It wasn't until you shown Randy's website page that I realised that this is the same guy that developed the BMC64 emulator for the Raspberry Pi, which is a fantastic bare metal fork of VICE. The guy's a genius.
It's great to see new replacements being made for these old chips. As more time passes, the number of still-working originals will only decrease, so it's good to have options for anything not being manufactured today
Sorry to be so off topic but does anybody know a trick to log back into an instagram account..? I was dumb lost the account password. I appreciate any help you can offer me
What the PAL palette has going for it is that the colours blend well. This has been used to great effect to produce natural looking images in a lot of demoscene productions, and it was taken advantage of by some games too. With the NTSC palette things look more garish, and that's not necessarily a good thing.
This is one of those "shut up and take my money" moments. About the extras that could be incorporated into this device. I think the DTV screen modes would be a nice addition. The DTV has a chunky 256 color mode and a blitter. There are some demo's out there that use them already. Oh and yes! the colours in PAL land are a bit lackluster :-( I would love more vibrant colours.
This would be very cool in a RGB version.. Also HDMI for some people but I'm lucky enough to still be running CRTs.. Well I spoke too soon. 15khz RGB later in the video
I join this statement. It would be nice to keep the advanced video modes, even if they are difficult to program for, I'm certain the community will eventually make use of them regardless.
@@winstonsmith478 Yep. At some point you're just keeping that C64 on your desk because you like the chassis. Probably better off running a MiSTer or a software emulator if you're going to replace half the chips with FPGA equivalents.
@@flow221 the point is more to be able to have all the replacement parts available for people to keep their old ones going, when all the original chips are finally gone. Of course some folks will make “100% new component C64s!!!!” for videos but that’s not really the point of them. I think it’s great, the computing scene is evolving to be more like the car scene. Where for the right old car you can get totally new body panel pieces, totally new interior trim, etc.
@@kaitlyn__L Of course I understand why these replacements are being made and I'm always impressed by the talent and ingenuity of the people doing the work. But, yes, at some point in my entirely subjective opinion it starts to get silly. Much like a '69 Charger that's been gutted and rebuilt from the chassis up, you're just keeping something because you like how it looks not because it accurately represents the device it was at release.
@@flow221 yeah, I think your final sentence is an accurate assessment. Loads of cars are deemed unusable with stock engines and then the only point is how it looks. Yep.
The PAL colour palette isn't "muted", NTSC colours are comparatively oversaturated. Which was done because of the way PAL and NTSC colours are encoded, with PAL having better colour stability (the same chroma signal gives the same colour every time). That's why NTSC has a tint control which allows you to shift the chroma, and PAL does not. Which means that on European screens, the PAL palette you are showing would be much more vibrant since the CRT's would be adjusted differently.
Indeed. I was about to comment that there was something wrong with Adrian's PAL palette because my PAL C64 and multinorm Sony Trinitron video monitor does show PAL palette almost as vibrant as Adrian's NTSC palette.
While you’re correct about PAL being more stable, you’re wrong about the C64 output. The PAL machines do produce more muted colours. Tint has nothing to do with saturation.
@@claw_md The point is that because the PAL colour rendition is more stable, the output can be less saturated to reproduce the same colours (by adjusting the CRT to higher color gain). On a multisystem monitor you would notice the difference, but on a PAL only television the colour palette is almost as vibrant as the NTSC one. It's because PAL specifies the colour standard as less saturated compared to NTSC, so "full blue" in PAL standard would be more like 70% blue in NTSC standards. And that is something you would notice particularly in red.
If I'm not mistaken PAL and NTSC Tv's use different color gamma curves. I kind of assume this is related to the color differences as well if not the actual reason.
I'm from Europe, more specifically from Serbia, and I had a C64 in the '80s. At the time, I thought something was wrong with my computer because the colors were “washed out,” and I was jealous of a friend who had an amstrad 464 and who had bright and beautiful colors. Later, dealing with computers, I learned that NTSC C64 also had beautiful and bright colors. Definitely PAL C64 users were in some way "damaged" compared to NTSC users. Great greetings from a regular viewer from Serbia!
PAL indeed has the more pastel color palette than the NTSC. I didn’t even realize that NTSC is so vibrant. I’ve been following Randy’s project on his YT channel. I kinda hope he would incorporate the 256 color palette of the second and third revision DTV into the Kawari. A great video as always!
Yes, i live in PAL region, i always wondered why they made the C64 colour so "brown", now this explains it. I also wasn't aware that NTSC looked so different.
Randy Rossi is incredible!! I have his BMC64 running on a Pi3 in a C64 case with the original keyboard connected to the GPIO pins... Really impressive work!
Wow! I am so impressed with this project! I would love to have true hdmi out for my c64. One chip to rule them all! I can’t wait for the day this is released.
This is absolutely insane... I came here after your ROMulator video, and I can't believe this kind of stuff actually exists. I can't imagine how much work you need to put in to create these things...
Now that there’s now good FPGA clones of both the VIC-II and the SID, I’d love to see their respective cores get integrated into a single FPGA-based C64-on-a-chip which lets you choose all the different hardware revisions to get the perfect C64 for every game.
Adrian, what a win! I'm not sure if I'm THE person who introduced you to this project, but I am def one of them. I'm so glad you two are working together on this project. I'm so excited to see the '64 inch one chip forward to going back into full open source production to live into the 21at cen.
I love your content because you always go above and beyond in testing and demonstration of products, submissions and (of course) candy. In regards to testing the VIC-II FPGA I always use the 'EDGE OF DISGRACE' demo to test my C64s. There is another VIC-II FPGA project that you are probably aware of by c0pperDragon which outputs analog component, but it still requires the original VIC-II for clock generation.
