Ao486_MiSTer: i486 core for the MiSTer FPGA gaming system

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer

by networked • 3 years ago

92 43 3 years ago

github.com

natas• 3 years ago

can it run crysis?

idonotknowwhy• 3 years ago

Only Dino Crisis (psx core)

choonway• 3 years ago

no, but it can certainly run Windows NT.

anthk5• 3 years ago

No but it could run a Game Boy Color emulator with great 2D/2.5D action games such as Daikatana, Metal Gear:Ghost Babel, Indiana Jones... and a Z-macine (text adventures) interpreter with Spider and Web, Anchorhead... among a DOS build of Slashem.

DerekL2• 3 years ago

Of course, you could just simulate a Game Boy Color directly on the MiSTer.

grishka• 3 years ago

No but it certainly can run Doom

noncoml• 3 years ago

Is DE-10 Nano back in stock?

itsagavin2• 3 years ago

My understanding is you order it from the manufacturer. They for the past couple years have claimed a lead time of 4-6 weeks but consistently shipped in 10 days or so. No idea the current situation.

etiam• 3 years ago

Looks like it's improved slightly then? They're estimating shipment by the end of the month at the moment.

https://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=...

MegaDeKay• 3 years ago

Ordering from Terasic will get you a board much quicker than waiting for one to show up at a distributor like Digikey given the current supply situation. Shipping times from Terasic also tend to be much quicker than they quote on their site. However, their shipping charges are quite steep, and you might get hit with duties as well.

mk_stjames2• 3 years ago

I've written some small CPU cores in Verilog and used Logisim to design some small FPGA circuits but I can't fathom writing out an entire 486. Any info on what sort of project management or automation tools are being used to generate all this Verilog? Because this is literally tens thousand+ lines to define the functionality of a 486 and I can't imagine someone writing out register tables and kept track of naming and the pipelining all by hand. I'm guessing something like Vivado or some other IDE is used to help manage everything? I can't tell from the source in RTL. I find this use of FPGAs to replicate older CPUs/SOCs fascinating.

userbinator• 3 years ago

Based on the .q* files, I'm pretty sure it's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quartus_Prime

anewhnaccount2• 3 years ago

There is a file generated by Quartus at https://github.com/alfikpl/ao486/blob/df6eba123654fdf3e3058c... I'm not sure, but it does seem mostly manual. I tend to agree that RTL is somehow particularly mind numbing. I would guess that in order to keep track of things you may have a large block diagram on paper beforehand.

sweetjuly• 3 years ago

Many companies do just write entire modern SoCs in straight Verilog (maybe with some autogenerated Verilog hacked in there) with no other major organization tools aside from the typical project management stuff. The load-store unit of a modern CPU alone easily exceeds 10k lines of Verilog. It's a similar thing as people who work with kernels—after all, the page table management code in a modern operating system like Linux is absolutely monstrous but still people are able to understand it well enough to be able to make the changes they need and get out.

If you are interested in other languages which hope to make this sort of stuff easier, I'd recommend taking a look at design productivity languages like Chisel and it's associated Chipyard [1], SpinalHDL [2], and Bluespec [3]. Each of these are meant to make defining extremely complex hardware more manageable for humans and there's a lot of interesting work going on right now with each of them.

[1] https://github.com/ucb-bar/chipyard

[2] https://github.com/SpinalHDL/SpinalHDL

[3] https://github.com/B-Lang-org/bsc

mk_stjames2• 3 years ago

I'm more curious if there is something that makes visualizing the Verilog easier... for instance, I've done some small projects where I used Digital [0] (which is so unfortunately named, but awesome) to put blocks of Verilog into the visual representation and then connect my blocks together (like ALU, block ram, registers etc) and run simulation. But the problem is taking all that out back to Verilog and then doing my synthesis with Yosys is a manual chore.

I am wondering if there is some sorta... IDE that is letting people inspect projects with lots in individual Verilog files quickly and show the structure visually (and manage test benches run Icarus and GTK wave etc). I haven't seen this outside of vendor-specific tools like Xylinx's Vivado and I'm wondering if I am just missing something or if that kinda of IDE doesn't exist in any open source tools just yet.

