Introducing the VeriSNES (FPGA-based SNES)

wsoltys · Post by **wsoltys** » Wed Dec 28, 2016 3:51 pm

Not really MiST related but worth reading. Its not done yet and the guy didn't decided yet to make it public available.

http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=15143

foft · Post by **foft** » Sat Dec 31, 2016 10:34 am

Wow, exciting. I hope he makes it public so it can be ported. I'm particularly interested in his 65816 work for use in the Atari XL core. There are now a couple of others but from what he says this looks more complete.

Sorgelig · Post by **Sorgelig** » Sat Dec 31, 2016 8:32 pm

Or may be Till can contact him and make some deal.

MasterOfGizmo · Post by **MasterOfGizmo** » Tue Jan 31, 2017 12:57 pm

Sorgelig wrote:Or may be Till can contact him and make some deal.

How can this guy be contacted? I don't see an email or similar. I once left a comment under one of his videos but that's all.

It would probably be worth asking him if he intends to release the code someday. I already was in contact with a japanese guy who has a working snes core. He told me that he'd release his code once someone else also releases a SNES core. So this release may actually give us two cores at once

Also these cores running on the terasic de1/de2 may be making use of the fact that these have two ram chips and one flash rom chip. The MIST only sports on ram chip and thus has less memory bandwidth. That's the main hurdle for the Genesis core as well.

Anyway. If this guy intends to release his code to the public i am sure there''s a free MIST waiting for him somewhere ... but that only makes sense if he's at least considering to release anything.

xc8 · Post by **xc8** » Wed Feb 01, 2017 1:57 pm

MasterOfGizmo wrote:
Sorgelig wrote:Or may be Till can contact him and make some deal.
How can this guy be contacted? I don't see an email or similar. I once left a comment under one of his videos but that's all.
.

maybe this? http://opencores.org/acc,view,jwdonal

Newsdee · Post by **Newsdee** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 3:08 am

Looks like this is still active, he posted a video of mode7 recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8r58jA ... e=youtu.be

NegSol · Post by **NegSol** » Mon Aug 07, 2017 5:23 pm

I just want to point out that an interesting discussion is taking place about open-sourcing the VeriSNES. The MIST was mentioned, too.

http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php? ... &start=150

gagadagatika · Post by **gagadagatika** » Mon Aug 07, 2017 8:21 pm

I definitely put money on the table to unchain that masterpiece of a core

bernouilli · Post by **bernouilli** » Mon Aug 07, 2017 9:03 pm

The problem is how many people are willing to pay for this, and how much.
Personally I would give 10-15€ for having this core. Some people would give much more. But will there it be 100000 people?
I think that he can make like $40000-$60000 out of it but not much more.

NegSol · Post by **NegSol** » Mon Aug 07, 2017 9:14 pm

I respect his work a lot. Kickstarter could be a way to get the money. But I also doubt that there will be enough interest in an FPGA SNES. Even though it sure is a piece of art in my eyes. Still hoping, that he is willing to publish it.

nightshadowpt · Post by **nightshadowpt** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 9:33 am

I am not sure this is the right angle... if he's waiting to reach the amounts that are being thrown around in that thread, this core will never see the light of day.

Unless you are working for a product like the Analog NT Mini, recouping the time you invested in developing a core will be almost impossible.

He should release the core and maintain it through donations or Patreon.

Anyway, I am not sure the MiST would be enough to house a SNES, so I would probably not be able to enjoy it...

xc8 · Post by **xc8** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 10:29 am

I once asked the dev about porting it to MiST, the reply was that was impossible due to the small size of the MiST's FPGA..

Post by **ijor** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 11:55 am

To be honest, I don't sympathize with the idea too much. It is true that I never owned a NES or SNES, so I don't have any sentimental links with the console. And then I don't mind too much if the core is released or not.

But asking the community (not a company), for big money to open source a project that is already done, or almost done? Yea, I realize he spent lots of time and he did a great job. He is not the only one. There are so many open source and free projects that would deserve a similar or even higher monetary compensation ... Don't know, it could even be a bad precedent.

gagadagatika · Post by **gagadagatika** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 2:20 pm

It seems that it took him a substantial portion of his lifetime to create this core and i dont expect him to release it for free, although others decide to do so. If it would be an easy task to create such a core, we would have multiples already as an open source core. It takes obviously a lot of expertise, not only in fpga programming but also in reverse engineering and signal analysis to create it.

I think setting up a kickstarter would be a great way to figure if the community values his works as much as he does. If it reaches a point where he is willing to sell it, then its a win for everyone. i would even say its a good precedent. more people should get the financial recognition they deserve for their work in an open source project. Just because something is open source, does not mean it needs to be for free. No one is entitled to the work of someone just because others decide to make their work for free. (just my humble opinion

)

Zarchos · Post by **Zarchos** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:01 pm

gagadagatika wrote:It seems that it took him a substantial portion of his lifetime to create this core and i dont expect him to release it for free, although others decide to do so. If it would be an easy task to create such a core, we would have multiples already as an open source core. It takes obviously a lot of expertise, not only in fpga programming but also in reverse engineering and signal analysis to create it.

