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avatar_PulkoMandy

Albireo - USB/SD/Serial interface for CPC

Started by PulkoMandy, 15:54, 18 October 15

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gerald

Quote from: PulkoMandy on 11:54, 13 October 16
We'll see, at this point it is also quite possible that the problem is on the software side. I've shipped a board to Gerald as he probably has better tools than me to investigate the problem.
Hopefully, I will have a look at it this week end.

CloudStrife

News from the front:
It seem to be an level signal incompatibility between the clock signal from the FT23X (USB/UART interface) working at 3.3 Volts and the TL16C550D (UART) when working at 5 Volts. All input of the TL16C550D are at TTL level when working we a supply voltage of 5 Volts, so compatible with the 3.3 Volts output of other device (FT23X and CH376), except one... We fail to see that the clock signal input was in fact not compatible.

We have multiple idea to patch the exist card, we are currently investigating them to found the simplest and see if they are effectively permitting reliable communication.

Audronic

Quote from: PulkoMandy on 16:31, 13 October 16
I'm interested in compatibility reports from other people with this driver. I will see if it's possible to improve compatibility with more mouses.
And, thanks again for supporting the board in SymbOS :)
I was wondering if the code for the Mouse could be put in a stand alone ROM so we have access to the Albireo (Mouse) and other programs ?
Thanks    Ray
Procrastinators Unite,
If it Ain't Broke PLEASE Don't Fix it.
I keep telling you I am Not Pedantic.
As I Live " Down Under " I Take my Gravity Tablets and Wear my Magnetic Boots to Keep me from Falling off.

KaosOverride

Hello PulkoMandy


I'm interested on 2 boards, but I can wait for the fix.


Thanks!!
KaosOverride · GitHub
MEGA Amstrad Public Amstrad folder

PulkoMandy

#379

Available software (update)


       
  • SD card/USB mass storage support: WIP prototype from OffseT, testing in progress, no official release yet
  • USB mouse: supported in SymbOS
  • Serial port: XModem transfer tool from CloudStrife, but the hardware need fixes.
Information about payments
Please wait until I contact you with payment info (I will do so when I have a board ready to ship for you).I don't want to receive payments too much in advance then have people waiting on me to ship the boards. I would then have to handle the pressure of everyone waiting, and also possibly cancelling and rescheduling orders and whatnot. So I prefer that you pay only when your board is ready to ship. Thanks for your patience!


You can pay either using paypal or a bank account transfer. The price is 25 euros, or 30 euros if you want tracked shipping.
If you want, you can order multiple boards. However, I will try to get the boards in the hand of as much people as possible, so I may delay shipping of your second (and third, ...) boards.


I'm assembling the boards on my free time, which is unfortunately a scarce resource. Please be patient.


Already shipped (with tracking numbers for those who chosen tracked shipping)


Please let me know when your board is delivered!




       
  • 0 - PulkoMandy (delivered)
  • 1 - OffseT (delivered)
  • 2 - Gryzor (delivered)
  • 3 - Prodatron (delivered)
  • 4 - cpcmaniaco(delivered)
  • 5 - ||C||-||E|| (delivered)
  • 6 - TFM (x1) (delivered)
  • 7 - pelrun (delivered)
  • 8 - hsimpson (delivered)
  • 9 - majikeyric (x1) (delivered)
  • 10 - SOS (delivered)
  • 11 - Audronic (delivered)


       
  • 12 - gros_minet (delivered)
  • 13 - Fessor (delivered)
  • 14 - Sykobee (Briggsy) (no tracking)
  • 15 - CraigsBar
  • 16 - OffseT (replacement for board number 1 which didn't seem to work for him)
  • 17 - tonio8bits 1L01692919632
  • 18 - PulkoMandy (rev.1 board kept for reference and testing)
  • 19 - CloudStrife
  • 20 - Hicks
  • 21 - Prodatron (replacement for broken prototype board)
  • 23 - Gerald (for investigation of serial port problems)


Batch 1 waiting list
Status: Investigating problems with serial port. Some boards delivered without patches.


