In-PowerPak coprocessor (WIP)

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NovaSquirrel
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In-PowerPak coprocessor (WIP)

Post by NovaSquirrel »

I started on an experimental PowerPak mapper with a coprocessor I made (Chipmunk) that allows the NES to upload code for the coprocessor to run and get an interrupt when it finishes. I'm using mapper slot 248 currently since it's meant for mappers in development.

The architecture is almost a 6502.

I made a test ROM (included, with source) and it has the coprocessor run the test from here except for some extra stores at the end to put the tests passed variable and "1337d00d" at the start of RAM. In the test ROM, press Start to run the coprocessor program.

I tried to make an extremely fast Conway's Life but I ran into issues where the RAM used for the playfield was getting corrupted instead and I don't know why. I made an edited version of the Life that just constantly toggled all the cells on the grid instead and occasionally the first byte would fail to write. I think it's probably incorrect interfacing with the block RAM or some sort of weird timing problem, and I've included the source if someone wants to try look at that.

I have a mapper I want to implement, allowing the programmer to swap PRG banks and change the mirroring, and to add a scanline counter but I'll probably only do that if I can get this fixed. In its place currently is just CNROM.
Attachments
test rom.zip
test ROM, source, and MAPF8.MAP
(35.19 KiB) Downloaded 193 times
source.zip
mapper source, use Xilinx ISE 10.1
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infiniteneslives
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Re: In-PowerPak coprocessor (WIP)

Post by infiniteneslives »

Interesting project NovaSquirrel, thanks for sharing!

Tinkering around with the xilinx project it looks like you've selected the XC3S1000-4FG320, I thought the powerpak had a spartan 2 in tqfp-144 package? Appears you have a spartan 3 in 320FBGA package selected..
If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
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NovaSquirrel
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Re: In-PowerPak coprocessor (WIP)

Post by NovaSquirrel »

On my end, it's set to target "xc2s30-5tq144", with the settings copied over from bunnyboy's CNROM example. Are you using a newer version of Xilinx ISE that doesn't support the Spartan 2? I wouldn't be surprised if it looked at the project, realized it didn't have Spartan 2 support and went with some sort of default.
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infiniteneslives
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Re: In-PowerPak coprocessor (WIP)

Post by infiniteneslives »

Oh yeah you're right, was just issue with my newer version auto-selecting a massive replacement.
If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
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