CPCWiki forum

Hello!

In agreement with @PulkoMandy, I designed a new version of the Albireo interface. The main goal is to make the interface available again for purchase.

Like the previous version, it provides one USB host port and one µSD slot with built-in support for mass storage and FAT filesystem. However, please note serial port has been removed. It is fully compatible (same port address). Of course, nothing is mapped on serial port addresses.

You can read more on this interface in the original thread:
https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/albireo-usbsdserial-interface-for-cpc/

Why was the serial port removed?
The serial chip component is no more available at decent pricing and small package. Alternative chips were not proven to work. Little software support has been developed so far. Technically, it is possible to use the USB host port to support a USB-serial cable or a USB transfer cable. Also, other serial interfaces do exist.

How to use it?
To make the best use of Albireo, you will need a ROM expansion interface (RamCard, Rom Board, MegaFlash, FlashGordon, X-Mem or similar) with the DOS ROM of your choice (several already support Albireo).

How to buy one?
I need first to have an idea of the volume I need to produce. There was already a waiting list for the original Albireo, the latest version is pretty old and should be this one:
https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?msg=183715

I cannot contact each one of you. So please, if you are interested in this version of the Albireo (with no serial port), please contact me (even if you are not already on the list).

I expect the price to be about 30€ or lower, including shipping and, I hope, a µSD card. It will ship from France.

Great! Will write you!

Sounds good, any chance the board can accommodate the components for the serial bit so they could be added by the purchaser if sourced in future?

Quote from: zhulien on 22:20, 26 September 22any chance the board can accommodate the components for the serial bit so they could be added by the purchaser if sourced in future?

No. My first intention was to have footprints on bottom side for serial related parts, but it complicated the design too much.

Thanks for taking care of production of the Albireo, nice to see this hardware being built again!

Well done.
I'll take one for sure !

same for me, one more ;) .

Count me in for one unit.

Yup!! I want one.

d_kef

Yes please. 

Count me for one please.

Yes please, one for me! Thanks for doing this.

Please add me down for one, maybe two dependent on postage cost.

I would like to buy one piece :)

I'm in as well ;)

Ok great! I ordered a batch of Albireo and µSD cards to cover the requests I got so far. I captured all you ordering and will confirm with each of you later on. Manufacturing will take some weeks, anyway.

The cards is about 25g and postage threshold is at 100g. So, fees should not change up to 3 cards.

Some additional points I did not mention in the top message:

• I do not provide the connection cable
• This Albireo version has solder jumpers on bottom side (JP2 & JP3) to change the I/O address from the default &FE80/81 to &FE40/41. You need a cutter and a bit soldering to do this change, though. This allows to plug two Albireo cards simultaneously. The latest Albireo and Unidos ROMs together can already handle this (yay!)

Hello, I'm also in, of course   ;)

Hello, what is the benefit of having more tan one card? Is it to provide multiple storage drives ?

Great work btw

Quote from: Squeekboxandj on 08:27, 01 October 22what is the benefit of having more tan one card? Is it to provide multiple storage drives ?

Yes, it allows to have multiple storage drives (2x µSD and 2x USB), which may not be that useful given the capacity already available on a single drive. Ones could argue it makes USB-key to USB-key transfer easier.

However, if you use one of the USB host port for something else than mass storage class (a mouse, a joystick, a serial cable or whatever), there is more interest. Of course, software support needs to be there (mouse support is there AFAIK).

This advantage may be reduced in the future if USB hubs are ever supported, but it is not available today.

Also, is was for free as I used solder-jumpers (so, no additional component).

Quote from: Zik on 10:56, 01 October 22

Quote from: Squeekboxandj on 08:27, 01 October 22what is the benefit of having more tan one card? Is it to provide multiple storage drives ?

Yes, it allows to have multiple storage drives (2x µSD and 2x USB), which may not be that useful given the capacity already available on a single drive. Ones could argue it makes USB-key to USB-key transfer easier.

However, if you use one of the USB host port for something else than mass storage class (a mouse, a joystick, a serial cable or whatever), there is more interest. Of course, software support needs to be there (mouse support is there AFAIK).

This advantage may be reduced in the future if USB hubs are ever supported, but it is not available today.

