PCE hardware development and funding

[spenoza]

Well, you typically use VHDL to program the FPGAs, so if the guy working on it ever gets something complete you should have some VHDL do work with. I may contact him, see what progress he's making.

[Arkhan]

YOUR FACE IS A SCHEMATIC.

man, that would be kind of awesome if your face was in everyones pcengine.

Start doing it!

[Arkhan]

Torlus?  He made alot of progress.  I think he might have finished it, lol.   I havent talked to him in a long time since I stopped sitting in the broke ass IRC channel he'd pop into.

[spenoza]

Torlus?  He made alot of progress.  I think he might have finished it, lol.   I havent talked to him in a long time since I stopped sitting in the broke ass IRC channel he'd pop into.

I messaged him on YouTube. He's still got some bugs to work out, but stuff mostly works. The problem is that he's using a 6502 core from a project with some pretty strict limitations on use. In order to get usable schematics we'd need to get him to work with a different 6502 core diagram, one with fewer restrictions

[Bonknuts]

I would like to see if we could develop, either via the expansion port or the hucard slot, an upgrade that would allow a PCE to operate as an SGX, or a PCE clone that has SGX capabilities.

The problem is mostly the ram location in the PCE and SGX. On the SGX, they added additional ram on the next 3 banks giving a total of 32k of work ram. On the PCE, it's only 8k of ram (1 bank) but the next three banks are mirrored instead of open bus. There were probably plans for a full 32k work ram on the PCE at one point, but that's just fun speculation. Without opening up the console and directly adding the additional ram or replacement chip, you won't get the upgrade to work via the hucard port because it'll result in a bus conflict.

[spenoza]

Bonknuts, sounds like the next best bet, then, is to push for an SGX clone.

[Arkhan]

Bonknuts, sounds like the next best bet, then, is to push for an SGX clone.

what is the point of cloning a console with 5 games on it. lol

[lord_cack]

Bonknuts, sounds like the next best bet, then, is to push for an SGX clone.

what is the point of cloning a console with 5 games on it. lol

Hey, but those are five great games     nevermind....

[spenoza]

Bonknuts, sounds like the next best bet, then, is to push for an SGX clone.

what is the point of cloning a console with 5 games on it. lol

When that console is backwards compatible and the circuit cost is probably not significant, why not? It does open a few doors for homebrew development, too, especially if costs for the clone can be kept reasonable. It's not like including SGX compatibility is in any way a functional hindrance.

[BigusSchmuck]

So what you are saying is that a system card that allows you to play super grafx games is impossible? Isn't there a way to perhaps to somehow utilize the arcade card in order to play super grafx games maybe by porting these titles to use the arcade card? Yeah there maybe 5 games, but being able to play Ghouls N Ghosts without having to hunt down a Super Grafx (or run it on a emulator) may be worth it. Just a thought.

[ParanoiaDragon]

The problem there, would be that the Arcade card doesn't include the possibility for a 2nd bg layer, nor does it include more colors(SGC has somewhere around 4000 colors), & I think there's a few other things that I assume would require a cpu in the Arcade card to make SGX game work, it just ain't happening.  A brand new card would be more doable, rather then taking an Arcade card apart & adding stuff to it.

[Necromancer]

... nor does it include more colors(SGC has somewhere around 4000 colors)...

No, it has the same palette as a PCE.