be no time for blitter and it would work only on edges (for static graphics it may be enough). Also there may occur some memory issues (but reaching 30 Mhz looks possible). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvas Posted July 5, 2007 Share Posted July 5, 2007 Well, revision 1.0 of VBXE is ready. The main problem is to pack all the features in one chip. Now Electron uses EP1K30 for testing purposes, which is not enough to implement standard GTIA features into VBXE and therefore some additional chip (A16) is needed. Second revision of VBXE will be based on EP1K50. Additional informaton: standard Atari resolution will be kept. Now one 14.18 MHz cycle is used to read video data and second one is used for blitter operations. There is option to increase resolution but there will be no time for blitter and it would work only on edges (for static graphics it may be enough). Also there may occur some memory issues (but reaching 30 Mhz looks possible). Will it be available for the XL or just for the XE? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted July 5, 2007 Share Posted July 5, 2007 It has it's own RAM so I'd imagine it should be able to run on any machine. I would assume that it would fit into GTIAs memory mapping space, or possibly $D5xx or $D7xx. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted July 5, 2007 Share Posted July 5, 2007 Hello guys @Miker: Thanks for the translation @Rybags: If can do all the things the GTIA can do, it might be possible to replace the GTIA with it. But that's just my guess. There were a lot of XE's sold in the later years that had Chinese GTIA's. Which all have a bug in graphics 9. Greetings Mathy (who can hardly wait) PS has anybody told Electron that Fujiama 2007 is in two weeks and that Lengenfeld near Zwickau isn't that far from Poland ...... ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted July 5, 2007 Share Posted July 5, 2007 Actually, looking at the piccies on the site linked: That's a plug-replacement for ANTIC. Why do it that way? I suppose to get easy access to the full address/data bus. It could also mean that it uses the $D4xx area to talk to the extra hardware. Wasn't there talk before of PMGs not being available while this device is in use? That might indicate that it takes over the function of GTIA so far as graphics goes. http://www.altera.com/literature/lit-acx.jsp - looks to be the docs for the CPLD (the large chip on the card) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted July 6, 2007 Share Posted July 6, 2007 Can this board provide 80-column text, and/or maybe even multi-colored text (with the appropriate drivers)? -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 I have been watching information on this board for the last 9 months, looking for English translations, information, memory locations. From what I can tell it sticks with 8 bit resolutions, but adds a layer of sprites and color map overlaying the antic/gtia mode graphics. Appears to be geared to having more on screen colors without resorting to DLI and VBI routines that tie up some cpu time. I think it will be co-processing the video also. As far as I know, the manufacturer is stating it does not do 80 column modes (640 pixels across). Applications that use a 80 column screen would be text/based, word processing programs and honestly the Atari is way pass its day for those programs. Many people would be looking at this board for games and graphic software. I wonder what game designers have in mind for this new board. I personally would look into designing a side-scroller or super pitfall type game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted July 18, 2007 Share Posted July 18, 2007 (edited) I tried the "Universal Translator" on that page. I actually tried a few web page translators and still cannot make sense of what is being said there. I wonder how much it would market for in America. I know of AtariMax in Cleveland, Ohio and a electronic company California. Wonder if any of those companies will distribute the product over here. Now it does say it is going in place of the Antic chip and wonder if there are any extra Antic functions because I do recall there are some unused memory locations in the Antic area (54278 D406), (54280 D408), plus the remaining D4 page (D410 to D4FF) along with a few unused control bits: (54272 D400 DMACTLZ) has bits 6 & 7 open, (54286 D40E NMIEN) has bits 0-4 open. If I was going to enhance the graphics on the Atari and ensure backward compatibility, I will start by using these locations. Edited July 18, 2007 by peteym5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tebe Posted July 18, 2007 Share Posted July 18, 2007 VBXE = NEW GTIA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted July 19, 2007 Share Posted July 19, 2007 Will the VBXE be freestanding (i.e. DONT NEED ANTIC) or as TEBE mentioned 'new GTIA' will it still have to interface with ANTIC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted July 19, 2007 Share Posted July 19, 2007 I highly doubt that it replaces ANTIC and it's functionality. Like I said before, the most likely reason to have it as a passthru in Antic's slot is to get access to the address/data buses. More likely that it would replace GTIA, since it's functionality would be easier to replicate, and would be necessary anyway to be able to do video overlays. The mystery part is how it's programmed. Is there just a few instruction registers, or can the video memory be accessed through a small window (e.g. $D500-$D7FF) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted July 19, 2007 Share Posted July 19, 2007 Just curious as to how the extra features (i.e. more PMG's more colours etc etc) are going to be worked into the existing A8 memory map or will they simply work into the duplicated GTIA locations (in the same way the dual/stereo pokey works into the duplicated pokey memory