Morpheus: 256 colors, high rez bitmap VGA, 0.5-7.5MB XMM - NEW: YouTube svga demo p15
Bill Henning
Posts: 6,445
And it was designed for Largos 
How's that for a teaser?
I am curious to see how much you guys can figure out about what it is from my postings in the last few months.... and how much of it you get right!
I should add that assembled and tested versions will also be available, and the design is 100% thru hole - no surface mount parts at all!
Photo's and more tomorrow.
UPDATE
Hi guys,
It's great to finally spill the beans... it has been so tough to not say anything over the last few months!
I'll post more details tomorrow, but you guys deserve at least the basics
Morpheus (rev 1.0a)
- Dual Propeller based single board computer designed for Largos, targeting education (including gaming) and industrial control (including consultants, engineers and hobbyists)
- currently available as a bare PCB, kits (including sockets and all the parts) will be available next week, optional high quality stacking connectors
CPU #1:
- 'designed for Largos' so that root fs is on SPI flash and SPI ram for edit buffer
- boot EEPROM
- Phillips PCF8563 Real Time Clock
- P0-P7 available for I/O expansion (optionally used by Mem+, see Mem+ features below), ProtoBoard compatible 10 pin header, all ucontroller.com modules should work out of the box on it
- P8-P15 two indepenend SPI memory sockets, P8-P11 used for 32KB SRAM or FRAM, P12-P15 for WinBond or compatible 4K page erasable FLASH, available up to 8MB (64Mb) in capacity, or optionally use for second ProtoBoard compatible header
- PS/2 Keyboard support (demo board compatible)
- PS/2 Mouse support (demo board compatible)
- stereo audio out
- DC input
- 3.3V and 5V voltage regulation on board
- dual filter capacitor support (standard .1uF ceramic, and tantalum/electrolytic capacitor support as per Saphiea's findings)
- 4 bit bus connecting to CPU #2
- controls RESET line of CPU #2
- can optionally drive XINPUT of CPU #2 from dedicated I/O pin instead of crystal (dial-a-cpu-frequency)
- PropPlug compatible programming header, adds optional fifth pin for 3.3V
CPU #2
- 4 bit bus to CPU #1 on P28-P31
- normally loaded by CPU #1, however has optional Prop plug compatible 5 pin programming header
- optional EEPROM for independent boot
- 512KB SRAM
- 24 bit address / 8 bit data FULL EXPANSION BUS ON 40 PIN HEADER
- VGA support, build time option for 64 color Parallax compatible mode or my extended 256 color mode
- working 1024x768 4 color driver, this week will have individual palette entries for each scan line
- 'coming REAL SOON NOW (1-2 weeks)' 256x192 256 color per pixel gaming mode
- soon thereafter sprites will be added - LOTS OF THEM, 16x16, 256 color palette
- working burst read speed: 20MB/sec at 80MHz (requires 3 cogs)
- working burst write speed: 20MB/sec at 80MHz (requires 3 cogs)
- can switch 'pages' in as little as three instructions (more below)
- setting address within a page takes one instruction
- easy to use 10MB/sec mode with random access within a 256 byte page
More on the memory design:
- 24 bit addressing, latched from P0-P15 when P26&27 are both low, P26 is ~RD, P27 is ~WR
- addresses $000000-$07FFFF reserved for memory mapped IO
- on-board 512K ram addressed from $200000-$27FFFF, but 'mirrored' thru $37FFFF (I did not have space to implement finer decoding, but see Mem+ section)
- $400000-$5FFFFF nominally for first Mem+ board
- $600000-$7FFFFF nominally for second Mem+ board
HOWEVER, if you take the ram chip off Morpheus and put it on a mem+ you can actually put FOUR Mem+ boards onto your stack for 7.5MB of static ram
If there is enough interest (by this I mean pre-orders after I figure out the potential price) I am willing to produce a surface mounted 8MB sram board that will take the memory space to a potential 15.5MB of ram on a Morpheus board
Mem+ board:
- Four sockets for 512KB memory chips for 2MB per board
- Jumper for selecting board address range ($000000-$1FFFFF,$200000-$3FFFFF,$400000-$5FFFFF,$600000-$7FFFFF) with minor limitations discussed below
- raises PropPlug compatible programming pins for CPU #1 to Mem+ for easy access
- ONE of the Mem+ boards installed in a stack may implement one or more of the four following optional additional functions
--- MAX3232 based serial port, with optional RESET transistor which as a jumper to disable reset, selectable DTR/RTS for reset, DB9 PCB mount footprint
--- MCP23S17 SPI I/O expander, uses four available pins of CPU#1 brought out to 2x5 ten pin headers along with GND and 3.3V - some may use these for joysticks
--- SD card interface, uses other four available pins of CPU#1
School board: (wifey calls it 'Icing on the cake')
- optional stacking headers for P0-7 and P8-15 on CPU 1
- position for stacking header for expansion bus (GND, +3.3V, +5V, ~RD, ~WR, A0-A23, D0-D7)
- solderless breadboard mounted on ProtoBoard format Morpheus specific stacking pattern
ALL BOARDS are 4.0'x3.05' with mounting holes matching Parallax standards
Morpheus is compatible with Ethernet, joystick, and other boards from ucontroller.com
[The PropGFX guys and some others had 256 color NTSC/PAL, but as far as I know I'm the first with VGA 256 colors on the market for the Prop - please correct me if I am wrong!]
