And Habi did it again :D
This time, he has made a little expansion that include an AY, and in one of the I/O ports there is attached a joystick port and an 8 bit DAC in the other (this is a new addition with respect to the old interface :) ).
The joystick and the AY use the same ports of the old DK'Tronics interface for PCW... although the only programs for PCW making sound with that interface are Head over Heels, the demostration disc included with the interface (but this is not preserved yet and looks nobody has it), the Habi's Abadia PCW port and my conversion of Arkos player, AYC and another cpc music routines... nice people is time to work in new PCW productions with PSG sound ;)
Well, that is all, enjoy the demostration video:
Dk'tronics - PCW (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-IfgTrhQCw#)
Have any Spectrum tools/music players been converted for playing pcw beeper music?
Anything like Beepola for speccy?
BTW: This dk'tronics interface is cool !
BTW2: I am planning to convert one of my work in progress games to the pcw.
What is the frequency of the AY for the PCW?
Quote from: arnoldemu on 11:41, 23 September 12Anything like Beepola for speccy?
Useless, no tape to load. :-\
Quote from: TotO on 11:47, 23 September 12
Useless, no tape to load. :-\
funny.
When I convert one of my games to pcw, I want to use pcw beeper sound, and only if the dk'tronics is detected and exists I will use AY sound.
Sure. It's just for the joke. ;)
Now, this board will allow to get better sound and joystick support. It's a nice work for players. :)
Quote from: arnoldemu on 11:41, 23 September 12Have any Spectrum tools/music players been converted for playing pcw beeper music?
Anything like Beepola for speccy?
Yes, i converted a few ones beepola's players, you can hear an example in this post (http://www.amstrad.es/forum/viewtopic.php?p=36816#p36816) of the spanish forum.
Quote from: arnoldemu on 11:41, 23 September 12
BTW: This dk'tronics interface is cool !
BTW2: I am planning to convert one of my work in progress games to the pcw.
GREAT NEWS!!! :D
Quote from: arnoldemu on 11:41, 23 September 12
What is the frequency of the AY for the PCW?
Exactly the same of the CPC :)
As all these sounds examples are in the spanish forum (sorry but there is where happens PCW interesting things those days), i'm going to put the links to the posts with the tests to download, here (http://www.amstrad.es/forum/viewtopic.php?p=38920#p38920) (Habi YM player), here (http://www.amstrad.es/forum/viewtopic.php?p=38998#p38998) (my AYC conversion) and here (http://www.amstrad.es/forum/viewtopic.php?p=38871#p38871) (Arkos player for PCW).
Hi, that's very interesting. Where can I order such a board?
Habi got 10 boards and of course, those have flown by now (i have not got one, for example :P), although they were simply the boards, you will need to do all the solder work... but don't worry, because in the next days he is going a publish all the schematics and the rest of information for anybody can build it and i personally will upload that information to the wiki ;)
But i'm sure that if there is interest, we can get a hardware magician as Sir Bryce making a little print :)
Well, 10 is a small number. Hope that somebody will make some boards. I would defenitely take one.
Me too :) (a few days ago a kind person has offered me a PCW8256 :D :D :D )
Quote from: SyX on 10:39, 24 September 12
But i'm sure that if there is interest, we can get a hardware magician as Sir Bryce making a little print :)
Dunno about Bryce, I think he likes building his own projects, not just having a production line for everything out there...
Unless I'm wrong, in which case I apologise for speaking out of turn.
Nope, you're 100% on the mark there Gryzor. I don't do "build to print", I only produce my own stuff. I also couldn't build them anyway, because I'd never send anything out without testing it fully and I don't own a PCW, so that's out of the question.
Bryce.
Another video showing Head Over Heels and the joystick interface:
Dk'tronics - PCW (2) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8jJNZNsEsM#)
... and it seems to have the AY on board too. That's not the typical beeper sound, right?
Quote from: SyX on 21:11, 25 September 12
Another video showing Head Over Heels and the joystick interface:
Dk'tronics - PCW (2) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8jJNZNsEsM#)
This is cool and I will support it in one of my pcw games.