I've been following this for a while and it's pretty incredible! I do hope that the stock video gets addressed, but even without it, this brings us one step closer to using our beloved C64s for the forseeable future! Thanks for testing it for us!
I live in uk and my c64 was a pal. I never understood and was always disappointed with the colour. It was washed out unlike the zx spectrum at the time. The Amiga that I purchased had vibrant colour. I could never figure out why. Watching this was really enlightening. Thankyou for clearing that up and Keep up the good work. 👍🤓 Ron from Gosport Uk.
This is the perfect project to experiment with as "GPU Upgrade"... Just think of what the C64 could do with features like more hardware sprites and a bigger working palette... The Amiga scene already has modern crazy upgrades like the Vampire accelerators so why not the 64
@@peshozmiata What struck me is that one of the Commodore's appeals was it's cheapness, and as they become collector's items, upgrading them with expensive parts is less appealing. You could get a C64 Maxi. Or, as far as GPU experiments go, you could use a $5-10 Raspberry Pi Zero to interface with HDMI, maybe using it as a remote terminal, but even that is kind of silly, when you could easily emulate the entire Commodore with VICE with speeds several times faster, on that same Pi Zero, and tweak the emulator software. Also, the later Amigas are 32-bit:.that's a big advance over 8-bit C64s. The Vampire 4 isn't even an accelerator, it's basically a replacement for an Amiga.To me, this has too narrow applications to ever be viable as a mass produced product. It may appeal to you and Adrian, but don't count your chickens...
@@squirlmy The retro-computing hobby isn't a practical one, you can easily just emulate any system you like even on a potato rPi and get roughly the same experience. To me the appeal has always been in messing around with old junk more than actually using it to play games and such. The problem with addons like the vampire accelerators is the price, it makes no sense to spend that much money on something that's neither period-authentic, nor comparable to modern all-in-ones in the same price range. If a VIC-II upgrade board would cost around 30-50$ and was designed in a way you could build it yourself, it would be fairly popular.
@@artstrutzenberg7197 The board he used here is a Mojo V3 which uses an FPGA by a company called Xilinx. The FPGA itself is known as the Spartan-6. Unlike most microcontrollers today where you can program them any way you want, FPGAs must ultimately use hyper specific tools from the vendors at the end of the process, and they're... weird. WebPACK ISE is the previous generation of Xilinx's development tools that support chips up to the Spartan-6 and it's just an old environment to work in. It doesn't support SystemVerilog or any of the few niceities added by their latest Vivada tool (the direct successor to WebPACK ISE). EDIT: And the reason they're hair-pulling-out is that they have lots of oddness. You'll get "critical warnings" when working in it that half the time are meaningless, or you'll get a really obscure error that means you should really buffer a clock signal and everything's OK, or something like that. It's just really not friendly sometimes to the point of feeling like it's trying to stop you intentionally :P
@@adamsfusion pretty much this, basically all FPGA dev environments I've ever had the misfortune to have to deal with are horrible, cantankerous pains in the backside.
Creatures by Thalamus might be a good game to test. The first level can trigger the VSP bug some later VIC IIs suffer from. On PAL tv's we have a Saturation control to make the colours pop. The challenge was finding the right balance between normal tv and the c64 so you didn't have to adjust it all the time ;)
I never had an issue with Creatures - my C64C is pretty much VSP-safe, but Mayhem in Monsterland could sometimes have scrolling glitches and character corruption if I ran it with an action replay connected so for me that is a worst-case scenario for testing. (Another bonus is the game is fun so it shouldn't be a chore to test:)
5:50 the HDMI TX PHY can be omitted too, by using SERDES in the FPGA to generate the TMDS signals for HDMI directly. There are several projects (including one on my github) that can generate HDMI without that IC.
I never had a Vic 20 or Commodore 64, but this HDMI Adapter makes me wanna think about getting one, I love Vintage Computers. The only thing holding me back from getting all the old PC's including a PC jr. which was truly my very first PC, and I got it when it first was released. Give Randy a big thumbs up for this prototype project. He needs to start a Kickstarter project, I'm sure there are many Commodore users that would def be interested in this FPGA replacement.
I'm used to seeing the somewhat muted PAL colours and honestly I'm loving the NTSC ones a lot more, what a great project! I do love all sorts of video mods for old computers and consoles though and am not of the nostalgic sort about CRTs and like it looking as crisp as possible.
About the washed out PAL colours: Back in the 80's I had a PAL machine but don't remember the colours being washed like you showed. To me the colours were great (using svideo/scart output), but of course I can't compare to what NTSC looked.
Off topic question... what is the beige box device on the shelf about your workbench at 33:21? It's the 3rd box stacked vertically above the PET sticker, just to the left of the DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE sign. I have a similar shaped box but it is dark brown with a different front panel that is a B&K NTSC Generator, model 1249A.
@@azyfloof No. I am referring to what is seen at 33:21. Note that Rigol scope is under the DANGER sign, not left of the sign. I updated my post above to be less vague.
this is such a cool project ...I hope he releases this ..I suspect even if its much more expensive than a 'real' VIC-II chip it'll sell well ...I've never seen a C64 output image look so sharp.
Thanks for the video and showing this off, Adrian:) PAL Colors: You are thinking in the right direction ... but not enough. If my (PAL) Colors would look washed out, I'd adjust them to look normal and wonderful ... like you or other "NTSC people" do. This must be some urban legend about the gray cities behind the iron curtain (joking). Good looking Colors are achieved with calibration. On the one side PAL Signals on a adjusted PAL Monitor and on the other side the same with the NTSC-Standard. If you cross exchange standards by misconnecting the families over cross ... it is no wonder that the result isn't pleasing:) P.S.: I'm not talking about the maximum available bandwidth of the color spectrum of the various color transmission systems, with "Never The Same Color“ doing poorly ... if you calibrate incorrectly. See phase of hue and vertical interval reference method (VIR). ... oh and please don't forget that we are all unique individuals with unique perceptions. Also that of colors. Only a calibration device can provide clarity. Most of us don't spend $500 on this, though.
