MiSTer and FPGA

It seems that Coin Op Collection have completed a Snow Bros core for MiSTer before I did. Not really surprising since I have taken ages on this one. I had suffered from one of the same problems as they did, so at least I was on the right track.

For the moment I will look into the missing sound circuits on Cosmo (Space Invaders hardware) and then better analogue sound for Galaxian.

The 68000 based core I was working on is not totally redundant as it may be revisited later with a view to running a different game!

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I have made a change to the checkout form for the shop, a phone number is now required. This is because shipping to some countries with Royal Mail now requires this and it saves me having to email you to ask for one.

Just a quick shot as it appears I have finally got the code for the Pandora graphics chip to work as intended. This is not running game code, I just grabbed the memory content for the colour and sprite registers and load it for testing, but after several false starts it is finally behaving itself. (I did have a previous version that worked and was much quicker, unfortunately it required about 80,000 LUTs)

Ignore the rows of numbers at the top of the screen, I used them for debugging things. The only important one is the 83, which shows that the screen was complete on the 131st vertical scan line, so plenty of room to manoeuvre for extra sprites.

I used one of the Astrocade PCBs recently to make an adapter to allow me to put a MiSTer setup into my Crazy Climber cabinet.

I populated the video, a single sound channel and the regulator, added an amplifier and then wired an edge connector and video pins to plug into the cabinet.

End result – I can now use the MiSTer to let me to select between Crazy Climber and Crazy Climber 2. Plus I can always add other games if any actually use a horizontal monitor and two joysticks!

The new version of the RGB PCB has arrived, along with the updated design for the composite output for Space Zap and I have assembled one and connected it up to my Amiga monitor.

It now has potentiometers to allow the signal levels for Sync and Video to be adjusted to work nicely with your monitor. The original one, once patched to work properly, was way too bright on my screen, but this one now allows it to be adjusted for correct shades.

I still need to do a little more testing and finalise an updated Space Zap image (for the one person so far with a Space Zap version of the board and a monochrome monitor)

From the next batch all PCBs supplied will have the new 2.4 version included.

An attempt was made to put the Astrocade interface into a Space Zap cabinet sporting a monochrome monitor. It didn’t work so I began investigating exactly what the problem was.

It seems I misread the MiSTer IO schematic, and put a GND where a vertical sync should be, so it was not actually passing the sync to the output. I also made a change from the original colour gun used as it meant that it would then be possible to save one IC on the main PCB when using this configuration.

So, lesson learnt. I have now re-created the RGB board so composite output should work correctly with the available signals. I also added a couple of potentiometers to control the levels (since it is way too bright on my Amiga monitor via CVBS)

So, I will get some of these ordered so that I can test it and make sure it works as it should.

Wizard of Wor has finally been tested!

Almost a year after I did the original image for this game, it has been fitted to a cabinet and I’m pleased to say that after some minor problems the image has been updated and works as it should.

Had a request for a change, which may also make sense for Gorf – The option to set how many lives each player begins with when the machine is set to Freeplay. I will look into this when I get a chance.