       
  • 22 - skywalky
  • 24 - Jungsi
  • 25 - Poliander
  • 26 - Yannis_uno
  • 27 - Rennert
  • 28 - HAL6128
  • 29 - Joseman
  • 30 - Tai
  • 31* - Grim
  • 32 - cosa_nostra_6128
  • 33 - Targhan
  • 34 - oratyper

       
  • 35 - NiNxPe
  • 36 - Vandalsk (x1)
  • 37 - Dirtybb
  • 38 - Dubliner
  • 39 - ronaldo (x1)
  • 40~ - cpcmaniaco (x1)
  • 41 - Munchausen
  • 42 - jrodriguezv (x1)
  • 43 - netmercer
  • 44 - Shining
  • 45 - archosmo

       
  • 46 - awergh
  • 47 - wilco2009
  • 48 - dodogildo
  • 49 - Apollo (x1)
  • 50 - Ast
  • 51 - dxs
  • 52 - AlexD
  • 53 - jaime
  • 54 - merlinkv (x1)
  • 55 - zhulien (x1)

Batch 2 waiting list
Status: Nothing done yet.

       
  • 56 - Tolkin (x1)
  • 57 - Skunkfish
  • 58 - madram
  • 59 - Krusty
  • 60 - Beb
  • 61 - Eliot
  • 62 - Optimus
  • 63 - slarti
  • 64 - roudoudou
  • 65 - CraigsBar (second board)
  • 66 - TFM (second board)
  • 67 - tonio8bits (second board)
  • 68 - Merlinkv (second board)
  • 69 - Ronaldo (second board)
  • 70 - Zhulien (second board)
  • 71 - jrodriguezv (second board)
  • 72 - Tolkin (x2)
  • 74 - Apollo (second board)
  • 75 - Proteus (x2)
  • 77 - Madram (x2 - for OvL)
  • 79 - TbO
  • 80 - KaosOverride (x2)
  • 82 - (awaiting orders...)

majikeyric

I withdraw my interest for a second board (number 65). Thanks.

skywalky

How about the fix? Is anything already?

PulkoMandy

No, not really. I tried one of the two possible fixes and it did not work for me. I will have to try the second one but I did not have time/motivation for it (as the electronics bench is in the basement and there is no heating there, which explains why I'm not very motivated during the winter).

roudoudou

Optimal conditions for the electronic!
My pronouns are RASM and ACE

Fedeo

Hi,
I am interested in an interface. It's possible yet?


Thanks!

Imsai_REAM

Hello PulkoMandy


I'm interested on 1 boards, Is possible?

Thanks!!

PulkoMandy

#386
Available software


       
  • SD card/USB mass storage support: WIP prototype from OffseT, testing in progress, no official release yet
  • USB mouse: supported in SymbOS
  • Serial port: XModem transfer tool from CloudStrife, but the hardware need fixes.

Information about payments
Please wait until I contact you with payment info (I will do so when I have a board ready to ship for you).I don't want to receive payments too much in advance then have people waiting on me to ship the boards. I would then have to handle the pressure of everyone waiting, and also possibly cancelling and rescheduling orders and whatnot. So I prefer that you pay only when your board is ready to ship. Thanks for your patience!

You can pay either using paypal or a bank account transfer. The price is 25 euros, or 30 euros if you want tracked shipping.
If you want, you can order multiple boards. However, I will try to get the boards in the hand of as much people as possible, so I may delay shipping of your second (and third, ...) boards.

I'm assembling the boards on my free time, which is unfortunately a scarce resource. Please be patient.

Already shipped (with tracking numbers for those who chosen tracked shipping)

Please let me know when your board is delivered!



       
  • 0 - PulkoMandy (delivered)
  • 1 - OffseT (delivered)
  • 2 - Gryzor (delivered)
  • 3 - Prodatron (delivered)
  • 4 - cpcmaniaco(delivered)
  • 5 - ||C||-||E|| (delivered)
  • 6 - TFM (x1) (delivered)
  • 7 - pelrun (delivered)
  • 8 - hsimpson (delivered)
  • 9 - majikeyric (x1) (delivered)
  • 10 - SOS (delivered)
  • 11 - Audronic (delivered)


       
  • 12 - gros_minet (delivered)
  • 13 - Fessor (delivered)
  • 14 - Sykobee (Briggsy) (no tracking)
  • 15 - CraigsBar
  • 16 - OffseT (replacement for board number 1 which didn't seem to work for him)
  • 17 - tonio8bits 1L01692919632
  • 18 - PulkoMandy (rev.1 board kept for reference and testing)
  • 19 - CloudStrife
  • 20 - Hicks
  • 21 - Prodatron (replacement for broken prototype board)
  • 23 - Gerald (for investigation of serial port problems)

Batch 1 waiting list
Status: Investigating problems with serial port. Some boards delivered without patches.