I don't have a C64, and didn't ever use one growing up as compared to the Apple IIc I began computing on. This piece of hardware makes me want to get a C64.
I've been seeing a lot of Commodore reproduction kits, done by The 8-Bit Guy, Retro Recipes, etc. The latter actually pointed me to this project. There are many who would like the chance to build things like these!
Oh man this is perfect, I recently stole a working Vic II from a breadboard to fix an SX, and haven't found a cheap replacement since. I guess I'll hold onto my money until this is finished!
No original video output is a dealbreaker for me. Thanks for requesting the feature. Also, would like to see demoscene productions on this. How does it handle rapid switching of screenmodes and VSP.
I have severalf PAL machines. In my experience, the 64C assy 250469, using the 8566 VICII have the dullest pallette while assy 250466 long board is brightest / most saturated - especially the red.
only one thing missing: a true CRT emulation on the HDMI output... to overcome that I made a small software for my smart tv but that emulates only scanlines and the shadowmask but on the fpga it could be also possible to emulate the distorsions and virtual phosphors persistence as in many very good opengl shaders like "crt geom" to name one.
I got a similar thing for my 48K Spectrum that enables HDMI, it's the ZX-HD that plugs right in at the back of the machine and it's absolutely fantastic. I also have the DIvMMC that makes it possible to load games from a SD card, no more waiting for the tape to load.
Adrian thank you so much for addressing the 15Khz sync combiner feature. I've mentioned the need for 15 Khz on his channel but he wasn't much interested. I'm actually surprised he even included it. I'm so glad 15 Khz is there and we can use a proper 1084S.
This totally reminds me of the VidHD for the Apple 2 by John Brooks. I have one in my Apple IIgs for HDMI, since those RGB monitors are hard to come by.
That looks spectacular. I got into RGB-modding SNES consoles and buying Trinitron PVMs and was pretty happy... just in time for the FPGA SNES clones to come out. I won't go back. This is the future, and it's good.
Excellent! Props to the developer. Out of curiosity do the C=64's video ports still work with this VIC II? FWIW: There's a similar project for the BBC Micro's ULA - truly excellent, lots of new modes and programable colour palette - I guess the latter is the most useful addition for both projects as they add something useful that can be used with old software.
This project is amazing! I can't wait to see where it goes! Using a DVI-I connector for both digital and analog video is a great idea... it also avoids having to pay any HDMI licensing fees.
F**k the stupid licence. He could buy HDMI sockets from china really cheap. Im pretty sure chinese ebay sellers don't care about any licence either. They'll just manufacture the connectors anyway.
@@simontay4851 It's not just the connectors. If you want to make a commercial HDMI equipped product, there are license fees to be paid. When you buy a HDMI driver chip, part of that cost is the license fee to use the HDMI IP. You use HDMI, you pay.
This is super cool. I keep a spare C64 just in case I need it for parts. I would love this especially with the added functionality. Some day I'd also like to ZIF my Breadbox, but my soldering skills are middling.
Love the channel and the content, always leave with serious envy, wish there were as many modern mods for the Atari ST as that is the only retro micro that I still own.
THAT IS AWESOME!!! I can't wait to see what it looks like when the design is refined. Great project! Now I'm wondering what else he could add: additional sprites? 256 color mode? Let's use all the mirrored addresses! :)
On my pal machine I have never noticed such dim colors. But I'm using a 1084s monitor where you adjust the signal. Without correction the picture is for sure, pretty pale.
This video I was waiting for:. Glad Randy send his prototype to the correct channel👍🏻😁 Its these things are being developped, I would buy one. Please dont remove the extra and hi-res functions, its a great feauture imho.
Cool project. One note on the composite sync; it should be clean c-sync and not composite video as sync because there are some PVMs and video processors that will not take composite sync. Sorry if you already know this, but sometimes people get that confused.
Neat piece of hardware! I'm curious how well this works with the various FLI-mode demos. As I recall, those techniques take advantage of some undocumented/hidden features of the VIC-II to produce images that appear to have more than 16 colors, but at lower resolutions and with two images being quickly swapped on the screen.
Been following Randy for a while now and his videos always makes me feel extra stupid :) His projects like the BMC64 and now this VIC-II Kawari are absolutely awesome and I can't wait to get a couple of Kawaris for my C64's :)
Great video Adrian! Any word about it grabbing the analog audio and digitizing it in with the HDMI output? I might have missed it, but didn't see it mentioned in the video or on his website.
The clock in the 6526 CIA chips was sometimes used to seed a pseudo random number generator. Not good enough for crypto work, but good enough for C-64 games. If the 8520 returns something on those registers, that functionality would still work. If it always returns the same thing, the numbers won't be random, as I'm sure you know. Another trick was to set a SID voice to noise and read it, but if the SID was occupied, the software may have needed the CIA and a software PRNG.
There were actually two colour palettes on PAL C64's, an early one, and a later one - presumably on different versions of the VIC-II chip. I used to draw loading screens, and my 64 had the original palette. On later C64's the colours looked different (most obvious being darker orange and brown), so the shading on the pictures didn't look as good - at least not as I intended them.
The VIC II in addition to providing the CPU clock signal also handles the 4164 DRAM refresh via 2 pins. Without it, the memory wouldn't hold its contents for more than 3 milliseconds, or so.
Always good to see modern replacements for C64 chips. I've got a couple that definitely need some replacements soon if not already along with a couple of C128 I'd like to get back to working order.
