Albireo - USB/SD/Serial interface for CPC

[PulkoMandy]

I will of course not send board to people who didn't pay. I can accept standard bank transfer (for everyone in euro-zone) or paypal (for international orders). If you want to bypass the waiting list, the best way is probably to meet me at some demoparty (I usually attend Forever and ReSeT) and get your board there (you also save the shipping price).


I don't want people to pay for the board more than it's worth (especially for the first prototypes). So I won't put them on an ebay bid myself. If you want to make me happy, you can:

• Write software that uses the board - I will probably use your software myself
• Write open source software that uses the board - I can continue to use and improve it even long after you've stopped working on it
• Pay more than the set price if you think the board is worth more. You have to know that the 24.90€ price covers all the hardware costs (about 20€) and the remaining money is used to buy tools and other things I forgot to count (the computers I use, the soldering iron and solder wire, flux pen, etc) as well as because of problems that may occur during manufacturing (such as finding a major design flaw in the first 5 boards), and also for "service" costs (some of you maybe have a FlashGordon where I had to replace a faultly switch or an incompatible logic chip). If you think this is worth more than 5€, you can pay more.

I don't want to accept payments in advance, because it would put me under pressure to deliver the boards quickly. As long as no one has paid, I can cancel the project at any time if things goes wrong, or hand it over to someone else (anyone wants to help assembling the boards?).


I will ship the boards in the order of the waiting list, unless people want to be moved down in the list to make sure people actually interested in writing software (not just using already existing tools) get their boards first. OffseT and TFM are already at the top, and they plan to write support for Mass storage under AMSDOS and networking under FutureOS, respectively (if I followed things correctly).


So, if you have a planned use for the board already, just talk about it here and try to get people to move after you in the list because they want your software  . Don't worry, eventually everyone will get a board.

[Dubliner]

You can actually put me in a lower place of the waiting list. Since i can't develop anything myself, let's give others the chance of getting it earlier and develop something nice for the comunity

[CraigsBar]

You can actually put me in a lower place of the waiting list. Since i can't develop anything myself, let's give others the chance of getting it earlier and develop something nice for the comunity

Me too. That's 2 more early boards for the developers out there

Sent from my A3-A30 using Tapatalk

[TFM]

Ok, so hands up eveybody who is willing to develop something for the Albireo!
(I do, but who else does? Or plans to do?)

[Targhan]

I am, but I will first make very raw tools (and I'm currently too busy... Maybe at the beginning of the next year).

[Fessor]

Drivers are beyond my knowledge but i plan to adapt my project for it as the ch376 allows low-level-sector access. I hope that MX-MASS gets this low-level functions too. Im afraid of the drive torturing with its continuous sector accesses and motor starts and stops...
But there is no need to put me on a higher rank on the list. i am happy there, where i am.

[TFM]

Which motor do you mean?

[Fessor]

The Motor(s) of the Disk drive. U4s overworld is 64bk in size, divided into heaps of 256 tiles of 256bytes. Reading new Tiles each 22 steps in one of the directions on the world done...
Motorstops, Motorstarts, Head positioning... etc, you han hear that in Winape. Thats what i mean by torturing the drive; hardware isn't getting younger.

[Targhan]

@Fessor : your drive is stronger than you think, and no driver should mess with it. However, I think your game simply needs optimization. You shouldn't rely on the drive too much. Don't hesitate to ask for advice (in another thread... ).

[TFM]

The Motor(s) of the Disk drive. U4s overworld is 64bk in size, divided into heaps of 256 tiles of 256bytes. Reading new Tiles each 22 steps in one of the directions on the world done...
Motorstops, Motorstarts, Head positioning... etc, you han hear that in Winape. Thats what i mean by torturing the drive; hardware isn't getting younger.

You can leave the motor on in "times" you need to load a lot. For the belt it's good that it gets moved. My first drive belt in my first drive made it up to now, because it's working more often. Not using it may be a bigger thread. But that's just my experience. 

[wilco2009]

Great!!!   