locations) And will there be a location within the A8 memory map that detects whether the device is enabled/disabled etc Will the device be multistandard...i.e. ability to handle PAL/NTSC/Secam Displays on the same hardware Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted July 19, 2007 Share Posted July 19, 2007 Multistandard- I very much doubt it. Video timing is controlled by Antic, and with the board I'd imagine it would remain that way. There's always the possibility that such a device could receive the video instructions from Antic, then buffer and mix with it's own, then output at any frame rate but I doubt very much that it would work that way. As things stand, Antic has 3 lines AN0-AN2 to talk to GTIA and those lines can do a state change every 1/2 a cycle. As such, the device could perform stand-in duties for GTIA as well as adding it's own features. That is assuming that GTIA is relegated to the sidelines - didn't early reports on the VBXE say that it had the overlay features but at the expense of normal PMGs? Maybe later versions have the device taking over those functions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted July 19, 2007 Share Posted July 19, 2007 I have read on this forum that VBXE may be using $D6xx, but a few stated it may be interfering with another component called "Black Box". I think it would have been cool if it used page $D0xx, with GTIA ($D000-$D01F), but uses locatations $(D020-$D0FF). That way it would totally avoid hardware conflicts. If you read in "Mapping the Atari" that locations on the chip memory pages had alot of 'repeats' like $D0000, $D020, $D040,,,, are all the same. I know multiple pokey chips were done able to use more of page $D200. first chip used the main $D200-$D20F, 2nd one addressed $D280, $D28F. I am unsure you can use P/M graphics with the new sprite system. Maybe Atari was thinking reserving memory for upgraded chips. My personal ideal was to update the Antic chip, address separate video memory, run at a different speed than the cpu, higher res, etc. I was playing with a Polish English translator. It appears to be using 16bit truecolor, RGB -5 bits for red, 6 for green, 5 for blue, but would need to find someone who know polish it interpret what is being said there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted July 20, 2007 Share Posted July 20, 2007 Will the u/g come with programs to port over pc based j/peg files, BMP and other PC gfx files (and also ST/Amiga gfx files) and also pc based video files like mpeg 3, avi, windows media player or quick time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted July 21, 2007 Share Posted July 21, 2007 Will the u/g come with programs to port over pc based j/peg files, BMP and other PC gfx files (and also ST/Amiga gfx files) and also pc based video files like mpeg 3, avi, windows media player or quick time I would imagine pc image format would be easy to convert, but as for video, dont think the main memory or the board memory would be enough to store more than a few seconds. Remember videos had a hard time playing on the PC until they had accelerated XVGA boards in a AGP slot and has to be on a fast hard drive. People are probably looking forward to using this board for doing some enhanced atari 8-bit games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamageX Posted July 21, 2007 Share Posted July 21, 2007 The a8jdpeg program could surely be reworked to output 16bit color... but for video the plain 6502 could in many cases not even keep up the data rate of the compressed video. With a fast 65816 some old codecs like cinepak might be usable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted July 21, 2007 Share Posted July 21, 2007 I agree, you probably have to up the CPU from the 6502 to 65816 and I am not sure what clock speed it was capable of. I remember playing the first videos on a Pentium or Athlon exceeding 200mhz on Windows 98. This should tell you what would be a minimal computer to play videos. Remember this Videoboard XE was geared to have another option for player/missile graphics and would be a layer over the Antic Modes. I would imaging you can probably do some short video animation with the sprites, but most like be uncompressed bitmaps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamageX Posted July 22, 2007 Share Posted July 22, 2007 I agree, you probably have to up the CPU from the 6502 to 65816 and I am not sure what clock speed it was capable of. I remember playing the first videos on a Pentium or Athlon exceeding 200mhz on Windows 98. This should tell you what would be a minimal computer to play videos. The 65816 tops out at 20MHz. IIRC the last project I heard about to put a 65816 in the A8 was running at 14MHz. But, video certainly goes back further than Windows 98 and Pentiums... A dozen years ago I had a laptop with a 486SX-16 and it could play video clips with Cinepak, Indeo, or MS Video One (think 320x240x10fps). More notably, the Sega CD could play full screen video from its 1x CD-ROM drive (with limitted color depth). The MPEG and other modern codecs need a LOT more CPU power though. But I agree, this isn't what the Vb XE is about... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted July 22, 2007 Share Posted July 22, 2007 Just look at how long it takes the Atari to render a JPEG. Then, imagine doing something even more complex than that, and in realtime. The bottom line is that the Atari is slow, and the 6502 sucks bigtime at Floating Point (and even at integer). A 65816 at 14 MHz would be soundly thrashed even by an x286 at the same speed. But the bottom line is - who cares about full-screen video? Games are where it's at. If this upgrade could give the A8 a quarter the graphical grunt of the Amiga, then it would still be a quantum leap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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