PiStorm

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bwinkel67
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PiStorm

Post by bwinkel67 »

Just saw an interesting video (by Dan Woods) on PiStorm. It's a board that interfaces with a Pi 3 and sockets in place of the MC68K on the Amiga 500 and basically replaces the CPU via emulation on the Pi. Pretty interesting concept and the board costs like $15 plus add the cost of a Pi 3. Gives the Amiga also additional memory, an SD hard drive, networking, etc... Interesting concept. Obviously, it blurs the lines even further between hardware and emulation.


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Re: PiStorm

Post by NormanDunbar »

That is on my "watch list" on You Tube.


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Re: PiStorm

Post by tofro »

Interesting concept, the exact contrary to, for example, the MiniMIG, that has a "real" CPU and emulates the peripherals, this emulates the CPU and keeps the original peripherals.

Nice approach to keeping the original computers alive (even if not original) and up-to-date.

And: It's cheap.


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Re: PiStorm

Post by Peter »

Don't have the time to watch the full video, but two things seem odd at first glance:

1. They mention "prices as low as about 13 €" while the PLD alone (no PCB, no assembly, no small stuff) costs 21 € and has delivery time January 2022. China fakes?

2. Video through the Amiga output seemed slow, making me suspect poor bandwidth between RPi and CPU socket, much slower than a 68000. Is it done by RPi GPIO oder did they at least use the SMI bus?


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Re: PiStorm

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi,

Looks nice project, I have 3 x A500 living in a box in my garage, maybe when Pistorm is available, I might get them running.

The developers site is: https://github.com/captain-amygdala/pistorm

Also see Chris Edwards video:https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... 0056071543


Regards,

Derek
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Re: PiStorm

Post by bwinkel67 »

Peter wrote:Don't have the time to watch the full video, but two things seem odd at first glance:

1. They mention "prices as low as about 13 €" while the PLD alone (no PCB, no assembly, no small stuff) costs 21 € and has delivery time January 2022. China fakes?

2. Video through the Amiga output seemed slow, making me suspect poor bandwidth between RPi and CPU socket, much slower than a 68000. Is it done by RPi GPIO oder did they at least use the SMI bus?
It looks like currently (stated on Discord) that the CPLD is out of stock so seemingly delivery of any new orders of A500 PiStorms are on hold. They had previously done group buys and have a waiting list of 500. One video said it cost £11 but another stated it cost a little around $32 (about £23) for the board (not including the Pi 3A) so not sure where the first estimate came from. The Discord server also has an Atari channel and I think there is a branch on github for that. Hopefully there could be a QL option in the future.

Over the summer, when I have more time, I really want to take a look at the github emulator code but I'm sure a better understanding of QL hardware is necessary than I possess to get something going. I will say, I think a QL board could be very similar to a GoldCard so it could be an external card that you plug a Pi 3A into (is there enough clearance?) and like the GoldCard it kind of takes over. With the A500 PiStorm you seem to have the option of using mostly native Amiga stuff but can bypass things to get extra memory, solid state disks, HDMI out, and even ethernet/wifi.


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Re: PiStorm

Post by Peter »

bwinkel67 wrote:Hopefully there could be a QL option in the future.
I would think twice before putting any work into that.
  • Do you really want to boot a full Linux first, before the QL comes to life? Taste varies, but for me the answer is definitely no.
  • Do you want to run a shutdown before powering off?
  • Do you want to rewrite all timing dependant OS routines?
  • Do you want bus speed even slower than a 68008 for everything still used from the QL hardware, including video?
Realistically, you'd probably only be able to use the keyboard and video on the QL side, after a huge amount of work. The rest behaves like just another Linux emulator. And video is not even something you'd likely prefer on the QL side. The much easier way to get there is to buy the existing matrix keyboard to USB converter, place the RPi somewhere inside the case, and run UQLX or SMSQmulator.


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Re: PiStorm

Post by mk79 »

Peter wrote:Don't have the time to watch the full video, but two things seem odd at first glance:

1. They mention "prices as low as about 13 €" while the PLD alone (no PCB, no assembly, no small stuff) costs 21 € and has delivery time January 2022. China fakes?
No fake, they use JLCPCB for assembly and there the chip costs 4.80€, but is currently out of stock. I use them for basically all my prototypes and they assembly for as little as 6€, but you have to wait until things are in stock, which is a bit annoying.

Marcel


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bwinkel67
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Re: PiStorm

Post by bwinkel67 »

Peter wrote:
bwinkel67 wrote:Hopefully there could be a QL option in the future.
I would think twice before putting any work into that.
  • Do you really want to boot a full Linux first, before the QL comes to life? Taste varies, but for me the answer is definitely no.
  • Do you want to run a shutdown before powering off?
  • Do you want to rewrite all timing dependant OS routines?
  • Do you want bus speed even slower than a 68008 for everything still used from the QL hardware, including video?
Realistically, you'd probably only be able to use the keyboard and video on the QL side, after a huge amount of work. The rest behaves like just another Linux emulator. And video is not even something you'd likely prefer on the QL side. The much easier way to get there is to buy the existing matrix keyboard to USB converter, place the RPi somewhere inside the case, and run UQLX or SMSQmulator.
From what I've seen the bootup is relatively fast (they seem to use a very lite installation for the Pi) and powering down is just shutting the machine off. I think the issues are similar to what a GoldCard or Super GoldCard encounter, no? Could end up being an inexpensive accelerator card.

Your point about just using outright emulation on a RPi is very valid but that's also the case for other platforms (you can bypass the internal video and use the HDMI port on the Amiga PiStorm which kind of bypasses a lot in the Amiga I would guess). I suppose the argument is to try to keep older hardware going for those that want power although obviously with a more powerful computer inside. So I can see this being controversial for some (just depends what's important for a hobbiest). But still, a cool idea and I'd love to see if it could be applied to the QL. Me personally, I love using an unaccelerated QL and seeing how to squeeze more power out of it (I love optimization) but that doesn't mean I don't find other options interesting (I love my Q68).

I think the reason it's intriguing is at the price it can be offered. The boards pricing averages a little over $20. The RPi can be gotten for about $25, and maybe that'll get cheaper or why not use a cheaper Pi (like a $5 Zero) if you don't want to boost the speed 30+ times. So a powerful accelerator DIY project for under $50 (or even $25) is kind of interesting and that seems to be the conversation in the Amiga community as far as I can tell (I think there are Amiga folks that have the same concerns from comments I've read).


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Re: PiStorm

Post by mk79 »

Peter wrote:Is it done by RPi GPIO oder did they at least use the SMI bus?
There doesn't appear to be any schematic, but according to the sources it's a simple 16-bit GPIO interface. The remaining chips are just level shifters and latches. Code is pretty clean, but unfortunately they don't seem believe in comments, so it's still a bit hard to read.


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