microcat - The ultimative ARM based handheld game console

[Dream of Omnimaga]

I don't care about which USB port is being used, as long as it's not deprecated (or if it is then the console should come with a cable in case people can no longer find any for sale anywhere). Nowadays, both mini and micro are common, but we never know how it will be when Microcat comes out.

[DarkestEx]

I don't care about which USB port is being used, as long as it's not deprecated (or if it is then the console should come with a cable in case people can no longer find any for sale anywhere). Nowadays, both mini and micro are common, but we never know how it will be when Microcat comes out.

Well I don't think USB mini cables won't be available in a few years anymore. The bare console won't come with any accessories (no SD, no cables) but the starter kit will. It contains the console, a mini USB cable (to charge it and connect it to a PC), a mini USB OTG cable (to connect USB devices to the microcat) and a micro SD card with the OS preinstalled.

[adekto]

hi guys just want to mention im doing the alpha branch on arduino, its more for proof of concept for the display buffer and all that
curently looking into realtime interpreters (been playing around with basic, but havent been able to display and run it at the same time)
any ideas for this are welcome

heres the working display buffer with a sprite and a background that sets random pixels in random colors

[DarkestEx]

After some more research and after talking to my uncle I think that I might go back and use serial for communication between the display and the processor, as serial communication is more stable and allows faster speeds than parallel does.
In a parallel bus, factors like trace inductance and length massively affect the maximum speed of the bus, as not all signals arrive at the same time, so the master has to wait until all signals arrive at the device. So I will switch back to serial (SPI) based communication with the OLED.

[Araidia]

hi guys just want to mention im doing the alpha branch on arduino, its more for proof of concept for the display buffer and all that
curently looking into realtime interpreters (been playing around with basic, but havent been able to display and run it at the same time)
any ideas for this are welcome

heres the working display buffer with a sprite and a background that sets random pixels in random colors

Wouldn't this be better as a separate thread?
Probably get better feedback than here.

[p4nix]

It's the microcat OLED, but not powered by the actual hardware of the actual microcat (yet), so this is the right topic I guess.

[DarkestEx]

It's the microcat OLED, but not powered by the actual hardware of the actual microcat (yet), so this is the right topic I guess.

Yes its alright. I am just porting his code to the actual hardware that finally works since today

[p4nix]

All the images are made with the microcat color palette then, i guess.

[DarkestEx]

All the images are made with the microcat color palette then, i guess.

Yes, but now the prototype has a working display and working processor, so we will switch to it now.

We did it! The processor works finally after more than 6 weeks and the display does work now too
It works stable up to its maximum frequency of 120MHz, which we reach using the PLL.

After some more research and after talking to my uncle I think that I might go back and use serial for communication between the display and the processor, as serial communication is more stable and allows faster speeds than parallel does.
In a parallel bus, factors like trace inductance and length massively affect the maximum speed of the bus, as not all signals arrive at the same time, so the master has to wait until all signals arrive at the device. So I will switch back to serial (SPI) based communication with the OLED.

Regarding that, after running the OLED as maximum SPI speed, SPI is barely fast enough. We will switch to parallel on the final unit if it works.

[novenary]

I think you shouldn't worry too much about that, you're not running at extreme clocks so it should be ok.

Also congrats on getting it to work.

[Dream of Omnimaga]

Congrats DarkestEx and Adekto. I'm glad that this project is getting more and more into hardware format.

[DarkestEx]

Congrats DarkestEx and Adekto. I'm glad that this project is getting more and more into hardware format.

Thanks

Here is a picture of the now competed BIOSes tiny text buffer in action:

[Dream of Omnimaga]

Good job. Are there risks of bricking the device if it loses power during booting or shutdown? Or does the bricking protection protects Microcat against that?

[DarkestEx]

Good job. Are there risks of bricking the device if it loses power during booting or shutdown? Or does the bricking protection protects Microcat against that?

There are no moving parts or anything that could brick it. But resetting it without a proper shutdown shell only be done on a freeze crash that is not handled by the chip itself. It might corrupt the data on the SD card.

[Dream of Omnimaga]

Ok phew, will the SD card still be formatable afterwards ir useless for any use?

Also I forgot: What is the max SD card size allowed?  And what about SDHC?