The Sinclair QL Forum

Hello everyone;

I am working currently on a hardware/software project, as a hobby, to emulate the QL on a MIPS SOC, an ingenic M150 to be precise. The hardware schematics are nearly done, some edges are still there, waiting to be ironed out. My hope is to have somewhen a box with which one can program S(uper)Basic, play with hardware attached and dive into 68K programming, and maybe, at a later state, one can even execute native MIPS functions, created by a MIPS assembler running under QDOS. Before I chose the MIPS SOC I thought about >>yet another FPGA project<<, but I believe a 1:1 replica does not lead to anything new, it is just what it is. A modern SOC on the other hand has so many possibilities; existing software can evolve into something new, make things possible, which are currently not. One just need a compiler and some ideas, no electronic or FPGA knowledge is required. For me, that is a room with a lot of doors, which can be opened; new frontiers, which want to be explored, even for beginners. The M150 offers a lot of those opportunities without being too complex. No 3D accelerator, no NDA gimmicks, just plain good silicon, with each and any bit documented. That is one reason why I chose it, the second reason is, it is totally cheap, and can be handled on a two layer board without the hassle of DDR routing. Hardware should be as plain as possible, to make room for ideas.

At the current state, QLish offers:

a) System bus, 16Bit data, five address lines, IRQs, two chip selects
b) two RS232c
c) PS/2 Keyboard, PS/2 Mouse
d) GPIO port with up to 24 general purpose I/Os (3.3v TTL), 3 ADC, 4 PWM, SPI, I2C
e) two Joystick ports [1st edge]
f) two SD card slots as MDV replacement.
g) 100MBit Ethernet
h) Audio In/Out (Line In, Line Out) [2nd edge]
i) PIC16F1509 supervisor for boot select and reset/watchdog
j) Camera port on GPIO connector
k) 1GHz ingenic MIPS, 128MByte mDDR, aux. CPU (noFPU, but SIMD)

Once the schematics are finished, I will work on a enclosure. My goal would be to have something similar to the QL MDV bay section. In other words - an QL without keyboard.

Comments, suggestions would be more than welcome.

I've finally been able to download the ftp://ftp.ingenic.com/SOC/M150/M150_DS.PDF data sheet! For the last few days the link to it fails after timing out. Surely not from traffic generated by your post

Interesting device, very small and powerful. You must have access to facilities to be able to a mount 261-pin BGA package

I like your approach of 'a room with a lot of doors' - get a basic system up and running and then over time develop/explore the hardware facilities later. Sounds like it could be the QL version of the Raspberry Pi.

I picked up a couple of cheap SGI Indy many years ago and downloaded all the MIPS assembly programming tools/manuals but just lost interest with the amount of system info also required (IRIX). SGI very nice hardware though, for its time. The M150 with 'just plain good silicon, with each and any bit documented' sounds more appealing.

Hi!

Silvester wrote:I've finally been able to download the ftp://ftp.ingenic.com/SOC/M150/M150_DS.PDF data sheet! For the last few days the link to it fails after timing out.

Would you believe, if I would tell you, that I have sometimes the same problems, even from within China...They make nice CPUs and SOCs, but if it comes to those basic >>marketing<< parts... on the other hand, it is better that way as the other way around...
I will have to find a way to publish all related information, esp. those you can not download from ingenic directly, on a web site somewhere. When I have something to show (at least schematics) I will get in contact with Quanta, pay my share, and ask for support. Maybe there would be a good home for the project. If they would be interested, that is.

Silvester wrote: Surely not from traffic generated by your post

Well...100 views and counting...couldn't imagine a better place to promote a new SOC...
I will get kicked out for that one...

Silvester wrote: Interesting device, very small and powerful.

