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Amstrad CPC WiFi

Started by Duke, 07:36, 07 May 16

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0 Members and 11 Guests are viewing this topic.

TotO

M4 sound good. It is MPU related.
Who was not happy this their R4 cartridge?  ;D
"You make one mistake in your life and the internet will never let you live it down" (Keith Goodyer)

Audronic

@Duke



I really was asking as i was about to make a "" Folder to put the information in "" and i was looking for something more descriptive.
Thats all.

Good Project M4.

With tongue in cheek "" M4 "" sounds like a Freeway or a main road somewhere.   

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.

CraigsBar

Now.. One question. When can we order the boards? I'll take 2 please.
IRC:  #Retro4All on Freenode

Duke

Quote from: Singaja on 12:19, 23 May 16
 
How about a community poll to choose a cool name? This expansion is really a big deal :o
Nah I think it's too late for name change, besides it is printed on the PCB and they are ordered :)

Duke

Quote from: CraigsBar on 15:00, 23 May 16
Now.. One question. When can we order the boards? I'll take 2 please.
I already have you down for 1 board :) - Changed to 2 now.

Summary:
I have ordered components for 58 boards, and there is "orders" for 53. So if I don't ruin too many building them, there is still room for a few orders or maybe some get cold feet.
Once I get components, I'll go down the list in the order people acknowledged they wanted one or two. And ship them out as I progress.
I'll probably put together a "order page" where you can fill in details or something. For now I just keep a list of people in this thread and people who emailed/pm'ed me.
Lastly two boards have been sent out today (robcfg and anyf33) so I can get it tested on CPC464 which I don't have and also CPC6128 regular which I fried last week (but it worked fine on it up to that point :) ), so this need to be confirmed before I send out anymore boards.
Also Toto has kindly send me a MX4 board and cable, so I can test if it works out in that configuration.
There will be option for MX4-Type connector, Edge connector and I made a converter PCB, which lets you plug into the edge connector and have the board at a 90 deg angle (for mr. lou).

CraigsBar

IRC:  #Retro4All on Freenode

TFM

#131
Excellent work! Congratulations!

One question: Do you need a PC to run this board? Or can it be used independent of the PC?


And I would buy two of this nice boards too please. Add me to the list.  :)

Quote from: Duke on 07:36, 07 May 16
Hi guys,
I have hacked together an expansion board for the CPC, letting it connect to your home router/accesspoint via WiFi.
It also features a romboard and sd card for file access.
It's a bit rough at the moment, but the basics do work.
Please check it out (video included) at:
spinpoint.org – Duke's tech ramblings...
Let me know what you think - Any use, or plain madness :) - It was fun doing atleast.
Oh yes I've only tested on CPC6128. And briefly on a CPC6128+ (it works on the plus, but burning rubber fails to launch, probably sortable romconflict).
It should work on 464 and 664 too, but not tested yet.
Regards,
Duke
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

Duke

Quote from: TFM on 17:29, 23 May 16
Excellent work! Congratulations!

One question: Do you need a PC to run this board? Or can it be used independent of the PC?


And I would buy two of this nice boards too please. Add me to the list.  :)
Thanks :)
Long answer:
You only need a CPC & microSD for the plain board to work.
For internet you will obviously need a AP/WiFi router.
For uploading ROMS to the board you will at this point need a PC (webbrowser), but later I will just add a |setrom,"romname",slot (trivial issue). Someone could already modify the "romconfig.bin" and "romslots.bin" from the cpc to enable a new rom.
Short answer:
No PC or external software is needed to run the board.

TFM

Quote from: Duke on 07:59, 10 May 16
As pelrun said its the 32768 Hz clock for the internal RTC in the Cortex MCU, reason I may not attach this nor the battery backup, is that with internet it could just do ntp time lookup and retrieve the clock from there. I haven't looked into this yet, but I think it should be easy enough.


A real RTC would be great especially if the network connection can not be established. Don't know how much hassle it would be to add it. But if it's doable without a problem if would be nice to have it.  :)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

Duke

Quote from: TFM on 17:50, 23 May 16

A real RTC would be great especially if the network connection can not be established. Don't know how much hassle it would be to add it. But if it's doable without a problem if would be nice to have it.  :)
It's fully possible, but the battery slot I used CR1220 is hella expensive, and the batteries too(+3 euro). However if anyone want to add it, board is ready for it so just solder it on (clock, two caps, 1 resistor and battery slot). I'll add auto detection for it,  in the m4 software if desired :)

TFM

#135
Quote from: Duke on 17:48, 23 May 16
Thanks :)
Long answer:
You only need a CPC & microSD for the plain board to work.
For internet you will obviously need a AP/WiFi router.
For uploading ROMS to the board you will at this point need a PC (webbrowser), but later I will just add a |setrom,"romname",slot (trivial issue). Someone could already modify the "romconfig.bin" and "romslots.bin" from the cpc to enable a new rom.
Short answer:
No PC or external software is needed to run the board.

