New DK'Tronics clone for PCW

[SyX]

And Habi did it again 

This time, he has made a little expansion that include an AY, and in one of the I/O ports there is attached a joystick port and an 8 bit DAC in the other (this is a new addition with respect to the old interface ).

The joystick and the AY use the same ports of the old DK'Tronics interface for PCW... although the only programs for PCW making sound with that interface are Head over Heels, the demostration disc included with the interface (but this is not preserved yet and looks nobody has it), the Habi's Abadia PCW port and my conversion of Arkos player, AYC and another cpc music routines... nice people is time to work in new PCW productions with PSG sound

Well, that is all, enjoy the demostration video:

Dk'tronics - PCW

[arnoldemu]

Have any Spectrum tools/music players been converted for playing pcw beeper music?

Anything like Beepola for speccy?

BTW: This dk'tronics interface is  cool !

BTW2: I am planning to convert one of my work in progress games to the pcw.

[arnoldemu]

What is the frequency of the AY for the PCW?

[TotO]

Anything like Beepola for speccy?

Useless, no tape to load. 

[arnoldemu]

Useless, no tape to load. 

funny.

When I convert one of my games to pcw, I want to use pcw beeper sound, and only if the dk'tronics is detected and exists I will use AY sound.

[TotO]

Sure. It's just for the joke.
Now, this board will allow to get better sound and joystick support. It's a nice work for players.

[SyX]

Have any Spectrum tools/music players been converted for playing pcw beeper music?

Anything like Beepola for speccy?

Yes, i converted a few ones beepola's players, you can hear an example in this post of the spanish forum.

BTW: This dk'tronics interface is  cool !

BTW2: I am planning to convert one of my work in progress games to the pcw.

GREAT NEWS!!!

What is the frequency of the AY for the PCW?

Exactly the same of the CPC

As all these sounds examples are in the spanish forum (sorry but there is where happens PCW interesting things those days), i'm going to put the links to the posts with the tests to download, here (Habi YM player), here (my AYC conversion) and here (Arkos player for PCW).

[TFM]

Hi, that's very interesting. Where can I order such a board?

[SyX]

Habi got 10 boards and of course, those have flown by now (i have not got one, for example ), although they were simply the boards, you will need to do all the solder work... but don't worry, because in the next days he is going a publish all the schematics and the rest of information for anybody can build it and i personally will upload that information to the wiki

But i'm sure that if there is interest, we can get a hardware magician as Sir Bryce making a little print

[TFM]

Well, 10 is a small number. Hope that somebody will make some boards. I would defenitely take one.

[SyX]

Me too (a few days ago a kind person has offered me a PCW8256 )

[Gryzor]

But i'm sure that if there is interest, we can get a hardware magician as Sir Bryce making a little print

Dunno about Bryce, I think he likes building his own projects, not just having a production line for everything out there...


Unless I'm wrong, in which case I apologise for speaking out of turn.

[Bryce]

Nope, you're 100% on the mark there Gryzor. I don't do "build to print", I only produce my own stuff. I also couldn't build them anyway, because I'd never send anything out without testing it fully and I don't own a PCW, so that's out of the question.

Bryce.

[SyX]

Another video showing Head Over Heels and the joystick interface:

Dk'tronics - PCW (2)

[TFM]

... and it seems to have the AY on board too. That's not the typical beeper sound, right?

[arnoldemu]

Another video showing Head Over Heels and the joystick interface:

Dk'tronics - PCW (2)

This is cool and I will support it in one of my pcw games.

Does anybody have any of the other interfaces as real hardware?

[TotO]

... and it seems to have the AY on board too. That's not the typical beeper sound, right?

Yes. You can see that on the first video.
The big chip is an AY-3-8910, and the board use the two GPIO.
One for a game controller and the second as a 8bit DAC (not here).

[SyX]

Does anybody have any of the other interfaces as real hardware?

I only have seen the original DK'Tronics in reviews or ads of old spanish CPC/PCW magazines. It's because their scarcity that Habi decided to clone it.

