Retro-Computing with FPGAs

zoid.com writes "I ran across a couple of really interesting projects using Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) processors. First is the C-ONE project that is a reconfigurable computer. The default mode is a C64 compatible one, but the machine just boots the FPGA from an IDE device at power on, so it could theoretically be pretty much anything. The second one is the FPGA Arcade. This site is about recreating gaming hardware from the past in modern programmable devices. They currently have Pacman, Space Invaders and Galaxian implemented in FPGAs."

Comments

Why not...

[g4dget]

Why not get one of these and run this? You can get a complete system with power supply and nice case for less than just the C-ONE board alone costs.

Re:Custom SETI@Home chip.

[Space cowboy]

I thought about doing this for my own radio telescope. One day I might just get around to it :-)

The interesting thing about using an FPGA would be the speed of the FFT. With FFTW (the Fastest Fourier Transform in the West), I get approx 230 us (microseconds) per fft. Using an el-cheapo FFT, best efforts would be on the order of 15us, or approximately 15x faster... Bung several on a few PCBs, and you're talking super-computer speeds :-)

Say you use 16 FPGA implementations, that'd be the equivalent of 240 Athlon 1800XP's... With those sorts of speeds, you could do realtime chirp analysis for doppler effects on an incoming signal. That *would be cool* :-)

Simon.