Great video, Adrian, thanks for it. I read about it already, but the first I saw it in action. On the test video mode removal thing, a cautionary tale: Jay Miner wanted to remove the HAM mode from the Amiga before release, which was originally added as a feature to help debug color generation. But then the chip designer came back to him, and told him that it would leave a huge ugly hole in the middle of the chip, requiring an entire re-layout of the chip to get rid of it. So they decided to leave it in, as the less of worse option. Needless to say, the HAM became one of the killer features of the Amiga... So, as a hardware designer, never assume what software guys will come up with with your hardware features. :)
Yep my 64 back then here in the UK was very muted and quite sludgy, I always just thought that’s how it was...a feature. I thought the purple border was supposed to be a bit like the case, and I hated my friend’s Spectrum as his display was much ‘brighter’ and vivid colours. I had a massive old 22 inch big brown box tv with kerchunk channel change buttons.
Engineering-wise, this is pretty cool! Yet, if after SMD replacements for the SID and the PLA, we replace the VIC-II with another 3.3V SMD adapter, why not just move to full emulation on a PC? Or to a MiSTeR? What makes it special to run software in the old machines? Do we lose that when the heart of the machine is a 3.3V SMD replacement under the hood? What is retro-computing really about?
Hi Adrian. I've already seen a HDMI mod for the C64, but working differently. The original VIC-II was kept, and the HDMI output is to be soldered replacing the awful RF modulator. Maybe that's the way for this WONDERFUL creation to step to revision 2: a mod to replace the RF modulator AND the probably faulty original VIC-II chip. Too bad Commodore missed a pin to make it RGB (or even YUV) output since the beginning, like TMS9929 for example
1:50 -- That's super cool that you can plug in a chip or two to handle the missing instructions if using an off-the-shelf CPU and not the C64-specific one. I've oft wondered if something similar could be done for the Motorolla PowerPC G5 CPU in order to get MacOS 9 to run natively on such a chip. As of right now, MacOS 9 only runs on G4 or older CPU, and only within Rosetta on OS X if using a G5. Maybe somehow create a Rosetta-on-a-chip.
This is really cool. You should try putting as many modern replacements into a single C64 to see how it would work. I guess it shouldn't do anything weird, but it could be a fun little video regardless.
28:09 I live in a PAL country but in the 80s when C64 was at its peak the models we got were from USA, so we needed to have our TV sets converted to bi-norm (PAL & NTSC) or otherwise use the C64 in greyscale
It wasn't until you shown Randy's website page that I realised that this is the same guy that developed the BMC64 emulator for the Raspberry Pi, which is a fantastic bare metal fork of VICE. The guy's a genius.
Yes, i also just realised that. I've got a BMC64 setup and it's awesome. I've just become a patron of his, we need more stuff awesome stuff like this.
It's great to see new replacements being made for these old chips. As more time passes, the number of still-working originals will only decrease, so it's good to have options for anything not being manufactured today
I like the idea that it's almost possible to build a whole 64 entirely with new parts.
Sorry to be so off topic but does anybody know a trick to log back into an instagram account..?
I was dumb lost the account password. I appreciate any help you can offer me
What the PAL palette has going for it is that the colours blend well. This has been used to great effect to produce natural looking images in a lot of demoscene productions, and it was taken advantage of by some games too. With the NTSC palette things look more garish, and that's not necessarily a good thing.
@HarrisonFnord NTSC has less picture noise as well, at least with broadcasting.
This is one of those "shut up and take my money" moments.
About the extras that could be incorporated into this device.
I think the DTV screen modes would be a nice addition.
The DTV has a chunky 256 color mode and a blitter.
There are some demo's out there that use them already.
Oh and yes! the colours in PAL land are a bit lackluster :-(
I would love more vibrant colours.
This would be very cool in a RGB version.. Also HDMI for some people but I'm lucky enough to still be running CRTs.. Well I spoke too soon. 15khz RGB later in the video
I join this statement. It would be nice to keep the advanced video modes, even if they are difficult to program for, I'm certain the community will eventually make use of them regardless.
I still have an unopened DTV I forgot about
@@circuitsandcigars1278 Nice to have one but thankfully pretty redundant now days. I wasn't sure we'd ever see a better remake
Fully agree with the DTV modes. That would be a very nice bonus to an already great product, and it would pull the C64 back into the 21st century.
This machine is like the Commodore of Theseus
LOL I came to the comments just to say this. All of the addons on this thing have way more computing power than the 64.
Or maybe even his grandfather's.
WOW, Randy Rossi got a test kit to you quick, Adrian... I am so glad that he got you involved in this project. I been eagerly waiting this.
"By the time I was done with it there wasn't a square millimeter of factory silicon inside." - William Gibson, "Burning Chrome".
If only there was a FPGA to replace the ENTIRE C64... or a $40 SoC board to do the same. Oh, wait, there are. 😎
@@winstonsmith478 Yep. At some point you're just keeping that C64 on your desk because you like the chassis. Probably better off running a MiSTer or a software emulator if you're going to replace half the chips with FPGA equivalents.
@@flow221 the point is more to be able to have all the replacement parts available for people to keep their old ones going, when all the original chips are finally gone. Of course some folks will make “100% new component C64s!!!!” for videos but that’s not really the point of them. I think it’s great, the computing scene is evolving to be more like the car scene. Where for the right old car you can get totally new body panel pieces, totally new interior trim, etc.
@@kaitlyn__L Of course I understand why these replacements are being made and I'm always impressed by the talent and ingenuity of the people doing the work. But, yes, at some point in my entirely subjective opinion it starts to get silly. Much like a '69 Charger that's been gutted and rebuilt from the chassis up, you're just keeping something because you like how it looks not because it accurately represents the device it was at release.
