developing cards

[Fran123]

Hello

I would like to design some board for Amstrad CPC, but I'm not good at hardware, I prefer software. 
I guess maybe it's enough connecting and ESP32 or Arduino to expansion port, but I'm not sure, I'm not if I need something more, requeriements, signal levels, filters, synchronism, etc.

What requeriments are necessary to connect an external board to Amstrad?

Is there any webpage to start with that?

Thank you!

[Ast]

Hello,

you can find some board informations on :

Amstrad Plus :: Hardware (forumforever.com)

in french langage, of course.

[eto]

I'm considering exactly the same...

I was always fascinated by the (hardware) simplicity of the USIFAC, which is basically software only. The PIC microcontroller connects directly to the pins of the expansion port and besides that there are only the recommended capacitors, a diode and some switches. I guess, you can basically take a USIFAC, compile your own firmware and use it for the first steps. A few pins are exposed (those that are used for the USB device and serial connections), so you can easily access them for your project. That's what I currently plan. Maybe @Iconsgr can verify if that's a valid approach.

I also already planned to create a "development" PCB, which allows to easily access all pins while minimising the effort compared to a pure breadboard approach. Probably I first try out with a USIFAC (I even have some spare PICs, so I will not alter the original PIC) and then maybe do a dev board to dive deeper into that.