TIMELOG.txt

AS OF 4/22/24, SOURCE IS DISCORD'S TIME LOG CHANNEL

Eriberto Perez: 41.25 (21.25 pre-alpha) 
Steven Miller: 66 (25 pre-alpha)
Patrick Lehman: 23.15 (14.5 pre-alpha)
Kieran Abesamis: 27.5 (16.5 pre-alpha)
Jonas Wood: 24.5 (14.5 pre-alpha)

Total Timelog Hours: 183 hours 

NOTE: These hours do not include documentation OR our weekly meetings with Carsten. The timelog hours include research and expermientation. 

Number of Weekly Meetings: 9  (10-20 hours each team member, 1-2 Hours per meeting) 
Documentation (Pre-Alpha Build, Prototype Presentation, Design Draft/Revision): 20 hours total

**Estimated Project Hours: 270 hours**

****************************************************
****************************************************
********* PRE ALPHA BUILD TIME LOG *****************
****************************************************
****************************************************
*********DATES: 2/28/24 - 3/28/24*******************

2 28 24
Steven Miller — 02/28/2024 11:20 AM
start: 11:00 am
end: 11:30 am
task: looking for mister hardware

Beto Perez — 02/28/2024 11:21 AM
Start: 11:00 AM
End: 11:25 AM
task: looking for mister. Emphasizing functionality for our purpose over verbosity


3 6 24
Kieran Abesamis — 03/06/2024 4:25 PM
Start: 11:00AM
End: 11:15AM
Task: Reviewing Design Revision Notes, Researching Power for MiSTER

Start: 4:00PM
End: 4:24PM
Task: Editing Storyboard for Design Revision


Steven Miller — 03/06/2024 7:42 PM
start: 12:00pm
end: 3:00
task: adjusting schematic in design revision
start:7:00pm
end:8:00pm
task: adding more roms to our mister, removing unneeded cores.

Jonas Wood — 03/06/2024 8:36 PM
start: 7:00pm
end: 9:00pm
task: add project roles, timeline to Statement of Work in Design Revision

Jonas Wood — 03/06/2024 10:34 PM
start: 9:30pm
end: 10:30pm
task: cont. project timeline, breakdown of specific milestones to be accomplished throughout project

Steven Miller — 03/06/2024 11:07 PM
start:10:40pm
end: 11:06pm
task: final check for design draft

Beto Perez — 03/06/2024 11:10 PM
Wednesday - March 6 2024
12-1:30 AM fleshing out revision, discussing new architecture now that we are not doing a CPU or OS

12-3:00 PM Put in systems diagram, put more details, found sources for power consumption and NES architecture
9:45-11:10 PM Finishing touches, discussing dates and splitting of work and roles. Writing in the table with Jonas.


3 16 24
Steven Miller — 03/16/2024 2:27 PM
date: march 12 2024
start: 3:30pm
end: 6:45pm
task: research for how cyclone V will be flashed, schematics drawn aswell


3 17 24
Steven Miller -3/16/2024 
date: march 16 2024
start: 11:30 pm
end: 12:30 am
task: research for connecting cyclone V to external storage device
Beto Perez — 03/17/2024 8:53 PM
Sunday - March 17 2024
5:30-8:50 PM more research, finishing basic 6502 tutorial. Set up neslib c library. Successfully built and ran on emulator a "GO GATORS" message and verified NTSC mode.

Steven Miller — 03/17/2024 10:32 PM
date: march 17 2024
start: 9:00 pm
end: 10:30 pm
task: setting up NES test code through CC65


3 18 24
Steve Miller -3/18/2024
date: march 18 2024
start: 2:30 pm
end: 3:00 pm
task: documenting mister, setting up wifi for mister.
Steven Miller — 03/18/2024 6:24 PM
date: march 18 2024
start: 5:30 pm
end: 6:00 pm
task: configuring mister for quartus prime debugging, loading new games

Steven Miller — 03/19/2024 2:59 PM
date: march 19 2024
start: 1 pm
end: 3 pm
task: talking with mister engineers about the NES core is organized
Steven Miller — 03/20/2024 2:27 PM
date: march 20 2024
start: 12 pm
end: 2:30 pm
task: stripping down MISTER NES core so it will fit within a de-10 lite

Beto Perez — 03/20/2024 11:02 PM
Wednesday - March 20 2024
10:00-11:00 PM banging my head against the wall known as GitHub and setting up the repo.


