Tue Jun 30, 2015 4:30 pm
Tue Jun 30, 2015 9:48 pm
Tue Jun 30, 2015 10:11 pm
Sorunome wrote:That sure sounds pretty awesome!
Do you have any pictures / demos of prototypes?
Wed Jul 01, 2015 3:43 pm
Fri Jul 03, 2015 1:13 pm
Muessigb wrote:The features
- Boosts SRAM from 2 KB to 258 KB!
Fri Jul 03, 2015 7:09 pm
albertinjo wrote:Hello adeko and hello Muessigb
First of all this module of yours sounds amazing.
I can't wait to see the real thing.
Ohh and the name is just perfect "The NINJA board".
And here is one question:Muessigb wrote:The features
- Boosts SRAM from 2 KB to 258 KB!
You said you will boost SRAM with 256KBytes of extra memory!?
Is that even possible? How do you plan to do that? I was googling this "expanding RAM" topic quite some time ago. Some people are expanding RAM on microcontrollers used on Arduino, have you ever heared of the SpiRAM project? Do you plan to use something like this?
If i understand everything correctly you are trying to expand SRAM memory on ATmega328p-au microcontroller, is that even possible??
Regards
Albert
Fri Jul 03, 2015 8:48 pm
Muessigb wrote:albertinjo wrote:Hello adeko and hello Muessigb
First of all this module of yours sounds amazing.
I can't wait to see the real thing.
Ohh and the name is just perfect "The NINJA board".
And here is one question:Muessigb wrote:The features
- Boosts SRAM from 2 KB to 258 KB!
You said you will boost SRAM with 256KBytes of extra memory!?
Is that even possible? How do you plan to do that? I was googling this "expanding RAM" topic quite some time ago. Some people are expanding RAM on microcontrollers used on Arduino, have you ever heared of the SpiRAM project? Do you plan to use something like this?
If i understand everything correctly you are trying to expand SRAM memory on ATmega328p-au microcontroller, is that even possible??
Regards
Albert
Hello!
Great that you like the board!
About your question, yes, I have a 256KB ram chip right on the Ninja Board. Using the yet to be made library for interfacing with the Ninja Board and some yet to be done client program, you can use the full 256KB of the external RAM for global variables. The full 256KB are supported by the BuinoBasic VM (in development) aswell, which might get a garbage collector to deal with all the RAM.
Behind everything is a address demultiplexer and a SPI Ram chip from microchip. The magic happens in software.
The Gamebuino has full control over the RAM (for maximum speed), but needs to get the variables stuff done by its own (no help by the Ninja coprocessor).
I will look into the SpiRam project. Thanks for pointing it out here.
By the way, the Ninja Board interfaces with the Gamebuino over hardware SPI. It has an OLED and a keypad matrix, that can be customly changed by every game (it can be a text keyboard, an inventory selector for an adventure game, a calculator and more). The Gamebuino is even able to remotely update the firmware on the Ninja Board from the SD card. So you can write your own firmware for it and upload it using the Gamebuino (no FTDI cable or AVR-ISP programmer needed!).
The Ninja Board's coprocessor is an ATmega328p @ 8MHz aswell. All the unused pins, the I2C pins and the SPI pins are brought out, making the board easily hackable (you can add WLAN, Ethernet, PS/2, the XBox 360 Chatpad, a Joystick, Bluetooth, ... - without putting any load on the main CPU and keeping it free for the actual game or application).
I hope this explanation helps understanding the way it works and gives a better overview over some of the features.
Fri Jul 03, 2015 10:34 pm
albertinjo wrote:Muessigb wrote:albertinjo wrote:Hello adeko and hello Muessigb
First of all this module of yours sounds amazing.
I can't wait to see the real thing.
Ohh and the name is just perfect "The NINJA board".
You said you will boost SRAM with 256KBytes of extra memory!?
Is that even possible? How do you plan to do that? I was googling this "expanding RAM" topic quite some time ago. Some people are expanding RAM on microcontrollers used on Arduino, have you ever heared of the SpiRAM project? Do you plan to use something like this?
If i understand everything correctly you are trying to expand SRAM memory on ATmega328p-au microcontroller, is that even possible??
Regards
Albert
Hello!
Great that you like the board!
About your question, yes, I have a 256KB ram chip right on the Ninja Board. Using the yet to be made library for interfacing with the Ninja Board and some yet to be done client program, you can use the full 256KB of the external RAM for global variables. The full 256KB are supported by the BuinoBasic VM (in development) aswell, which might get a garbage collector to deal with all the RAM.
Behind everything is a address demultiplexer and a SPI Ram chip from microchip. The magic happens in software.
The Gamebuino has full control over the RAM (for maximum speed), but needs to get the variables stuff done by its own (no help by the Ninja coprocessor).
I will look into the SpiRam project. Thanks for pointing it out here.
By the way, the Ninja Board interfaces with the Gamebuino over hardware SPI. It has an OLED and a keypad matrix, that can be customly changed by every game (it can be a text keyboard, an inventory selector for an adventure game, a calculator and more). The Gamebuino is even able to remotely update the firmware on the Ninja Board from the SD card. So you can write your own firmware for it and upload it using the Gamebuino (no FTDI cable or AVR-ISP programmer needed!).
The Ninja Board's coprocessor is an ATmega328p @ 8MHz aswell. All the unused pins, the I2C pins and the SPI pins are brought out, making the board easily hackable (you can add WLAN, Ethernet, PS/2, the XBox 360 Chatpad, a Joystick, Bluetooth, ... - without putting any load on the main CPU and keeping it free for the actual game or application).
I hope this explanation helps understanding the way it works and gives a better overview over some of the features.
Hello Muessigb
Wow, the stuff you wrote sounds AMAZING!
Thanks for the well written explanation!
Now you got me interested. Is that chip of yours SRAM or SDRAM? Ohhh 256kB of RAM, I still can't believe you are saying this is actually possible, this would open many new capabilities!!!
Muessigb, do you mind a few more questions?
1)What would be the speed of that RAM chip of yours interfaced with the ATmega328?
2)That yet to be made library, it sounds AMAZING!!! Are you writing it especially for interfacing it with the ninja board? I can imagine tons of different projects I could use a 8 bit Arduino compatible MCU with RAM expanded to 258kB. Will that yet to be made library be compatible with some other projects as well? You will release it open-source? I am really interested in it!
3)8MHz? Why 8MHz is that something specific you need for your project? Or is it just for making the design simpler?
4)ATmega328p, hmm...on the picture above, there is a concept of the ninja board, hand drawn. But I can clearly see the cheap Arduino PRO MICRO board, possibly from ebay. Haha I also use this things. But.. on these boards microcontroller ATmega32u4 is used, not ATmega328p??? Why is it in the picture then? Just for decoration...or?
Anyway the NINJA BOARD sounds great, but I think I won't preorder it before I see that RAM chip interfaced with Gamebuino in action.
Regards
Albert
Fri Aug 07, 2015 3:10 pm
Sat Aug 08, 2015 10:09 pm
EatMyBlitch wrote:where can you pre-order?