Worklog PPR

[marshallh]

Boards are in, forgot to add slots on USB. Just a proto so it won't matter though.

 

[ShockSlayer]

 

[marshallh]

Inductor for the main 3.3 supply is missing, for some reason I spec'd an 0805 cap on there, brainfart. I also mistyped 73k feedback resistor on one of the supplies to 7.3k, after fixing that the LCD backlight comes on!

 

[marshallh]

Pretty stoked, the LCD started working right off, barely took any effort at all (I have been preparing though).

Driving full digital works!

LED backlight driver gets the warmest. 7805 also is warm, but that's fine as it is just standing in for emulating battery voltage.

 

[JacksonS]

I need you to teach me your FPGA ways.

 

[Noah]

I need you to teach me your FPGA ways.

God has better things to do than to interfere in the affairs of mere mortals.

 

[cheese]

I need you to teach me your FPGA ways.

Google is your friend. Get yourself a FPGA dev board and make it do something. Then just add on to it. Hardest part (for me anyway) was properly creating the project file in the program

 

[JacksonS]

Google is your friend. Get yourself a FPGA dev board and make it do something. Then just add on to it. Hardest part (for me anyway) was properly creating the project file in the program

I've done some stuff, but i can't exactly drive an LCD with a video input source.

 

[Herma]

@JacksonS It sounds a bit odd, but make a processor. Simpler ones are...pretty simple, and they're a good mixture of combinational and sequential logic devices. Also make a few protocol drivers and try to communicate with things (also not too bad because there're lots of resources onlien for this).

 

[marshallh]

Soldered on the chipset. Found a couple problems (I forgot to route VCLK, and POWERGOOD was going high too early).

I spent many hours yesterday debugging, the good news is that LOTS of parts of the system are working. But mysteriously, there is some fault that causes most things to crash while booting.

Some PD demos work fine (both RSP/RDP and sound) and some crash immediately, others play audio but graphics crash.

At this point I'm suspecting a bad RDRAM or very tricky SI issue causing bitflips.
The sacred N64 Test Cart also does not boot - it crashes when going from the IPL ram test to the logo.

 

[ShockSlayer]

That would probably be the last cart I'd ever use to test with. Aside from my prized copy of John Madden that I can't find ANYWHERE

 

[marshallh]

I blame SS... never should've looked at trimming guides. I un-shorted the PIF controller drive lines and pulled up accordingly. Now everything works and doesn't hang up SI.

At this point it looks like I've made the first 100% working N64 replica. Now I can start chopping off capacitors and undoing kludges until I figure out what is actually necessary.

It looks like the suffering and anguish I endured designing the RDRAM channel paid off since it is error free.

 

[Noah]

I blame SS... never should've looked at trimming guides. I un-shorted the PIF controller drive lines and pulled up accordingly.

I've had very strange issues with the U8 and those lines in general. For example, I have a very lightly trimmed N64 (basically just A/V filtering and ground shielding) that would not boot if the two pins weren't shorted. After removing the U8 completely, it boots no problem.

It's not the only instance either. The board I have in my JB64 is also U8-less after it was giving me issues as well.

 

[Shank]

Insane.
I don't know too much about the N64. Of all the parts that are on that board, which ones are not off-the-shelf parts? Is it just the RCP, CPU, PIF and two RAM chips? Is there anything else stock that can be replaced or is this the ultimatum of "replacing everything"?

 

[ShockSlayer]

I blame SS

 

[stuckpixel]

Insane.
I don't know too much about the N64. Of all the parts that are on that board, which ones are not off-the-shelf parts? Is it just the RCP, CPU, PIF and two RAM chips? Is there anything else stock that can be replaced or is this the ultimatum of "replacing everything"?

Not sure about the PIF, but afaik, yeah the CPU, RCP and RAM are from an n64. I did hear (no clue if it's accurate or not) that Nintendo actually used an off-the-shelf CPU, and that there were ones that could replace the N64 CPU without issue. Of course, take that with a grain of salt, it could totally be hearsay, I haven't verified it. Maybe Marshal can shed some light on it for us.

 

[marshallh]

SUPP board is built. Gonna plug it in and hope $100 doesn't go up in flames.

Not sure about the PIF, but afaik, yeah the CPU, RCP and RAM are from an n64. I did hear (no clue if it's accurate or not) that Nintendo actually used an off-the-shelf CPU, and that there were ones that could replace the N64 CPU without issue. Of course, take that with a grain of salt, it could totally be hearsay, I haven't verified it. Maybe Marshal can shed some light on it for us.

It should be perfectly possible considering the first SGI Indy GIO Ultra board used a uPD branded chip.

 

[ShockSlayer]

you should be less concerned about flames and more concerned about what horrible influence I've used to corrupt it

 

[Doom]

You down with OPP PPR? ya you know me we are.

 

[marshallh]

We need to go deeper
3x3 inches