On 2025-03-13 10:47 a.m., Holm Tiffe via cctalk wrote:
Of course, now this could all be built on a few FPGAs, and get vastly higher
performance.
Most designs seem to 8 bitter's, and all memory fits in block ram.
Once you hit external ram/rom things slow down again.
That's the point where the fun ends..at least for me. Yes, I've done
some designs on Altera CPLDs (schematic entry only), bought a book about
Verilog and one about VHDL .. but spare time is low...
ADHL is a nice way to program CPLD's and FPGA's.
I tried using Altera fpga's, but routing never worked reliable for me.
Since every brand of FPGA is just a little different, I never could
port stuff using Verlog or VHDL.
WinCUPL is what I use to program CPLD's (Amtel) now.
I don't even want to build a "fast" computer ...nice if it's fast, but
it isn't necessary.
I'm sitting on a PC with an Ryzen 5-3600 and 64Gbyte RAM (no, no Flash
disk, but a RAID arry of fast SAS "spinning rust" disks..)
For building stuff, your choice of crystal oscillators is really limited
so you are stuck with common speeds. Making it fast might not be
possible if your timing is off by a few nS and you have to pick the next
slower sized oscillator.
Yes, a small peripheral controller would be a much more practical project.
Jon
I keep thinking of a old 7 track mag tape drive replacement,
with fake spinning reels and compact flash card hidden inside.
9 track would have wi-fi to the cloud.
Exactly.
First is to get something running..
In the old AM29xx Docs (Donnamaye E. White) are even "controllers"
described that don't use any ALU at all, but an AM2910 only.
As long you don't have to shuffle some data, this will be sufficient..
(Coffee machine?)
Come on, use a PI for the coffee machine, it has to be connected to the
net so the world knows when the brew is done. :)
Regards,
Holm
Ben.
