2011-08-21 21:36:18
This weekend we were at Hackspett 2011 in Falköping. It replaces the old Atari-only event NAS, but is still organised by SAK. Other platforms were invited, but we mostly saw the same old guys who mostly brought their Ataris, but also the odd Amiga, C64 etc.

During the event we helped Pep input the timing register values for a 1920x1080p 60Hz (mono to 32 bits) resolution into his SV_XBIOS.PRG. This resolution is now selectable from his modified TOS resolution changer (looks like the original), which uses Vsetmode() using the two-byte modecode. So we used 1920x1080 during the party in XaAES under Mint, on a DVI TFT screen. To get this high resolution we used the so-called VESA CVT-RB (reduced blanking) timing, to reach high resolutions with a reduced pixel clock (138.653MHz in this case). Our 24" TFT had no problems with this timing on the VGA input either, so as long as you have a resonably new TFT screen, it should work for you.

Pep was otherwise deep in his work rewriting his SV_XBIOS program, and Henrik was busy coding other things on his falcon. I (Torbjörn) added a new bit to the SuperVidel copy of the 0xFF8266 register, which controls the colour depth of the Videl. The new bit enables 8-bit chunky mode in Videl resolutions on the SV output. This way you can easily change a current game/demo which runs in 8bit planar mode, into an 8bit chunky mode application, so you can lose the costly chunky-to-planar conversion during each frame... :-) All you need to do is set this bit to 1 when writing to the 0xFF8266 register.

2011-08-09 15:24:32
We found it necessary to take a break from the SuperVidel stuff during our own vacation. The component price quote has not been delivered to us yet since they want all documents from us to be able to give us a full quote instead, not just for the components. We'll shortly resume the work were we left it, to finish all documents.

2011-07-08 17:42:10
Several more weeks have passed without any word about the price quote. But this morning we got an email were they said that they have got in all the quotes and will do some more work before sending the result to us. They said we'll have it next week.

Last weekend we went to Sommarhack at Grådö, Dalarna, Sweden. The weather was quite a bit more pleasant this year than the last. The atmosphere was very relaxed, and it was nice to meet everyone again. Pep did some major rework on his NVDI drivers, but otherwise we did only minor things on the SuperVidel things.

2011-06-12 20:40:02
About a week ago we went to Outline 2011 in the Netherlands, and it was a pleasure as always, except the 15 hour car drive in both directions... :) The weather was very nice this time too, and it was good to see the old people again. Some progress was done on both the PCB layout, VHDL code and VDI/NVDI/XBIOS. For example, we now have working Videl compatibility output on DVI too, which we only had on VGA earlier. So the boot picture will show up on both VGA and DVI now. We haven't yet heard anything from the manufacturer about the price quote, but we hope it comes this week. They said there was very much work right now, so we're not surprised that it has taken a bit longer than usual.

2011-05-20 17:43:42
After a few days we got an answer from the manufacturer that they will start asking for component price quotes immediately. But it will likely take about two weeks before we get the quotes since there are extraordinarily many quote requests out there right now.

In the mean time we go on layouting the final SV changes.

2011-05-16 15:25:41
We received the oscilloscope last week (later than promised) and made some important measurements to decide the final component characteristics.

This weekend we finally completed the bill-of-materials for the SuperVidel and SVethLANa, and sent it to the manufacturer so they can give us a quote for the components. We still need to fix the last things on the SuperVidel layout before we can get the complete quote though.

We hoped to have the final price of the SuperVidel ready before Outline 2011, but that will probably not happen.

But we're still working all evenings and weekends to get it ready... :P