From: Magnus Eriksson (mage2254_at_thedreamer.nospammail.net)
Date: 2006-11-18 19:13:25
Hi guys.
I was browsing through back issues of Elektor at the local library when
I
noticed an article about building an ECG (electrocardiogram) cartridge
for the
Gameboy(s).
The interesting bit was that it used a chip from ST to interface to
the
processor, and it was described as very good for interfacing to any
8-bit
era CPU.
So I looked it up, and it's pretty neat. The chip used was the
PSD813, but
there are some variations within the product line.
The family:
Flash In-System Programmable (ISP) Peripherals For 8-bit MCUs, 5V
http://www.st.com/stonline/products/literature/ds/7833.htm
Datasheet:
http://www.st.com/stonline/products/literature/ds/7833.pdf
Highlights:
* 27 I/O pins (but you lose 8 when interfacing to a 6502
(non-multiplexed) bus)
* Programmable logic (CPLD), "3000 gates"
* 1 or 2 Mbit (128/256K) Flash
* optional 256 kbit (32K) secondary Flash
* optional 16/64/256 kbit (2/8/32K) SRAM, battery-backupable
* Page mapping register (so you can access all that) :-)
* JTAG (for reprogramming)
I'm thinking that you could do some cool stuff with that, especially
the
programmable logic. It shouldn't even be that hard to hack up something
that
acts almost like a CIA/VIA. And that is before you figure out how to
offload
processing to the CPLD part. (First thought: GCR/MFM decoding?)
And then you get a busload of memory too. It doesn't look like it's
going to
fit very well into a tiny memory window, but it would be interesting to
try and
work around that.
Anyway; I figured someone here might have not heard about that sort of
thing,
and might be interested.
MAgnus
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