Does anybody have any of the other interfaces as real hardware?
Quote from: TFM/FS on 22:43, 25 September 12
... and it seems to have the AY on board too. That's not the typical beeper sound, right?
Yes. You can see that on the first video.
The big chip is an AY-3-8910, and the board use the two GPIO.
One for a game controller and the second as a 8bit DAC (not here).
Quote from: arnoldemu on 08:37, 26 September 12Does anybody have any of the other interfaces as real hardware?
I only have seen the original DK'Tronics in reviews or ads of old spanish CPC/PCW magazines. It's because their scarcity that Habi decided to clone it.
If anybody has one, i would be eternally grateful if he could make a few photos and preserve the manual and software included with the interface.
And the last video, a fast test of the DAC/Digiblaster:
Dk'tronics - PCW (y 3) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EweTf0yG15A#)
The nice point with the PCW is that it has a lot of RAM and nice high resolution display.
So it can be a perfect machine for doing some AY tunes.
Good point could be to have alternate clocking for the AY so it can run as on speccy or MSX or even ATARI ST alongside CPC setting.
Perhaps having an extra socket for a second AY too so you can play with 2x3 channels... DMA anyone ? ::)
Can't wait to see a video of the PCW16 version.
The PCW has more screen ram and the z80 is about the same speed as the cpc.
So drawing to that nice hi-res screen takes a lot of time :(
the pcw16 is very similar to the pcw. The flash rom, wait states and the modes make it different. The palette and mode possibilities are lifted from the cpc or the "Amstrad number too".
In fact it may be the "Amstrad number too" (ANT) design modified a little.
I did an emulation of it for MESS.
it would be cool to see Habi emulate it.
yes the pcw has more ram, with video limited to the lower 128k. 22k or so per screen, 44k for double buffer, 66k for triple buffer (or to use as a background store for sprites).
it does have a simple display list, so this could be minimised I suppose.
Anyway, it has more ram so that is good and it will get one of my games converted to it.
Quotethe pcw16 is very similar to the pcw. The flash rom, wait states and the modes make it different. The palette and mode possibilities are lifted from the cpc or the "Amstrad number too".
what palette ?
does the PCW16 actually support colours ? (despite being fitted with Monocolour only )
I could find no interesting technical documentation on it's ASIC.
but as it has quite high resolution I guess some external components could turn the 640x480x1bpp into a 320x240x2bpp/4bpp or whatever.
also i saw no stuff concerning classic PCW's ULA...
Could it be upgraded into a more CPC-like thing or be added some colour attributes stuffs ??
Quote from: MacDeath on 13:51, 11 October 12
what palette ?
does the PCW16 actually support colours ? (despite being fitted with Monocolour only )
I could find no interesting technical documentation on it's ASIC.
Yes 27 colours, the same as the cpc.
Quote from: MacDeath on 13:51, 11 October 12
but as it has quite high resolution I guess some external components could turn the 640x480x1bpp into a 320x240x2bpp/4bpp or whatever.
it has cpc's mode 0, mode 1 and mode 2.
16 colours 160x256, 4 colours 320x256, 2 colours 768x256.
The asic inside the pcw16 is called "Anne".
Do a search and you will find it.
it has the same roller ram as the pcw, but you can set the mode for each line.
it has colours, but only green channel is connected for the monitor, and it shows as black and white.
Quote from: MacDeath on 13:51, 11 October 12
also i saw no stuff concerning classic PCW's ULA...
Could it be upgraded into a more CPC-like thing or be added some colour attributes stuffs ??
the classic and the pcw16 are fixed designs, without much flexibility to improve I think.
so it can't be updated for more colour.
pcw:
Amstrad "Joyce" software interface specification (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~jacobn/cpm/pcwio.html)
pcw16:
http://www.retroisle.com/amstrad/pcw/technical.php (http://www.retroisle.com/amstrad/pcw/technical.php)
look for anne asic here.
ok, so it may be hard going for non technical people, but you can read the similarities here if you compare the two docs ;)
Quote from: arnoldemu on 13:32, 11 October 12
the pcw16 is very similar to the pcw. The flash rom, wait states and the modes make it different. The palette and mode possibilities are lifted from the cpc or the "Amstrad number too".
