VERA Programmer's Reference

Version 0.9

Author: Frank van den Hoef

This is preliminary documentation and the specification can still change at any point.

This document describes the Versatile Embedded Retro Adapter or VERA. The VERA consists of:

• Video generator featuring:
  • Multiple output formats (VGA, NTSC Composite, NTSC S-Video, RGB video) at a fixed resolution of 640x480@60Hz
  • Support for 2 layers, both supporting either tile or bitmap mode.
  • Support for up to 128 sprites.
  • Embedded video RAM of 128kB.
  • Palette with 256 colors selected from a total range of 4096 colors.
• 16-channel Programmable Sound Generator with multiple waveforms (Pulse, Sawtooth, Triangle, Noise)
• High quality PCM audio playback from an 4kB FIFO buffer featuring up to 48kHz 16-bit stereo sound.
• SPI controller for SecureDigital storage.

Registers

Addr	Name	Bit 7	Bit 6	Bit 5	Bit 4	Bit 3	Bit 2	Bit 1	Bit 0
$9F20	ADDRx_L (x=ADDRSEL)	VRAM Address (7:0)
$9F21	ADDRx_M (x=ADDRSEL)	VRAM Address (15:8)
$9F22	ADDRx_H (x=ADDRSEL)	Address Increment				DECR	-		VRAM Address (16)
$9F23	DATA0	VRAM Data port 0
$9F24	DATA1	VRAM Data port 1
$9F25	CTRL	Reset	DCSEL						ADDRSEL
$9F26	IEN	IRQ line (8)	Scan line (8)	-		AFLOW	SPRCOL	LINE	VSYNC
$9F27	ISR	Sprite collisions				AFLOW	SPRCOL	LINE	VSYNC
$9F28	IRQLINE_L (Write only)	IRQ line (7:0)
$9F28	SCANLINE_L (Read only)	Scan line (7:0)
$9F29	DC_VIDEO (DCSEL=0)	Current Field	Sprites Enable	Layer1 Enable	Layer0 Enable	NTSC/RGB: 240P	NTSC: Chroma Disable / RGB: HV Sync	Output Mode
$9F2A	DC_HSCALE (DCSEL=0)	Active Display H-Scale
$9F2B	DC_VSCALE (DCSEL=0)	Active Display V-Scale
$9F2C	DC_BORDER (DCSEL=0)	Border Color
$9F29	DC_HSTART (DCSEL=1)	Active Display H-Start (9:2)
$9F2A	DC_HSTOP (DCSEL=1)	Active Display H-Stop (9:2)
$9F2B	DC_VSTART (DCSEL=1)	Active Display V-Start (8:1)
$9F2C	DC_VSTOP (DCSEL=1)	Active Display V-Stop (8:1)
$9F29	DC_VER0 (DCSEL=63)	Read only: the ASCII character "V"
$9F2A	DC_VER1 (DCSEL=63)	Read only: Major release
$9F2B	DC_VER2 (DCSEL=63)	Read only: Minor release
$9F2C	DC_VER3 (DCSEL=63)	Read only: Minor build number
$9F2D	L0_CONFIG	Map Height		Map Width		T256C	Bitmap Mode	Color Depth
$9F2E	L0_MAPBASE	Map Base Address (16:9)
$9F2F	L0_TILEBASE	Tile Base Address (16:11)						Tile Height	Tile Width
$9F30	L0_HSCROLL_L	H-Scroll (7:0)
$9F31	L0_HSCROLL_H	-				H-Scroll (11:8)
$9F32	L0_VSCROLL_L	V-Scroll (7:0)
$9F33	L0_VSCROLL_H	-				V-Scroll (11:8)
$9F34	L1_CONFIG	Map Height		Map Width		T256C	Bitmap Mode	Color Depth
$9F35	L1_MAPBASE	Map Base Address (16:9)
$9F36	L1_TILEBASE	Tile Base Address (16:11)						Tile Height	Tile Width
$9F37	L1_HSCROLL_L	H-Scroll (7:0)
$9F38	L1_HSCROLL_H	-				H-Scroll (11:8)
$9F39	L1_VSCROLL_L	V-Scroll (7:0)
$9F3A	L1_VSCROLL_H	-				V-Scroll (11:8)
$9F3B	AUDIO_CTRL	FIFO Full / FIFO Reset	FIFO_Empty (read-only)	16-Bit	Stereo	PCM Volume
$9F3C	AUDIO_RATE	PCM Sample Rate
$9F3D	AUDIO_DATA	Audio FIFO data (write-only)
$9F3E	SPI_DATA	Data
$9F3F	SPI_CTRL	Busy	-					Slow clock	Select

