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MiSTER Pi DE10-Clone mini review

What is it?

Another clone of the DE10-nano, this time from Taki Udon / Retro Remake – or legally “SHOP 185 G/F. HANG WAI IND”. I’m really not sure who or what is really behind these boards, but from a consumer point of view, it doesn’t really matter. You get a DE10-nano clone with a stick of 128mb SDRAM for less than 120 USD, which is a bargain.

Unlike the original and the QM-tech, it’s powered via USB-C, which is great and terrible. Great if you want to use it as a console, and terrible if you want to embed it into something else, as you somehow need to feed it 5V.

There is a header footprint on this board where you can solder a power connector, e.g. JST-XH, but even with my commercial grade Metcal iron, I had trouble getting the solder to flow, so it’s not something I can recommend to the average user. The footprint has a thermal relief, but I suspect the internal ground plane is connected without any kind of thermal relief, turning it into a giant heat-sink, causing troublesome soldering. This is something I hope will be addressed in future revisions. If you choose to go down this route, you also have to fix your own DC-DC cable.

Does it work with the JAMMA Expander / JVS Expander?

Yes it does. The physical layout, including the USB header connector beneath the PCB, works great with the JVS and JAMMA expanders. I used the SD card from my original DE-10, and everything started up and worked as expected. I did not test I2S audio via GPIO.

There are of course a couple of caveats:

  • You need to power it via USB-C, I got an adapter cable off aliexpress that works, but later found a plain adapter that probably works better.
  • The USB cable included with the Expanders will not work, you will need a USB type A to type A extension.

All in all, a great alternative, maybe the alternative if you factor in availability. My prediction for 2025 is that none of the announced MiSTer alternatives will be available for purchase, leaving MiSTer as the only option – which is still a very good one, especially at this price point.

Links for the stuff I got

MiSTER Pi – Retro Gaming FPGA Board / Base Kit – https://retroremake.co/products/mister-pi-retro-gaming-fpga-board
128MB SDRAM – MiSTer FPGA Compatible – https://retroremake.co/products/128mb-sdram-mister-fpga-compatible
Short 15cm USB A to A cable – https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006832390098.html
22AWG 0.2m USB 3.1 Type C Male to DC 5.5*2.1mm – https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003491870458.html
Untested, but probably better:
USB Type C / Micro USB Male to DC 5.5×2.1mm DC – https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004917586973.html

The JAMMA Expander and JVS Expander is available in the store.

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QMTech DE10-Clone mini review

This could be a fun YouTube video, but I don’t do that, so this is a quick review for people who can read.

What is it?

It’s a functional clone of the Terasic DE10-Nano, used with the MiSTer, and it’s really inexpensive. Almost too inexpensive. I have no idea how they managed to get the price that far down, but I suspect they came across a batch of surplus chips and decided to use them for something cool. They part number on the QMTech board indicates it’s automotive grade – meaning it can take even more heat than the industrial grade the DE10 comes with. Even less a reason to use a fan on it, but each to his or her own.

I got the version with onboard SDRAM, which is a great idea as it’s one less thing you need to buy. From a technical standpoint it’s also a great idea, as the GPIO headers are not really meant for the kind of speeds or signal integrity required for SDRAM. I’ve seen the signals on an external SDRAM module, and it was pretty bad – I’ve not bothered to check the QMTech with a scope, but I assume they know what they’re doing.

I have only tested this board with the JVS & JAMMA expanders, as I don’t own any additional hardware that use the GPIO ports. The I2S audio via GPIO option on the JVS Expander was not tested.

Does it work with the JAMMA Expander / JVS Expander?

Yes it does, with a couple of caveats.

  • The 4 included M3 brass hex spacers are 5mm long. You need longer ones, like the 10mm included with the Terasic DE10-nano.
  • The USB cable included with the Expanders will not work, you will need a USB type A to type A extension. The QMtech does not have a micro OTG USB port, but instead a standard USB host type A port.
  • The micro-SD slot is not in the same position as the DE10. On the QMTech it ends up really close to the JST-VH DC connector, so you will have to unscrew the Expander to swap the micro-SD.