@@flow221 yeah, I think your final sentence is an accurate assessment. Loads of cars are deemed unusable with stock engines and then the only point is how it looks. Yep.
The PAL colour palette isn't "muted", NTSC colours are comparatively oversaturated. Which was done because of the way PAL and NTSC colours are encoded, with PAL having better colour stability (the same chroma signal gives the same colour every time). That's why NTSC has a tint control which allows you to shift the chroma, and PAL does not.
Which means that on European screens, the PAL palette you are showing would be much more vibrant since the CRT's would be adjusted differently.
Indeed. I was about to comment that there was something wrong with Adrian's PAL palette because my PAL C64 and multinorm Sony Trinitron video monitor does show PAL palette almost as vibrant as Adrian's NTSC palette.
While you’re correct about PAL being more stable, you’re wrong about the C64 output. The PAL machines do produce more muted colours. Tint has nothing to do with saturation.
@@claw_md The point is that because the PAL colour rendition is more stable, the output can be less saturated to reproduce the same colours (by adjusting the CRT to higher color gain). On a multisystem monitor you would notice the difference, but on a PAL only television the colour palette is almost as vibrant as the NTSC one.
It's because PAL specifies the colour standard as less saturated compared to NTSC, so "full blue" in PAL standard would be more like 70% blue in NTSC standards. And that is something you would notice particularly in red.
If I'm not mistaken PAL and NTSC Tv's use different color gamma curves. I kind of assume this is related to the color differences as well if not the actual reason.
Right, NTSC = Never Twice the Same Color.
I'm from Europe, more specifically from Serbia, and I had a C64 in the '80s. At the time, I thought something was wrong with my computer because the colors were “washed out,” and I was jealous of a friend who had an amstrad 464 and who had bright and beautiful colors. Later, dealing with computers, I learned that NTSC C64 also had beautiful and bright colors. Definitely PAL C64 users were in some way "damaged" compared to NTSC users. Great greetings from a regular viewer from Serbia!
PAL indeed has the more pastel color palette than the NTSC. I didn’t even realize that NTSC is so vibrant. I’ve been following Randy’s project on his YT channel. I kinda hope he would incorporate the 256 color palette of the second and third revision DTV into the Kawari. A great video as always!
Yes, i live in PAL region, i always wondered why they made the C64 colour so "brown", now this explains it. I also wasn't aware that NTSC looked so different.
NTSC, vibrant with high brigtness images, less so in darker area.... hence NTSC Never Twice the Same Colour...
Yeah, wasn't sure about the colors until saw Hero in PAL on that CRT and it looked exactly like I remembered
Holy Moly!!!! If this VIC-II replacement is compatible with the C128, I will definitely want one!
Randy Rossi is a real Wizard. BTW, I totally love his BMC64 Project.
I've run loads of C64 demos on my Ultimate C64 and everything has worked fine. So it seems FPGA VIC II recreations are very good.
Randy Rossi is incredible!! I have his BMC64 running on a Pi3 in a C64 case with the original keyboard connected to the GPIO pins... Really impressive work!
I had the C64 PAL connected to a 1980’s Czechoslovak PAL/SECAM TV and colors were vibrant. Adjustable with a knob.
Wow! I am so impressed with this project! I would love to have true hdmi out for my c64. One chip to rule them all! I can’t wait for the day this is released.
This is absolutely insane... I came here after your ROMulator video, and I can't believe this kind of stuff actually exists. I can't imagine how much work you need to put in to create these things...
Now that there’s now good FPGA clones of both the VIC-II and the SID, I’d love to see their respective cores get integrated into a single FPGA-based C64-on-a-chip which lets you choose all the different hardware revisions to get the perfect C64 for every game.
Your video content never ceases to entertain. I think all the new c64 hardware coming to market is awesome, cant wait to get my hands on one of these!
Adrian, what a win! I'm not sure if I'm THE person who introduced you to this project, but I am def one of them. I'm so glad you two are working together on this project. I'm so excited to see the '64 inch one chip forward to going back into full open source production to live into the 21at cen.
I love your content because you always go above and beyond in testing and demonstration of products, submissions and (of course) candy. In regards to testing the VIC-II FPGA I always use the 'EDGE OF DISGRACE' demo to test my C64s. There is another VIC-II FPGA project that you are probably aware of by c0pperDragon which outputs analog component, but it still requires the original VIC-II for clock generation.
I've been following this for a while and it's pretty incredible! I do hope that the stock video gets addressed, but even without it, this brings us one step closer to using our beloved C64s for the forseeable future! Thanks for testing it for us!
I live in uk and my c64 was a pal. I never understood and was always disappointed with the colour. It was washed out unlike the zx spectrum at the time. The Amiga that I purchased had vibrant colour. I could never figure out why. Watching this was really enlightening. Thankyou for clearing that up and Keep up the good work. 👍🤓 Ron from Gosport Uk.
developer: "remove those modes as too hard to program"
c64 scene that thrives on hard to do codes and hardware exploits: "yeah, suuuuureeeee......."
My thoughts exactly!
This is the perfect project to experiment with as "GPU Upgrade"... Just think of what the C64 could do with features like more hardware sprites and a bigger working palette... The Amiga scene already has modern crazy upgrades like the Vampire accelerators so why not the 64
@@peshozmiata What struck me is that one of the Commodore's appeals was it's cheapness, and as they become collector's items, upgrading them with expensive parts is less appealing. You could get a C64 Maxi. Or, as far as GPU experiments go, you could use a $5-10 Raspberry Pi Zero to interface with HDMI, maybe using it as a remote terminal, but even that is kind of silly, when you could easily emulate the entire Commodore with VICE with speeds several times faster, on that same Pi Zero, and tweak the emulator software. Also, the later Amigas are 32-bit:.that's a big advance over 8-bit C64s. The Vampire 4 isn't even an accelerator, it's basically a replacement for an Amiga.To me, this has too narrow applications to ever be viable as a mass produced product. It may appeal to you and Adrian, but don't count your chickens...
