PiStorm

[bwinkel67]

Interesting platform to see what might be possible on QL

I don't have enough knowledge presently to get it ported over but now that I know I can get an original PiStorm (DIP socketed) and use a converter for the Amiga 600 (they have a A600 specific one as well) I will try to create a bridge-board to make it work on a QL and see if I can get the 68008 version of the emulator to run (there is supposed to be a flag in the source) and just see if I can get it working at 7.5 Mhz.

[Silvester]

One question, what is the minimum chipset I need on the QL to get it booted? I'm assuming 68008, ZX8301, ROM, MC1377P, what else?

Ah, that's the can of worms yet to be decided/discovered. As Noel mentions in his video, where do you simply cross the line into just emulating the whole thing

[bwinkel67]

Ah, that's the can of worms yet to be decided/discovered. As Noel mentions in his video, where do you simply cross the line into just emulating the whole thing

I'm just asking for practical reasons. I have a spare motherboard that was unpopulated. I have a 68008 and a spare 8049. So I want to know what minimum I need to get to have it boot up so I can play with the PiStorm. The zx8301 will be the expensive item to get.

[Silvester]

I'm just asking for practical reasons. I have a spare motherboard that was unpopulated. I have a 68008 and a spare 8049. So I want to know what minimum I need to get to have it boot up so I can play with the PiStorm. The zx8301 will be the expensive item to get.

I guess a working QL just less the 68008 CPU, any other attempt at middle ground would IMHO be too much trouble. At the other extreme would be Peter's replacement mini motherboard.

[bwinkel67]

I guess a working QL just less the 68008 CPU, any other attempt at middle ground would IMHO be too much trouble. At the other extreme would be Peter's replacement mini motherboard.

Digging into it, it seems I will likely have to get most missing chips to have it work. I suppose I could skip the 8049 and not have any keyboard and just see if it boots.

• ZX8301 - video and the most expensive
• ZX8302 - not sure how critical that is but inexpensive
• MC1377 - video and inexpensive
• 8049 - kind of expensive but there are cheaper 8749 alternatives if they can be programmed (and find the firmware to program)
• 64K EPROM - pretty inexpensive but will need to create a mod to get them to work in place of ROM

So an unpopulated board needs some work :-/

[Peter]

At the other extreme would be Peter's replacement mini motherboard.

And the funny thing is: The Qzero (which is the core of my QL baseboard) has a 40 pin Raspberry compatible connector.
Just a ribbon cable to the Raspi and hardware ready.
I would need to change the FPGA to contain corresponding logic to the PiStorm, likely no rocket science.
But that would replace the Qzero CPU, not the 68008. Probably not what bwinkel67 wants.

(And I'm not interested to spend time with the Raspberry emulator stuff. If I want an emulator, I use one on the PC.)

[bwinkel67]

But that would replace the Qzero CPU, not the 68008. Probably not what bwinkel67 wants.

Still sounds like an interesting project...

[Dave]

I've had a good hard think about this, and I think the PiStorm would work quite well and effectively with the Gold Card. With SGC 2.49/Minerva as the boot ROM and many of the Amiga options disabled, and ignoring the GC DRAM, there's not a good reason why it wouldn't work. I don't know what equivalent 68000 speed the PiStorm achieves in 68020 mode, with the MMU and FPU disabled, but it would certainly be faster than a clock sliced 68SEC000 @ 40 MHz.

[bwinkel67]

I've had a good hard think about this, and I think the PiStorm would work quite well and effectively with the Gold Card. With SGC 2.49/Minerva as the boot ROM and many of the Amiga options disabled, and ignoring the GC DRAM, there's not a good reason why it wouldn't work. I don't know what equivalent 68000 speed the PiStorm achieves in 68020 mode, with the MMU and FPU disabled, but it would certainly be faster than a clock sliced 68SEC000 @ 40 MHz.

I was thinking about that. It would make integrating the PiStorm much simpler, I would guess. My PiStorm arrived recently and I plan to integrate it first with my Amiga 600 (have a DIP2PLCCC board) and once I got it working, play around with my extra QL motherboard to see if I can get it to work. Unfortunately I don't own a GoldCard. I would think there would be a performance boost since the boost the Amiga gets is pretty outrageous.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

How are you going to connect the DIP64 to the QL DIP48 CPU socket?

The CPU in the Gold Card is a PLCC Gull Wing Chip soldered to the PCB, a PLCC socket would be hard fit onto the CPU.

The PIStorm FPGA code would have to rewritten to suit the QL. Looks a hard job.