More small then powerful, but I do believe that is is a good match for this project. Why take a SOC with 3D GPU and multiple cores? The software to support that parts is not existing, neither on the vanilla QL (QDOS) nor its modern siblings. Thus, why starting complicated?
One nifty feature of the ingenic SOC is, that the LCD controller can support video timings independently of the size of the frame buffers.
For example, one can set the LCD controller to a static 1024x768 VGA output and set a nice background color to it. The frame buffer could be set to 512x256 and can be placed freely somewhere within that (1024x768) region, even moved. I do believe it will make things easier later for the emulator. And, there is a second independent frame buffer to play with...Both can be faded in and out.

Silvester wrote: You must have access to facilities to be able to a mount 261-pin BGA package

Ehm...we do all kind of stuff, the M150 is a >>little<< one. But it sounds more impressive then it really is. The environment is really great. We couldn't do it someplace else.
If it comes to these small structures, Germany has nothing similar. At least nothing for a recent, affordable price. Expensive, sure there is. But it is hard to find a PCB factory in Germany which is able to do embedded capacitors, in China that's standard. We do R&D and assembling on a >>small<< scale, from a Chinese perspective.

Silvester wrote: I like your approach of 'a room with a lot of doors' - get a basic system up and running and then over time develop/explore the hardware facilities later. Sounds like it could be the QL version of the Raspberry Pi.

I never looked into the rPI, because:
a) it is a photo frame SOC, not my area of expertise.
b) all the interesting bits have been closed source, even though, that is not true anymore.
c) it is a monopoly, no one else is able to buy that SOC. A lot tried...none succeeded.
d) Now there is a rPI2, thus the future of rPI1 is to a certain extend, uncertain.

Silvester wrote: I picked up a couple of cheap SGI Indy many years ago and downloaded all the MIPS assembly programming tools/manuals but just lost interest with the amount of system info also required (IRIX). SGI very nice hardware though, for its time.

Yes, they are! I own one myself, R5000 24Bit graphics. But I rarely switch it on, as it generates too much noise. On the other hand, I like the startup jingle...ba da bap da...bam.
SGI MIPS are big endian machines, where the M150 is little endian, exclusively and unfortunately. I do not think that the SGI compiler supports MIPSEL as target. But gcc does, and it is also avail able on IRIX. Would be a nice reason to warm up that old iron. I really do like IRIX, very straight forward. Very focused. Excellent environment, very professional, super stable. Sadly, they couldn't compete against MS\NVIDIA.

Silvester wrote: The M150 with 'just plain good silicon, with each and any bit documented' sounds more appealing.

I like to have access to all documents needed. And ingenic is the exception of the rule, that Chinese SOC vendors do not provide documentation. I knew one SOC manufacturer once, who was not willing to provide the Linux kernel sources used for the SOC, an quad ARM A5, if my memory serves me right. Funnily, located in the same town where also Allwinner resists, ZhuHai, directly behind Macao, China's romantic town. Instead, they gave the headers and asked us to program kernel modules against it...well, naturally that approach did not went far.
Their documentation consisted of three Excel sheets with GPIO, Functions and power. The project with them was faster canceled, then it took my assistant to look up the telephone number from their web site.

To be fair summer time is always very quiet in the QL world, although this year the forum does seem busier than usual. Everyone goes outside to play rather than staying in doors

I have an R10k Indigo 2, I should really fire it up sometime and check it still works

Interesting post, Sprinter.

If the QLish is viable then I think it would far easier, and better in the long run, to develop MIPS tools on the QL itself, right from the outset. I have quickly refreshed my memory on the instruction set and don't see it would be too difficult to realise an assembler etc on the QL. It would be a far more comfortable environment (for myself at least). On a fast QL platform it's quite feasible to write one in SuperBASIC first, I did one for the old INS8060. Then once the model has been proven (the most tedious part) coding it in 68000 assembler would be straightforward.

I have an R10k Indigo 2, I should really fire it up sometime and check it still works

Last time I powered up the Indys I found both Dallas battery-backed chips were dead - had to drill out batteries (http://www.deblauweschicht.nl/tinkering ... ttery.html). Then I discovered the SGI monitor had died - turned out all the SMD electrolytic capacitors on the micro controller PCB had gone leaky - not only electrically, but physically (all 26 of them!).