OS on Uzebox

Discuss general Uzebox topics here: features, wish list. nice to have, etc.
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derek21
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Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2011 2:10 pm

OS on Uzebox

Post by derek21 »

hello everybody! I am a newbye in programming but i like it very much, unfortunatly i don t posses knoledge, language and good skills. I am a happy possesor of a Uzebox Console and i want togheter to add more functions. One of them(i have a lot :P:P:P) is to make an OS for it in this form and only the code to be changed something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLh77U9W ... re=related.


Is about arduino and lcd with free share code in description. It was use atm328 but we 'll have more resources with 644.
So i think is simple for those who work with "c". I know only a lil of bascom.

In this hardware form but with different aplication will be a help for person who don t have pc or /and for us who like this kind of projects :)
greenpower
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Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2011 7:48 pm
Location: Benidorm, Spain

Re: OS on Uzebox

Post by greenpower »

Hi,
Some time ago i've heard of Pixys OS, but I think it's "useless" because we've got a kernel that drives all the stuff and a nice gameloader so, It would be cool to have a implementation of Pixys but I don't see any useable feature. Maybe we could use some source code for anything more advonced but right now we are ok.
Just my 0,02€
I know i'm too young, but it doesn't matters. Maybe i'm a newbie, but i can learn very fastly
derek21
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2011 2:10 pm

Re: OS on Uzebox

Post by derek21 »

So Uzebox is clarly superior. only the interface of pyxis is a lil avanced like a windows, but Uzebox can make more stuff. Corect?
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JRoatch
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Re: OS on Uzebox

Post by JRoatch »

I don't know what the hardware specs of that Arduino prototype is, but certainly CPU power isn't everything.

Consider that the Uzebox has only 4096 bytes of RAM with no possibility of RAM expansion, and more then half the CPU used for video rasterization. So best bitmap display we can come up with is Mode 8. Dealing with such limited resources you have to seriously consider the resources available and pinpoint exactly what the purpose of the software is.

That said we do kind of have elements of an OS, but for the very specific purpose of help us play the main video game software. The bootloader to switch between software programs, the Controller Tester, Emuze for save game management, "softswitch" for Uzebox JAMMA, Uzeamp to play WAV files, and a somewhat working Calculator.

What would be cool, and quite difficult, is to combine those tools (minus the bootloader) into a single loadable 60KiB ROM. That will be far more useful for the uzebox project then some software that moves files around.
hpglow
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Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 6:06 am

Re: OS on Uzebox

Post by hpglow »

I wouldn't say it is impossible to add ram to the Uzebox. I think Serial SRam would be a possibility, it only requres 4 pins (it uses the SPI) from the AVR and there are plenty of people out there have done it on other AVR based projects. It may requre the removal of the SD slot because the external ram would require the use of the MISO and MOSI pins, but I don't know enough to say so or not. The main issues with Serial SRam is first the biggest chip out there would only give us an extra 32KB of ram. Second, the AVR will not run a program off external ram afaik. Therefore, the external ram would have limited uses, lots of extra ram tiles. The finial issue is that the fastest Serial SRam I have seen runs at 20 Mhz, so we would have to assume that it could be overclocked to 28.618 to match the Uzebox.

The pyxis demo you have seen is most likely running more than one Micro-controller chip. The other thing is that many of the small lcd screens out there have their own ram buffer and display engine, therefore, the processor only has to write data to the LCD's buffer and it does the rest. Because of the fact that the Uzebox has to render RGB itself there are few CPU cycles left so without implementing another 644 chip and some ram I just don't see making a full fledged OS to be possible. At that point there are better options out there for such a task, for instance, the soon to be released Propeller 2 chip has native 1080p output in rgb or lower resolutions over composite out built in all 8 cores.
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DaveyPocket
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Re: OS on Uzebox

Post by DaveyPocket »

hpglow wrote: for instance, the soon to be released Propeller 2 chip has native 1080p output in rgb or lower resolutions over composite out built in all 8 cores.
:o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o
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JRoatch
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Re: OS on Uzebox

Post by JRoatch »

Reading http://propeller.wikispaces.com/Propeller+II, it looks like the "ROM includes entire development system". That is already a full fledge computer with OS and everything! :o Why have I not heard of this until now?
hpglow
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Re: OS on Uzebox

Post by hpglow »

JRoatch wrote:Reading http://propeller.wikispaces.com/Propeller+II, it looks like the "ROM includes entire development system". That is already a full fledge computer with OS and everything! :o Why have I not heard of this until now?
Somewhere in their forums it also says that the video modules run at asyncronus clock something like 320 Mhz, while the core PLL is 160. There is a very detailed post in their forums somewhere.
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