3 21 24
Patrick Lehman — 03/21/2024 12:17 PM
Thursday - March 21, 2024
10:30-12:15 PM Worked on logic for NES Emulator Boot menu 

Jonas Wood — 03/21/2024 12:25 PM
date: March 21, 2024
start: 11am
end: 12:15pm
task: set up NES emulator on my laptop to run sample program and successfully interfaced with NES controller

Steven Miller — 03/21/2024 12:36 PM
date: March 21, 2024
start: 11am
end: 12:15pm
task: set up NES hardware and software repo

Jonas Wood — 03/21/2024 1:26 PM
date: March 19, 2024
start: 10:15am
end: 12:35
task: attended meeting, saw running sample code on NES emulator from Beto, successfully ran sample code on MiSTer at lab with team

Kieran Abesamis — 03/21/2024 2:22 PM
date: March 21, 2024
start: 1:30PM
end: 2:20PM
task: set up NES Emulator and EMS Software repo 

Steven Miller — 03/21/2024 2:32 PM
date: March 21, 2024
start: 1:30 pm
end: 2:30 pm
task: creating development kit using hardware given by carsten

Beto Perez — 03/21/2024 3:57 PM
Thursday - March 21 2024
2:15-3:50 PM foreground sprite rendering! Check it out in the lab. I have also researched how sprites work and how to draw them onto the screen. Next order of business is editing the tile map to include an arrow and gator sprite. Amazing progress!
4:55-5:50PM figured out how to adjust palette and sprites. Sprites are Hard codes from a .CHR file we can edit. We can set pallettes in C which will be written to VRAM 

Steven Miller — 03/21/2024 8:09 PM
date: March 21, 2024
start: 5:30 pm
end: 8:00 pm
task: creating development kit using hardware given by carsten, testing nes core on de-10 lite.


3 22 24
Friday - March 22 2024
1:45 -3 :15 AM after raging from Fortnite, I felt productive. I created a fake menu that handles input and menu selection. That is step 0.5. This week, we hit the ground on outside memory, how the Genie worked, and actual bootloader stuff

Kieran Abesamis — 03/22/2024 1:18 PM
Date: Friday - March 22 2024
Time: 12:00PM - 1:15PM
Task: Tried stripping down NESTang Core, downloading GinWin IDE. Unable to compile it cause the documentation for it was pretty bad.

Steven Miller — 03/22/2024 7:25 PM
date: March 22, 2024
start: 12:00 pm
end: 3:00 pm
task: analyzing nes core


3 25 24
Patrick Lehman — 03/25/2024 6:12 PM
date: March 25, 2024
start: 4:10 pm
end: 6:25 pm
task: Fixing menu logic

Beto Perez — 03/25/2024 6:16 PM
Monday - March 25 2024
2:30 - 6:15 PM Proving (it worked) that we can read and write to an address, additionally fixing out menu logic with Patrick. We don't know the address, likely 0x00 in the zero page, but thankfully we don't need to know. Dr. Blanchard let us know where exactly to read and write.


3 26 24
Steven Miller — 03/26/2024 3:03 AM
date: March 25, 2024
start: 2:00 pm
end: 6:00 pm
task: analyzing nes core

Steven Miller — 03/26/2024 8:50 PM
date: March 25, 2024
start: 3:00 pm
end: 6:00 pm
task: analyzing nes core


3 27 24
Kieran Abesamis — Yesterday at 10:47 AM
Date: Tuesday - March 26 2024
Time: 1:00PM - 1:45PM
Task: Cloned FPGAnes repo, tried compiling the core on Quartus but was unsuccessful 

Kieran Abesamis — Yesterday at 1:35 PM
Date: Wednesday - March 27 2024
Time: 10:45AM - 1:45PM
Task: Found DE10 Lite NES Emulator, compiled on Quartus. Downloaded Xilinx for FPGAnes for compilation.