@@squirlmy The retro-computing hobby isn't a practical one, you can easily just emulate any system you like even on a potato rPi and get roughly the same experience. To me the appeal has always been in messing around with old junk more than actually using it to play games and such. The problem with addons like the vampire accelerators is the price, it makes no sense to spend that much money on something that's neither period-authentic, nor comparable to modern all-in-ones in the same price range. If a VIC-II upgrade board would cost around 30-50$ and was designed in a way you could build it yourself, it would be fairly popular.
@@peshozmiata Gideon's Logic: Am I a Joke to you?
Hay Adrian 98k subs bordering on 99. What an accomplishment! So glad you reviewed this project, I'm super excited to see were it goes!
What I appreciate more is that Randy put up with Xilinx WebPACK ISE long enough without losing his mind. A true warrior.
Ok so context question: what is Xilinx, and why is it a tear your hair out experience?
@@artstrutzenberg7197 The board he used here is a Mojo V3 which uses an FPGA by a company called Xilinx. The FPGA itself is known as the Spartan-6.
Unlike most microcontrollers today where you can program them any way you want, FPGAs must ultimately use hyper specific tools from the vendors at the end of the process, and they're... weird.
WebPACK ISE is the previous generation of Xilinx's development tools that support chips up to the Spartan-6 and it's just an old environment to work in. It doesn't support SystemVerilog or any of the few niceities added by their latest Vivada tool (the direct successor to WebPACK ISE).
EDIT: And the reason they're hair-pulling-out is that they have lots of oddness. You'll get "critical warnings" when working in it that half the time are meaningless, or you'll get a really obscure error that means you should really buffer a clock signal and everything's OK, or something like that. It's just really not friendly sometimes to the point of feeling like it's trying to stop you intentionally :P
@@adamsfusion pretty much this, basically all FPGA dev environments I've ever had the misfortune to have to deal with are horrible, cantankerous pains in the backside.
@@SomeMorganSomewhere My way, or no way at all, says the FPGA.
Adrian, your work is more than words can describe. As always great video :)
Absolutely amazing. The CRT output was really nice. Loved it.
Creatures by Thalamus might be a good game to test. The first level can trigger the VSP bug some later VIC IIs suffer from. On PAL tv's we have a Saturation control to make the colours pop. The challenge was finding the right balance between normal tv and the c64 so you didn't have to adjust it all the time ;)
I never had an issue with Creatures - my C64C is pretty much VSP-safe, but Mayhem in Monsterland could sometimes have scrolling glitches and character corruption if I ran it with an action replay connected so for me that is a worst-case scenario for testing.
(Another bonus is the game is fun so it shouldn't be a chore to test:)
5:50 the HDMI TX PHY can be omitted too, by using SERDES in the FPGA to generate the TMDS signals for HDMI directly. There are several projects (including one on my github) that can generate HDMI without that IC.
I never had a Vic 20 or Commodore 64, but this HDMI Adapter makes me wanna think about getting one, I love Vintage Computers. The only thing holding me back from getting all the old PC's including a PC jr. which was truly my very first PC, and I got it when it first was released. Give Randy a big thumbs up for this prototype project. He needs to start a Kickstarter project, I'm sure there are many Commodore users that would def be interested in this FPGA replacement.
I'm used to seeing the somewhat muted PAL colours and honestly I'm loving the NTSC ones a lot more, what a great project! I do love all sorts of video mods for old computers and consoles though and am not of the nostalgic sort about CRTs and like it looking as crisp as possible.
I've never appreciated NTSC colors as much as I do at this moment.
what are colors? I had only a black/white TV with my c64 back in the day 😅
About the washed out PAL colours: Back in the 80's I had a PAL machine but don't remember the colours being washed like you showed. To me the colours were great (using svideo/scart output), but of course I can't compare to what NTSC looked.
Nobody can compare to what NTSC looked like. It does, after all, stand for "Never The Same Colour" :)
Off topic question... what is the beige box device on the shelf about your workbench at 33:21? It's the 3rd box stacked vertically above the PET sticker, just to the left of the DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE sign. I have a similar shaped box but it is dark brown with a different front panel that is a B&K NTSC Generator, model 1249A.
Visible at 0:02? Looks like a Rigol scope. Definitely a Rigol something, I recognise the yellow label 😊
@@azyfloof No. I am referring to what is seen at 33:21. Note that Rigol scope is under the DANGER sign, not left of the sign. I updated my post above to be less vague.
I think you mean my Topward Electric Instruments TFG-8114. Digital sweep function generator.
@@adriansdigitalbasement Thanks! That's the item. It's interesting that different manufacturers appeared to use the same plastic shell.
I can't wait to see how this evolves. Performance & pallet extensions are exciting icing on the cake.
this is such a cool project ...I hope he releases this ..I suspect even if its much more expensive than a 'real' VIC-II chip it'll sell well ...I've never seen a C64 output image look so sharp.
What a cool project! Totally amazed how someone can take the workings of a proprietary chip and implement it on an FPGA. AMAZING!!!
to quote Fry' Shut up and take my money' and someone already said it haha.
Very exciting development. Thanks for showcasing this Adrian
Thanks for the video and showing this off, Adrian:)
PAL Colors: You are thinking in the right direction ... but not enough.
If my (PAL) Colors would look washed out, I'd adjust them to look normal and wonderful ... like you or other "NTSC people" do.
