Gigatron Hackers

I don't know if I will make anything, but even if I don't, the information added here could help anyone who does. I've been considering making a machine that uses vCPU without the Gigatron. Using something such as the Propeller 2 microcontroller might be good since one has enough bandwidth and cores...

Apparently, the P2 has bytecode interpreter functions. So here is likely how a proposed architecture might look. 1. There should be a setup/supervisor cog. That can test/locate the memory, set up the memory map, display a menu, start the opening sound, provide a loader, and monitor the other cogs. F...

Come to think of it, 325 Mhz sounds appropriate based on how things work. Okay, the most common instructions take 2 cycles, you have 8 cogs competing for the common hub memory, and emulating at 3 times the target speed is probably a good rule of thumb. So multiplying all those, you get 48. But the h...

He got 64K with version 4 ROM and with 5A, he's getting 128K. ROMv5a had a memory detection bug that would erroneously report 128K on my 64K FPGA. So it could go either way, depending on how much of the hub RAM he set aside and how well he emulated the expansion. What version should he use since he...

Roglow over at the Parallax forum emulated a stock Gigatron on a Propeller 2, and even one of the expansion boards: https://forums.parallax.com/uploads/editor/tm/r191lqd12qq7.png He got 64K with version 4 ROM and with 5A, he's getting 128K. His approach emulates the stock machine, so it requires a R...

I've checked the Parallax forum and the one is about finished with his Gigatron emulation on the Propeller 2. The result is emulating a Gigatron at 6.25 Mhz that has SPI support and can bank up to 128K. https://forums.parallax.com/discussion/174757/could-the-propeller-2-be-used-as-an-i-o-controller-...

I asked at the Parallax forum, and one said that I probably could do this. Others changed the direction of the thread to how to do an entire Gigatron inside a P2 chip. One gave a quick assembly mockup for emulating the Gigatron itself, clocking the P2 at 300 Mhz. Due to the variability of the hub me...

Overview I've been thinking of some things. I imagine a Propeller 2 could offload all of the bit-banged hardware. It has enough hub RAM to include all of the Gigatron's RAM. It has 8 cogs for doing each of the tasks. My approach would be asynchronous snooping with the option of lazy RAM writes and ...

I had figured that if I were making mods, I'd expand the left shift to be full and add a right shift. The operand space can be used for those to give the desired distance and possibly the direction. Plus I'd love to add a table-based ALU to add multiplication and division. I had considered other arc...

I think we sorta lost the intention of the thread. It is nice what others are doing on more modest controllers, and I applaud those who are doing those. Thank you for the links and the controller recommendations. The difference here is that the Propeller 2 has 8 cogs, and the challenge is to maximiz...