Is the Atari Falcon 030 possible in MiSTer?

[ReadyPlayerTwo]

This was the one computer i always wanted as a kid, got to play with one for only a few short hours when i was much younger??

So is it possible on MiSTer? Do we have enough room on the board?

[FoxbatStargazer]

We have Amiga 1200 with vampires, I'd be shocked if there isn't room. There just has to be someone interested in figuring out all the additional chips.

Main thing about Falcon is the really limited software library. But maybe there is some interest...

[benbooth493]

One of the things about MiSTer that I love is "owning" the machines I couldn't as a kid. A Falcon 030 core would be amazing.

[kolla]

It requires quite a few things that don't exist currently:
* full 68030 (not EC) softcore instead of the current 68020 tg68
* 56001 DSP softcore
and possibly also 68882 softcore (with 80bit precision)

[Michael1260]

and then, put the 68030 in Minimig

[Fularu]

It requires quite a few things that don't exist currently:
* full 68030 (not EC) softcore instead of the current 68020 tg68
* 56001 DSP softcore
and possibly also 68882 softcore (with 80bit precision)

Isn't Mike working on a 040 core that he will make publicly available? That should alleviate the need for a 68882 core

[ragnar]

Don't forget some more special ic's like combel, dma or videl. i'm not pretty sure it will not fit inside misters fpga

[Chris23235]

I am sure it would fit, it seems Jotego thinks it would fit into the MiST. He talked about the possibilities recently.

[Lisko]

and then, put the 68030 in Minimig

And then, we can die happy

[ron]

http://www.experiment-s.de/de/progress/

someone remembers the SUSKA board ?

[ragnar]

someone remembers the SUSKA board ?

I do and i have one Suska III-C

[kolla]

Isn't Mike working on a 040 core that he will make publicly available? That should alleviate the need for a 68882 core

Haven’t really heard about this, but it depends what kind of 040 core it potentially is replicating, whether it includes FPU at all. 68EC040 had neither FPU nor MMU, 68LC040 had MMU, but no FPU.

[Fularu]

Isn't Mike working on a 040 core that he will make publicly available? That should alleviate the need for a 68882 core

Haven’t really heard about this, but it depends what kind of 040 core it potentially is replicating, whether it includes FPU at all. 68EC040 had neither FPU nor MMU, 68LC040 had MMU, but no FPU.

He said both would be there (FPU and MMU). Most productivity tools on the Amiga need both anyway so not having them would be rather moot.

[CFTech]

Main thing about Falcon is the really limited software library.

I disagree. There is huge amount of falcon specific software, maily a production one but also demos, players etc..
In addition, the used machines are pretty expensive and there is still not even 100% software emulation available.

Anyway, making a proper F030 core would be a challenge. One can get Atari STE core as a starting point and then add full 68030 with MMU, DSP 56001 RISC, video with 256 and truecolor modes, 16bit audio I/O with routing matrix, NV RAM etc.

[shertz]

I would be more excited about a Falcon core then a PS1, Saturn, Lynx and CPS2 cores COMBINED!!

[Moondandy]

There is a growing interest in using MiSTer for creating music, so a Falcon would likely be of more interest to musicians over gamers.

[moebiusrising]

There is a growing interest in using MiSTer for creating music, so a Falcon would likely be of more interest to musicians over gamers.

My MiSTer is now MIDI’d using direct I/O, which works great, I would be over the moon if there was an ability to run Cubase Audio Falcon (for hard disk recording) but it seems too niche and possibly a hurdle to get audio input working. I can always dream though.

[Televicious]

I would love to support the dev on this. Finding a Falcon let alone affording one is pretty tough these days. The 040 isn't as compatible as 030. MMU stuff was simplified. It would overall be better to do an 030 with the seperate 68882. Sign me up though.

[CFTech]

Neither FPU nor MMU is mandatory for most Falcon audio software. The MMU is used only for memory protection in Freemint OS and virtual memory managers for TOS (like Outside). FPU is utilised by some demos and production software.

[throAU]

Neither FPU nor MMU is mandatory for most Falcon audio software. The MMU is used only for memory protection in Freemint OS and virtual memory managers for TOS (like Outside). FPU is utilised by some demos and production software.

