The ESP32 SoftCard for the Apple II

hertz_donut wrote:

Ok.  My card arrived yesterday and I'm just starting to play.  I'm also an old Commodore guy with my first Apple (a II+).  The display of choice currently has multiple inputs, so perhaps a composite to HDMI adapter will accomplish the same thing, just no as cleanly.  Thanks for the reponse!  Keep up the great work. 

Thanks!

There are some really good composite to HDMI adapters, but they are expensive. The cheap ones (like the one I have) are not so good. You should get a color Commodore CRT monitor.

Mikeosoft wrote:

Just got a notification of in stock on tindie, placed my order.  Can't wait to try this out! Thank you.

Great! I am shipping all the Tindie orders today.

The "out of stock" days are finally over, provided that no other 60K+ views YouTube video comes out in the near future. :)

Going forward, Tindie will remain the site offering the lowest price: https://www.tindie.com/stores/cvt/

eric_jac wrote:

Hi CVT,

I've received my card and glad to report that everything is working great with my Laser 128!

 

Beyond running the built-in app, I'm interested to use the prototyping area in the upper-right corner. Is there a guide on how to create an app with the ESP32?

 

-Eric

Hi Eric,

At this point the card does not support an SDK that would let you add features on top of the existing firmware. If I do an SDK in the future, I would do it properly with full Arduino and PlatfomIO support. But it’s a pretty low priority, considering the target audience and the amount of effort it would take to add it. However right now any developer who knows how to program and debug the ESP32 using a JTAG programmer can wipe out the existing firmware and program their own stuff. However they would loose all the existing features and will have no way of resetting the card back to its original state, unless they mail it back to me to reprogram it.

The prototyping area is there for any foreseen and unforeseen circumstances, in addition to just looking nice and paying homage to some early expansion cards that also had one. I have used it in the past to build a special debug version for a customer who found a bug that was only present on the Apple IIgs, which I did not own at the time. Regular users have found good uses for it was well. Here is one example where the audio is being fed to another audio card:

459796851_3777024315890559_3383432629486292441_n.jpg

Firmware Update:

Here is the forth major version firmware update, which adds one more emulator to the mix: ESP32 SoftCard FW v.4.00.zip

To update, place the BIN file found inside the ZIP archive in the /Firmware directory of the SD card and then run the UPDATE command.

Version History: (Continued)

v4.00 

    - Added an Atari 400/800 emulator. To start just type ATARI.     

    - PC Emulator: fixed a bug causing <Ctrl><L> not to properly toggle lower case on Apple II+. 

    - PC Emulator: fixed a bug causing the PC port of Karateka not to have sound. 

    - Update: fixed a bug that frequently caused a crash and exit to Basic after a successful firmware update. 

    - Command prompt: fixed a bug causing the top line of text to be bent to the left and look reverse italic. 

    - Audio player: improved the way the text information is displayed while streaming audio from the Net. 

    - Fixed a bug causing some key presses to be missed when the card is hosted in an Apple IIgs. 

    - Increased the size of the free internal RAM by 32K.

Also some games and programs gathered from the Net:  AtariROMs.zip (The ROMs need to be in the /Atari directory of the SD card.)

Most of the ROMs were downloaded from: https://wowroms.com/en/roms/list/atari%2B800

Here are a few pictures on a color CRT monitor: 

Atari1.JPG

Atari2.JPG

Atari3.jpg

Atari4.jpg

Firmware Update:

Here is an update, which addresses a small omission in the previous release: ESP32 SoftCard FW v.4.01.zip

Version History: (Continued)

v4.01

    - Atari emulator: fixed an omission where the Apple mouse button was not mapped to the Atari joystick button.

Firmware Update:

This is one more update, which fixes a single bug in the Atari emulator: ESP32 SoftCard FW v.4.02.zip

To update, place the BIN file found inside the ZIP archive in the /Firmware directory of the SD card and then run the UPDATE command.

Version History: (Continued)

v4.02

    - Atari emulator: fixed a bug that was causing lower case letters to appear as upper case on the Apple IIe and IIgs.

AtariBasic.jpg

Waltermix wrote:

Hi there,  being in canada, and with the exchange being what it is, I'm wondering if bareboards will be made available?  The price of $125.00 u.s. is not bad if you are in the U.S.  but for canadians  that's about $175.00 plus shipping takes it to almost $200.00.  The card is amazing,  but because I like to solder,  and build my own things,  I was hoping...

I sent you a PM.

dlsnz wrote:

 

I tried a few composite to HDMI solutions and they were ... rubbish.

 

I bought one of these and ... very good result.

Can you post some pics? I want to compare them with the displays I have. I'm always on the lookout for better displays for my promo work.

Khaibitgfx wrote:

When it comes to adding new things to an old retro computer it's always interesting to try everything out or at least see what others have to say about the new gadget.

Question being, when does an Apple II start, and where does it end, when you add a card that is basically a computer in itself, the host computer doesn't really matter any more, except for its case, power supply and maybe even it's keyboard live on while the rest sits idle.

...

Well, I wouldn’t say that the ESP32 SoftCard is a computer itself. The computer is the Apple II and it is one either with or without the card. The card would be a computer if it could be used as a computer outside the Apple II and it cannot.

The ESP32 SoftCard is an Apple II processor card, similar to many other processor cards for the Apple II that came before it. They all contain a processor and let you run software that was not designed for the 6502. This long tradition started in 1980 with the original Z-80 SoftCard and continued with the PC Transporter, the AP20 by IBS and many others.