Also, is was for free as I used solder-jumpers (so, no additional component).

ok, mets-m'en, deux alors s'il te plait ;D

Sounds great. If there were 2 usb ports on one albeiro would that be much harder?

With the chip used for Albireo there are some limitations to what we can do. It could be used with hubs, but that need specific code on the CPC side (basically, a USB stack) and we didn't manage to use that at the same time as the built-in mass storage support of Albireo.

Hello! All people that ordered one or several boards should now have them in hands or are about to. ;)

If I forgot you or if you would like to place a new order, you are welcome to do so. Just send me a PM. I will build a new batch when I get enough orders.

I received mine a couple of days ago and I started coding the driver for HDCPM.

What a wonderful little piece of hardware!!!

Thanks

d_kef

Hello,
I'm interested too, count me for one please.  :)

Interested by one too.

Hi everyone,

After a long time, here are good news. I finally got enough orders to build a new batch for a reasonable price (so that the unitary price will not change for you). I received them and they are working fine (Albireo+SD card)!
In the coming days I will PM everyone who placed an order to confirm order, arrange payment and get your email address if I do not have it already.
I will try to do that real soon but my time is limited, so please forgive me.

I ordered some spares. So, if you finally want one, please send me a PM.

@Zik
Yes please, one for me!

Pm sent to you

Thanks

Keep Safe

Ray

Yep @Zik , me too please. (PM already sent !). Thanks!

@Zik. PM sent.

Hello

Does it implement a ROM?  Does it is compatible with a ROMBOX?

Thanks

Quote from: Fran123 on 07:07, 17 October 23Does it implement a ROM?  Does it is compatible with a ROMBOX?

Hello. In addition to this card you need a ROM expansion interface (any should work) to use the Albireo properly.
See the first post of this thread for more details.

Hi,
Everyone who ordered for this second batch should now have the card in their hand (or it is on the way). I have a few spares left if anyone else is interested.

@Zik I'm also interested in one of the remaining ones. Will message for the details.

How much units of the Albireo (taken all together) have been sold by now?
Is it 100 units already?

Quote from: GUNHED on 15:01, 14 November 23How much units of the Albireo (taken all together) have been sold by now?
Is it 100 units already?

I have now sent a little more than 50 units as of now. But I do not know how many @PulkoMandy did send previously, I assume at least about the same amount?

Hello,
I think a bit less than that, something like 35, of which the 5 first prototypes with a lot of patch wires all died for some reason and had to be replaced with the final board.

So that makes it close to the FlashGordon, about 70

Very nice! For CPC this is done well. Hope to see the 100 mark cracked soon.
And good to know for us programmers too.  :) :) :)

If usb devices with fat32 are supported does that mean usb hard disks should work? Has anybody tried?

Quote from: zhulien on 09:32, 08 September 24If usb devices with fat32 are supported does that mean usb hard disks should work? Has anybody tried?

I doubt the USB hard drives are likely to work, since the USB interface is just a parallel to serial communication interface and that many USB hard drives require fast USB in order to work. A slow USB like 1.1/1.2 and maybe 2.0 standard may be unusable. It is worth testing to see if a low capacity drive works.

Yes, it works! I didn't test it on the Albireo device but on the new UlifAC v5 (but I think it will also work on the albireo... maybe check this later).

I have an old 500GB Seagate HDD, created a "small" partition with 2GB FAT32, stored the SymbOS files on it, plugged it via an IDE2USB adapter on the UlifAC (recognized without any problems) and started the OS.

Interesting is, that it doesn't work with my (similar) Wester Digital 500 GB drive.

Thanks for testing! Now I wonder if 3,5" USB disc drives with 1,44MB FAT12 discs are working as well :)

No, the USB Floppy drive didn't start. I assume that power supply is not sufficient enough.
I don't know if there will be a possibility to power it externally?

Quote from: HAL6128 on 14:18, 10 September 24No, the USB Floppy drive didn't start. I assume that power supply is not sufficient enough.
I don't know if there will be a possibility to power it externally?

There are Y cables for adding a power supply, but these usually have a USB micro/mini connector for the device.

https://www.amazon.de/USB-Mini-Y-Kabel-Stecker-Mini-B-5pol/dp/B000TG3H2S/ref=pd_sim_computers_1?tag=comput0d-21

I guess your 3,5" disc drive has a fixed cable with male USB A? Not sure if there are Adapters from female mini/micro to female A.