Other than that it was plug & play. My QMTech came with a 32gb micro-sd card (thanks!), not sure if this was their QA card they forgot to remove or if they all come with it. I didn’t use this, but just swapped in the one from my normal DE10 and it booted right up with no surprises.

Links for the stuff I got

Short 15cm USB A to A cable – https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006832390098.html
QMTECH Intel Altera Cyclone V SoC FPGA 5CSEMA6U23 Development Board – https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007370471764.html
Github page with manual, schematic, images etc –https://github.com/ChinaQMTECH/QMTECH_Cyclone_V_SoC_KFB_With_Dual_SDRAM
QMTech twitter – https://x.com/zyjnumber1

The JAMMA Expander and JVS Expander is available in the store 🙂

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2024 Update – I’m still here, tested JAMMA Expanders inbound.

Wow, a year and a half since the last update – I’m going to try to make updates a bit more frequent.

Since the last update, there has been a bit of work done on the firmware side of things, please check for updates on the Jammafier, JAMMA Expander and the JVS Expander.

I hope to get at least an initial update out for the JVS-PAC 2 with the new USB framework, and then possibly get analog sorted, it for sure is long overdue..

In the FPGA gaming world, there has been A LOT of talk, and not much action – not unlike JVS-PAC 2 firmware updates 🙂 As of this writing, the MiSTer is likely still the only viable option you can purchase – and I think it will remain like that for quite some time. Who knows when any alternatives will be available or how they will actually turn out. I’m not holding my breath..

There is talk about DE10 clones though, and these look promising. AFAIK they are not released yet, but promise significantly lower cost than getting the original. I may try to get hold of these to check for compatibility with the Expanders – on paper there should not be any issues, apart from possibly a different USB cable between expander and the DE10-clone.

I closed the store for summer, and it will reopen the first week of August.  I have a batch of JAMMA Expanders incoming, that should be available shortly.  It is a limited batch, so you may consider signing up for a notification.

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Hello 2023 – an update from Irken

New website has been up and running for about four months now, and apart from a zillion required plug-ins to make even the most rudimentary basics work, I’m pretty pleased with it. The shipping plug-in is a lot better than the old one, and I particularly like how shipping is handled. I hope you like getting clickable tracking numbers by email when orders are shipped. Another option I have with the new website is back in stock notifications, which was highly requested – and having sales. In regards to sales and marketing tactics, I’m not a big fan of FOMO (fear-of-missing-out), spamming and social media marketing – my strategy remains to have stuff I would buy myself available for easy purchase, in stock, with fast shipping.

That being said, if you buy something, posting a picture of it on Twitter or forums is greatly appreciated!

2022 saw the release of 3 new designs, which is frankly a bit too much. I hope to focus a bit more on firmware in 2023, and one or possibly two new products.

JAMMA Expander rev 2.0
JVS Expander
Jammafier rev 2.0

Stock levels are healthy right now, and I hope to have everything for quite some time. The IC shortage is still very much in effect, making it complicated to re-stock and to work on new designs. Even when parts are in stock, everything seems to have gotten more expensive lately, including shipping, parts cost and fabrication.

Since Irken is 100% my thing, nobody can stop me from publicly stating that I support Ukraine, and I hope all of you reading this is doing so too. A donation was made by Irken to the Ukrainian Red Cross in 2022, and I hope being able to repeat this in 2023.

Lastly I would like to thank all my customers, it really makes me happy when I see repeat orders as it tells me I’m doing something right.

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New website

Phew, migrating a website is not fun, at all. I’m now running WordPress+WooCommerce, which supports pretty much all shipping carriers, as I’ve had some issues with my current carrier and want to be able to quickly switch to another should it be necessary.