It is possible to get one yet?

[Grim]

@Grim: Since years, I have forget that PlayCity's NMI not came directly from the CTC but it was an inverted signal from the CPLD...
So, I should reprogram the CPLD to protect itself against external signals. (fixing with a diode will be a pain in ass)

@TotO : Late reply, as I successfully missed to read this so far, erm ... sorry for that :/
So, if I ordered a PlayCity, say around next month, this alleged Death by NMI problem would be fixed? Or should I delay my Geekmas a bit? (pani pwoblem, my CTC-AY prototype can keep working in the mean time :)

[TotO]

Yes, it is.
I will made the global update after Geekmas for others.

[PulkoMandy]

Current waiting list
0 - PulkoMandy
1 - OffseT
2 - TFM (x2)
4 - ||C||-||E||
5 - majikeyric (x2)
7 - CraigsBar (x2)
9 - pelrun
10 - Optimus
11 - AsT
12 - Gryzor
13 - hsimpson
14 - SOS
15 - tonio8bits (x2)
17 - Audronic
18 - gros_minet
19 - Fessor
20 - Sykobee (Briggsy)
21 - skywalky
22 - Jungsi
23 - Poliander
24 - Yannis_uno
25 - Rennert
26 - HAL6128
27 - Joseman
28 - Tai
29 - Grim
30 - reidrac
31 - cosa_nostra_6128
32 - Targhan
33 - oratyper
34 - NiNxPe
35 - Vandalsk (x2)
37 - Dirtybb
38 - Dubliner
39 - ronaldo (x2)
41 - cpcmaniaco (x2)
43 - Munchausen (x2)
45 - jrodriguezv (x2)
47 - netmercer
48 - Shining
49 - archosmo
50 - awergh
51 - wilco2009

= Some news =

So, some weeks ago I received the PCBs. I assembled one board, fixed a mismatched resistor value and got most of the serial port part working (the board is recognized by my PC on USB, I could configure the FTDI chip as I wanted, and the UART is detectde by the CPC). I haven't tested actually sending and receiving bytes yet, but I don't expect much problems on that side. If someone already started writing some test code for the serial port, I can try to run it now.

On the mass storage side, I haven't managed to get the CPC to talk with the CH376 controller. This is strange, because a very similar design was working just fine on the prototype board. It could be a defective chip or maybe it was damaged during my experiments. I reviewed my schematics several time but I can't see a problem. I will try to assemble a second board and see if I get the same problem.


There are some minor problems with the PCB routing, mostly the footprint for the CH376 being slightly too wide. I will fix this, and it means the final version of the PCB may have enough space for an activity led which I couldn't fit on the prototypes.

[TFM]

Good luck! [nb]If an error can't be found quick, sometimes it helps to do something else and go back later.  [/nb]

[wilco2009]

Nice!.

[PulkoMandy]

Current waiting list
0 - PulkoMandy
1 - OffseT
2 - TFM (x2)
4 - ||C||-||E||
5 - majikeyric (x2)
7 - CraigsBar (x2)
9 - pelrun
10 - Optimus
11 - AsT
12 - Gryzor
13 - hsimpson
14 - SOS
15 - tonio8bits (x2)
17 - Audronic
18 - gros_minet
19 - Fessor
20 - Sykobee (Briggsy)
21 - skywalky
22 - Jungsi
23 - Poliander
24 - Yannis_uno
25 - Rennert
26 - HAL6128
27 - Joseman
28 - Tai
29 - Grim
30 - reidrac
31 - cosa_nostra_6128
32 - Targhan
33 - oratyper
34 - NiNxPe
35 - Vandalsk (x2)
37 - Dirtybb
38 - Dubliner
39 - ronaldo (x2)
41 - cpcmaniaco (x2)
43 - Munchausen (x2)
45 - jrodriguezv (x2)
47 - netmercer
48 - Shining
49 - archosmo
50 - awergh
51 - wilco2009
52 - dodogildo

[Gryzor]

Thanks for the update man! Do take your time in ironing out any difficulties, no need to rush it

[TFM]

I wonder that @Prodatron is missing out on this, it would be the perfect network hardware for his Symbos network software - or maybe I got something wrong. However, this nice Albireo will open new worlds for the CPC.

