NuBusFPGA/README.md
2022-10-31 15:18:16 +01:00

1.3 KiB

A FPGA on a NuBus card...

Goal

The goal of this repository is to be able to interface a modern (2021 era) FPGA with a NuBus host, specifically Apple's Macintosh II and Macintosh Quadra.

Current status

First prototype is working in a Quadra 650. It implements a single-screen-resolution, windowboxed multi-resolution, depth-switchable (1/2/4/8/16/32 bits) framebuffer over DVI-in-HDMI-connector (will work with any HDMI-compliant monitor). The framebuffer can be used as secondary/primary/only framebuffer in the machine running OS8.1. Qemu tests indicate this should work with 7.1 & 7.5/7.6 as well.

Some basic acceleration now exists for 8/16/32 bits, doing rectangle screen-to-screen blits and pattern rectangle fills. 1/2/4 bits also has some acceleration, ut only for byte-aligned cases.

There's also a basic RAM Disk using the 248 MiB of SDRAM not used by the framebuffer. The driver can use either synchronous direct access to the memory bt the CPU, or asynchronous using DMA (using 16-bytes blocks). Frustratingly, the direct access methode seems faster.