v2 Analog

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v2 Analog

I've just built one of these:

 

∀2 Retro Computing - Analog (v2retrocomputing.com)

 

And I have to say the output is beautiful compared to composite, here are a couple of pics:

 

 

 

 

 

As soon as I have time, I will be building a second as it can also emulate an Applicard Z80 CPM board.

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Adrian also did a pretty

What did you use to program the PAL?

Adrian also did a pretty awesome video on this: https://youtu.be/ReTXGczq8Vk

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In the end I couldn't program

In the end I couldn't program the PALs with my TL866 Pro and I used a GAL16V8B instead and it works just fine.

 

The BoM has appeared on the repository ans is now suggesting ATF16V8C-5JX which are apparently still available.

 

It was seeing Adrian's video that prompted me to build one, and I'm going to build another to use as an Applicard Z80 CP/M adapter.

 

Still haven't resolved my 80 column/RAM card issues, but the base machine runs and tests perfectly now and is good enough to test the cards.

 

 

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ATF16V8 is often used in

ATF16V8 is often used in place of GAL16V8 from what I've seen [in arcade repair]

 

I also was lucky enough to obtain one of these cards, and I concur, the output is stunning. 

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I've just built a 2nd to use

I've just built a 2nd to use as an Applicard, we'll see if the GAL 16v8B works again as I had 2 :)

 

The ATF16v8s seem hard ish to find too, GALs not so much.

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GAL16V8D is usually my go to

GAL16V8D is usually my go to even though digikey and such don't stock it anymore. 

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I have had no trouble finding

I have had no trouble finding Atmel or Lattice 16V8 not any issues programming them with my Minipro TL866-II.  I don't use the Windows software though (don't have Windows), I use the Open Source software on Linux.

 

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softwarejanitor wrote:I have
softwarejanitor wrote:

I have had no trouble finding Atmel or Lattice 16V8 not any issues programming them with my Minipro TL866-II.  I don't use the Windows software though (don't have Windows), I use the Open Source software on Linux.

Same for me, no problem sourcing GALs and I also use a TL866 Pro, but I do use the Windows software.

 

 

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I'm about to build one of

I'm about to build one of these too, hopefully this weekend. Also went with the ATF16V8 instead of the GAL, and plan on using a TL866 to program it as well. I have a GQ 4x4 as backup so we'll see how that goes.  Did you just use the existing batchfile and wcupl to build it as is? Did you have to update the device when changing to the ATF16V8?

 

I sourced the wifi Picos for the project  as well - I see there's a wifi firmware, but not much documentation on how to use it...

 

 

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I haven't done much work on

I haven't done much work on the WiFi side of the firmware.  The -LC firmware leaves out the wifi libraries and hardware initialization, which is all of about 8 bytes difference at this point. You are unlikely to see any difference between the -LC or -WIFI firmware builds on either PicoW or Pico boards, especially the -VGA builds. It is on my roadmap to have WiFi and/or bluetooth usable in the near future for the Z80 builds but it may come at a cost of emulated Z80 speed.

I made some progress last week on implementing the UARTs into the Z80 firmware. There are two virtual serial ports, the intent was to have them working over USB for use with ADTPro and other software, or attachable to either a WiFi modem or printer implementation.  So far they appear to be working at a surface level for loopback only until I (or someone else) writes code to do the modem and/or printer. Both serial ports are available from the Z80 and the 6502 sides, so they should eventually be usable with terminal software under CP/M (included on the PCPI disks) or 6502 terminal software that has been patched to use one of the ports. 

This week has been lots of effort getting Video7 emulation working, and trying to tweak various video color encodings to get the best possible picture in each mode. I've almost given up on trying to improve the HGR video, though for some games the new interpolation does look better at times than the old method, but the old method usually results in easier to read text.  Because DHGR directly encodes the raw dot patterns, its not as easy to do a sliding window lookup the way the old HGR implementation does.  I'm welcome to any help others may offer in the way of a simple sliding window interpolation that works on the raw 560 bit scanline (with a window of no more than 32 bits) that can be implemented in only a couple lines to generate good looking results for DHGR.  At the moment the choices are basically a 140x192 naieve chunky mode, or a sliding subpixel implementation that blends adjacent pixels and has optional vertical aperture simulation.  The various color implementations can be switched with the card's $C0n1 register lower 4 bits. $8 turns on the old color implementation, $4 enables Video7 features, $2 and $1 affect the new interpolation.

I've been slowly working on writing some 6502 ROM code for the 80-column card implementation for Apple II/II+ systems, but its been a while since I did major 6502 asm work and its taking time to finish.The actual serial stream parsing is done on the RP2040 while waiting for scanline buffers to render, so all the 6502 side firmware really needs to do is patch the keyboard input to gain lowercase, and shove characters into the card's FIFO endpoint as long as there is room for it.  I went this route because of the difficulty in implementing bank switching fast enough for the videx or other 80-column card firmware.  Offloading the terminal emulation to the RP2040 means theres no need for the 6502 to read from a paged window representing the card's text buffer.  Large portions of the 80-col firmware will probably be reusable for the serial / parallel card emulation ROMs as well.

I also have been developing a GS version of the card with 12-bit color, a larger CPLD to do the needed GS specific bus qualification and better $C800 handling, and the ability to overlay ROM images over other slots (so the serial ports could have ROMs in slots 1 & 2, even if the physical card is in slot 4 for Z80 emulation) as long as all the slot ROMs can share the same 2KB $C800 bank or are written in such a way to wait for a bank-switch operation to complete on the RP2040. The card also moves the VGA connector and resistor DAC to a panel mount board that connects with a cable. Other I/O modules can be swapped in on the GS version for things like real RS232 serial ports or a ESP32/ESP8266 WiFi module (leveraging existing WiFi modem firmwares).

 

-DK

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 GrizzlyAdams wrote:and the

 

GrizzlyAdams wrote:

and the ability to overlay ROM images over other slots...

I did  a similar patch to the //c and //c+ ROMs to allow use the FijiNet PRINT and MODEM ports. The ROM redirects PR#1 and IN#2 commands for wireless printing and use of the built-in Terminal program. Unfortunately, some printer and most communication software wants to talk directly to the built-in serial chips so that limits its usefulness.

 

If you can emulate the hardware on one of the standard interface cards of that era you should be able to make this all work!

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It does emulate a pair of

It does emulate a pair of UARTs on the upper 8 bytes of the I/O window for the card.  On the 6502 side each is presented as a 6551. On the Z80 side they appear as a Z80 SIO / DUART chip (emulating this addon: https://planemo.org/2012/07/29/high-speed-serial-port-for-the-apple-ii-pcpi-applicard/ ). Both sides access the same FIFO, so you should only have software attached to one or the other, not both at the same time.

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