VRAM address space layout

Address range	Description
$00000 - $1F9BF	Video RAM
$1F9C0 - $1F9FF	PSG registers
$1FA00 - $1FBFF	Palette
$1FC00 - $1FFFF	Sprite attributes

Important note: Video RAM locations 1F9C0-1FFFF contain registers for the PSG/Palette/Sprite attributes. Reading anywhere in VRAM will always read back the 128kB VRAM itself (not the contents of the (write-only) PSG/Palette/Sprite attribute registers). Writing to a location in the register area will write to the registers in addition to writing the value also to VRAM. Since the VRAM contains random values at startup the values read back in the register area will not correspond to the actual values in the write-only registers until they are written to once. Because of this it is highly recommended to initialize the area from 1F9C0-1FFFF at startup.

Video RAM access

The video RAM (VRAM) isn't directly accessible on the CPU bus. VERA only exposes an address space of 32 bytes to the CPU as described in the section Registers. To access the VRAM (which is 128kB in size) an indirection mechanism is used. First the address to be accessed needs to be set (ADDRx_L/ADDRx_M/ADDRx_H) and then the data on that VRAM address can be read from or written to via the DATA0/1 register. To make accessing the VRAM more efficient an auto-increment mechanism is present.

There are 2 data ports to the VRAM. Which can be accessed using DATA0 and DATA1. The address and increment associated with the data port is specified in ADDRx_L/ADDRx_M/ADDRx_H. These 3 registers are multiplexed using the ADDR_SEL in the CTRL register. When ADDR_SEL = 0, ADDRx_L/ADDRx_M/ADDRx_H become ADDR0_L/ADDR0_M/ADDR0_H.
When ADDR_SEL = 1, ADDRx_L/ADDRx_M/ADDRx_H become ADDR1_L/ADDR1_M/ADDR1_H.

By setting the 'Address Increment' field in ADDRx_H, the address will be increment after each access to the data register. The increment register values and corresponding increment amounts are shown in the following table:

Register value	Increment amount
0	0
1	1
2	2
3	4
4	8
5	16
6	32
7	64
8	128
9	256
10	512
11	40
12	80
13	160
14	320
15	640

Setting the DECR bit, will decrement instead of increment by the value set by the 'Address Increment' field.

Reset

When RESET in CTRL is set to 1, the FPGA will reconfigure itself. All registers will be reset. The palette RAM will be set to its default values.

Interrupts

Interrupts will be generated for the interrupt sources set in the lower 4 bits of IEN. ISR will indicate the interrupts that have occurred. Writing a 1 to one of the lower 3 bits in ISR will clear that interrupt status. AFLOW can only be cleared by filling the audio FIFO for at least 1/4.

IRQ_LINE (write-only) specifies at which line the LINE interrupt will be generated. Note that bit 8 of this value is present in the IEN register. For interlaced modes the interrupt will be generated each field and the bit 0 of IRQ_LINE is ignored.

SCANLINE (read-only) indicates the current scanline being sent to the screen. Bit 8 of this value is present in the IEN register. The value is 0 during the first visible line and 479 during the last. This value continues to count beyond the last visible line, but returns $1FF for lines 512-524 that are beyond its 9-bit resolution. SCANLINE is not affected by interlaced modes and will return either all even or all odd values during an even or odd field, respectively. Note that VERA renders lines ahead of scanout such that line 1 is being rendered while line 0 is being scanned out. Visible changes may be delayed one scanline because of this.

The upper 4 (read-only) bits of the ISR register contain the sprite collisions as determined by the sprite renderer.

Display composer

The display composer is responsible of combining the output of the 2 layer renderers and the sprite renderer into the image that is sent to the video output.

The video output mode can be selected using OUT_MODE in DC_VIDEO.

