Hi,
I've been musing for quite some time about getting into the FPGA thing
- have a yearning to return to electronics tinkering, and recent
developments such as the FPGApple and 8 bit baby are inspiring my
creative side.
What I'd really like to do, is take the FPGApple concept and turn it
into something that I'd find really useful; a replacement board for my
Apple IIe
What I'm picturing is this: A board that sits where the II motherboard
used to go, containing power connector, 7 slots, game connector,
cassette in/out plus keyboard and speaker connections. A slot for a
standard SIMM module should be included here as well.
There would then be a card-edge slot designed to expose all this Apple
II space IO to a daughtercard, which contains whichever FPGA is
suitable for the task. Rationale is, this should keep the FPGA
circuitboard small and cheap, and also upgradable over time as the
thing evolves.
The 'dream' is to recreate my Apple IIe system, using existing
peripheral cards, but integrate into the design Ramworks style memory
(slot could hold a 16meg SIMM), and CPU acceleration. Those peripherals
are my most prized Apple II accessories, and I'd rather put them in
mothballs and not continue to use them regularly as I do now.
Just thought I'd throw this out there and see what others would like if
such a thing materialised. I know there'll be some who would like to
see the IIGS done, and to be honest so would I, but I've always been an
8-bit guy as far as my Apple II'ing goes so will leave this task to
someone else.
Things to consider would be obvious peripherals that everyone will
want, like secondary storage controllers, etc. that could be built onto
the main 'carrier' board, or at least have port
holes wired in for (remember, the board will cost about that same
however it's done) - so perhaps just listing all the known IO ports
that could potentially be reimplemented by FPGA logic.
Or whatever! dream away - I obviously can't think of every possible
permutation, and while not all are going to be possible, everyones
input would generate the best carrier board to satisfy II recreation
now, and potentially into the future (because who around here doesn't
dream of what might've been when they see mention of the Terbium on the
WDC site)