Shipping is kind-of sorted with FedEx, prices has gone up a bit – but I think it’s still on the reasonable side.

As for products & Stock, I have a case full of Jammafier 2.0 and JVS-PAC 2 boards ready.

I have just a handful of JAMMA Expanders for use with MiSTer, but I expect these to run out of stock very quickly – and I don’t think I’ll be able to restock these until the chip-shortage gets better.

If you see something odd with the new website, or during the order process – please let me know via the about->contact form.

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Spring Update – 2022

Spring is here, time for an update.

Stock levels & Parts shortage

As you probably know, there is a global parts-shortage going on.  I’m not a betting man, but I suspect this will last until at least 2023.  As Irken is a such a tiny operation, I have managed to ‘scoop’ up some parts here and there but for the last two months it seems the critical parts are really gone, unless you’re ready to pay 10x the price.

A summary of stock levels:

  1. Retro Scaler A1 – healthy
  2. JAMMA Expander – somewhat limited stock
  3. JVS-PAC 2 – very limited stock, I expect to run out soon
  4. Jammafier – very limited stock, I expect to run out soon
  5. Tri-Sync Helpers – out of stock

Unless parts suddenly pop-up, I don’t expect I’ll be able to restock JAMMA Expanders this year.

Toshiba ‘PF’ Enhanced Remote

I got a Sega New Net City cabinet last year, so of course I had to make a remote for it that gives me access the hidden to geometry and color adjustment menus.  I had a few of them made, and they’re available for purchase.  I called it the PD-1843 enhanced remote, but later learned that it can be used with a whole family of monitors, so going forward it will be called the Toshiba ‘PF’ enhanced remote.

I’m working on a product page for it that should be ready soon.

New Jammafier 2.0

There is a new Jammafier in the works, and I hope to have it available for sale within a few months.  The new thing is that the Tri-Sync Helper is integrated, making it a bit more practical if you need a Tri-Sync Helper.  A neat feature is that you can switch between C and HV sync via the menu, this is especially useful with Toshiba PF monitors where you can get some sync distortion in the top of the frame with either C or HV sync depending on which game you use.

It will be more expensive than the existing because of added parts (and cost of parts), so if you only need a Jammafier – now is a good time to pick one up.  Firmware and features will be identical to the existing one, apart from the integrated Tri-Sync Helper.

 

 

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Fall Update – 2021

The MiSTer JAMMA Expander is finally released, it took a little longer than anticipated.  The PCB and the involved tech itself is not terribly complicated, but for this product I figure out how to source custom cables. 

The IC shortage was also a challenge, as the main IC on this board was not available in China where the boards are assembled.  I had to buy chips from a Norwegian distributor and FedEx them to the factory.

Another aspect that took a fair bit of time was trying to influence how MiSTer handles input, and it kind of reached a compromise – the default settings on the Expander makes it pretty much plug & play, and the hard way that is geared towards ‘console’ users.  A few developers are going to great lengths to make cycle-perfect recreations of Arcade boards, which involves stuff like de-capping and reverse-engineering IC’s. 

In light of this, I find the reluctance to accommodate arcade users who expect coin, test and buttons in general to work like the original a little strange.  I’m pretty sure that a complete rework of the MiSTer input system is going to happen sooner or later.  Whatever the future holds, the Expander supports both methods (MAME keyboard with standard layout, and 2 x gamepad).

By the time you read this, it’s almost guaranteed that the Expanders are no longer in stock.  I’m looking into having more made, but not ETA yet, and the price will likely be a little higher than the first batch.

As I now know how to get custom cables made, used this new ‘capability’ to have a few ATX to JST-VL (Naomi) adapters made.  It’s basically a copy of something I made for myself some time back when one of my earlier ‘hacks’ failed on me, and I decided to make something proper.  They feature soft silicone wires, the type you get on good test leads, and has double wires for 3.3V and 5V that should minimize voltage drop to the point that adjusting voltage is not needed.  I don’t expect to ship any of these as single orders, but you may consider adding one to your order if you’re buying something else.  Next time I may get some kick cables for the Jammafier made, I totally forgot about that this time around.