If that's the case, the 020 and 030 are same instruction set, and unless the OS is doing explicit detection for 030, it should just work with a simulated 020 (which in mister is faster than a real 030 anyway).

[guddler]

I know at the moment there are a bunch of things missing that would be needed for the Falcon to become a reality on the MiSTer, but I'd certainly be another that would love to see it. The ST is a machine that I've never tried. I kind of fancied it but always knew that I wouldn't be satisfied until I'd ended up at a fully tricked out Falcon. After building my own 060/RTG based Amiga, that's a rabbit-hole I just didn't fancy even looking down, let alone going down! I dread to think what I ended up spending in parts to build that Amiga (and by parts I mean components, SMT mostly - I didn't just "build" a machine by buying various add-ons for a 1200 or 4000)

[CFTech]

If that's the case, the 020 and 030 are same instruction set, and unless the OS is doing explicit detection for 030

So there is already an STE core with TG68, available? I only know about experimental TG68 support in MiST core.

Anyway, with a STEroids core with TG68/020 there will be a good chance to make a Falcon TOS4.4 work with only a minor changes in the core.

[Chris23235]

If that's the case, the 020 and 030 are same instruction set, and unless the OS is doing explicit detection for 030

So there is already an STE core with TG68, available? I only know about experimental TG68 support in MiST core.

Anyway, with a STEroids core with TG68/020 there will be a good chance to make a Falcon TOS4.4 work with only a minor changes in the core.

There still is the need to integrate the Motorola 56001 DSP , Videl, Combell and the Falcon DMA chips into the core which would be pretty major additions.

Here is an overview about the chips in the Falcon030:

https://mikrosk.github.io/doitarchive/doitf030/04.htm

I think a core author would have to invest a lot of work to get the Falcon030 up and running.

[CFTech]

Definitely.

[ragnar]

I'm not that optimistic. I'm in contact with Wolfgamg Förster (from Suska) and he said that his full featured 68030 (CPU, Cache, MMU, FPU, ability to add an FPU and pipelined structur [whatever this means]) needs 55.000 LEs. A light version still needs 32.000 LEs. Now, do your math. What do yout think, how big are Videl, Combel, DMA and such. Maybe we can haz a Sparrow

[legacypixels]

Don't forget there's a 56000 DSP in there too.

[Chris23235]

I don't think size is such a problem. The whole Amiga core uses about 1/3 of the MiSTer fpga and it comes with 68000 and 68020 support and AGA graphics. So a Falcon shouldn't take up 3 times of this.

[daschewie]

I don't think size is such a problem. The whole Amiga core uses about 1/3 of the MiSTer fpga and it comes with 68000 and 68020 support and AGA graphics. So a Falcon shouldn't take up 3 times of this.

Back in the 90's Moore's Law was truly in effect. So transistor counts were going up exponentially.

An interesting piece of trivia: The original Motorola 68000 was named after its transistor count (68,000).
Unfortunately the 68030 has a transistor count of 273,000, making it 4 times larger than the 68000.
The 68040 has 1,200,000 transistors making it 17 times larger and so on.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Transistor_count

[Bas]

How many of these transistors were cache?

[Chris23235]

I don't think size is such a problem. The whole Amiga core uses about 1/3 of the MiSTer fpga and it comes with 68000 and 68020 support and AGA graphics. So a Falcon shouldn't take up 3 times of this.

Back in the 90's Moore's Law was truly in effect. So transistor counts were going up exponentially.

An interesting piece of trivia: The original Motorola 68000 was named after its transistor count (68,000).
Unfortunately the 68030 has a transistor count of 273,000, making it 4 times larger than the 68000.
The 68040 has 1,200,000 transistors making it 17 times larger and so on.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Transistor_count

1.2 million transistors is roughly what the i486 uses and this CPU fits so comfortably into the MiSTer FPGA that there is also room for both Soundblaster and SVGA. The 273000 transistors of the 68030 are no indicator that the core can't fit into the MiSTer. They are roughly the same as the combined 68000 and 68020 transistor count and both chips are implemented into Minimig at the same time.