MiSTer: MiST on Terasic DE10-nano board.

[alfishe]

ao486 in action.
Second half is the most exciting
Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/0MRuVklNwW4

[fury23]

New core: ao486 just released!
Enjoy the old and slow PC ))))))
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer

Thank you so much, this is amazing news!

[Newsdee]

Great job! Fantastic that we have an original core on MiSTer now

[gagadagatika]

Hey Guys,
I have some spare SDRAM boards from my last order. I will ship from germany to any country inside the EU. The follwing boards are available:

0x SDRAM 3.1R (sold out)
0x SDRAM v3.1 (Vertical) (sold out)

All gone!

Each board was soldered by hand and successfully tested with sorgelig's memtest at 140MHz for 30 minutes. I'll take 20€ per board + shipping cost. payment can be paypal or bank transfer. please send an email or PM if interested.

I will edit this post when a board was sold to keep you guys updated

Here is a photo of the boards:



I was unfortunatly not foresighted enough to order enough chips in the beginning, so i had to reorder them. If everything is ordered at one distributor and at one PCB manufactor, then the price can be pushed further down. The shipping cost is what makes most of it expensive. I forgot the 2x20 headers in the list... that adds another 2,60€ per board...

[Sorgelig]

VGA controller in ao486 has some problem which produces some garbage on screen in Windows 95 (and may be other apps/games in DOS).
I've succeeded to fix this. Will release new version soon.

@gagadagatika, wonderful!

[NegSol]

Great to see more SDRAM boards being build!

To support the effort I decided to document the activity of soldering one of my boards in a video. I sure hope to encourage all people still waiting to join in

https://youtu.be/bq04AH7tiV0

[Sorgelig]

For easier 2x20 connector soldering i recommend to cut the pins all the way when PCB is inserted and then solder it.
Originally i've cut it with leaving around ~0.5/1mm on top of board, but later discovered that fully cut pins can be soldered much easier.

[bernouilli]

Just ordered a de10 from digikey. I should receive it in a couple of weeks.

[alfishe]

I was unfortunatly not foresighted enough to order enough chips in the beginning, so i had to reorder them. If everything is ordered at one distributor and at one PCB manufactor, then the price can be pushed further down.

Just FYI - price on PCBWay is similar for 5 and 10 units. I've got 10 boards each (I/O expansion and memory extension) for $5 + $5. Plus $15 delivery to the US. So total $25 for 10 pairs of boards.

In fact I've got 12 boards each, cause PCBWay is very generous and if there is a spare place on a panel - they replicate design until fully populated.
So logistics can be optimized for PCB production.

Mouser is the cheapest source of 166MHz memory chips (in fact they work just fine up to 150MHz on DE10-Nano GPIO connector).
Farnell has cheapest SMD resistors/capacitors. Most of positions can be found with huge discounts (like 1000 resistors for $2, or 1000 capacitors 0805 size for $4). Connectors - AliExpress.

[NegSol]

I did some ao486 core testing - I really like it

In release ao486_20170805 the screen starts rolling (HDMI out). Rolling gets worse as the system is running until everything is unreadable.

https://youtu.be/8G0tsTbbxYY

Core release ao486_20170803 is stable - no rolling of the screen

I know the core is unfinished, but I find it hard to get files copied over. Is there a way to get a second hard drive accessible (like with the Minimig Cores) or a CD-ROM? What is the best option? I do not know how to get VHDs mounted writable in any other system (esp. VHD with MBRs and FAT16).

[Jimjans]

I did some ao486 core testing - I really like it

In release ao486_20170805 the screen starts rolling (HDMI out). Rolling gets worse as the system is running until everything is unreadable.

https://youtu.be/8G0tsTbbxYY

Core release ao486_20170803 is stable - no rolling of the screen

I know the core is unfinished, but I find it hard to get files copied over. Is there a way to get a second hard drive accessible (like with the Minimig Cores) or a CD-ROM? What is the best option? I do not know how to get VHDs mounted writable in any other system (esp. VHD with MBRs and FAT16).

how you mount a vhd disk in windows

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dan ... -easy-way/

[Sorgelig]

ImDisk can mount vhd files:
http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/#ImDisk

[alfishe]

Core release ao486_20170803 is stable - no rolling of the screen

some releases have more chances to have visual rolling (VGA scaling is still cumbersome). But if you make 1-2 cold reboots for DE10-Nano (power off + power on), then you can get picture without issues.

For now we didn't find any easy way to emulate CDROM, so that will be not an option for a long time. Single HDD image supported.
You can just create empty file with required size (1Gb hdd.vhd full of zeroes for instance), copy it to SD card and set as HDD image for ao486 core.
Then boot from floppy image, run fdisk, format it (yes, I love to type "format c:" ) and you have proper disk image with MBR and partition(s). There are many tools that work with such disk images, just rename the extension to .img while working with them on PC.
I use PowerISO. But most of *image or *iso tools support such raw images.

[Sorgelig]

<del>

[Sorgelig]

Here is another way for easier VHD management:

- unpack this file

vmount.zip

into ao486 directory (where are your vhd files).
- connect to your DE10 by console or ssh
- navigate to /media/fat/ao486 and there execute ./vmount hdd.vhd where hdd.vhd is your VHD.
this utility will mount the first partition of vhd
- now you can navigate to /media/rootfs and find the files from VHD there.