This must be some urban legend about the gray cities behind the iron curtain (joking). Good looking Colors are achieved with calibration. On the one side PAL Signals on a adjusted PAL Monitor and on the other side the same with the NTSC-Standard. If you cross exchange standards by misconnecting the families over cross ... it is no wonder that the result isn't pleasing:)
P.S.: I'm not talking about the maximum available bandwidth of the color spectrum of the various color transmission systems, with "Never The Same Color“ doing poorly ... if you calibrate incorrectly. See phase of hue and vertical interval reference method (VIR). ... oh and please don't forget that we are all unique individuals with unique perceptions. Also that of colors. Only a calibration device can provide clarity. Most of us don't spend $500 on this, though.
I dont think they will ever understand .. No way i played mine with colours like that in australia Adjust it on a pal tv till it was how you liked it.
This is excellent. I love what he did. He should keep much of what he did there especially the 80 column mode.
"What kind of computer do you have if you have no graphics?"
An Altair?
Eniac?
A server without GPU (headless)
At least an Altair had front panel blinkenlights.
a Difference Engine.
Atari ST... lol
I don't have a C64, and didn't ever use one growing up as compared to the Apple IIc I began computing on. This piece of hardware makes me want to get a C64.
I'm assuming the SID chip audio isn't also going out over the HDMI signal, and you had the speakers hooked up to the 8-pin A/V DIN. Yes?
The SID audio output isn't connected to the VIC so it can't do that.
I've been seeing a lot of Commodore reproduction kits, done by The 8-Bit Guy, Retro Recipes, etc. The latter actually pointed me to this project. There are many who would like the chance to build things like these!
I used to use a program called Term 80 on my C64 for 80 column Looking forward to the future of this product
Oh man this is perfect, I recently stole a working Vic II from a breadboard to fix an SX, and haven't found a cheap replacement since. I guess I'll hold onto my money until this is finished!
Very exciting project! We're getting tantalizingly-close to being able to build a modern C64!!!
No original video output is a dealbreaker for me. Thanks for requesting the feature.
Also, would like to see demoscene productions on this. How does it handle rapid switching of screenmodes and VSP.
Fantastic piece of kit. Can't wait to see the final product.
I have severalf PAL machines. In my experience, the 64C assy 250469, using the 8566 VICII have the dullest pallette while assy 250466 long board is brightest / most saturated - especially the red.
only one thing missing: a true CRT emulation on the HDMI output... to overcome that I made a small software for my smart tv but that emulates only scanlines and the shadowmask but on the fpga it could be also possible to emulate the distorsions and virtual phosphors persistence as in many very good opengl shaders like "crt geom" to name one.
wow i’m really impressed by this. so much potential in this project.
I got a similar thing for my 48K Spectrum that enables HDMI, it's the ZX-HD that plugs right in at the back of the machine and it's absolutely fantastic. I also have the DIvMMC that makes it possible to load games from a SD card, no more waiting for the tape to load.
Now that is an awesome project! I hope it makes it to market.
Adrian thank you so much for addressing the 15Khz sync combiner feature. I've mentioned the need for 15 Khz on his channel but he wasn't much interested. I'm actually surprised he even included it. I'm so glad 15 Khz is there and we can use a proper 1084S.
This totally reminds me of the VidHD for the Apple 2 by John Brooks. I have one in my Apple IIgs for HDMI, since those RGB monitors are hard to come by.
That looks spectacular. I got into RGB-modding SNES consoles and buying Trinitron PVMs and was pretty happy... just in time for the FPGA SNES clones to come out. I won't go back. This is the future, and it's good.
Excellent! Props to the developer.
Out of curiosity do the C=64's video ports still work with this VIC II?
FWIW: There's a similar project for the BBC Micro's ULA - truly excellent, lots of new modes and programable colour palette - I guess the latter is the most useful addition for both projects as they add something useful that can be used with old software.
This project is amazing! I can't wait to see where it goes! Using a DVI-I connector for both digital and analog video is a great idea... it also avoids having to pay any HDMI licensing fees.
F**k the stupid licence. He could buy HDMI sockets from china really cheap. Im pretty sure chinese ebay sellers don't care about any licence either. They'll just manufacture the connectors anyway.
@@simontay4851 It's not just the connectors. If you want to make a commercial HDMI equipped product, there are license fees to be paid.
When you buy a HDMI driver chip, part of that cost is the license fee to use the HDMI IP.
You use HDMI, you pay.
Of course, the big question is: is that Spartan FPGA capable of emulating an entire C64 itself?
That market is already full with the Ultimate 64
Likely.
This is super cool. I keep a spare C64 just in case I need it for parts. I would love this especially with the added functionality. Some day I'd also like to ZIF my Breadbox, but my soldering skills are middling.
Love the channel and the content, always leave with serious envy, wish there were as many modern mods for the Atari ST as that is the only retro micro that I still own.
THAT IS AWESOME!!! I can't wait to see what it looks like when the design is refined. Great project!
Now I'm wondering what else he could add: additional sprites? 256 color mode? Let's use all the mirrored addresses! :)
On my pal machine I have never noticed such dim colors. But I'm using a 1084s monitor where you adjust the signal. Without correction the picture is for sure, pretty pale.
The dimmer colors at 28:01 is *not* what I'm used to in C64 PAL (Sweden). I'm used to the more vibrant colors at 27:56.
Appreciate you defining the acronyms at least once in the vid.
The pastel colors were always one of main things that made C64 feel like a C64. I never thought that there was anything wrong with them :)
It's nice to see the C64 finally have an improved video display with modern hardware. Ataris have had the VBXE for quite a while now.
This video I was waiting for:. Glad Randy send his prototype to the correct channel👍🏻😁 Its these things are being developped, I would buy one. Please dont remove the extra and hi-res functions, its a great feauture imho.