OUT_MODE	Description
0	Video disabled
1	VGA output
2	NTSC (composite/S-Video)
3	RGB 15KHz, composite or separate H/V sync, via VGA connector

Setting 'Chroma Disable' disables output of chroma in NTSC composite mode and will give a better picture on a monochrome display. (Setting this bit will also disable the chroma output on the S-video output.)

Setting 'HV Sync' enables separate HSync/VSync signals in RGB output mode. Clearing the bit will enable the default of composite sync over RGB.

Setting '240P' enables 240P progressive mode over NTSC or RGB. It has no effect if the VGA output mode is active. Instead of 262.5 scanlines per field, this mode outputs 263 scanlines per field. On CRT displays, the scanlines from both the even and odd fields will be displayed on even scanlines.

'Current Field' is a read-only bit which reflects the active interlaced field in composite and RGB modes. In non-interlaced modes, this reflects if the current line is even or odd. (0: even, 1: odd)

Setting 'Layer0 Enable' / 'Layer1 Enable' / 'Sprites Enable' will respectively enable output from layer0 / layer1 and the sprites renderer.

DC_HSCALE and DC_VSCALE will set the fractional scaling factor of the active part of the display. Setting this value to 128 will output 1 output pixel for every input pixel. Setting this to 64 will output 2 output pixels for every input pixel.

DC_BORDER determines the palette index which is used for the non-active area of the screen.

DC_HSTART/DC_HSTOP and DC_VSTART/DC_VSTOP determines the active part of the screen. The values here are specified in the native 640x480 display space. HSTART=0, HSTOP=640, VSTART=0, VSTOP=480 will set the active area to the full resolution. Note that the lower 2 bits of DC_HSTART/DC_HSTOP and the lower 1 bit of DC_VSTART/DC_VSTOP isn't available. This means that horizontally the start and stop values can be set at a multiple of 4 pixels, vertically at a multiple of 2 pixels.

DC_VER0, DC_VER1, DC_VER2, and DC_VER3 can be queried for the version number of the VERA bitstream. If reading DC_VER0 returns $56, the remaining registers returns values forming the major, minor, and build numbers respectively. If DC_VER0 returns a value other than $56, the VERA bitstream version number is undefined.

Layer 0/1 registers

'Map Base Address' specifies the base address of the tile map. Note that the register only specifies bits 16:9 of the address, so the address is always aligned to a multiple of 512 bytes.

'Tile Base Address' specifies the base address of the tile data. Note that the register only specifies bits 16:11 of the address, so the address is always aligned to a multiple of 2048 bytes.

'H-Scroll' specifies the horizontal scroll offset. A value between 0 and 4095 can be used. Increasing the value will cause the picture to move left, decreasing will cause the picture to move right.

'V-Scroll' specifies the vertical scroll offset. A value between 0 and 4095 can be used. Increasing the value will cause the picture to move up, decreasing will cause the picture to move down.

'Map Width', 'Map Height' specify the dimensions of the tile map:

Value	Map width / height
0	32 tiles
1	64 tiles
2	128 tiles
3	256 tiles

'Tile Width', 'Tile Height' specify the dimensions of a single tile:

Value	Tile width / height
0	8 pixels
1	16 pixels

In bitmap modes, the 'H-Scroll (11:8)' register is used to specify the palette offset for the bitmap.

Layer display modes

The features of the 2 layers are the same. Each layer supports a few different modes which are specified using T256C / 'Bitmap Mode' / 'Color Depth' in Lx_CONFIG.

'Color Depth' specifies the number of bits used per pixel to encode color information:

Color Depth	Description
0	1 bpp
1	2 bpp
2	4 bpp
3	8 bpp

The layer can either operate in tile mode or bitmap mode. This is selected using the 'Bitmap Mode' bit; 0 selects tile mode, 1 selects bitmap mode.

The handling of 1 bpp tile mode is different from the other tile modes. Depending on the T256C bit the tiles use either a 16-color foreground and background color or a 256-color foreground color. Other modes ignore the T256C bit.

Tile mode 1 bpp (16 color text mode)

T256C should be set to 0.

