VIC-II FPGA prototype

Jeff Pare · Post by **Jeff Pare** » Mon Feb 01, 2021 3:12 am

Considering how many of the Commodore 64's part just die of old age, it's been a joy to see people creating very good modern replacements for problematic chips (PLA, SID). I learned today of someone working on an FPGA replacement for the VIC-II.

Here's the video

TomXP411 · Post by **TomXP411** » Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:03 pm

This is pretty great.

At this point, all of the C64 components have an FPGA version (and there are obviously full system FPGA cores, at least 3 that I know of.) At this point, someone could build a brand new Commodore 64 using FPGAs to replace all of the custom chips...

calcmandan · Post by **calcmandan** » Sun Feb 07, 2021 1:13 pm

I watched part of the video. The replacement is far and away superior to the original vic2. more colors, etc. Not sure if the loyalists of the original c64 would dig it that much. and only newer software could exploit the features.

Dmian · Post by **Dmian** » Sun Feb 07, 2021 7:50 pm

Randy is amazing! Both the VIC-II Kawari and the BMC64 are wonderful retro projects. And you can see he knows exactly what he’s doing.

You can replace the SID, the PLA, the ROMs and now the VIC-II.

The CPU you can kind of replace with a 65C02. Are there replacements for the 6526 CIAs, though?

kelli217 · Post by **kelli217** » Mon Feb 08, 2021 4:36 am

8 hours ago, Dmian said:

Are there replacements for the 6526 CIAs, though?

Someone is working on it: https://1nt3r.net/j-cia/

BruceMcF · Post by **BruceMcF** » Sat Feb 20, 2021 5:40 am

On 2/8/2021 at 12:36 PM, kelli217 said:

Someone is working on it: https://1nt3r.net/j-cia/

Yeah, it's got to be do-able, WDC sells FPGA cores of their VIA's.

Jeff Pare · Post by **Jeff Pare** » Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:43 pm

Adrian's Digital Basement on this Vic-II FPGA prototype. It's cool to see Adrian try it out.

Jeff Pare · Post by **Jeff Pare** » Sun Sep 19, 2021 2:47 pm

Latest update - "final" VIC-II Kawari board is ready and Randy is looking for beta testers - Go check the video here.

If you haven't, go look at the previous videos - I especially liked seeing a nice 80 column mode on a C64.

Kalvan · Post by **Kalvan** » Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:15 pm

It seems to be tripped up by the limits of a stock 6510.

I wonder what would happen if the 64K version was stuck into a Commodore 128...

Scott Robison · Post by **Scott Robison** » Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:35 pm

18 minutes ago, Kalvan said:

It seems to be tripped up by the limits of a stock 6510.

I wonder what would happen if the 64K version was stuck into a Commodore 128...

The 128 would be confused because the VIC IIe has more pins to support extra functionality that they added to the VIC II for the 128. Off the top of my head I think the VIC IIe was a 48 pin package vs the 40 pins of the original. {checks} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_VIC-II#The_VIC-IIe