PicoCPC

[eto]

It could only work if the Pico also simulates a  graphics card. (Which might be a great feature).

[FreddyV]

Yes,
Video ram can not be simulated.
And yes, video is planned for the final board 

[Brocky]

Yes,
Video ram can not be simulated.
And yes, video is planned for the final board

what if vram is shadowed onto the pico/mcu and then the RGBS sent out from that?
it could be enhanced for scroll etc without writing to internal vram

[zhulien]

If I got you correctly that's not possible, as VRAM can't come from "outside".

Didn't someone here have a separate mod that used the 2nd 64kb ram instead of the first in a 6128?

[eto]

Didn't someone here have a separate mod that used the 2nd 64kb ram instead of the first in a 6128?

That doesn't matter. The GateArray can't access any RAM that isn't physically part of the mainboard RAM circuit. It can be done for the secondary RAM bank of the 6128 as that RAM is also part of the RAM circuit.

If you want anything else you either have to heavily modify the mainboard or generate the screen image without the GateArray - what a Pico"GPU" could of course do.

[zhulien]

Didn't someone here have a separate mod that used the 2nd 64kb ram instead of the first in a 6128?

That doesn't matter. The GateArray can't access any RAM that isn't physically part of the mainboard RAM circuit. It can be done for the secondary RAM bank of the 6128 as that RAM is also part of the RAM circuit.

If you want anything else you either have to heavily modify the mainboard or generate the screen image without the GateArray - what a Pico"GPU" could of course do.

Ah thanks for clarification, I wonder... like some amiga hardware, could a hardware into the cpc CPU socket as well as under the gate array to facilitate some of the limitations? [Off topic to pico RAM I guess]

[Rodrik]

The near final version is here, it is composed of the main card, 4 layers and a 2 layers daughter board. This is to keep the card small and able to be put in a 3d printed box. MX4 format on a single slot adapter.
- 512kb ram from the pico2 2350B
- 1Mo of ram with an SRAM chip
- DAC with playcity emulation and more (also Atari chip which is very similar) and lot of different frequencies.
- RTC (not coded yet)
- NFC (not coded yet)
- Floppy emulation including 720kb or 1.2Mo floppy disks
- Rom emulation up to how many roms you want if there is enough memory
- 512kb of ram emulated (1Mb possible but not coded yet)
- 512kb cartridges on Amstrad plus (not fully coded yet, I have only 256kb ones coded using the Pico memory, need to move to the SRAM)
- Olded with 5 buttons
- Reset button
- USB support for USB sticks, (mouse and joysticks planned)
- HDD support on SD or USB stick (CH376 support planned, but not done yet)
- Mini HDMI output (unsure if this will be possible with limited power of the Pico2, but plan is to output the CPC screen on HDMI)

[Gryzor]

So much awesomeness. I really want one...

[Prodatron]

Impressive list!

- USB support for USB sticks, (mouse and joysticks planned)
- HDD support on SD or USB stick (CH376 support planned, but not done yet)

Are you planning to implement CH376 emulation with the Pico, or will you add one or two additional real CH376 controllers to the card? Would be useful in both cases, as then there is already software available both for mass storage and mouse support (UniDOS, SymbOS).
If there is no real or emulated CH376 included it would be good to have an interface for direct sector access to the SD card or USB stick, so that only a little additional low-level driver on Z80 side is required.

- Mini HDMI output (unsure if this will be possible with limited power of the Pico2, but plan is to output the CPC screen on HDMI)

If this is not possible, would you use it as an alternative graphic card? ("dual screen")

[HAL6128]

Mini HDMI output (unsure if this will be possible with limited power of the Pico2, but plan is to output the CPC screen on HDMI)

How is it done! Shadowing the video memory through the Pico?

[krusty_benediction]

interesting

which use cases do you think about with nfc ?
a wifi connection would be probably more useful (I see plenty of use case to send files/snapshot from PC to CPC), don't you think ?

Same question about the hdmi. So far of my knowledge the video signal of cpc does not pass through the expansion. You plan to plug the card to the video output din of cpc ? If no it seems impossible to reproduce what should be seen on a real ctm as soon as there are hardware tricks to control the video

[Rodrik]

Are you planning to implement CH376 emulation with the Pico, or will you add one or two additional real CH376 controllers to the card? Would be useful in both cases, as then there is already software available both for mass storage and mouse support (UniDOS, SymbOS).
If there is no real or emulated CH376 included it would be good to have an interface for direct sector access to the SD card or USB stick, so that only a little additional low-level driver on Z80 side is required.

CH376 emulation with the Pico2 to make it compatible with existing software.

If this is not possible, would you use it as an alternative graphic card? ("dual screen")

The pico does know what is in the 64ko base ram, what the Gate Array registers contain and the cursor signal. So it is just a matter of using the proper ram content pointed by the GA (defaut C000, size 3FFF), the current mode and the current palette to draw a picture. The problem is the time to draw in middle of all emulation and with more resolution to cover all modes including overscan ones.

[GUNHED]

The near final version is here, it is composed of the main card, 4 layers and a 2 layers daughter board. This is to keep the card small and able to be put in a 3d printed box. MX4 format on a single slot adapter.
- 512kb ram from the pico2 2350B
- 1Mo of ram with an SRAM chip
- DAC with playcity emulation and more (also Atari chip which is very similar) and lot of different frequencies.
- RTC (not coded yet)
- NFC (not coded yet)
- Floppy emulation including 720kb or 1.2Mo floppy disks
- Rom emulation up to how many roms you want if there is enough memory
- 512kb of ram emulated (1Mb possible but not coded yet)
- 512kb cartridges on Amstrad plus (not fully coded yet, I have only 256kb ones coded using the Pico memory, need to move to the SRAM)
- Olded with 5 buttons
- Reset button
- USB support for USB sticks, (mouse and joysticks planned)
- HDD support on SD or USB stick (CH376 support planned, but not done yet)
- Mini HDMI output (unsure if this will be possible with limited power of the Pico2, but plan is to output the CPC screen on HDMI)

Congratulations! That's quite impressive!

There are two points I would like to mention:

1. Regarding all the features it would be very very desirable to have them in a way to be compatible to existing hardware. Example the RTC could be compatible to the SF2 RTC.

2. Regarding floppy emulation: It would be awesome if you could emulate the Vortex F1-D controller too. It's like the Amstrad controller, but it uses different I/O addresses for FDC data and status registers. The F1-D controller was just recently rebuilt. It allows to use four(!) floppy drives at the same time. 

[Philippe Lardenois]

Great achievement Rodrik. Count me for almost one.
Thanks.

[HAL6128]

Are you planning to implement CH376 emulation with the Pico, or will you add one or two additional real CH376 controllers to the card? Would be useful in both cases, as then there is already software available both for mass storage and mouse support (UniDOS, SymbOS).
If there is no real or emulated CH376 included it would be good to have an interface for direct sector access to the SD card or USB stick, so that only a little additional low-level driver on Z80 side is required.

CH376 emulation with the Pico2 to make it compatible with existing software.

If this is not possible, would you use it as an alternative graphic card? ("dual screen")

The pico does know what is in the 64ko base ram, what the Gate Array registers contain and the cursor signal. So it is just a matter of using the proper ram content pointed by the GA (defaut C000, size 3FFF), the current mode and the current palette to draw a picture. The problem is the time to draw in middle of all emulation and with more resolution to cover all modes including overscan ones.

Interesting and I'm curious to see how the results will be. If that works count me for one.