Thanks  for your long answer.  :)  If there is a way to update / flash ROMs from the CPC side then please let me know (pm me if you like), so I can add this functionality to my ROManager application which does already support MegaFlash, FlashGordon, Symbiface2 and X-MEM. Would be my pleasure to help.  :)

Oh, and regarding I/O ports it would ne neat if the card can use unused ports or ports which are only used by expansions which are not widely spread. You can look it up here:

I/O Port Summary - CPCWiki
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

Duke

Quote from: TFM on 18:20, 23 May 16

Thanks  for your long answer.  :)  If there is a way to update / flash ROMs from the CPC side then please let me know (pm me if you like), so I can add this functionality to my ROManager application which does already support MegaFlash, FlashGordon, Symbiface2 and X-MEM. Would be my pleasure to help.  :)
This is on my todo list to add a simple RSX for it, eitherway as it is now under folder m4 directory there is two files present.
romconfig.bin
->

int    totalRoms;   // currently 16, maybe later expanded to 32 or 48
int    m4RomNum; // m4 rom
int    m4RomEnable;// m4 rom enabled (if disabled other rom at that pos is active, either romboard or basic/amsdos)
unsigned int reserved[5];
then for each 16 roms (later more maybe)
char updateflag; // 0 = no rom present, 1 = rom present, 2= new rom (flash into M4 flashram), 3 = remove/delete current rom
char    name[32]; // name to be displayed for rom in web ui.

Then there is m4/romslots.bin
16x16k page contains a rom or 0xFF (if not mapped)

When the board is rebooted this file will be read and flashed into the M4 flashram, according to status in romconfig.bin
Reason for this is the flashram sectors of M4 are 128KB, so to keep it easy a mirror is kept in this file, when only exchanging 16KB at a time.

To quickly access above files, its probably best to use the fopen, fread, fwrite, fclose functions I put in to the embedded M4 rom, those are easily disassembled or wait for DEV documentation.


TFM

#137
Ah, I got it. You keep the ROMs in a file on the SD card. And as soon as the M4 boots up this file will be flashed temporarily to the Flash on the M4 card.


EDIT: 32 ROMs would be IMHO really needed. 48 even a big gain.  :)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

Duke

Quote from: TFM on 18:38, 23 May 16
Ah, I got it. You keep the ROMs in a file on the SD card. And as soon as the M4 boots up this file will be flashed temporarily to the Flash on the M4 card.
Yep almost, it will not be flashed temporarily but permanently, until there is a change of status in romconfig.bin. Flashram will keep the contents until erased and/or replaced.

Duke

Quote from: TFM on 18:38, 23 May 16
EDIT: 32 ROMs would be IMHO really needed. 48 even a big gain.  :)

Maybe, I haven't seen a whole lot of use for it, but as it is the STM32F407VGT I am using, has 1MB flashram, and currently I use less than 128KB for code, so 768KB left / 16KB = 48 roms possible, but then again a little space for future features is nice, so probably 32 roms is more safe.

khaz

M4? Why M, why 4?

'Cause we already got the MX4, it might be confusing.

Duke

Because the heart of the board is a Cortex M4 mcu ;)
Quote from: khaz on 19:15, 23 May 16
M4? Why M, why 4?

'Cause we already got the MX4, it might be confusing.

Duke

Quote from: TFM on 18:20, 23 May 16
Oh, and regarding I/O ports it would ne neat if the card can use unused ports or ports which are only used by expansions which are not widely spread. You can look it up here:

I/O Port Summary - CPCWiki
Missed that, yes for release 1.0.0 I picked:
DATAPORT                        .equ 0xFE00
ACKPORT                        .equ 0xFC00

Only used by CPCISA (as far as I  can tell), with 4 in existance. I needed the straight ports for arm assembly optimization.

TFM

#143
Quote from: Duke on 18:44, 23 May 16
Maybe, I haven't seen a whole lot of use for it, but as it is the STM32F407VGT I am using, has 1MB flashram, and currently I use less than 128KB for code, so 768KB left / 16KB = 48 roms possible, but then again a little space for future features is nice, so probably 32 roms is more safe.
Yeah, 32 is totally fine.  :) :) :)  (16 are filled up sooo quick).

Quote from: Duke on 19:57, 23 May 16
DATAPORT     .equ 0xFE00
ACKPORT      .equ 0xFC00
Only used by CPCISA (as far as I  can tell), with 4 in existance. I needed the straight ports for arm assembly optimization.
Good pick! I guess the four owners of the CPC-ISA will forgive us for this choice!  ;)  I also looked up my documentation and can confirm that there is only CPC-ISA (DMA port).
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

Maniac

Just to confirm I would like one of these please!

Singaja

Quote from: TFM on 17:50, 23 May 16

A real RTC would be great especially if the network connection can not be established. Don't know how much hassle it would be to add it. But if it's doable without a problem if would be nice to have it.  :)
With some rom magic wouldn't it be possible to use dxs's real time clock board for this purpose? Apologies if my question doesn't make sense.

khaz

Quote from: Duke on 19:18, 23 May 16
Because the heart of the board is a Cortex M4 mcu ;)

Uh.

You sure you don't want to think about it again?

TotO

Quote from: khaz on 15:54, 24 May 16You sure you don't want to think about it again?
Call it "Cortex" if you want...  ;D
"You make one mistake in your life and the internet will never let you live it down" (Keith Goodyer)

khaz

I just think it may not be the brightest idea to name a product based solely on the commercial denomination of its processor. Imagine if all the Cortex M4-based boards did the same?

TotO

X68000 ?  :D
"You make one mistake in your life and the internet will never let you live it down" (Keith Goodyer)

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