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Re: [colorforth] ForthBox and FPGA (was: Ideas)

How well documented are the 'older' PCI graphics cards? I was thinking along the lines of using the flashable ROM in these things to slap in some CF/Forth and using the built in graphics chip to its advantage. It would be programmed initially on any PCI'd PC and then slotted into a homebrew terminal of sorts, which would need the PCI interface, psu, keyboard/mouse (I am unsure as to how you'd get it to 'boot' off the ROM in the card, if at all possible). These older graphics cards can be picked up quite cheaply and would take care of a lot of the VGA/display overheads. There's quite a bit of memory on these things too, mostly they come in at 32MB, but I don't know how big their flashable ROMs are. I came across the Ubicom SX chips some time ago (http://www.ubicom.com/products/sx/sx.html) and the price of the basic kit I found (http://www.milinst.com/devtools/developmenttools.htm#scenix) seemed reasonable. I feel that, whatever the system, it should reflect modern trends and still be within reach. Maybe ARM is the way. It's a case of pros and cons and then settling for the optimal performance/cost solution.
I'm willing to donate a website to the project (www.m-i-s-c.net) whichever form it ends up reaching (z80, 6502, PCI cards, whatever) and email addresses at the site to discuss and publish ideas. I've got 200MB for email/webmail accounts, so I can divvy that up into 20x10MB accounts or 40x5MB accounts.
If anyone is up for board design we could even get these done and sold on the site, with the surplus going towards the X18 (if he's willing!).
I personally wouldn't mind going the route of opening up an old calculator, stuffing it with a muP21 and hooking it into one of those portable LCD TVs. 

Cheers,

Luis.


On 1 Mar 2004, at 23:44, Samuel A. Falvo II wrote:


On Monday 01 March 2004 12:08 pm, Jecel Assumpcao Jr wrote:

I wonder why you aren't thinking of a FPGA based solution like you
mentioned in another thread? Don't let the high prices of development
kits discourage you: I build a board with the same functionality as a
nice $280 kit from Xess and it only cost me $30. This board started
life as a ColorForth computer, though now it is a Smalltalk machine.
Because, well, it's expensive. How did you pull off a $250 savings? For 
me program an FPGA chip, I need the programming and simulation software
to do it with.  That requires Windows.  There is not a single VHDL or
Verilog simulation tool available for Linux that is in any way usable (I 
know, I tried).  Windows costs me money.  The programmer kit costs me
money.  And for what, maybe 10 kits?  AT MOST?  It's a net loss.



<snip snip>


Besides, there are MANY more VGA monitors in existance than TVs, *AND*
they are universal, no matter what country you happen to reside in.
Therefore, there is no NTSC, PAL, or SECAM contention to go around. For 
me, supporting the VGA standard is a no-brainer.

--
Samuel A. Falvo II


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