Re: TransWarpGS Clone

[Conrad <conrad.russo@gmail.com>]

@Bill: My thoughts exactly. I don't want people to start thinking this will be a miracle device. Thank you.

@Rob: The first edition will be a straight up clone of the TWGS, so the current ceiling on speed will apply. Don't forget that the '816 as currently available could never come close to reaching 40MHz. Its possible that when I take the next steps in doing some reengineering, if and only if we can develop an '816 softcore for an FPGA (no opensource ones are currently available, although WDC does offer an RTL '816) that the current ceiling on speed could be surpassed. That is way in the realm of uncertainty though. I'm not even going to be thinking of things like that until the first version is out the door.

@Christopher: Don't worry, I am definitely not all talk. Like I said, the process has already begun. The problem with the ZipGSX is that it doesn't use an FPGA but rather an ASIC (for those unfamiliar with the term, Application Specific Integrated Circuit, in laymans terms a custom chip). The steps involved in reverse engineering just the ASIC are far more complicated then the whole TWGS cloning project. Maybe when the whole TWGS project is concluded we can think about going down that road, but honestly I don't see a point if the TWGS is available again. Maybe a project to just reverse engineer the ASIC so people can ressurrect cards that have died from fried ASICs, but again that's very far in the future if it even happens at all so I'd rather not even start going down the road of discussing it right now, I just want to focus on the current project.

@D Finnigan: Thanks for the support! I'll keep you updated and let you know as soon as preordering starts.

@Sam: Excellent! I'll make sure you are notified as things progress and as soon as you can place a preorder!