In fact it may be the "Amstrad number too" (ANT) design modified a little.
I agree with
arnoldemu, reading the specs looks the PCW16 can be the ANT :)
And
MacDeath, you are going to love that 16MHz Z80 for putting a zillion of sprites and rasters ;D ... I'm sure that every CPC fan would love to tinker with one... but it's an elusive machine, for example, this wasn't the first time that Habi tried to get one.
The ANT was abandoned at an early stage. To me it looks like the PCW was expanded, not the ANT.
Example: In fact the ANT would have had more colors than the PcW16 (I have one and it's full docs, also ASIC and Roseanne).
Ok so PCW16 had the same palette and modes as the Amstrad CPC, jsut it is not connected into a colour monitor.
It also can manage "VGA" like high resolution...
But can it do overscan on a "TV-like monitor" or a "CPC-like monitor" just as a CPC would if limited to a "272pix max vertical" display ?
Or is it limited to VGA like monitors so no overscan because higher vertical resolution ?
I'm somewhat a bit sad the video modes are not upgraded into what the Atari St does...
Also funny to see they kept on good old 27 colour palette... still they could have done a 32 colours.
Looks like they reused the Pre-Asic blueprint instead of the PLUS Asic.
Saddly the machine could have used a few Hardsprites and rasters and 4096palette and scrollings and DMAs and.... ok i stop here.. ;D
BTW, could this machine somewhat emulate an Amstrad CPC ?
Also looks like IDE port is somewhat possible... HDD and perhaps also IDE compact flash card... CD-ROM too ?
This said, the 16mhz clocking, despite often interrupted by the Video display, still punch some real punch compaired to a CPC.
Quote from: MacDeath on 19:03, 11 October 12
... just as a CPC would if limited to a "272pix max vertical" display ?
Well, the CPC can do 288 scanlines without a problem (I always use that, because 272 scan lines would leave too much border on some screens). Using a TV you can even use more scanlines - depending on what you use.
Maybe this thread should be split!
Quote from: arnoldemu on 13:32, 11 October 12
[size=78%]Anyway, it has more ram so that is good and it will get one of my games converted to it.[/size]
That would be quite the first game for this platform :D
I'd also love to get one of these for my PCW.
I understand Habi was going to make the schematics available, does anyone know if this ever happened?
Quote from: TFM on 19:43, 23 September 12
Hi, that's very interesting. Where can I order such a board?
Any news for this interesting project?
I'll be meeting Habi this weekend so I'll ask him. ;D
[Edit] Breaking news!
I just talked to Habi, and he says he's doing a new version with some fixes, and as soon as he's done and tested it, the schematics will be available.
Woop, this is awesome news! Will he be making a batch of them (so we can buy them!), or we have to build our own?
AWESOME!
...for all of three PCW owners, at least.
Bump, poke, any news from Habi on this?!
Hi there,
after about 20 years, I have taken back my PCW (Joyce) in operation. I would like to write a little game with TPascal using GSX.
I would also like to incorporate some music, but do not know how I can do that in Turbo Pascal. I have an original DK'Tronics interface, so I would also like to use this. As I now know it can be a lot. Also, the beeper may be more than I previously thought...
Best regards,
Marcus
Habi has published a new version of his interface and all the information is in the PCW Wiki (http://pcwwiki.amstrad.es/doku.php?id=es:hardware:perifericos:dksound) (it's a good moment for commenting about all the hard work that robcfg, habi and collaborators are making with the PCWWiki, for example the Intergem Disk Drive Interface (http://pcwwiki.amstrad.es/doku.php?id=en:hardware:perifericos:intergem_disk_drive_interface)).