Minimig Discussion Forum

I would like to release a new Minimig FPGA core and its source code: SB100303
matching PIC/ARM YB091224 and PIC GL091230 firmware.

New feature by me is:
- ECS BRDRBLNK (borderblank)
- ECS KILLEHB

Thanks to Jakub we also have:
- OCS Denise bug (to display bitplane on several old demo/intro title)
- CIA B serial register latch (to let work the game Datastorm)

Please report any bug or problem in here.

From a quick test with my 4MB Minimg ARM addon board it would seem to work quite nicely.
Can I ask what the followinf new features do and how to make use of them?


Thanks again for all the hard work.

Sure. The borderblank function was requested by kolla, to have black border outside bitplane (icon/window/sprite) area in Kickstart 2.0 and 3.x if ECS is enabled. In fact this function will never improve any old game or demo. But as long as there is any space left in FPGA, it can be implemented.
Also this function act a bit different as on real hardware. I still have to find out why but there is no danger in it.
To have an impression of borderblank and OCS Denise bug, take a look in here: Link

The KILLEHB function was implemented "just for fun" and to try something by my own. It allows to disable Extra Half Brite 64 (32 normal and 32 50% intense) color mode. Some game like Pinball-Dreams/Fantasies and of course DPaint-III use this mode. If any software (tool) set Bit #9 of chip register BPLCON2, this function will become active. Same effect as on very early OCS Denise (maybe Daphne) in original Amiga1000, it dont support EHB at all. As Jakup mentioned to me, this register is important to AGA but not really to ECS.
Also some picture to this, of an early implementation realize via jumper in here: Link
I didnt want to flood this topic with some picture at first.

I can illustrate why I requested it

This is what my Workbench looked like earlier after the monitor had "auto-adjusted" itself:


Now, if I run bblank to remove the grey border (sorry, a bit blurry):


And lastly tell the monitor to auto-adjust again:


Notice that the monitor now streches the workbench image to full width!

Many thanks, boing4000!!!

Good to see this function has its purpose for your LCD screen

Hi boing4000,

Will these updated FPGA cores eventually appear at the convenient 'http://code.google.com/p/minimig/downloads/list' location?

It would also be nice if GLxxxxxx PIC firmware would appear there too, as it will probably become the new 'standard' for PIC firmware on Minimig without ARM board.

Regards,

Ross..

Hi,

I need to clean my PIC code a bit and I'll put it for downloads. I was experimenting a bit with multi block HD transfers.

Quille

I dont have an account to upload at this location. Sources already is included in the release package.

No rush, I was just reflecting because as a new user I had to do a lot of forum searching and reading to figure out i) Where the latest stuff was and then ii) To figure out that even newer stuff is hiding inside forum threads .

Since this is an 'open-source' style project it would be great for all the active development updates/versions to appear somewhere centralised (like the Google code site) because then it is easy to follow development, obtain the latest versions, and to report issues (I have run into some with the GL PIC firmware, unfortunately)..

Regards,

Ross..

Hi,



That's a shame, to me it looks like you are an active developer who contributes improvements to the current version of the core, producing newer/better versions .. And since this is an 'open-source', maybe even collaborative(?) project..?

But hey, I'm just seeing it from the 'outside'..

Regards,

Ross..