www.mikronauts.com E-mail: mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com
My products: Morpheus / Mem+ / PropCade / FlexMem / VMCOG / Propteus / Proteus / SerPlug
and 6.250MHz Crystals to run Propellers at 100MHz & 5.0' OEM TFT VGA LCD modules
Las - Large model assembler Largos - upcoming nano operating system
Post Edited (Bill Henning) : 7/1/2010 12:18:07 AM GMT
How's that for a teaser?
I am curious to see how much you guys can figure out about what it is from my postings in the last few months.... and how much of it you get right!
I should add that assembled and tested versions will also be available, and the design is 100% thru hole - no surface mount parts at all!
Photo's and more tomorrow.
UPDATE
Hi guys,
It's great to finally spill the beans... it has been so tough to not say anything over the last few months!
I'll post more details tomorrow, but you guys deserve at least the basics
Morpheus (rev 1.0a)
- Dual Propeller based single board computer designed for Largos, targeting education (including gaming) and industrial control (including consultants, engineers and hobbyists)
- currently available as a bare PCB, kits (including sockets and all the parts) will be available next week, optional high quality stacking connectors
CPU #1:
- 'designed for Largos' so that root fs is on SPI flash and SPI ram for edit buffer
- boot EEPROM
- Phillips PCF8563 Real Time Clock
- P0-P7 available for I/O expansion (optionally used by Mem+, see Mem+ features below), ProtoBoard compatible 10 pin header, all ucontroller.com modules should work out of the box on it
- P8-P15 two indepenend SPI memory sockets, P8-P11 used for 32KB SRAM or FRAM, P12-P15 for WinBond or compatible 4K page erasable FLASH, available up to 8MB (64Mb) in capacity, or optionally use for second ProtoBoard compatible header
- PS/2 Keyboard support (demo board compatible)
- PS/2 Mouse support (demo board compatible)
- stereo audio out
- DC input
- 3.3V and 5V voltage regulation on board
- dual filter capacitor support (standard .1uF ceramic, and tantalum/electrolytic capacitor support as per Saphiea's findings)
- 4 bit bus connecting to CPU #2
- controls RESET line of CPU #2
- can optionally drive XINPUT of CPU #2 from dedicated I/O pin instead of crystal (dial-a-cpu-frequency)
- PropPlug compatible programming header, adds optional fifth pin for 3.3V
CPU #2
- 4 bit bus to CPU #1 on P28-P31
- normally loaded by CPU #1, however has optional Prop plug compatible 5 pin programming header
- optional EEPROM for independent boot
- 512KB SRAM
- 24 bit address / 8 bit data FULL EXPANSION BUS ON 40 PIN HEADER
- VGA support, build time option for 64 color Parallax compatible mode or my extended 256 color mode
- working 1024x768 4 color driver, this week will have individual palette entries for each scan line
- 'coming REAL SOON NOW (1-2 weeks)' 256x192 256 color per pixel gaming mode
- soon thereafter sprites will be added - LOTS OF THEM, 16x16, 256 color palette
- working burst read speed: 20MB/sec at 80MHz (requires 3 cogs)
- working burst write speed: 20MB/sec at 80MHz (requires 3 cogs)
- can switch 'pages' in as little as three instructions (more below)
- setting address within a page takes one instruction
- easy to use 10MB/sec mode with random access within a 256 byte page
More on the memory design:
- 24 bit addressing, latched from P0-P15 when P26&27 are both low, P26 is ~RD, P27 is ~WR
- addresses $000000-$07FFFF reserved for memory mapped IO
- on-board 512K ram addressed from $200000-$27FFFF, but 'mirrored' thru $37FFFF (I did not have space to implement finer decoding, but see Mem+ section)
- $400000-$5FFFFF nominally for first Mem+ board
- $600000-$7FFFFF nominally for second Mem+ board
