Bally Astrocade on FPGA
- Thread starter Macro
- Start date
Macro has done some amazing work on this core and we started talking a few months back. I'd done a lot of work on my own version of the Astrocade but using a Xilinx FPGA which is archaic when compared to MiSTer. What an amazing beast it is!
Anyway, the sound fixes came from that work but I still needed guidance from Macro. Being the proud owner of a (now dead) Gorf cab for the past decade this project has reinvigorated me. I used to play it for hours on end with just a solitary 10p piece as a kid. I'm sure Macro will get there and it will just carry on improving over time once his plug in boards are out in the wild. You'll already notice that a few of the Gorf speech samples have been fixed up now as well.
By the way, I tried my sound fixes on the original Astrocade core and they appear to have fixed that core up as well, BONUS! That's now all integrated
Anyway, the sound fixes came from that work but I still needed guidance from Macro. Being the proud owner of a (now dead) Gorf cab for the past decade this project has reinvigorated me. I used to play it for hours on end with just a solitary 10p piece as a kid. I'm sure Macro will get there and it will just carry on improving over time once his plug in boards are out in the wild. You'll already notice that a few of the Gorf speech samples have been fixed up now as well.
By the way, I tried my sound fixes on the original Astrocade core and they appear to have fixed that core up as well, BONUS! That's now all integrated
reggs said:By the way, I tried my sound fixes on the original Astrocade core and they appear to have fixed that core up as well, BONUS! That's now all integrated
just shows that that it must be correct
I have worked out which MiSTer pins I am going to use for ranking lights / joystick light (need to fix mine first), so should be able to start wiring up a prototype to do some testing (before committing to PCB)
none of the other games (except Seawolf II) need to drive anything
ideally, Gorf first, then WoW and possibly Space Zap and Robby Roto (unless I can put somehow combine all the necessary pins on a single PCB)
need to find myself a WoW cab I guess, since that would make a good multigame
Well, it's not going to be one PCB for all games, there is almost nothing in common between them with regard to pinout!
sticking 4 sets of J1/J2 on there is going to make it a big PCB!
plus it will may also need a power connection, since it looks like the power for some of the sub boards goes via the main PCB stack (but only for some cabinet types on some games)
anyway, so far all of the games will work with the control interface I was planning to use (you just don't get TEST, SLAM or COIN3 - but then why would you need them?
so, Gorf is going to be the first one (plus it is easier for me to test - I have a Gorf cab!)
sticking 4 sets of J1/J2 on there is going to make it a big PCB!
plus it will may also need a power connection, since it looks like the power for some of the sub boards goes via the main PCB stack (but only for some cabinet types on some games)
anyway, so far all of the games will work with the control interface I was planning to use (you just don't get TEST, SLAM or COIN3 - but then why would you need them?
so, Gorf is going to be the first one (plus it is easier for me to test - I have a Gorf cab!)
I've just came across this thread and read through it all. I own a gorf which is fully working but I always wonder how long it will last. One of my board sets died a while back so I'm very interested in this project. I don't know what these mister boards are but I've enjoyed reading through all the posts. So I will have a search about them.
Keep up the great work
Bean2020-10-07 11:41:40
Keep up the great work
Oh man I am sooooo glad to be reading this, amazing work
picking up a GORF project cab this week, the board set does not work but I have a set on loan to find out what the issue is hoping that it is not the custom IC, this is great news and I will definitely be up for one.
Stickman2020-10-07 14:57:30
Stickman2020-10-07 14:57:30
Great progress Mike
Nothing stopping you beta testing the software side of it now Ravlar. Grab a MiSTer setup, a JPAC, make a loom and away you go! 
Ravage said:Macro said:
As you know I’ll definitely be up for one for my poorly gorf (game board Card problem)...
But also happy to lend you my WoW cab if it helps - or I can beta test
It should only need a DE10-Nano and the PCB I'm trying to make!
I've changed the samples (for speech) to use the onboard DDRAM (it won't rotate the picture - but if it's in cab, you wouldn't want it to anyway)
the PCB will be the bits needed from the IO board plus some extra bits, for lights etc., and everything else is just the standard DE10 board.
of course, then you can't switch it to run some of the other games that need SDRAM, so depends if you are keeping it as dedicated cab or want to run lots of things!
I've changed the samples (for speech) to use the onboard DDRAM (it won't rotate the picture - but if it's in cab, you wouldn't want it to anyway)
the PCB will be the bits needed from the IO board plus some extra bits, for lights etc., and everything else is just the standard DE10 board.
of course, then you can't switch it to run some of the other games that need SDRAM, so depends if you are keeping it as dedicated cab or want to run lots of things!
For those with a MiSTer already, Wizard or Wor now has speech (via samples) and it also supports Gorf program 1 with speech. (not done by me but by Reggs, but handy just the same)
With a special build it will also support the samples on a standard DE10-Nano, so you don't have to add an SDRAM board. (keeps the price down a little)
PCB is complete (on paper!) - it will be two boards, a conversion board to handle the video, inputs and outputs, and a 'personality module' which will then adapt it to work with whatever game you want to plug it into, which could be anything that has 16 or less inputs, 8 or less outputs and 6 bit video - so Discs of Tron enviro may be possible ..!
At the moment power is not taken from the game, may change that at some point, probably when it goes SMT
anyway, now to bung the lot into Eagle and get some prototypes ordered (and sort the Gorf cab out a bit so I can actually plug this thing in at some point)
Macro2020-10-25 22:52:17
With a special build it will also support the samples on a standard DE10-Nano, so you don't have to add an SDRAM board. (keeps the price down a little)
PCB is complete (on paper!) - it will be two boards, a conversion board to handle the video, inputs and outputs, and a 'personality module' which will then adapt it to work with whatever game you want to plug it into, which could be anything that has 16 or less inputs, 8 or less outputs and 6 bit video - so Discs of Tron enviro may be possible ..!
At the moment power is not taken from the game, may change that at some point, probably when it goes SMT
anyway, now to bung the lot into Eagle and get some prototypes ordered (and sort the Gorf cab out a bit so I can actually plug this thing in at some point)
Macro2020-10-25 22:52:17
Excellent work Mike
This is being designed to hook up to a real cab as a replacement for the logic boards