       
  • 22 - skywalky
  • 24 - Jungsi
  • 25 - Poliander
  • 26 - Yannis_uno
  • 27 - Rennert
  • 28 - HAL6128
  • 29 - Joseman
  • 30 - Tai
  • 31* - Grim
  • 32 - cosa_nostra_6128
  • 33 - Targhan
  • 34 - oratyper

       
  • 35 - NiNxPe
  • 36 - Vandalsk (x1)
  • 37 - Dirtybb
  • 38 - Dubliner
  • 39 - ronaldo (x1)
  • 40~ - cpcmaniaco (x1)
  • 41 - Munchausen
  • 42 - jrodriguezv (x1)
  • 43 - netmercer
  • 44 - Shining
  • 45 - archosmo

       
  • 46 - awergh
  • 47 - wilco2009
  • 48 - dodogildo
  • 49 - Apollo (x1)
  • 50 - Ast
  • 51 - dxs
  • 52 - AlexD
  • 53 - jaime
  • 54 - merlinkv (x1)
  • 55 - zhulien (x1)


Batch 2 waiting list
Status: Nothing done yet.

       
  • 56 - Tolkin (x1)
  • 57 - Skunkfish
  • 58 - madram
  • 59 - Krusty
  • 60 - Beb
  • 61 - Eliot
  • 62 - Optimus
  • 63 - slarti
  • 64 - roudoudou
  • 65 - CraigsBar (second board)
  • 66 - TFM (second board)
  • 67 - tonio8bits (second board)
  • 68 - Merlinkv (second board)
  • 69 - Ronaldo (second board)
  • 70 - Zhulien (second board)
  • 71 - jrodriguezv (second board)
  • 72 - Tolkin (x2)
  • 74 - Apollo (second board)
  • 75 - Proteus (x2)
  • 77 - Madram (x2 - for OvL)
  • 79 - TbO
  • 80 - KaosOverride (x2)
  • 82 - jvaltane
  • 83 - Fedeo
  • 84 - Imsai_REAM
  • 85 - buzby
  • 86 - Rhino
  • 87 - (awaiting orders...)

buzby

Hello Pulkomandy


I am interested in one board please

Rhino


remax

Are the problem solved ? I was waiting that to order one  ;)
Brain Radioactivity

PulkoMandy

No, I didn't have time to look at it again for various reasons. I won't ship more cards until I have fixed the problem anyway.

remax

Well, i guess at least, you can add me to the waiting list...
Brain Radioactivity

Scarlettkitten

Sophie Rose:- My musical works https://soundcloud.com/sophierosemusics

Edoz(MSX)

I like to have one please! I hope you can add me to the list. Thanks!

ASiC

Could you add me to the list for X1 please?


Thanks  :)

PulkoMandy

 PROBLEMS SOLVED

Finally I had time to complete the investigation, and found the root of the problem with the serial port behaving badly. Many thanks to Cld and Gerald (C4CPC), who both helped me investigating the issue until we could track it down.

Now on to the bad news: the root problem is that the serial chip variant I used is not compatible with the z80 timings  :doh:
So, there is no simple wire-patch I can make to the existing boards. The only solution is to replace the chip.

The good news is that the replacement is pin-compatible, so at least I can use the same PCB and replace just the serial chip. New boards from now on will be made this way. I have to test if I can reasonably replace the chip on old boards without doing too much damage, but I doubt it.

If you have a board already:
- You can use the mass storage part, no problems there.
- You can use the serial port but without the FIFOs, so only at slow speeds

The replacement chip is a SC16C650B from NXP. Besides working nicely with the z80, it has some extra features:
- Support for baud rates up to 3Mbaud / 300ko/s
- FIFOs are 32 bytes instead of 16.

The max. speed for the serial port is now above the max speed the z80 can reach. This means, no other board can provide a faster link to the outside world to your CPC  8) . Filling the complete RAM of a 128K machine will take less than one second. With the large FIFOs, most of the overhead of the serial port (waiting for available bytes) can be avoided: we know there are at least 32 bytes to get in one run, and by the time we are done, there will be 32 more already waiting.

Available software


       
  • SD card/USB mass storage support: WIP prototype from OffseT, testing in progress, no official release yet
  • USB mouse: supported in SymbOS
  • Serial port: XModem transfer tool from CloudStrife, (Albireo 1.1 and newer only)
Information about payments
Please wait until I contact you with payment info (I will do so when I have a board ready to ship for you).I don't want to receive payments too much in advance then have people waiting on me to ship the boards. I would then have to handle the pressure of everyone waiting, and also possibly cancelling and rescheduling orders and whatnot. So I prefer that you pay only when your board is ready to ship. Thanks for your patience!