HOWEVER, if you take the ram chip off Morpheus and put it on a mem+ you can actually put FOUR Mem+ boards onto your stack for 7.5MB of static ram
If there is enough interest (by this I mean pre-orders after I figure out the potential price) I am willing to produce a surface mounted 8MB sram board that will take the memory space to a potential 15.5MB of ram on a Morpheus board
Mem+ board:
- Four sockets for 512KB memory chips for 2MB per board
- Jumper for selecting board address range ($000000-$1FFFFF,$200000-$3FFFFF,$400000-$5FFFFF,$600000-$7FFFFF) with minor limitations discussed below
- raises PropPlug compatible programming pins for CPU #1 to Mem+ for easy access
- ONE of the Mem+ boards installed in a stack may implement one or more of the four following optional additional functions
--- MAX3232 based serial port, with optional RESET transistor which as a jumper to disable reset, selectable DTR/RTS for reset, DB9 PCB mount footprint
--- MCP23S17 SPI I/O expander, uses four available pins of CPU#1 brought out to 2x5 ten pin headers along with GND and 3.3V - some may use these for joysticks
--- SD card interface, uses other four available pins of CPU#1
School board: (wifey calls it 'Icing on the cake')
- optional stacking headers for P0-7 and P8-15 on CPU 1
- position for stacking header for expansion bus (GND, +3.3V, +5V, ~RD, ~WR, A0-A23, D0-D7)
- solderless breadboard mounted on ProtoBoard format Morpheus specific stacking pattern
ALL BOARDS are 4.0'x3.05' with mounting holes matching Parallax standards
Morpheus is compatible with Ethernet, joystick, and other boards from ucontroller.com
[The PropGFX guys and some others had 256 color NTSC/PAL, but as far as I know I'm the first with VGA 256 colors on the market for the Prop - please correct me if I am wrong!]
www.mikronauts.com E-mail: mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com
My products: Morpheus / Mem+ / PropCade / FlexMem / VMCOG / Propteus / Proteus / SerPlug
and 6.250MHz Crystals to run Propellers at 100MHz & 5.0' OEM TFT VGA LCD modules
Las - Large model assembler Largos - upcoming nano operating system
Post Edited (Bill Henning) : 7/1/2010 12:18:07 AM GMT
Comments
[noparse]:)[/noparse]
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New to the Propeller?
Visit the: The Propeller Pages @ Warranty Void.
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JMH
@James - Schroedinger did it! <points at someone else>
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Chris Savage
Parallax Engineering
Tee Hee!
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JMH
Post Edited (James Michael Huselton) : 6/24/2009 6:59:14 PM GMT
Are we there yet?
I never found Largos.
Was it posted?
humanoido
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Toys are microcontroled.
Robots are microcontroled.
I am microcontroled.
If it's not Parallax then don't even bother. :-)
Mini-Din/PS2 connectors are for sale! 5 for $1! PM me if you wish to make an order.
Propeller SRAM TV driver winner: ==NOT COMPLEATED:·1·WEEK UNTIL ENDING TIME==
My guess - a Prop operating system that has a compiler that runs under it
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Links to other interesting threads:
· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBladeProp, RamBlade, TwinBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: Micros eg Altair, and Terminals eg VT100 (Index) ZiCog (Z80), MoCog (6809)
· Search the Propeller forums (via Google)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm
Post Edited (Cluso99) : 6/25/2009 1:47:13 PM GMT
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JMH
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For me, the past is not over yet.