Khaibitgfx wrote:

Technically couldn't a card like this be added to any old computer, even a 4.77mhz 1981 IBM PC, which basically offers all that will ever be needed, the case, the power, even the keyboard while the actual computer in itself is kicked to the curb while the esp32 takes over?

...

I am not sure what you are calling "the actual computer", but when the ESP32 SoftCard is being used, the 6502 processor is not idle, but rather essential. It takes care of communication between the card and the Apple II peripherals it uses. The other essential parts for the ESP32 SoftCard are the memory, the expansion slots, a Disk ][ or SmartPort controller or emulator, the keyboard, the joystick, the mouse, the speaker, the monitor and the power supply.

Firmware Update:

This is a minor version update, but it enables one more game console - the Atari 5200: ESP32 SoftCard FW v.4.03.zip

To update, place the BIN file found inside the ZIP archive in the /Firmware directory of the SD card and then run the UPDATE command.

Version History: (Continued)

v4.03

    - Atari emulator: added support for the Atari 5200 game console. ROMs with .a52 extensions can now also run.

    - Atari emulator: changed key mappings: <Ctrl><S> - Start button, <Ctrl><X> - Select button, <Ctrl><R> - Reset button.

    - Atari emulator: added key mapping <Ctrl><P> - Pause button for Atari 5200 and Help button for Atari 400/800/XL.

    - Atari emulator: added key mapping <Ctrl><A> - Atari/Inverse button, <Ctrl><C> - Clear, <Ctrl><N> - Insert.

    - Atari emulator: added support for placing original Atari system ROMs on the SD card.

    - Atari emulator: updated the built-in Altirra system ROMs to v3.41 for 800/800XL and v3.34 for 5200 and Basic.

    - TurboGrafx-16: fixed a crash introduced in v4.00 of the firmware when hitting <Esc> from some games.

    - All game console emulators: the <Space> key can now also be used to start a game from the Files menu.

Here is the updated collection of Atari games and programs, which now contains some .a52 files as well: AtariGamesAndPrograms.zip

More Atari 5200 games can be downloaded from: https://wowroms.com/en/roms/list/atari%2B5200

Details:

Even though this is not a major version release, it adds support for one more game console: the Atari 5200. However it is still part of the Atari emulator and the newly supported .a52 ROMs can be placed together with the rest of the Atari ROMs and disk images in the /Atari directory. The .a52 ROMs can be 4k, 8k, 16k and 32k and they can be started from the UI using <Enter> or <Space>. However there are two varieties of 16k ROMs: those with one chip and those with two chips and the emulator cannot currently tell them apart. So, the single chip ones need to be started with <Enter>, while the double chip ones with <Space>. If <Enter> doesn’t work, just hit <Esc> and start them with <Space>. The emulator UI detects 16k Atari 5200 ROMs and shows the appropriate message in the status bar.

A picture of Frogger on my 9" Sony BVM-9044D:

FroggerMenu.jpg

Frogger.jpg

Superjer2000 wrote:

One feature I would like is a terminal program (preferably one that supports ANSI) so I can BBS from the card over wifi. 

I could certainly add that. The only caveat is that it will be monochrome with 16 shades of gray, due to the composite signal limitations in 640x200. It will look like the ANSI stuff in the PC/XT emulator:

ANSI.jpg

Superjer2000 wrote:

Greyscale ansi would work for me. It would just be nice to be able to telnet somewhere when using the esp32.

I am looking into adding that for the next major version update. So far all major releases have been adding more emulators, so perhaps it would be good to concentrate on connectivity for a change. After all the ESP32 is a Wi-Fi module before anything else.  

Superjer2000 wrote:

Also is there any way to exit the Mac emulator and return to the shell?

Yes, just choose Restart from the Special menu or Shut Down and then hit the Restart button. 

Superjer2000 wrote:

Last question any potential updates to the Mac emulator resolution?  We couldn't get a good signal at Kfest and I haven't had much luck with my Color Monitor IIe either.

The last update was the addition of 480i for NTSC and 576i for PAL. Beyond that I don't think anything else can be done, considering the limitations of the composite CRT displays.

CVT wrote:

Superjer2000 wrote:

Last question any potential updates to the Mac emulator resolution?  We couldn't get a good signal at Kfest and I haven't had much luck with my Color Monitor IIe either.

 

The last update was the addition of 480i for NTSC and 576i for PAL. Beyond that I don't think anything else can be done, considering the limitations of the composite CRT displays. 

P.S. It is possible to get some retro color monitors to sync in 350p, but it requires some "fine tuning" using the V-Hold control of the monitor and the <Ctrl><E> and <Ctrl><X> keys. The vertical size on the monitor must be set to the absolute minimum of course, in order to fit 350 lines.

I had to drive to Germany for a couple of weeks and the other day I bought a Commodore 64 C, which came with this immaculate Anitech 6402 composite color monitor. It fits my Apple IIe like a glove, so I decided to try it with the ESP32 SoftCard and I was able to set it up perfectly for the Mac emulator in 350p:

Anitech Mac.jpg

Anitech Wolf3D.jpg

Superjer2000 wrote:

Thanks for the help and responses!

 

One feature request would be to automatically change the speed of the FastChip IIe to 'Slow' when the ESP32 Softcard software is run.  As it stands currently when the FastChip IIe is running "fast" I get the initial screen where the software identifies the slot the ESP32 Softcard is installed in (and the mouse card slot) but it doesn't

Thanks for letting me know about this problem! I looked at the TotalReplay source on Github and found the assembly routines that turn off not just FastChip, but also other known accelerators like TransWarp, ZipChip, etc. I will port these routines to the ESP32 SoftCard Interface program soon.