[PulkoMandy]

Some progress today: I found the problem with the USB controller wiring and I got the boards to read the directory from an USB drive with my BASIC test program. The first 5 boards will come with a patch-wire to fix the problem.

I also had a problem with the SD connector, some pins were swapped. I could fix this, also with some extra wires.

Before shipping, I'd also like to test that the serial port is working. For this someone has to write a little test program, setting up the serial port and sending/receiving some bytes. If no one does it I'll write one myself, but that may delay the shipping of the boards.

[TFM]

Please delay for shipping for 1-2 month. I face private problems. Thank you.

[PulkoMandy]

Already shipped
0 - PulkoMandy
1 - OffseT
OffseT will be writing the filesystem drivers, which will make the board a lot more useful out of the box. TFM shipment delayed as requested.
@||C||-||E||, @majikeyric: I can send you two prototype boards (with patch-wires to fix the issues I discovered), or you can wait a bit and get the final version of the board without the patches. What do you prefer?

Current waiting list
2 - ||C||-||E||
3 - majikeyric (x2)
5 - TFM (x2)
7 - CraigsBar (x2)
9 - pelrun
10 - Optimus
11 - AsT
12 - Gryzor
13 - hsimpson
14 - SOS
15 - tonio8bits (x2)
17 - Audronic
18 - gros_minet
19 - Fessor
20 - Sykobee (Briggsy)
21 - skywalky
22 - Jungsi
23 - Poliander
24 - Yannis_uno
25 - Rennert
26 - HAL6128
27 - Joseman
28 - Tai
29 - Grim
30 - reidrac
31 - cosa_nostra_6128
32 - Targhan
33 - oratyper
34 - NiNxPe
35 - Vandalsk (x2)
37 - Dirtybb
38 - Dubliner
39 - ronaldo (x2)
41 - cpcmaniaco (x2)
43 - Munchausen (x2)
45 - jrodriguezv (x2)
47 - netmercer
48 - Shining
49 - archosmo
50 - awergh
51 - wilco2009
52 - dodogildo

[majikeyric]

Hi Pulko!
I prefer waiting for the final board. I'm not in hurry.
Thanks

[PulkoMandy]

Already shipped
0 - PulkoMandy
1 - OffseT


OffseT will be writing the filesystem drivers, which will make the board a lot more useful out of the box. TFM shipment delayed as requested.
@||C||-||E||, @craigsbar: I can send you prototype boards (with patch-wires to fix the issues I discovered), or you can wait a bit and get the final version of the board without the patches. What do you prefer?

Current waiting list
Prototype boards2 - ||C||-||E||
3 - CraigsBar (x1)
4 - TFM (x1)

Final version
5 - majikeyric (x2)
7 - CraigsBar (x1)
8 - TFM (x1)
9 - pelrun
10 - Optimus
11 - AsT
12 - Gryzor
13 - hsimpson
14 - SOS
15 - tonio8bits (x2)
17 - Audronic
18 - gros_minet
19 - Fessor
20 - Sykobee (Briggsy)
21 - skywalky
22 - Jungsi
23 - Poliander
24 - Yannis_uno
25 - Rennert
26 - HAL6128
27 - Joseman
28 - Tai
29 - Grim
30 - reidrac
31 - cosa_nostra_6128
32 - Targhan
33 - oratyper
34 - NiNxPe
35 - Vandalsk (x2)
37 - Dirtybb
38 - Dubliner
39 - ronaldo (x2)
41 - cpcmaniaco (x2)
43 - Munchausen (x2)
45 - jrodriguezv (x2)
47 - netmercer
48 - Shining
49 - archosmo
50 - awergh
51 - wilco2009
52 - dodogildo

[Gryzor]

59 units - not bad