Kieran Abesamis — Yesterday at 7:19 PM
Date: Wednesday - March 27 2024
Time: 6:15PM-7:10PM
Task: Unsuccessful compilation of Xilinx core, studied DE10 emulator


3 28 24
Jonas Wood — Today at 10:24 AM
date: March 26, 2024
time: 10:15-11:20am
task: attended meeting, took & uploaded meeting minutes. discussed hardware/software for pre-alpha build, ideas of firmware w/microprocessor to read from SD card to FPGA core

Jonas Wood — Today at 1:14 PM
date: March 28, 2024
time: 11:20am - 1:10pm
task: begun work on C code (to be executed on microprocessor) to move files from SD card to SDRAM. worked on design in pre-alpha build document

Beto Perez — Today at 2:09 PM
Thursday - March 28 2024
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM paging! Also remembered technical limitations (2kb ram). Discussed with Patrick and Jonas about additional microcontroller functionality in writing to memory addresses. Menu has changing pages, but a problem: longer titles do not get overwritten, leading to problems in the titles listed. This is easily fixable by brute force, but maybe there’s a better solution

Kieran Abesamis — Today at 5:23 PM
Date: Thursday - March 28 2024
Time: 1:00PM-1:45PM, 3:00PM-4:30PM
Task: Discussed Hardware next steps, Pre-Alpha Build Diagram, report for Architectural components


ADDITIONAL (PRE-ALPHA): 
Software (Beto, Patrick, Jonas) watched videos and read wikis on how to get started in writing code that can run on the NES. This research comes to about 3 hours each for finishing the tutorials, experimentation, and reading documentation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEiNs7pKNh8&list=PLgvDB6LWam2WvoFvh8tlUqbqw92qWM0aP
https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/Nesdev_Wiki


Hardware (Steven, Patrick, Kieran) have had much research and conversation into the technicals of the project with each other and other engineers (about 4 hours). Additionatlly have their own contributions to their part of the repository (2 hours). This can be found on the MiSTer discord and private messages with Steven.

Additionally, Patrick has pushed some commits with Jonas on input detection logic (2 hours each)

****************************************************
****************************************************
********* PROTOTYPE BUILD TIME LOG ************
****************************************************
****************************************************
*********DATES: 3/29/24 - 4/19/24*******************


Jonas Wood - 04/02/2024 1:50 PM 
Date: Tuesday 4/2/24
Time: 1:00PM - 1:50PM
Task: Made a C and C++ program to transfer file(s) from an SD card to another file path on Windows. 
Will have to modify to work on microprocessor once acquired.

Steven Miller — 04/04/2024 2:54 PM
date: April 4, 2024
start: 1:00 pm
end: 3:00 pm
task: diagnosing display issue with MISTER

Steven Miller — 04/04/2024 7:27 PM
date: April 4, 2024
start: 6:00 pm
end: 7:00 pm
task: setting up de-10 nano

Steven Miller — 04/09/2024 5:55 PM
date: April 9, 2024
start: 11:00 am
end: 6:00 pm
task: researching 6502 based CPU

Kieran Abesamis — 04/09/2024 7:39 PM
Date: Tuesday April 9, 2024
Time: 7:00PM-7:40PM
Task: DE10 Lite APU Research -> NES APU Research. Found out registers on original NES. 
DE10 Lite will be hard to mimic audio but will still be able to execute OG graphics via something like VGA. 
Might need to find something extra for audio. Microcontroller? Display Pi? Also reviewed Pre-Alpha build comments 

Beto Perez — 04/09/2024 11:40 PM
Tuesday - April 9 2024
Time: 7:30 PM - 11:30 PM 
Task: Finalizng findings on PPU (Pin outs)
**I also want to count an extra 3 hours over the weekend that I forgot to log**

Kieran Abesamis — 04/10/2024 1:10 PM
Date: Wednesday April 9, 2024
Time: 11:30AM - 12:30PM
Task: NES APU Research. Compiled notes for how the OG NES worked (in electronics channel). 
Discussed with Steven how its easier to understand than the PPU and the audio is dependent 
on what complex games we wanna run because each channel acts individually. 

Steven Miller — 04/10/2024 2:19 PM
Date: Wednesday April 9, 2024
Time: 11:00AM - 1:20PM
Task: NES CPU research, wrote separate DMA component in verilog.

