for those of us who love the retro computers and game consoles I came across this....

the Multiple Classic Computer http://mcc-home.com/

Looks like a pretty cool product. ^^ It looks pretty extendable software-wise too. ^^

Wow, very impressive. Looks like they are broke though. I wonder who funded it, how long it took and if they have made any money on such a HUGE amount of work.

Andre'

How can you tell they are broke? I wonder if they'll ever release the Amiga or Atari 2600 emulations? Also, I wonder if they give you enough technical information to program the FPGA and external hardware yourself.

I know they are selling units on thare web site and ebay.... from what I've read and heard they did get amiga done and are working on the atari..... thare is contact info on the web site for those who wan't develop for the MCC ....

I'll take that back, I don't think the amiga core is out yet.... but they did release an updated C64 core not to long a go....... shows they are still working on it, they could very well be a company started in someones basement .... with a small crew and that could be why things are slow....

from there web site;
if you would like to get a special developer version of the Multiple Classic Computer hardware and a Software Development Kit (SDK) to get started with VHDL or C
development, please contact us as well.

I sent them email asking about the cost of a developer unit and the SDK. I'll let you all know what I find out.

I got a response from the MCC people. It seems their dev unit is pretty much the same as their consumer units except that it doesn't come with the SD card with the C64 emulation or the CD of games or the joystick. It's just a bare unit that only includes the power supply. You need a JTAG programmer to reprogram the FPGA and you use the Lattice tools to develop VHLD or Verilog code. The FPGA only has 16K gates so that may be constraining for implementing anything very sophisticated. I guess if they can emulate the Amiga it isn't too bad though! I may order a end-user unit to play with the C64 emulation and also to use as an FPGA development platform. It's sort of like what I thought the original XGS was going to be had it come to market.

Well you can always code some badass C64 software. ^^

Though the lack of a Datasette drive is a downer.

I have to say that I really do love codeing on the C64..... I also like the Idea of a simple home computer or game console best of all both, that is fpga based .... I'm not really sure what the plan was for the XGS ????

The first time I heard about Nurve and the XGStation was at a Vintage Computer Festival a number of years ago where he showed prototypes of an XGS board with an ARM processor and and FPGA. He ended up deciding not to ship it for some reason. The first entry in the XGamestation FAQ addresses this.

http://www.xgamestation.com/faq.php#a0

OK I see what the XGS was and why it hasn't made it out..... I still have high hopes for that other thing " the one with ARM and Linux " .....

I think the XGS ARM/FPGA system would be cool too. It would be much better than this MCC thing because it would come with one of Andre's famous 500 page books that describe every detail of the system and how to use it. On the other hand, that may be why it will never appear. Writing a book that describes out to design digital logic for an FPGA might take far more than 500 pages...

I'm trying to squeeze the mach 64 into my budget this year so I can start exploring the whole logic thing after reading " the black art of video game console design " .... I wander if the guys who made the MCC read that book....

I bought a Mach64 a couple of months ago. it's very cool but I haven't found time to do much with mine yet. Unfortunately, I tend to buy more kits and boards than I really have time for. I suspect the next few months will be filled with Propeller programming and I won't get time to do anything with the Mach64 or the MCC for a while.

I have the hydra and some pic stuff... thats about it, I'm thinking of maybe getting a C3 since I allready know the prop.... I wander how much longer till prop2 comes out.... I haven't had any luck finding out anymore about greenarrays or thare chip other than whats on there web site....

I'm confused about the relationship between GreenArrays and InteilaSys. They both seem to be making multi-core Forth chips and they both seem to have Chuck Moore involved. IntellaSys used to have an expensive evaluation "key" with their Seaforth24 chip on it but it is no longer available and their eval board is quite expensive.

I have no idea really.... I came across them when I was looking to see if there was a forth for any of the pic's.... I really wish greenarrays had a demo board ....

Maybe you can convince SparkFun to make a board with a GreenArrays chip on it. They have a board with an XMOS chip. It could be that the GreenArrays chip is very expensive though. It can't be cheap to make a chip with 144 processors on it!

I never did contact them to see what the cost of the chip is.... but I know the tool called arrayforth is free.... if I get time I'll contact them... I'm a little busy I'm best man at one of my best friends wedding and I'm also one of the photographers and thats tomorrow.... in fact I shude be cleaning and checking my camera gear right now ....LOL....

The MCC looks pretty cool. $200 is a little out of budget right now, but if they finish the Amiga support, I might have to bite the bullet.

I'm posting this to see if adding another message will stop the BBS software from sending me endless emails... Sorry for the bogus message!

Good luck. Nothing seems to fix it -- Note to all future software engineers. "testing" a piece of software doesn't mean seeing if it runs on YOUR PC. It means installing it on 50 machines with various OS's, and loaded software configurations, service packs, and then outputting log files, and running a set of test scenarios, scripts, and making sure the results are all the same. Then you can consider the program "seems" to work. People need to stop compiling an app on their PC, then thinking its releasable commercially. Just puts 99.9% garbage on internet and wastes a lot of time.

Anyway, Dave let me know. There's not much else to try. I have done the suggested actions that the PHPBB board people say, but they don't know what's wrong either and 90% seem to be running on linux machines.

But, I am going to try and upgrade the BB one more time to the latest point release and maybe the "act" of a million files getting moved around, the DB accessed and updated something with break the broken bug, and it will work and NOT email --

However, I don't have 10-20 hours to deal with it if it breaks during the "hassle free upgrade" procedure - ya right.

Andre'

sorry to hear the board is still broken.... the MCC-216 is now shipping with the C64 and ATARI 2600 cores... I just droped by thare web site... no Amiga still ...

I'm realy hopeing they will do the tandy co co's ..... at least som of them....

The Amiga 500 core is out "(EDIT) its still a Beta" .... and they have an apple2 core as a Beta Version for test !!!!

looks like more and more bang for your retro gaming and computer buck ...

I'm buying one of these for myself for my birthday or at least Christmas....

Hey Philip, did you end up getting one of these? Also, has anyone on this board ever bought a MiniMig or other FPGA Amiga? If so, what was it like and did it fail to run anything? I want to get one, but I'm at a loss as to whether I should get the MCC, MiniMig or wait for the FPGAArcade to be released.

Cheers,
Lee

my friend got one 2 weeks ago.... and we have had a blast with it... "the mcc-216 that is" I need to come up with about $50 more to get one of my own .... if you like the retro thing, "ITS A MUST HAVE IN MY BOOK"... haven't tried the others you listed yet...

I hear they are doing the ZX Spectrum by Sinclair next for the mcc-216...