Yes, it's a fixed, male USB A cable.

interesting, i just got a 250mb zip ide zip drive, so i just need to find a suitable PSU for it and I will also give this a try 

Interesting there is a youtube video 'can the ps2 burn a dvd' - since dvdram can be formatted as fat32 or fat16, the ps2 can just write to the fat16 as it does any usb memory stick.  I wonder then if albiero will just work with a fat32 dvdram drive also... i'll have to check if any of my external drives are dvdram and give it a go.

On Albireo, USB mass storage (as used by hard disks and USB keys) will work using the built-in driver in the CH376 chip. Speed isn't a problem, it will be slow (compared to modern machines) but still plenty fast for the z80. So, for USB drives of that type, no changes are needed. Yes, for hard disks it may be a good idea to not overwork your CPC 5V power supply and use external power on the USB port (typically, had drives will have an external supply anyways).

Other hardware such as floppy drives would need a specific driver written on the z80 side, because they use a slightly different protocol.

I think CD drives are different enough that they would also need a separate driver, at least because of using a different sector size (sectors on a CD are 2KB instead of 512 bytes).

Hi everybody,

I am interested in an Albireo card.
How to get one ?

Regards

Hello everyone,

I am sorry, the second batch is sold out. To build a third one and maintain the same price of 25€ (µSD card and shipping costs included), I need to reach 25 orders (maybe 20 could be enough). For now, I have 2 pre-orders (including Raven).

As a reminder, it is possible to plug 2 Albireo boards at the same time as this Albireo v2.0 version can be reworked to shift I/O address.

Hi @Zik,
Please add me to the pre-order list for the Albireo, thank you.

Hi there, how much Albireo-new have been sold up to now?

Quote from: GUNHED on 17:28, 02 December 24Hi there, how much Albireo-new have been sold up to now?

Hi, so far I have built 60 of them, all have been distributed already. As there are some more demands, I will order a small batch soon, anyone who wants one should ask as soon as possible.

Thanks for your answer. Great news!!!  :) :) :)

Hi everyone!

I have built a new batch and everyone who ordered it should receive it in the next few days.
As I have built a few more to keep the price down, if anyone is still interested, I have some Albireo available to order.

Quote from: Zik on 22:03, 04 March 25Hi everyone!

I have built a new batch and everyone who ordered it should receive it in the next few days.
As I have built a few more to keep the price down, if anyone is still interested, I have some Albireo available to order.

Great news Zik!

Very good timing, as I added new SymbOS drivers which can use two Albireos in parallel,
- one for a mouse and
- one for an USB mass storage stick
at the same time and now dynamically, so it doesn't matter which is set to #fe4x and which to #fe8x.

Is it still possible to order both port versions?
Will you be at Revision this year again?

Hi Zik!

This looks nice so...i'm interested in one as well. 
Count me in. 8)

Quote from: Prodatron on 22:18, 04 March 25Is it still possible to order both port versions?
Will you be at Revision this year again?

Yes, I can bring you two boards at Revision, one on each port address.

Strictly speaking, it might be possible to handle both a mouse and a USB stick on one card by using a USB hub. But this has to be coded and tested, the CH376 documentation is unclear on this topic.

Quote from: fgbrain on 22:26, 04 March 25This looks nice so...i'm interested in one as well.
Count me in. 8)

Ok, I will send you a PM.

@Zik thanks a lot, that would be awesome! Please tell me, if I should already transfer the money.

PulkoMandy wrote this Basic program for listing all connected devices, when using an USB hub. But I am fine with using two Albireos :)

Hello @Zik ,
I have received the Albireo, thank you very much!
Since I already have two, I want to modify this last one to use the alternative I/O addresses. To be sure, in the attached photo, I have marked the traces to cut with a red X and the solder points with yellow marks.
Is my assumption on how to make the modification correct?

That looks correct.
Here is a photo from my ones, the upper is the one with the original port, the lower then one with the alternative port.


Unbenannt.jpg

Thanks @Prodatron !!

@ajcasado yes this is correct. @Prodatron is right, as usual  ;)

Thanks @Zik !!