I've been thinking a lot about doing some FPGA projects related to the NES. I was wondering how much interest there was in the community. What I ultimately want is something like the FunkFlashCart - a flash cart which supports many mappers. Since FFC is pretty stagnant, and not open source, I've been thinking about making one. However, I think it's best to start out with some "baby steps". So what I'm suggesting is:
1. Pick a development platform. I know both Altera and Xilinx offer free tools for design and (I think) simulation of small projects. There is also an open source toolchain, but I don't know much about it. This should eliminate the need for someone to have a devboard in order to contribute.
2. Pick a chip to simulate. For example, maybe we start out with MMC1.
3. Create a implementation of the chip. I like the idea of creating the initial implementation using schematic capture, then developing a rigorous test suite to verify it, and finally writing a VHDL implementation. Maybe schematic capture would be good enough though.
4. Wire it up onto a MMC1 cart and watch it work. This obviously requires a devboard, and probably a bunch of 3V to 5V conversion chips.
Then we re-peat the process for another MMC chip. Once we have a decent library of them, we can use it as the basis for a FunkyFlashCart-like board.
What do you guys think - good idea or bad idea? How many would be interested in helping?
1. Pick a development platform. I know both Altera and Xilinx offer free tools for design and (I think) simulation of small projects. There is also an open source toolchain, but I don't know much about it. This should eliminate the need for someone to have a devboard in order to contribute.
2. Pick a chip to simulate. For example, maybe we start out with MMC1.
3. Create a implementation of the chip. I like the idea of creating the initial implementation using schematic capture, then developing a rigorous test suite to verify it, and finally writing a VHDL implementation. Maybe schematic capture would be good enough though.
4. Wire it up onto a MMC1 cart and watch it work. This obviously requires a devboard, and probably a bunch of 3V to 5V conversion chips.
Then we re-peat the process for another MMC chip. Once we have a decent library of them, we can use it as the basis for a FunkyFlashCart-like board.
What do you guys think - good idea or bad idea? How many would be interested in helping?