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mazsola2k edited this page Feb 9, 2020 · 16 revisions

Welcome to the Arrow SoCKit Edition of MiSTer - Main_MiSTer!

MiSTer Cores including VIP versions under porting to Arrow SoCKit FPGA Board (Cyclone V)

Arrow SoCKit is a rich hardware to run MiSTer Menu and VIP version Cores including scandoubler. Without HSMC-GPIO adadpter you cannot attach SDRAM, so it is is better to invest into. If you do not have HMSC-GPPIO addon board, you can run those Cores that not requiring SDRAM, for Example Genesis.

This port leverages all built-in hardware capabilities of the board:

  • VGA Output
  • Audio output
  • USB Connector

All ported and tested cores for Arrow SoCKit will be available under this Wiki main index page.

arrow-sockit

arrow-sockit-front-pinout

HSMC-GPIO male addon board:

HTG_001_800-hsmc-gpio

Arrow SoCKit is a large FPGA, big systems can be created. It's also possible to add support from ARM side. For example TZX tape format can be parsed on ARM and then send to FPGA. Firmware is not limited by code size or available RAM. It'e even possible to emulate some parts of system on ARM which is not available in FPGA (so-called hybrid emulator).

Arrow SoCKit port of MiSTer scales original video resolution to a standard VGA resolution (usually 1280x720p60), so you don't need to look for some ancient low HZ monitor. (you will have to enable scaler mode in MiSTer.ini)

How does it work?

1. You need to set the dip switches on the board to the following position

You can find the dip switches on the bottom-left corner:

arrow-sockit-back-pinout

IMG_5835

Zoomed dip switch status:

Arrow-SocKit-Linux-Boot

If you miss this step your board is not able to boot-up from the SDCard and not able to load the menu.rbf file and your video output will be blank.

2. Slide Switches to high position

You need to set to high / up position all slide switches:

arrow-sockit-switches-mister

3. Micro SD card for the project

Tested cards: Kingston/Sandisk 8/12/32gb micro sd.

4. Download SD-Installer-Win64_MiSTer latest release and install to the SD Card

SD-Installer-Win64_MiSTer

5. Configure /media/fat/config/MiSTer.ini

You have to configure the basic things, at least vga scaler mode in order to see picture on a standard VGA monitor and volumectl, otherwise the sound volume will be too high and it can cause audio distortion for the audio chip on Arrow SoC-Kit.

Recommended Arrow SoCKit MiSTer.ini

MiSter.ini wiki page

6. Download Menu_Mister (Boot Menu) and copy to the memory card / overwrite existing menu.rbf file

Download the latest Menu Core to the MiSTer_Data windows partition of your Micro SD card and rename the release file for example menu_20XXXXXX.rbf filename format to simply menu.rbf and overwrite existing menu.rbf file on the SD Card.

7. Download the wished Arrow SoCKit compatible Cores and copy to the memory card partition

You can find core list on the right sidebar box.

Arrow SoCKit ported Cores

This project brought to you by http://www.modernhackers.com