Patrick Lehman — 04/12/2024 4:40 PM
Date: Thursday April 10
Time: 1:30-2:45
Task: Researched Mapper program, ran Jonas’ program

Steven Miller — 04/12/2024 6:23 PM
Date: Friday April 12
Time: 12:00pm-3:00pm
Task: researching verilog code

Steven Miller — 04/13/2024 6:15 PM
Date: Saturday April 13
Time: 4:00pm-6:15pm
Task: making verilog tutorials for the crew 

Steven Miller — 04/14/2024 8:10 PM
Date: sunday April 14 
Time: 4:00pm - 8:00pm 
Task: creating filter to mimic CRT effects

Steven Miller — 04/15/2024 4:47 PM
Date: Monday April 15 
Time: 2:20pm - 3:20pm 
Task: researching CPU, adding debug lines.

Steven Miller — 04/15/2024 10:03 PM
Date: Monday April 15 
Time: 8:30pm - 10:00pm 
Task: working on CRT filters

Kieran Abesamis — 04/16/2024 1:44 PM
Date: Tuesday April 16, 2024
Time: 12:35PM - 1:45PM, 3:00PM - 4:30PM
Task: Staring at NES DMA RTL Viewer. Research on DMA on NES + DE10 Nano. 
Reviewed Beto's Notes on PPU. Discussed Prototype Plans. 

Steven Miller — 04/16/2024 1:45 PM
Date: Tuesday April 16, 2024
Time: 12:35PM - 1:45PM
Task: Researching DMA

Steven Miller — 04/16/2024 4:49 PM
Date: Tuesday April 16, 2024
Time: 2:45PM - 4:45PM
Task: Researching NES core

Kieran Abesamis — 04/17/2024 2:15 PM
Date: Wednesday April 17, 2024
Time: 1:00PM - 2:00PM
Task: Figuring out NES Core and loading from SDRAM. Also studied Steven's Verilog tutorials.

Steven Miller — Yesterday at 7:06 PM
Date: Thursday April 17, 2024
Time: 1:00PM - 6:00PM
Task: modifying nes core and configuring de-10 nano

Steven Miller — Today at 1:41 AM
Date: Friday April 18, 2024
Time: 10:00PM - 1:00AM
Task: modifying nes core

Jonas Wood — Today at 2:31 PM
Date: Sunday April 14, 2024
Time: 12:00PM - 2:00PM
Task: researched DE-10 nano's ARM Cortex A9 microprocessor & C libraries
Date: Tuesday April 16, 2024
Time: 3:00PM - 5:00PM
Task: setup ARM Development Studio and attempted to run sample C code on the chip in-lab. continued research on C libraries for Cortex A9

Patrick Lehman — Today at 3:56 PM
Date: Thursday April 17, 2024
Time: 3pm - 5pm
Task: Researching De 10 i/o and programming process via jtag 
Date: Wednesday April 18, 2024
Time: 2:00PM - 530pm
Task: configuring raspberry pi, programming de 10 w armds


Beto Perez — Today at 4:27 PM
Tuesday - April 16 2024
3:30 PM - 6:30 PM Working on board development
Wednesday - April 17 2024
3:30 PM - 6:30 PM Board development, trying to get a simple circuit on nano
Thursday - April 18 2024
3:30 PM - 6:30 PM Working on nes controller input detection. Some researched revealed that we don't have the core techincally at full functionality
Friday - April 19 2024
3:30 PM - 7:30 Figuring out video output and quartus problems. Not fun

Kieran Abesamis - Today at 4:31PM
Date: Thursday April 19, 2024
Time: 1:00PM - 2:00PM, 7:00PM-8:00PM
Task: Verilog Tutorials! Also figuring out NES Core for Prototype
Date: Friday April 19,2024
Time: 1:00PM - 5:00PM
Task: Trying to get NES Core Output, attempted UART debugging techniques

Jonas Wood - Today at 4:35PM
Date: Friday April 19, 2024
Time: 2 - 5pm
Task: Started Design prototype document, researched DE10-Nano pin assignments/push-button inputs, attempted compilation of LED output on new NES core w/Steven

Steven Miller - 4/19/24 at 6:08PM
Date: Friday April 19, 2024
Time: 12:00pm - 6:00pm
Task: outputting graphics from the core (success!)

ADDITIONAL (PROTOTYPE): 
Jonas + Patrick's Research on the Mapper for NES - 2 Hours Each (4 total)