4 ms·

A lot of the knowledge is from patents and dev kit leaks. Also, it was built by Silicon Graphics and uses similar tech to their indigo workstations so some kno

by unit01 5y ago

A lot of the knowledge is from patents and dev kit leaks. Also, it was built by Silicon Graphics and uses similar tech to their indigo workstations so some knowledge from those apply. N64 is well understood, and there are low level emulators now available that emulate the RSP and RDP on modern GPUs implemented with compute shaders. https://www.libretro.com/index.php/category/parallel-n64/ https://www.libretro.com/index.php/category/parallel-n64/

marcan_42 5y ago
The Verilog source code for the N64 ASICs leaked at some point, it's been floating around the internet for a while. So there's very little you couldn't figure out by looking at that, at this point. That's relatively recent, though; the vast majority of the emulation knowledge was from reverse engineering, patents, and typical devkit leak stuff as you say.
- Narann 5y ago
  Verilog RDP leak is overrated, IMHO. It helps to shape “broadly” how the black box (for the time) RDP works so RE work can starts. TBH, most peoples still prefer to RE on dedicated N64 hardware (hand crafted physical CPU interrupt/inspection). The problem is Verilog source alone is not that useful as you need to “plug” it to CPU with the N64 interface.
- ioseph 5y ago
  Wow I had no idea verilog was used for ASIC design this far back, for some reason I assumed it came along with FPGAs
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    FPGAs have been commercially available since the 80's!
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    >Wow I had no idea verilog was used for ASIC design this far back "This far back" is not that far back. N64 came out in 1996, at which point custom ASIC design and EDA tooling was already commonplace. Verilog appeared in 1984, and EDA tooling was in use way before that. What's more commonplace today is the number of fabless IP companies in the semi space that focus exclusively on selling only IP, rather than selling fully made chips, like SGI, NEC, TOSHIBA, etc. did back then.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

by unit01 5y ago

marcan_42 5y ago

The Verilog source code for the N64 ASICs leaked at some point, it's been floating around the internet for a while. So there's very little you couldn't figure out by looking at that, at this point. That's relatively recent, though; the vast majority of the emulation knowledge was from reverse engineering, patents, and typical devkit leak stuff as you say.

Narann 5y ago
Verilog RDP leak is overrated, IMHO. It helps to shape “broadly” how the black box (for the time) RDP works so RE work can starts. TBH, most peoples still prefer to RE on dedicated N64 hardware (hand crafted physical CPU interrupt/inspection). The problem is Verilog source alone is not that useful as you need to “plug” it to CPU with the N64 interface.
ioseph 5y ago
Wow I had no idea verilog was used for ASIC design this far back, for some reason I assumed it came along with FPGAs
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  FPGAs have been commercially available since the 80's!
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >Wow I had no idea verilog was used for ASIC design this far back "This far back" is not that far back. N64 came out in 1996, at which point custom ASIC design and EDA tooling was already commonplace. Verilog appeared in 1984, and EDA tooling was in use way before that. What's more commonplace today is the number of fabless IP companies in the semi space that focus exclusively on selling only IP, rather than selling fully made chips, like SGI, NEC, TOSHIBA, etc. did back then.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]