on a chip: asteroids pacman galaxians invaders

[rchadd]

http://fpgaarcade.com/

[fredster]

How does that work?  What do you plug the chip into?

[RacerX]

Just from browsing that page a bit, it looks like you plug it into an original arcade PCB.  Looks like a good solution if your ROM chips are bad.

[paigeoliver]

No, actually the chip is the WHOLE thing. Best to wire it up on a breadboard though. Once again, the chip is the whole thing.

[Stingray]

Not sure I'm following you Paige. What do you mean by "the chip is the whole thing"?

-S

[itismejs]

Not sure I'm following you Paige. What do you mean by "the chip is the whole thing"?

-S

I think he is saying the thing is self contained and ya attach a joystick and a monitor and yer good to go.

[Stingray]

I thought that was possibly what he meant, but the site shows it plugged into what looks like a ROM slot on an arcade PCB, so maybe I'm totally misinterpreting the picture.

-S

[Snarbald]

The way I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the chips can be used to replace a bad chip on an arcade pcb, but can also function as an entire board (assuming there's enough space.)

[patrickl]

I guess they do both. They sell replacement chips AND chips that could replace a whole pcb.

Original Pacman hardware in an FPGA

Modern FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) devices allow a whole 1980's arcade PCB to be fitted into a single chip  

You do need something to hook up the chip with the IO devices. IPerhaps they should have some examples showing how this works. You can see some pictures in the links from the games section though.

[tbombaci]

Looks like the boards are replacement for custom IC's not the ROM chips.

-Tom

[paigeoliver]

No, they confuse you by showing other things they can do.

I believe this picture best illustrates what they are doing.

[Pipercub]

I read their entire site and they go into deep detail about the terminology and technology of how the chip is made and the language used but not one usefull word about how the thing is used. They seem to indicate that it does not include the ROM image, so does it need a sub board with the original ROMs, do you need to have a programmer and transfer the ROM image to the IC? Video out, that is not covered at all. Not sure that this chip seriese is of any use. Now the custom IC replacements they sell for Galaga etc. are a different story, those are great and ready to go out of the box. I just wish the would make the 6 chip as well.

[spystyle]

After reading this thread I e-mail the guy for ya'll

Q: Please answer the questions in this thread :
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=6;action=post;threadid=23988;title=Post%2Breply;start=0

A: The Namco modules are drop in replacements for the original custom ICs.
The Code on the website is for complete pacman / asteroids etc games -
but you need to buy a 3rd party board to run them on. I am looking to
release a JAMMA card that will run the games at some point.

Cheers, Mike.
(mikej@freeuk.com)