MAP_BASE points to a tile map containing tile map entries, which are 2 bytes each:

Offset	Bit 7	Bit 6	Bit 5	Bit 4	Bit 3	Bit 2	Bit 1	Bit 0
0	Character index
1	Background color				Foreground color

TILE_BASE points to the tile data.

Each bit in the tile data specifies one pixel. If the bit is set the foreground color as specified in the map data is used, otherwise the background color as specified in the map data is used.

Tile mode 1 bpp (256 color text mode)

T256C should be set to 1.

MAP_BASE points to a tile map containing tile map entries, which are 2 bytes each:

Offset	Bit 7	Bit 6	Bit 5	Bit 4	Bit 3	Bit 2	Bit 1	Bit 0
0	Character index
1	Foreground color

TILE_BASE points to the tile data.

Each bit in the tile data specifies one pixel. If the bit is set the foreground color as specified in the map data is used, otherwise color 0 is used (transparent).

Tile mode 2/4/8 bpp

MAP_BASE points to a tile map containing tile map entries, which are 2 bytes each:

Offset	Bit 7	Bit 6	Bit 5	Bit 4	Bit 3	Bit 2	Bit 1	Bit 0
0	Tile index (7:0)
1	Palette offset				V-flip	H-flip	Tile index (9:8)

TILE_BASE points to the tile data.

Each pixel in the tile data gives a color index of either 0-3 (2bpp), 0-15 (4bpp), 0-255 (8bpp). This color index is modified by the palette offset in the tile map data using the following logic:

• Color index 0 (transparent) and 16-255 are unmodified.
• Color index 1-15 is modified by adding 16 x palette offset.

Bitmap mode 1/2/4/8 bpp

MAP_BASE isn’t used in these modes. TILE_BASE points to the bitmap data.

TILEW specifies the bitmap width. TILEW=0 results in 320 pixels width and TILEW=1 results in 640 pixels width.

The palette offset (in 'H-Scroll (11:8)') modifies the color indexes of the bitmap in the same way as in the tile modes.

SPI controller

The SPI controller is connected to the SD card connector. The speed of the clock output of the SPI controller can be controlled by the 'Slow Clock' bit. When this bit is 0 the clock is 12.5MHz, when 1 the clock is about 390kHz. The slow clock speed is to be used during the initialization phase of the SD card. Some SD cards require a clock less than 400kHz during part of the initialization.

A transfer can be started by writing to SPI_DATA. While the transfer is in progress the BUSY bit will be set. After the transfer is done, the result can be read from the SPI_DATA register.

The chip select can be controlled by writing the SELECT bit. Writing 1 will assert the chip-select (logic-0) and writing 0 will release the chip-select (logic-1).

Palette

The palette translates 8-bit color indexes into 12-bit output colors. The palette has 256 entries, each with the following format:

Offset	Bit 7	Bit 6	Bit 5	Bit 4	Bit 3	Bit 2	Bit 1	Bit 0
0	Green				Blue
1	-				Red

At reset, the palette will contain a predefined palette:

• Color indexes 0-15 contain a palette somewhat similar to the C64 color palette.
• Color indexes 16-31 contain a grayscale ramp.
• Color indexes 32-255 contain various hues, saturation levels, brightness levels.

Sprite attributes

128 entries of the following format:

Offset	Bit 7	Bit 6	Bit 5	Bit 4	Bit 3	Bit 2	Bit 1	Bit 0
0	Address (12:5)
1	Mode	-			Address (16:13)
2	X (7:0)
3	-						X (9:8)
4	Y (7:0)
5	-						Y (9:8)
6	Collision mask				Z-depth		V-flip	H-flip
7	Sprite height		Sprite width		Palette offset

Mode	Description
0	4 bpp
1	8 bpp

Z-depth	Description
0	Sprite disabled
1	Sprite between background and layer 0
2	Sprite between layer 0 and layer 1
3	Sprite in front of layer 1

Sprite width / height	Description
0	8 pixels
1	16 pixels
2	32 pixels
3	64 pixels

Rendering Priority The sprite memory location dictates the order in which it is rendered. The sprite whose attributes are at the lowest location will be rendered in front of all other sprites; the sprite at the highest location will be rendered behind all other sprites, and so forth.

Palette offset works in the same way as with the layers.

