Re: has anybody tried to replace a vic or vic II chip with a board containing a propeller ?

On Sunday 26 February 2012, you wrote:
> The
> various add-ons like the chameleon end up being bloated with features,
> besides needing a working machine. 

err? the chameleon runs fine standalone, no c64 needed :)

> If we had a drop-in replacement Vic-II
> with an extra connector with VGA output we could just plug it in. 

the problem here is that it wont get much cheaper.... you can see what this 
kind of stuff costs for the 1541u and chameleon - it wont get much cheaper 
than that by removing features. you are right that with fpga stuff almost 
inevitable feature creap kicks in - thats the problem with fpgas, they are so 
damn flexible =) however, considering the fact that it is quite realistic to 
think that such fpga core will have to go through a bunch of development and 
release cycles to fix bugs, you will for example at least need a way so the 
user can update it. then suddenly either mass storage (such as sd card) or usb 
connection becomes very attractive, because juggling with a stack of 5.25" 
floppies isnt really user friendly =P and you already mentioned VGA, once you 
add that, you want a "scandoubler/flickerfixer" too (since vga displays 
capable of displaying 50Hz arent exactly common either), meaning you will have 
to add RAM for a framebuffer. add some buttons and connectors, and guess what 
you have :)

> The nano
> swinSID is a great example of what can be done. It just drops in and it's
> relatively inexpensive.

no offence to the creator - its surely an interesting project. but as a true 
replacement (as in: replica), it still has a long way to go. IMHO software 
emulation for this kind of stuff has no future either, since in some years 
what i said about costs above wont be true anymore, and then replacements 
based on real logic will be the way to go.

-- 

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