[0] https://github.com/hneemann/Digital

Edit- and yes I get that I'm probably just not used to the management of Verilog codebases and it's no different than software packages with lots of 'modules' and you just work on a module at a time and it isn't that crazy. But I find it odd that there aren't at least some more viz tools, considering functions of a CPU are so 'block' based... I'd love to be able to load up the RTL folder of one of the CPU projects and see how all these Verilog modules are connected to one another and to the top level. Size of the busses, number of instances, etc. As though it were a Logisim project.

fentonc• 3 years ago

Many CPU/SoC systems could be made vastly simpler while maintaining binary compatibility if you're willing to sacrifice performance/area. Anything that's not visible from the ISA level can be implemented however one wants. You can cram more logic per pipeline stage, stall instead of having complicated bypass logic, etc. Much of the complexity of modern circuit design comes from the desire to eek out every last percent of performance from a process, which is completely unnecessary for a historical project like this.

nzoschke• 3 years ago

Could you run old demos like Future Crew / Second Reality on this?

I’m always thinking about ways to capture old demoscene stuff in high quality video.

itsagavin2• 3 years ago

I don't see why not its basically a 386/33 performance wise. Why not just use PCem + OBS? If you go the mister route, the $50 capture box from EVGA works a dream. I'm able to get simultaneous component and HDMI using the analog add-on board. I run the HDMI out to a splitter then one output to HDMI>VGA for CRT monitor. The remaining HDMI cable to a capture box and pass through to my desk monitor. Lastly component in to a CRT TV. It all just works, at the same time.

anthk5• 3 years ago

PCEM it's far less compatible than an FPGA and maybe even DOSBOX-X in lots of cases.

Also, it requires a huge machine.

qbasic_forever• 3 years ago

Be sure to check out the old Mind Candy DVDs, they did a phenomenal job capturing demos to DVD and a blu-ray: http://www.mindcandydvd.com/

dlevine• 3 years ago

Wouldn't it be a 486 SX-33 if there is no FPU?

tyingq• 3 years ago

That's what the project they pulled this from (ao486) says:

"The ao486 is an x86 compatible Verilog core implementing all features of a 486 SX"

https://github.com/alfikpl/ao486

nicolas_t3• 3 years ago

I've played with it and it's almost perfect from a game preservation perspective except for one glaring feature missing, many old cd games used to read the audio tracks of cds but the ao486_mister doesn't support this. So a lot of games from the exodos collection that would be perfect for this will crash when they attempt to read the audio track.

anthk5• 3 years ago

Use a BIN/CUE format for these games.

nicolas_t3• 3 years ago

Even with bin/cue format, last I tried, it didn't support audio tracks. See this forum thread that talks about it. https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=2189

It might have changed but I haven't seen anything about that in the change log and the repo still says "Currently only data portion of CD is supported. "

nbernard• 3 years ago

For those who have not heard of the "MiSTer FPGA gaming system" before:

"MiSTer is an open project that aims to recreate various classic computers, game consoles and arcade machines, using modern hardware. It allows software and game images to run as they would on original hardware, using peripherals such as mice, keyboards, joysticks and other game controllers.

MiSTer utilizes an FPGA board called the 'DE10-Nano', which connects to your TV or monitor via HDMI video out. It can additionally be expanded with various add-ons (such as a USB hub, SDRAM, audio and VGA out)."

(from: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Wiki_MiSTer/wiki)

xattt• 3 years ago

My understanding is that these are unobtanium now, and that the only reason it took off was the first boards were heavily subsidized by Intel.

Cpoll• 3 years ago

Terasic still sells them. The price is much worse than when MiSTer was taking off, but my gut feeling is the project's picked up enough inertia that it doesn't matter. See: https://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=...

Kit-sellers like Misteraddons also get them back in stock regularly. Reviews on their site suggest they shipped out a batch last month.

mmastrac• 3 years ago

The prices on eBay seem to be about 2x what I paid in 2021. Wild.

anthk5• 3 years ago

With two of these in parallel in a board, could it be possible to simulate a Pentium MMX?

The step would be huge. Enough to play MP3s/OGGs and even some OPUS files, MPEG video support, i686 compatible GNU/Linux (and non-GNU) distros too...

avidphantasm2• 3 years ago

Pentium was 586, so would 686 Linux still work on that?

monocasa2• 3 years ago

Pentium was 586, but Pentium MMX was 686.

wkat4242• 3 years ago

The MiSTer is so cool, I wish I could just buy one though, with the whole kit. It seems impossible or extremely expensive. I hope this will improve as the component shortage subsides.

Ao486_MiSTer: i486 core for the MiSTer FPGA gaming system

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