Sprite collisions

At the start of the vertical blank Collisions in ISR is updated. This field indicates which groups of sprites have collided. If the field is non-zero the SPRCOL interrupt will be set. The interrupt is generated once per field / frame and can be cleared by making sure the sprites no longer collide.

Note that collisions are only detected on lines that are actually rendered. This can result in subtle differences between non-interlaced and interlaced video modes.

Programmable Sound Generator (PSG)

The audio functionality contains of 2 independent systems. The first is the PSG or Programmable Sound Generator. The second is the PCM (or Pulse-Code Modulation) playback system.

16 entries (channels) of the following format:

Offset	Bit 7	Bit 6	Bit 5	Bit 4	Bit 3	Bit 2	Bit 1	Bit 0
0	Frequency word (7:0)
1	Frequency word (15:8)
2	Right	Left	Volume
3	Waveform		Pulse width

Frequency word sets the frequency of the sound. The formula for calculating the output frequency is:

sample_rate = 25MHz / 512 = 48828.125 Hz

output_frequency = sample_rate / (2^17) * frequency_word

Thus the output frequency can be set in steps of about 0.373 Hz.

Example: to output a frequency of 440Hz (note A4) the Frequency word should be set to 440 / (48828.125 / (2^17)) = 1181

Volume controls the volume of the sound with a logarithmic curve; 0 is silent, 63 is the loudest. The Left and Right bits control to which output channels the sound should be output.

Waveform controls the waveform of the sound:

Waveform	Description
0	Pulse
1	Sawtooth
2	Triangle
3	Noise

Pulse width controls the duty cycle of the pulse waveform. A value of 63 will give a 50% duty cycle or square wave, 0 will give a very narrow pulse.

Just like the other waveform types, the frequency of the noise waveform can be controlled using frequency. In this case a higher frequency will give brighter noise and a lower value will give darker noise.

PCM audio

For PCM playback, VERA contains a 4kB FIFO buffer. This buffer needs to be filled in a timely fashion by the CPU. To facilitate this an AFLOW (Audio FIFO low) interrupt can be generated when the FIFO is less than 1/4 filled.

Audio registers

AUDIO_CTRL ($9F3B)

FIFO Full (bit 7) is a read-only flag that indicates whether the FIFO is full. Any writes to the FIFO while this flag is 1 will be ignored. Writing a 1 to this register (FIFO Reset) will perform a FIFO reset, which will clear the contents of the FIFO buffer.

FIFO Empty (bit 6) is a read-only flag that indicates whether the FIFO is empty.

16-bit (bit 5) sets the data format to 16-bit. If this bit is 0, 8-bit data is expected.

Stereo (bit 4) sets the data format to stereo. If this bit is 0 (mono), the same audio data is send to both channels.

PCM Volume (bits 0..3)controls the volume of the PCM playback, this has a logarithmic curve. A value of 0 is silence, 15 is the loudest.

AUDIO_RATE ($9F3C)

PCM sample rate controls the speed at which samples are read from the FIFO. A few example values:

PCM sample rate	Description
128	normal speed (25MHz / 512 = 48828.125 Hz)
64	half speed (24414 Hz)
32	quarter speed (12207 Hz)
0	stop playback
>128	invalid

Using a value of 128 will give the best quality (lowest distortion); at this value for every output sample, an input sample from the FIFO is read. Lower values will output the same sample multiple times to the audio DAC. Input samples are always read as a complete set (being 1/2/4 bytes).

AUDIO_DATA ($9F3D)

Audio FIFO data Writes to this register add one byte to the PCM FIFO. If the FIFO is full, the write will be ignored.

NOTE: When setting up for PCM playback it is advised to first set the sample rate at 0 to stop playback. First fill the FIFO buffer with some initial data and then set the desired sample rate. This can prevent undesired FIFO underruns.

Audio data formats

Audio data is two's complement signed. Depending on the selected mode the data needs to be written to the FIFO in the following order:

Mode	Order in which to write data to FIFO
8-bit mono	<mono sample>
8-bit stereo	<left sample> <right sample>
16-bit mono	<mono sample (7:0)> <mono sample (15:8)>
16-bit stereo	<left sample (7:0)> <left sample (15:8)> <right sample (7:0)> <right sample (15:8)>