Maybe 8080 to LMM. Maybe something else.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
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Style and grace : Nil point
He who values friends over money......is rich
A saying I made up...needed it recently.
Earl
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JMH
Perhaps a way to run SPIN programs under Largos control? That would be great.
Ross.
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Catalina - a FREE C compiler for the Propeller - see Catalina
With such things I can not tinker.
But if I had to guess, I'd say you finally made the linker!!!!!!!!
humanoido
Largos is gestating, however I will show the shell at UPEW
I expect it will be another 2-3 months before I can release anything, but it will be great...
Bill
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my 6.250MHz custom Crystals now available - run your Propeller at 100MHz!
Las - Large model assembler for the Propeller (alpha version released)
Largos - a feature full nano operating system for the Propeller
www.mikronauts.com - a new blog about microcontrollers
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http://www.propgfx.co.uk/forum/·home of the PropGFX Lite
·
Seems to be a 2 Propeller solution with a 40 pin more or less traditional "bus" expandable from 512KB SRAM on one board to 2.5MB with a stackable expansion card (up to 16MB total?). He claims up to 20MB/s burst SRAM access. He also has some great graphics stuff. I bought a pair of PCB and look forward to bringing it up as time permits.
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--Steve
Propalyzer: Propeller PC Logic Analyzer
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=788230
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http://www.propgfx.co.uk/forum/·home of the PropGFX Lite
·
·What is Morpheus?
Chris
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http://www.propgfx.co.uk/forum/·home of the PropGFX Lite
·
No, tomorrow never comes.....but Largos will. I'm looking forward to seeing the video.
Post Edited (Ron Sutcliffe) : 6/29/2009 3:41:16 PM GMT
I was a little too preoccupied during UPEW with my own stuff to really appreciate what Bill has accomplished, but now, a day later, it's starting to sink in and it's really quite remarkable. I'm sure he'll be along any minute now to explain how the heck he gets Morpheus to do what it does.
My wife was lucky enough to win a Morpheus CPU board at the UPEW raffle, and Bill (and wife Agnes) generously comped us two memory boards. I guess it's time to solder some chips onto them and start exploring the world beyond 32k.
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http://www.propgfx.co.uk/forum/·home of the PropGFX Lite
·
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--Steve
Propalyzer: Propeller PC Logic Analyzer
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=788230
Jazzed: thank you for your kind words - and it was great to meet you! Thats a fair summary - I'll provide more details later in this thread and even more on my site tomorrow... as far as the honeymoon... I hope it will never be over [noparse]:)[/noparse]
mpark: it was great to meet you and your wife! I am amazed by your Sphinx compiler, and can't wait to try it. Largos will support it from the start. I know what you mean about being preoccupied... I can't wait to watch the video so I catch all of your presentation.
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my 6.250MHz custom Crystals available for running Propellers at 100MHz
Las - Large model assembler for the Propeller (alpha version released)
Largos - a feature full nano operating system for the Propeller
www.mikronauts.com - blog about microcontrollers, especially the Propeller, Morpheus and Mem+
It's great to finally spill the beans... it has been so tough to not say anything over the last few months!