 

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(MiSTer) DE10-Nano JAMMA Expander

It seems like everyone and their mother is working on a different types of JAMMA solutions for the MiSTer project, and I am too 🙂

 

I haven’t settled 100% on a name yet, but for now the working title is simply “JAMMA Expander”, as it expands the DE10-nano to work in a JAMMA cabinet.  It doesn’t have a zillion features, but aims to make running MiSTer in a cabinet as easy and clean as possible.  If you want a really good “multi-pcb” for use in a cabinet, but don’t feel like a taking on a project – this may be the board for you. 

This board uses the HDMI output of the MISTer, so both video and audio will be as good as it can get.

Some specs

  • 24 bit color, coupled with a high quality DAC and RGB amplification.
  • It has a decent audio amplifier for MONO audio, but you can also toggle a switch to get line level stereo via RCA if you have a stereo amplifier in your cab.
  • Hassle-free firmware updates via micro-SD, very much the same way as the Jammafier and the JVS-PAC 2
  • an OLED for diagnostics

You mount the DE10 on top of this board, not under – so fitting it in a cab should be very simple, and it’s also easy to remove the DE10 should you want to use it for something else.

Availability should be sometime this summer ;), price is TBD.

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Winter Update – Happy 2021

A long overdue winter update!  My lab is now operational and there is actual r&d happening 🙂

MiSTer!

I’m happy to report that the JVS-PAC 2 and MiSTer are now friends, and it makes for a very easy and nice setup!  I’ve added a tutorial on getting a MiSTer up and running in the JVS-PAC 2 section.  To make things more plug and play, I’ve updated the default key-mapping for Player 2 Button 5 to “E”, which is the MAME standard and also used in Jotego’s fantastic cores e.g. the CPS1 – i.e. no complicated merging/unmerging of devices or remapping of input.

If you already have the JVS-PAC 2, all you need in addition to the DE10-nano is an SDRAM module.

 

For Jamma cabinets, a little more hardware is involved in making the DE10-Nano cabinet friendly, but I’m confident there be solutions for that soon 🙂

Stock Levels 

 

Stock levels are healthy, and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.  

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Fall update 2020

There has been close to zero R&D last few months, and it will unfortunately continue like that until sometime in December.  I started a new job this summer, and right now I’m in the middle of moving out of our apartment in the city centre  to a proper house with garden on the outside.  I will miss having coffee shops and stores minutes away by foot, but look forward to having a dedicated office/lab, garage, garden etc.  As if that wasn’t enough, I’m also getting my drivers license and a car, which is kind of a thorough process here in Norway.  Anyway, I expect to be done with all of this in December.

Store closing 1 – 15 October

I’m away on business a couple of weeks, and instead of getting a backlog of unshipped orders I will simply close the online store the first weeks of October.  The store will likely also close for a week or two in November.

MiSTer?

I’ve gotten a few emails about JVS-PAC 2 not working with MiSTer, and I can confirm it is indeed problematic at this point.  I got a MiSTer setup myself, and I’m positive that it will work some time in the future.  

A possible fix/workaround will be to implement the planned gamepad mode for the JVS-PAC 2, but given all the problem-reports I’ve been reading for a lot of different devices this is just a theory.  A good test to check if a setup is working properly is to load up a 2 player 6 button game, enter test mode and press all buttons for all players at the same time, while move the joysticks around.  I expect this simple test would reveal issues with a lot of MiSTer setups..

From my perspective, the problem is mostly with the input model of MiSTer, they could learn a couple of lessons form the MAME project..

Stock levels

Except the A1 scaler, no stock shortage in sight for the foreseeable future.  I’ve initiated another run of the A1 scalers, but may run out of stock until it’s completed.