If anybody has one, i would be eternally grateful if he could make a few photos and preserve the manual and software included with the interface.

[SyX]

And the last video, a fast test of the DAC/Digiblaster:

Dk'tronics - PCW (y 3)

[MacDeath]

The nice point with the PCW is that it has a lot of RAM and nice high resolution display.


So it can be a perfect machine for doing some AY tunes.
Good point could be to have alternate clocking for the AY so it can run as on speccy or MSX or even ATARI ST alongside CPC setting.


Perhaps having an extra socket for a second AY too so you can play with 2x3 channels... DMA anyone ?


Can't wait to see a video of the PCW16 version.

[arnoldemu]

The PCW has more screen ram and the z80 is about the same speed as the cpc.
So drawing to that nice hi-res screen takes a lot of time

the pcw16 is very similar to the pcw. The flash rom, wait states and the modes make it different. The palette and mode possibilities are lifted from the cpc or the "Amstrad number too".

In fact it may be the "Amstrad number too" (ANT) design modified a little.

I did an emulation of it for MESS.

it would be cool to see Habi emulate it.

yes the pcw has more ram, with video limited to the lower 128k. 22k or so per screen, 44k for double buffer, 66k for triple buffer (or to use as a background store for sprites).
it does have a simple display list, so this could be minimised I suppose.

Anyway, it has more ram so that is good and it will get one of my games converted to it.

[MacDeath]

the pcw16 is very similar to the pcw. The flash rom, wait states and the modes make it different. The palette and mode possibilities are lifted from the cpc or the "Amstrad number too".

what palette ?
does the PCW16 actually support colours ? (despite being fitted with Monocolour only )
I could find no interesting technical documentation on it's ASIC.


but as it has quite high resolution I guess some external components could turn the 640x480x1bpp into a 320x240x2bpp/4bpp or whatever.


also i saw no stuff concerning classic PCW's ULA...
Could it be upgraded into a more CPC-like thing or be added some colour attributes stuffs ??

[arnoldemu]

what palette ?
does the PCW16 actually support colours ? (despite being fitted with Monocolour only )
I could find no interesting technical documentation on it's ASIC.

Yes 27 colours, the same as the cpc.

but as it has quite high resolution I guess some external components could turn the 640x480x1bpp into a 320x240x2bpp/4bpp or whatever.

it has cpc's mode 0, mode 1 and mode 2.
16 colours 160x256, 4 colours 320x256, 2 colours 768x256.

The asic inside the pcw16 is called "Anne".
Do a search and you will find it.

it has the same roller ram as the pcw, but you can set the mode for each line.
it has colours, but only green channel is connected for the monitor, and it shows as black and white.

also i saw no stuff concerning classic PCW's ULA...

Could it be upgraded into a more CPC-like thing or be added some colour attributes stuffs ??

the classic and the pcw16 are fixed designs, without much flexibility to improve I think.
so it can't be updated for more colour.

pcw:
Amstrad "Joyce" software interface specification

pcw16:
http://www.retroisle.com/amstrad/pcw/technical.php

look for anne asic here.

ok, so it may be hard going for non technical people, but you can read the similarities here if you compare the two docs

[SyX]

the pcw16 is very similar to the pcw. The flash rom, wait states and the modes make it different. The palette and mode possibilities are lifted from the cpc or the "Amstrad number too".

In fact it may be the "Amstrad number too" (ANT) design modified a little.

I agree with arnoldemu, reading the specs looks the PCW16 can be the ANT 

And MacDeath, you are going to love that 16MHz Z80 for putting a zillion of sprites and rasters ... I'm sure that every CPC fan would love to tinker with one... but it's an elusive machine, for example, this wasn't the first time that Habi tried to get one.

[TFM]

The ANT was abandoned at an early stage. To me it looks like the PCW was expanded, not the ANT.

Example: In fact the ANT would have had more colors than the PcW16 (I have one and it's full docs, also ASIC and Roseanne).