Progress for the past few days has been slower than I’d like, but hey, progress is progress right?
Hardware Updates
I’ve finally ironed out the remaining bugs in the hardware interface with the propeller. Previously I had thought things were stable, but when I attempted to read back the frame buffer in my scroll code I would get corrupted data, frequent crashes, and hard lockups. I spent two long nights trying to figure out what was wrong with my code; turns out it was a couple of hardware issue…
Bus Buffer Timing
The first problem was with the propeller’s data bus buffer, a 74LVC245 used for converting the 5V signals from the rest of the system down to 3.3V. When the propeller isn’t being accessed this buffer was being held in a high-Z state by a signal called /PROPBE generated by one of my GALs. I suspect that this signal, which was generated from the output of a second GAL, introduced enough extra lag that the buffer was not shutting off fast enough. Putting that signal back under direct propeller control solved the random crashes and data corruption, but not the lockups.
Clock instability
The second problem was with the /STP signal used for clock stretching. This signal had been giving me problems since day one due to voltage level differences. The obvious solution of using an ACT series part for the flip-flop did NOT work; despite the data sheet claiming the 74ACT74 is TTL-level compatible it would not recognize 3.3V on the /PRE input. So, I had the signal hooked up with a pull-up to 5V and was relying on the propeller to pull it low. As it turns out, this only sort of worked, and it was enough to cause the CPU clock to randomly start and stop at weird times, violating the timing specs and causing random lockups. I finally gave up and just tossed a 74HCT04 inverter in front of that signal, since I had a few on-hand, and voila! No more lockups.
The system is now rock-solid as far as I’ve been able to tell. I’ve had it running for more than 48 hours with zero issues. I may even swap out the crystal and see if I can push it up to 4 MHz; previously this made the system horrendously unstable, but with the /STP issue fixed it may finally work.
Video
With the hardware issues sorted out I was finally able to get a basic console driver working, including scrolling. To celebrate I prettied up the boot screen:
The console code is still in that “hacky but at least it works” state. Some of this is due to the fact that I have been dragging my feet on implementing a real driver architecture in my BIOS. Fixing that is high on my priority list for ROM enhancements.
Another thing the console driver is sorely lacking is a robust set of control codes. I briefly considered implementing VT-100 for compatibility with the old serial console, but VT-100 is pretty complex and way overkill for my needs (and it would require a decimal parser in the console driver…yuck). Instead I’ve decided to go more Apple II-style using control characters. Right now the only thing implemented is Ctrl-A + byte to change the text attribute byte.
Sound
Not much to report here. I would like to code up a boot sound soon, but I have zero experience with the SID. I am hoping to find some code I can borrow for that.
Keyboard
Absolutely no progress here. I did briefly work on hooking up the PS/2 connection directly through the VIA, but abandoned it; I just didn’t want the VIA doing that much polling during interrupts. So, I’m back to my original plan of using an ATmega to handle the user input devices.
SPI
After much internal debate I think I’m going to offload SPI onto the ATmega instead of the propeller. The driving force here is that my current propeller interface just doesn’t really provide for a clean way to implement SPI. The shortage of I/O pins contributed as well.
The new plan is to designate the ATmega as the I/O coprocessor; it will handle SPI in addition to the keyboard, mouse, and game controllers. I have not yet decided HOW to do this, as this means the ATmega<->VIA interface will need to be bidirectional. I do have some ideas though.
Next Steps
This week’s number one priority is to get the ATmega interface up and running. Once that’s done I will implement the keyboard code and then finally be free of the serial console for now.
Time permitting I’d also like to finally start tackling the mess that is the BIOS. In fact I may make another post this week just talking about the BIOS design, as I’m finding that these posts help me think through my issues.
As always thanks for reading! 😉