You can read/write/delete whatever you want there. There is one important note: When you finish, you need to un-mount it. The easier and safe way is to press LShift-LCtrl-LAlt-RAlt combination of keyboard attached to DE10 (not on PC keyboard). If will flush the cache and reboot DE10.
Do not press reset button - it may corrupt your VHD. Don't run ao486 before un-mounting the VHD.

You may connect to DE10 by SFTP instead of SSH. It supports SSH commands and support the file copying. The best SFTP client from my point of view is Total Commander. You can issue vmount command directly from TC's command prompt.

[mggk]

Hello Everybody !

Well first thing thanks to Sorgelig for your awesome work !
Now i've ordered some PCB for the RAM addon and i have some questions. I've ordered the uni PCB, my first question is : is it better to mount the PCB vertically or horizontally ? (that sounds like a stupid quesion i know)

On the PCB scheme i see 3 ranges of 20 pin connectors but on the image of the board, i only see two, is it normal ?

Last question, if i choose to mount the pcb verically, does someone has an idea of the pin header to choose from digikey ( like these one : http://www.digikey.fr/scripts/DkSearch/ ... 8813915860 and http://www.digikey.fr/scripts/DkSearch/ ... 8813915860) ?

Thanks for your answers

[NegSol]

@Sorgelig

Exactly what I was looking for! SSH and FTP should work so much better for me. I will give it a shot. Thank you!

[NegSol]

Sorry I did not see that you posted a new ao486 release. I will test it tomorrow.

Anyhow, using release 0803 your procedure to mount the VHD and use FTP worked perfectly. Again thank you. Now I could bulk transfer all my files. Played a bit EPIC Pinball and Lotus III. Too bad joystick is not emulated yet - guess that is a bit harder, as most PCs had their joystick ports on the soundcard or on extra boards. Look really great.

I find that the cursor keys of the keyboard are not always registering. Instead it looks like sometimes the function keys are registered, when arrow down is pressed. I noted this in Norton Commander 5.

Great core overall - brings back some memories

[gagadagatika]

Hi mggk,

my first question is : is it better to mount the PCB vertically or horizontally ? (that sounds like a stupid quesion i know)

Not a stupid question at all! I have build all three versions of the Board now. The only major difference that I have found is, that the horizontal versions pass the 150 MHz memtest much easier than the vertical ones. I managed to build only one vertical one that passes a 150 MHz long time test while all horizontal ones pass the test.

The reverse version blocks the arduino header next to the sdram Board.

On the PCB scheme i see 3 ranges of 20 pin connectors but on the image of the board, i only see two, is it normal ?

You need a 2x20 (40 position) female connection header. It's always two rows, but depending on the version you choose to build, you have to choose between two different rows on the board.

Last question, if i choose to mount the pcb verically, does someone has an idea of the pin header to choose from digikey ( like these one : http://www.digikey.fr/scripts/DkSearch/ ... 8813915860 and http://www.digikey.fr/scripts/DkSearch/ ... 8813915860) ?

I am on mobile right now and can not open your links. I will just give you the DigiKey Partnumbers I have used for my last build: S5573-ND

I hope that helps you a little bit

[Sorgelig]

On the PCB scheme i see 3 ranges of 20 pin connectors but on the image of the board, i only see two, is it normal ?

images are from older version.
Universal version has 3 rows because different mounts use different rows. You can refer silk layer box outline. It shows which 2 rows used on each side.
Although vertical mounting has lower upper frequency, it's enough to pass at least 140MHz test. Horizontal inward direction blocks the Arduino GPIO and will prevent future expansions. Vertical mount is kind of ideal if vertical dimension doesn't matter. Vertical mount uses upper 2 rows.

Your links doesn't open specific item but some search results.

[Sorgelig]

<del>

[NegSol]

Sorry I did not see that you posted a new ao486 release. I will test it tomorrow.

scrap that, it still glitches.
Use this version: ao486.zip

I tested the this release with my installation. HDMI output is rock solid with this one now. However, my DOS 6.22 installation is not loading correctly. EMM386 is bailing out with random errors or just halting the system. Without EMM386 DOS sometimes boots, but no other program starts.
Release 0803 still works best. Cheers!

[mggk]

Hey everybody thanks for your answers

Hi mggk,

Last question, if i choose to mount the pcb verically, does someone has an idea of the pin header to choose from digikey ( like these one : http://www.digikey.fr/scripts/DkSearch/ ... 8813915860 and http://www.digikey.fr/scripts/DkSearch/ ... 8813915860) ?

I am on mobile right now and can not open your links. I will just give you the DigiKey Partnumbers I have used for my last build: S5573-ND

Oh sorry i was meaning horizontally not vertically (i'ved used your spreadsheet to look for components on digikey ) (i've put the part number at the bottom of this post as sorgelig said, the links seems to doesn't work)

Your links doesn't open specific item but some search results.

Oh sorry, on my computer it redirects to item page, but on private navigation it redirects to search, here are the references : S7123-ND for 40 Pin connectors and S1011EC-03-ND for the Arduino pins

Thanks for your help again.

[Sorgelig]

I tested the this release with my installation. HDMI output is rock solid with this one now. However, my DOS 6.22 installation is not loading correctly. EMM386 is bailing out with random errors or just halting the system. Without EMM386 DOS sometimes boots, but no other program starts.
Release 0803 still works best. Cheers!

yep, i also found problem with last build. Big cores tend to have stability problem between build. I will try to make the good one.

[Sorgelig]

what about this version?

ao486.zip