GettingStarted

This page covers the initial setup of a SiDi FPGA board.

What you need

To set up your board you will need:

• the SiDi board itself
• a USB keyboard
• a micro USB phone charger, or a micro USB cable connected to a USB hub or computer, or a PSU 5V/2A with 2.1x5.5mm barrel connector
• a FAT-formatted SD or SDHC card, at least 1GB FAT or exFAT format.
• a VGA screen and cable, or a TV with SCART input and a VGA <-> SCART cable.

1. Prepare the SD card

To set up your SiDi FPGA board for the first time, we recommend using the MENU core. Download the menu core, rename it to core.rbf for SiDi or SiDi128.rbf for SiDi128 and place it in the root directory of your FAT-formatted SD card.

2. Connect the components

Once your SD card is ready, connect the components in the following order:

1. If you use a SCART TV change this parameter in a mist.ini file in the root of the SD card: scandoubler_disable=1 ; set to 1 for 15khz TV or set to 0 for VGA monitor
2. Insert the SD card into the SiDi.
3. Connect the VGA screen or SCART TV and the USB keyboard.
4. Connect the PSU 5V to SiDi (micro USB input or barrel input)
5. Switch the board on!

Maintenance and updates

Here are some helpful tips for managing content and applying updates.

Firmware

You can check your current firmware version by opening the on-screen display (OSD) with F12 and selecting Firmware & Core.

This displays the installed firmware version after ARM s/w ver., as above.

To upgrade the firmware:

1. Download the latest firmware, which will have the highest revision number.
2. Rename the .upg file to firmware.upg and upload it to your SD card.
3. Boot into your core menu and go to the Firmware & Core submenu.
4. Select Update and follow the instructions.

Configuration

You can edit the mist.ini file to change some default configuration options.

Cores

To install more cores:

1. Go to the Cores section, download a .rbf file and copy it into your SD root directory.
2. Read the instructions of each core: many cores need extra files in the root directory (like ROM files), if this is the case, download the necessary files and copy it into the SD root directory.
3. Insert the SD card into SiDi and power on.
4. Now you can see the new cores available in the Menu.

If you don't want a Menu core just delete it, and rename any core to core.rbf to make the default startup core.

Subdirectories

Since firmware 190601 it is possible to put FPGA cores into subdirectories. The subdirectories must have the system attribute set.

Linux terminal:
fatattr +s <directory>

Windows: open a command line window (cmd)
attrib +s <directory>

Make sure to set the system attribute of every directory from the root to the directories that contain the FPGA cores so that the firmware is able to display the directories in OSD and you can descent into them.

Example tree view:
[+s] indicates a directory with system attribute set (directory contains FPGA core files).

:
|-- Arcade [+s]
|   |-- BombJack.rbf
|   |-- BOMBJACK.ROM
|   |-- Capcom SonSon Hardware [+s]
|   |   |-- Sonsons.rbf
|   |   `-- sonson.rom
:   :
|   |-- Jotego [+s]
|   |   |-- 1942 [+s]
|   |   |   |-- 1942 (Revision B).arc
|   |   |   |-- 1942.rom
|   |   |   `-- jt1942.rbf
|   |   |-- 1943 [+s]
|   |   |   |-- 1943j.rom
|   |   |   |-- 1943 Kai Midway Kaisen (Japan).arc
:   :   :   :-- ...
:
|-- C64 [+s]
|   |-- c64gs.arc
|   |-- c64gs.rom
|   |-- c64_jiffydos.rom
|   |-- c64_original.rom
|   |-- c64.rbf
:   :-- ...