Re:First Infocom Z-machine implemented in hardware
by bajsejohannes on Sunday November 30, 2014 @08:49PM
(#8679107)
I wonder where he got that FPGA from. I can't find it nearly that cheap, and just looking at the FPGA chip itself, without the board, it costs $15. Am I missing something?
Re:First Infocom Z-machine implemented in hardware
by Narishma on Sunday November 30, 2014 @04:10PM
(#8678105)
Or you could just use a $2 micro-controller and run the vm in software.
Re:First Infocom Z-machine implemented in hardware
by techtalsky on Sunday November 30, 2014 @05:59PM
(#8678556)
Yeah, or you could just play candy crush on your phone. There's always going to be a cool level of dorky absorption that's great as a learning opportunity and obsession for people so inclined.
Re:First Infocom Z-machine implemented in hardware
by hga on Sunday November 30, 2014 @07:02PM
(#8678790)
In order to run multiple games, you need quite a bit of memory, either, say, a bare minimum of 32KiB to load into, or several times that in flash for them. RAM requirements aren't tiny, e.g. I'd guess more 1KiB, although I don't know this architecture (my "Infocom" experience is mostly with original Zork running on MIT-DM, a KA10 PDP-10, using a general purpose MDL language, although I only looked at code, didn't try to write any).
Does that bump the price of the required micro-controller up beyond $2?
It that a silly question in almost 2014 with Moore's Law still in effect ^_^?
Re:First Infocom Z-machine implemented in hardware
by morcheeba on Sunday November 30, 2014 @11:41PM
(#8679530)
This'll easily do it for $2.13 -- 256 KB FLASH + 32 KB RAM on a 40 MHz 32-bit ARM processor.
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/MB9AF314LAPMC1-G-JN...
Microcontroller RAM is expensive, but FPGA RAM is even more-so.
Sounds a bit crazy, but the bill of materials is very cheap, e.g. $10 FPGA, $4 for Flash and SRAM, not much else for I/O, runs fast (and is the author's first Verilog project, so no doubt speedups are possible).