You can pay either using paypal or a bank account transfer. The price is 25 euros, or 30 euros if you want tracked shipping.
If you want, you can order multiple boards. However, I will try to get the boards in the hand of as much people as possible, so I may delay shipping of your second (and third, ...) boards.

I'm assembling the boards on my free time, which is unfortunately a scarce resource. Please be patient.

Already shipped (with tracking numbers for those who chosen tracked shipping)

Please let me know when your board is delivered!



       
  • 0 - PulkoMandy (delivered)
  • 1 - OffseT (delivered)
  • 2 - Gryzor (delivered)
  • 3 - Prodatron (delivered)
  • 4 - cpcmaniaco(delivered)
  • 5 - ||C||-||E|| (delivered)
  • 6 - TFM (x1) (delivered)
  • 7 - pelrun (delivered)
  • 8 - hsimpson (delivered)
  • 9 - majikeyric (x1) (delivered)
  • 10 - SOS (delivered)
  • 11 - Audronic (delivered)


       
  • 12 - gros_minet (delivered)
  • 13 - Fessor (delivered)
  • 14 - Sykobee (Briggsy) (no tracking)
  • 15 - CraigsBar
  • 16 - OffseT (replacement for board number 1 which didn't seem to work for him)
  • 17 - tonio8bits 1L01692919632
  • 18 - PulkoMandy (rev.1 board kept for reference and testing)
  • 19 - CloudStrife
  • 20 - Hicks
  • 22 - Prodatron (replacement for broken prototype board)
  • 23 - Gerald (for investigation of serial port problems)
  • 26 - Zik (self assembled)

Batch 1 waiting list
Status: Investigating problems with serial port. Some boards delivered without patches.


       
  • 21 - skywalky
  • 24 - Jungsi
  • 25 - Poliander
  • 27 - Yannis_uno
  • 28 - Rennert
  • 29 - HAL6128
  • 30 - Joseman
  • 31 - Tai
  • 32* - Grim
  • 33 - cosa_nostra_6128
  • 34 - Targhan
  • 35 - oratyper

       
  • 36 - NiNxPe
  • 37 - Vandalsk (x1)
  • 38 - Dirtybb
  • 39 - Dubliner
  • 40 - ronaldo (x1)
  • 41~ - cpcmaniaco (x1)
  • 42 - Munchausen
  • 43 - jrodriguezv (x1)
  • 44 - netmercer
  • 45 - Shining
  • 46 - archosmo

       
  • 47 - awergh
  • 48 - wilco2009
  • 49 - dodogildo
  • 50 - Apollo (x1)
  • 51 - Ast
  • 52 - dxs
  • 53 - AlexD
  • 54 - jaime
  • 55 - merlinkv (x1)


Batch 2 waiting list
Status: Nothing done yet.

       
  • 56 - zhulien (x1)
  • 57 - Tolkin (x1)
  • 58 - Skunkfish
  • 59 - madram
  • 60 - Krusty
  • 61 - Beb
  • 62 - Eliot
  • 63 - Optimus
  • 64 - slarti
  • 65 - roudoudou
  • 66 - CraigsBar (second board)
  • 67 - TFM (second board)
  • 68 - tonio8bits (second board)
  • 69 - Merlinkv (second board)
  • 70 - Ronaldo (second board)
  • 71 - Zhulien (second board)
  • 72 - jrodriguezv (second board)
  • 73 - Tolkin (x2)
  • 75 - Apollo (second board)
  • 76 - Proteus (x2)
  • 78 - Madram (x2 - for OvL)
  • 80 - TbO
  • 81 - KaosOverride (x2)
  • 83 - jvaltane
  • 84 - Fedeo
  • 85 - Imsai_REAM
  • 86 - buzby
  • 87 - Rhino
  • 88 - remax
  • 89 - scarlettkitten
  • 90 - Edoz (MSX)
  • 91 - ASiC

Targhan

I shouldn't be on the list, my board was received but given to CloudStryfe at the latest Reset. I don't need this board right now, so don't hesitate to scratch my name and have someone else have it!
Targhan/Arkos

Arkos Tracker 2.0.1 now released! - Follow the news on Twitter!
Disark - A cross-platform Z80 disassembler/source converter
FDC Tool 1.1 - Read Amsdos files without the system

Imperial Mahjong
Orion Prime

remax

When it'll be my turn, and unless you move until then, i think we'll be able to avoid postage  :P
Brain Radioactivity

zhulien



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