This looks really promising! So much great work, well done Randy Rossi! 👏
Cool project. One note on the composite sync; it should be clean c-sync and not composite video as sync because there are some PVMs and video processors that will not take composite sync. Sorry if you already know this, but sometimes people get that confused.
I hope that composite support will be implemented. Using my 1084 is a must.
Goodnight, that HDMI image is unbelievably sharp!!
Let us know when this will be available. I'm very interested! It would be awesome to connect my C128 to a HDMI monitor. 👍
Adrian’s hand raving while listening to the 8-bit dance party music is the joy we all need right now :-)
Hai un C64 straordinario,uno dei più customizzati mai visti,addirittura dotato di hdmi e vga,complimenti,e un computer mitico.
Neat piece of hardware! I'm curious how well this works with the various FLI-mode demos. As I recall, those techniques take advantage of some undocumented/hidden features of the VIC-II to produce images that appear to have more than 16 colors, but at lower resolutions and with two images being quickly swapped on the screen.
I have viewer some of those FLI high res demos and they worked perfectly. I ran lots of demos on it like Lunatico and also all perfect.
Been following Randy for a while now and his videos always makes me feel extra stupid :) His projects like the BMC64 and now this VIC-II Kawari are absolutely awesome and I can't wait to get a couple of Kawaris for my C64's :)
Great video Adrian! Any word about it grabbing the analog audio and digitizing it in with the HDMI output? I might have missed it, but didn't see it mentioned in the video or on his website.
The clock in the 6526 CIA chips was sometimes used to seed a pseudo random number generator. Not good enough for crypto work, but good enough for C-64 games. If the 8520 returns something on those registers, that functionality would still work. If it always returns the same thing, the numbers won't be random, as I'm sure you know. Another trick was to set a SID voice to noise and read it, but if the SID was occupied, the software may have needed the CIA and a software PRNG.
There were actually two colour palettes on PAL C64's, an early one, and a later one - presumably on different versions of the VIC-II chip. I used to draw loading screens, and my 64 had the original palette. On later C64's the colours looked different (most obvious being darker orange and brown), so the shading on the pictures didn't look as good - at least not as I intended them.
The VIC II in addition to providing the CPU clock signal also handles the 4164 DRAM refresh via 2 pins. Without it, the memory wouldn't hold its contents for more than 3 milliseconds, or so.
Always good to see modern replacements for C64 chips. I've got a couple that definitely need some replacements soon if not already along with a couple of C128 I'd like to get back to working order.
Great video, Adrian, thanks for it. I read about it already, but the first I saw it in action. On the test video mode removal thing, a cautionary tale: Jay Miner wanted to remove the HAM mode from the Amiga before release, which was originally added as a feature to help debug color generation. But then the chip designer came back to him, and told him that it would leave a huge ugly hole in the middle of the chip, requiring an entire re-layout of the chip to get rid of it. So they decided to leave it in, as the less of worse option. Needless to say, the HAM became one of the killer features of the Amiga... So, as a hardware designer, never assume what software guys will come up with with your hardware features. :)
really nice project it will be very good for all c64 owner looking at the vic II shortage that will come in the future
orange ceramic disk capacitors withstand very little heat before the value changes . it holds and breathes on it with your warm air!
Wow, it this ever comes out for sale and actually fits inside the case properly I'll surely get one! 😎
The Commodore 128 also used the 6526. Also they have the VIC-IIe.
Yep my 64 back then here in the UK was very muted and quite sludgy, I always just thought that’s how it was...a feature. I thought the purple border was supposed to be a bit like the case, and I hated my friend’s Spectrum as his display was much ‘brighter’ and vivid colours. I had a massive old 22 inch big brown box tv with kerchunk channel change buttons.
That 80 column mode is really nice
That's how text should look.
Do the analog modes (or at least the 15kHz one) support light pens?
Engineering-wise, this is pretty cool! Yet, if after SMD replacements for the SID and the PLA, we replace the VIC-II with another 3.3V SMD adapter, why not just move to full emulation on a PC? Or to a MiSTeR? What makes it special to run software in the old machines? Do we lose that when the heart of the machine is a 3.3V SMD replacement under the hood? What is retro-computing really about?
Hi Adrian. I've already seen a HDMI mod for the C64, but working differently. The original VIC-II was kept, and the HDMI output is to be soldered replacing the awful RF modulator. Maybe that's the way for this WONDERFUL creation to step to revision 2: a mod to replace the RF modulator AND the probably faulty original VIC-II chip. Too bad Commodore missed a pin to make it RGB (or even YUV) output since the beginning, like TMS9929 for example
1:50 -- That's super cool that you can plug in a chip or two to handle the missing instructions if using an off-the-shelf CPU and not the C64-specific one. I've oft wondered if something similar could be done for the Motorolla PowerPC G5 CPU in order to get MacOS 9 to run natively on such a chip. As of right now, MacOS 9 only runs on G4 or older CPU, and only within Rosetta on OS X if using a G5. Maybe somehow create a Rosetta-on-a-chip.
I watched Randy's videos on this and had no idea he had them for testing. So want this to go into production.
This is really cool.
You should try putting as many modern replacements into a single C64 to see how it would work. I guess it shouldn't do anything weird, but it could be a fun little video regardless.
Wasn't there also a project that reverse engineered the motherboard back to the CAD files needed to generate additional c64 motherboards
So new motherboard with all modern replacement chips :)
@@artstrutzenberg7197 As far as I know, all circuit diagrams are freely available, so making a new mobo for it shouldn't be too hard
28:09 I live in a PAL country but in the 80s when C64 was at its peak the models we got were from USA, so we needed to have our TV sets converted to bi-norm (PAL & NTSC) or otherwise use the C64 in greyscale
Adrian I agree with you I like the NTSC version its so amazing.