Re: FPGApple + ARM?

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

aiiadict@gmail.com wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I got a spartan3 FPGA
> and ARM dev board
>
> $100 apiece
>
> maybe we can get alex
> to buy an ARM board
> as well (alex freed that
> did FPGApple)
>
> charlie has an ARM cpu,
> has outlined and perhaps
> even written 6502 emulator
> in ARM assembly language.
>
> I'd like to use FPGA for apple II
> emulation, ARM for 6502 emulation.
>
> (acorn RISC machine, I think it
> is...  acorn computers used
> 6502 in the 80's, and the new
> ARM *computers* (motherbard,
> IDE, video, etc etc) have emulators
> that run the 6502 code.  I think
> these computers are still available.
>
>
> The ARM is
> "
> - an improved 6502-based machine with far greater expansion
> capabilities
> "
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers_Ltd#The_microcomputer_systems
>
>
>
> ARM was designed as a
> successor to the 6502 series
> CPU...  RISC (few instructions,
> like 6502), and other very similar
> architecture that
> makes 6502 easy to emulate.
>
> you (reader of this post)
> could get ARM and spartan3 too..
>
> we could make an awesome tiny
> apple II that could go very fast...
>
> there are a few people interested
> in the project who have the hardware
> (FPGA and/or ARM)
>
> maybe Glenn Jones has a SPartan
> as well...
>
> they moved the release date of Spartan
> 3e (ethernet) to february...
>
> i'm going to do it myself, but it'll take a year
> or more (going to college to learn VHDL)
>
> be nice if there were people to form a group.

Well, the BBC decided to use the ARM as the successor to the
6502 in their computers, but I would not call the ARM architecture
very similar to the 6502.  It is a noticeably *modern* general
register-based RISC  architecture, while the 6502, though cleverly
pipelined, is quite archaic as microprocessors go.

(Not that I don't love it, you understand!)

And the Spartan FPGA and the ARM are essentially unrelated,
except by the occasional coincidence of finding themselves
on the same board.  ;-)

-michael

Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
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