I'll post more details tomorrow, but you guys deserve at least the basics [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Morpheus (rev 1.0a)
- Dual Propeller based single board computer designed for Largos, targeting education (including gaming) and industrial control (including consultants, engineers and hobbyists)
- currently available as a bare PCB, kits (including sockets and all the parts) will be available next week, optional high quality stacking connectors
CPU #1:
- "designed for Largos" so that root fs is on SPI flash and SPI ram for edit buffer
- boot EEPROM
- Phillips PCF8563 Real Time Clock
- P0-P7 available for I/O expansion (optionally used by Mem+, see Mem+ features below), ProtoBoard compatible 10 pin header, all ucontroller.com modules should work out of the box on it
- P8-P15 two indepenend SPI memory sockets, P8-P11 used for 32KB SRAM or FRAM, P12-P15 for WinBond or compatible 4K page erasable FLASH, available up to 8MB (64Mb) in capacity, or optionally use for second ProtoBoard compatible header
- PS/2 Keyboard support (demo board compatible)
- PS/2 Mouse support (demo board compatible)
- stereo audio out
- DC input
- 3.3V and 5V voltage regulation on board
- dual filter capacitor support (standard .1uF ceramic, and tantalum/electrolytic capacitor support as per Saphiea's findings)
- 4 bit bus connecting to CPU #2
- controls RESET line of CPU #2
- can optionally drive XINPUT of CPU #2 from dedicated I/O pin instead of crystal (dial-a-cpu-frequency)
- PropPlug compatible programming header, adds optional fifth pin for 3.3V
CPU #2
- 4 bit bus to CPU #1 on P28-P31
- normally loaded by CPU #1, however has optional Prop plug compatible 5 pin programming header
- optional EEPROM for independent boot
- 512KB SRAM
- 24 bit address / 8 bit data FULL EXPANSION BUS ON 40 PIN HEADER
- VGA support, build time option for 64 color Parallax compatible mode or my extended 256 color mode
- working 1024x768 4 color driver, this week will have individual palette entries for each scan line
- "coming REAL SOON NOW (1-2 weeks)" 256x192 256 color per pixel gaming mode
- soon thereafter sprites will be added - LOTS OF THEM, 16x16, 256 color palette
- working burst read speed: 20MB/sec at 80MHz (requires 3 cogs)
- working burst write speed: 20MB/sec at 80MHz (requires 3 cogs)
- can switch "pages" in as little as three instructions (more below)
- setting address within a page takes one instruction
- easy to use 10MB/sec mode with random access within a 256 byte page
More on the memory design:
- 24 bit addressing, latched from P0-P15 when P26&27 are both low, P26 is ~RD, P27 is ~WR
- addresses $000000-$07FFFF reserved for memory mapped IO
- on-board 512K ram addressed from $200000-$27FFFF, but "mirrored" thru $37FFFF (I did not have space to implement finer decoding, but see Mem+ section)
- $400000-$5FFFFF nominally for first Mem+ board
- $600000-$7FFFFF nominally for second Mem+ board
HOWEVER, if you take the ram chip off Morpheus and put it on a mem+ you can actually put FOUR Mem+ boards onto your stack for 7.5MB of static ram
If there is enough interest (by this I mean pre-orders after I figure out the potential price) I am willing to produce a surface mounted 8MB sram board that will take the memory space to a potential 15.5MB of ram on a Morpheus board
Mem+ board:
- Four sockets for 512KB memory chips for 2MB per board
- Jumper for selecting board address range ($000000-$1FFFFF,$200000-$3FFFFF,$400000-$5FFFFF,$600000-$7FFFFF) with minor limitations discussed below
- raises PropPlug compatible programming pins for CPU #1 to Mem+ for easy access
- ONE of the Mem+ boards installed in a stack may implement one or more of the four following optional additional functions
--- MAX3232 based serial port, with optional RESET transistor which as a jumper to disable reset, selectable DTR/RTS for reset, DB9 PCB mount footprint
--- MCP23S17 SPI I/O expander, uses four available pins of CPU#1 brought out to 2x5 ten pin headers along with GND and 3.3V - some may use these for joysticks [noparse]:)[/noparse]
--- SD card interface, uses other four available pins of CPU#1
School board: (wifey calls it "Icing on the cake")
- optional stacking headers for P0-7 and P8-15 on CPU 1
- position for stacking header for expansion bus (GND, +3.3V, +5V, ~RD, ~WR, A0-A23, D0-D7)
- solderless breadboard mounted on ProtoBoard format Morpheus specific stacking pattern
ALL BOARDS are 4.0"x3.05" with mounting holes matching Parallax standards
Morpheus is compatible with Ethernet, joystick, and other boards from ucontroller.com
[noparse][[/noparse]The PropGFX guys and some others had 256 color NTSC/PAL, but as far as I know I'm the first with VGA 256 colors on the market for the Prop - please correct me if I am wrong!]
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
my 6.250MHz custom Crystals available for running Propellers at 100MHz
Las - Large model assembler for the Propeller (alpha version released)
Largos - a feature full nano operating system for the Propeller
www.mikronauts.com - blog about microcontrollers, especially the Propeller, Morpheus and Mem+
Post Edited (Bill Henning) : 6/30/2009 7:50:28 AM GMT
Can hardly wait for another tomorrow.
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For me, the past is not over yet.