I think setting up a kickstarter would be a great way to figure if the community values his works as much as he does. If it reaches a point where he is willing to sell it, then its a win for everyone. i would even say its a good precedent. more people should get the financial recognition they deserve for their work in an open source project. Just because something is open source, does not mean it needs to be for free. No one is entitled to the work of someone just because others decide to make their work for free. (just my humble opinion )

I entirely agree and this is one of the many projects I intend to develop in 2018.

jwdonal · Post by **jwdonal** » Fri Aug 11, 2017 8:51 am

Hello all,

I'm the creator of the VeriSNES. It was funny to discover that I already had my own thread on this forum.....considering I only just now registered.

In any case, I would like to discuss with whoever the board designer for the MiST is. I'm not at all familiar with the MiST board so I need some contact information. I'd like to discuss teaming up to get the VeriSNES ported to the MiST (if possible).

Thanks!

Gehstock · Post by **Gehstock** » Fri Aug 11, 2017 9:32 am

Hello and Welcome to this Forum, great work with the SNES

Zarchos · Post by **Zarchos** » Fri Aug 11, 2017 9:37 am

Yes, a warm welcome, and hats off to you !

Which books or online tutorials would you advise to study for sbdy who'd like to learn HDL ?
Having already a good knowledge about chips because the 'learner' would already know ASM etc ... I mean sbdy who already knows how a computer works etc ...

Thanks in advance, your help highly appreciated.

DrOG · Post by **DrOG** » Fri Aug 11, 2017 10:50 am

Great news!

Sorgelig · Post by **Sorgelig** » Fri Aug 11, 2017 10:55 am

jwdonal wrote:Hello all,

I'm the creator of the VeriSNES. It was funny to discover that I already had my own thread on this forum.....considering I only just now registered.

In any case, I would like to discuss with whoever the board designer for the MiST is. I'm not at all familiar with the MiST board so I need some contact information. I'd like to discuss teaming up to get the VeriSNES ported to the MiST (if possible).

Thanks!

Take a look at my MiSTer project:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki
It's open source, but not not limited to only open source cores. So if you will like to port your VeriSNES, i can help you.
Board is cheaper and much more powerful than MiST.

Zarchos · Post by **Zarchos** » Fri Aug 11, 2017 10:59 am

Same question to you, Sorgelig, to try to learn HDL ...

nightshadowpt · Post by **nightshadowpt** » Fri Aug 11, 2017 11:23 am

Hi jwdonal,

Welcome to the forums.

Seeing this core ported to the MiST would be great. Thank you for your hard work on the SNES core.

Regards,

Post by **ijor** » Fri Aug 11, 2017 12:06 pm

Hi jwdonal,

Welcome aboard. Till Harbaum is the MiST original board designer. But we haven't heard from him for a while here. For developing questions may be other core developers can help you. There are several here.

If you are looking for a free board, then unless people here would donate the money, you will probably need to contact Till by email.

Sorgelig · Post by **Sorgelig** » Fri Aug 11, 2017 1:14 pm

Zarchos wrote:Same question to you, Sorgelig, to try to learn HDL ...

I didn't read any book about HDL. Usually i use google to find some articles or just messages if I'm stick somewhere. Before I've bought the MiST (october 2015) I didn't know anything about FPGA. Well, besides the fact it can somehow re-create some chips inside.
So, the speed you learn the HDL depends on how much you want to learn it. 20 years ago it could be hard to learn without a good books. Now you can find almost any information in internet. Don't wait for someone who will give you the right book. Explore and search by yourself.
Open source projects is good departing point. Take some project and explore the code, try to compile it. Try to understand some parts and go on little by little.

bernouilli · Post by **bernouilli** » Fri Aug 11, 2017 1:50 pm

Zarchos wrote:Same question to you, Sorgelig, to try to learn HDL ...

As Sorgelig wrote, you can find a lot of stuff on internet :

Some (good) tutorials :
http://www.fpga4fun.com/
http://www.asic-world.com/verilog/veritut.html
https://docs.numato.com/kb/learning-fpg ... roduction/

There also a lot of books about Verilog and VHDL.
one example :
The Complete Verilog Book - Vivek Sagdeo

Once you know you're familiar with FPGA, I can recommand you these two books :

The Art of Hardware Architecture - Mohit Arora
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Hardware-Arc ... 1502459056

Digital Design - Morris Mano
https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Design-I ... 1502458991

They're hard to find and expensive, but you can find a pdf copy on Internet.

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