MEGA65

Discuss anything not related to the current Uzebox design like successors and other open source gaming hardware
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danboid
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MEGA65

Post by danboid »

Who is going to buy a MEGA65, the open source, FPGA-based C64 successor?

https://mega65.org/

It won't be cheap - its more expensive than the new Amigas!

I wonder if the Mister could run the MEGA65 kernel/firmware, or how hard it might be to port MEGA65 to the Mister?
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Jubatian
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Re: MEGA65

Post by Jubatian »

danboid wrote: Sat Sep 05, 2020 1:12 am I wonder if the Mister could run the MEGA65 kernel/firmware, or how hard it might be to port MEGA65 to the Mister?
I think that it is 40MHz with significantly higher complexity than Uzebox (which is a single MCU at 28.6MHz) puts it beyond the possibility of reasonable emulation. On PC maybe it will work with lots of streamlining, but any other device is likely ruled out (even CUzeBox has difficulties, and it just runs sufficiently well in Emscripten that web emulation is viable). Also keep in mind that CUzeBox is not really a good measure for this as our emulator is highly optimized for the specific machine (UzeBox), so the performance of CUzeBox could only be compared with similar emulators tailored to their specific target.
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danboid
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Re: MEGA65

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I'm not sure what you thought I was asking, maybe you thought I was asking if cuzebox could run on the MEGA65 when actually what I meant was I wonder if it would be possible to port the MEGA65 platform to run on the Mister hardware:

https://www.retrorgb.com/mister.html
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Jubatian
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Re: MEGA65

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danboid wrote: Sat Sep 05, 2020 12:40 pm I'm not sure what you thought I was asking, maybe you thought I was asking if cuzebox could run on the MEGA65 when actually what I meant was I wonder if it would be possible to port the MEGA65 platform to run on the Mister hardware:

https://www.retrorgb.com/mister.html
Ah, okay! I didn't find the right thing then, thought what you were referring to was an emulator running on PC. I was only comparing the problem to CUzeBox in this regard, that I feel like in that environment it might be doable, but very difficult. On FPGA, it certainly should be doable, depending on the size of the FPGA, whether it fits, and whether it can be ran at 40MHz, though by that the design already works, I would assume it should do.
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danboid
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Re: MEGA65

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Do you think the Mega65 could become as popular or more popular than the Spectrum Next, which has managed to fund a second batch of machines and has been well received. The Speccy machines have a cult following but nothing like that of the C64, which is prob the biggest computer cult after Apple. Of course, this isn't anything to do with Commodore but then neither was the Spectrum Next, although in the case of that project they dod have the help of one of the original designers, of the case IIRC. I like the concept of a new, open source, FPGA C64-alike but not at almost £1K!

It could be the Commodore vs Spectrum wars all over again - yay! :D
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danboid
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Re: MEGA65

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danboid
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Re: MEGA65

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I'm surprised at how many games, apps and demos have already been written for the MEGA 65 before its actually launched, thanks to xemu. The hardware is way too expensive (at least $300 if you buy the dev board its based upon) to become as popular as say the RPi (or the C64) but I can see the MEGA 65 becoming a staple platform of the demo and indie game scene, seeing as the C64 always has been the most popular platform for both those niches of computing. The xemu dev thinks its unlikely the RPi 4 will ever be able to emulate the MEGA 65 full speed.

The MEGA 65 has a built in audience thanks to its heritage. I see it as the more expensive but potentially much more popular computer analogue of the Uzebox.

https://files.mega65.org/html/main.php

Maybe when the platform matures it will be possible to make a cheaper, non FPGA version of a MEGA 65?
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danboid
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Re: MEGA65

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Re: MEGA65

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MEGA=VISION #1 is a compilation of interviews with devs working on projects under way for the MEGA65.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wifYmhIRAEs

The most interesting bit of the first MEGA=VISION IMO is that its now possible to develop for the MEGA65 (and other 6502 machines) using Rust via cross compilation. I don't know rust I don't expect there's anyone else pining to code for the Uzebox using rust (yet) but I'm sure you're all aware of the rust hype and its hordes of fans hellbent on porting all the things to rust.

I mention the Uzebox not only because this is the Uzebox forum but this led me to discover that there is indeed a AVR backend for llvm and so I would expect coding for the Uzebox using rust could become a possibility soon, if we gain any rust fanboys who want to get that sorted for us that is.

https://github.com/avr-llvm
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D3thAdd3r
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Re: MEGA65

Post by D3thAdd3r »

danboid wrote: Mon Jul 03, 2023 9:12 pm but I'm sure you're all aware of the rust hype and its hordes of fans hellbent on porting all the things to rust.
How do you know if someone is a Rust developer? They will remind you, repeatedly about the virtues of Rust :lol: But in seriousness, if it were a possibility, I think it would be cool to have something in Rust on Uzebox. For the "street cred" if nothing else :)
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