This is a really cool project! I would love to see you swap our the Pico for a Pico W and then emulate an NE2000 network card (or another commonly supported card) to create a DIY WiFi card for old machines
Cool project! But I would like to suggest one change to the design: You can use shift registers to handle the data and address lines and minimize the number of Pico pins needed. The ISA bus is quite slow, there will be no problems with this
Did some testing with Rev. 0.1 boards, the results are a mixed bag. Best results were on a Digis 486NL motherboard, works great with ISA frequency of 6.67MHz or less, at 8MHz has an erratic behavior and also interferes with the keyboard, above 8MHz it doesn't work. It can work without disabling the COM ports on a Windbond Multi-IO card. 386SX board with SCATsx chipset locks as soon as the mouse is moved after the driver is loaded. Doesn't work on a PCChips M520 Socket 7 with 430VX chipset. Tested some mice, works great with Logitech B100, NGS Flame Black and a Wireless keyboard+mouse combo from Ewent model EW3256, some others didn't work. One issue with the Pico reset, had to take the board out of the ISA slot to reset it, if I turned the PC off and then on right away with minimal wait time, the Pico wouldn't work and the led stayed off. Waiting some minutes makes it work again, but taking the board out of the slot is quicker, inside a case is a different story. Maybe there are some timing issues that prevent it to work on 8MHz ISA and above, do you want me to try anything else? Do you have an e-mail address so I can send you some video footage? Thanks. PS: will update this post with more info when I test other motherboards.
Thank you for the detailed feedback! Boards can be a bit picky. I've had it working on a board with a 8MHz ISA bus, but it would not work on a different one with the same 8Mhz bus frequency. My guess is that it has to do with the timing of the IORDY signal, which may differ between boards. I think there may be a way to get more tight timings using some PIO code. I would need to experiment with it a bit though. The Pico reset is indeed annoying. I need to update the board with a proper reset circuit. I think I have even pushed some changes that implement to some extent, but I will have to look into it again and upload a proper PCB release. Thanks again, I will keep you posted.
@@scrap_computing do you think it will be possible to reuse these 0.1 boards with new firmware/driver? Maybe using some code from PicoMem and PicoGus projects to have tighter timings? This small board is nice for mouse support only.
@@BaguetesGarage Yes, I am in the process of replacing some of the time-critical code with PIO code, which should make it more robust. It will still work on these 0.1 boards. The driver won't need any changes.
Good news! I just tested the updated firmware on one of my systems that had issues with the old one, and it's working great! I have uploaded it on github, in the release section of the DirtyRatFirmware project page, and I have named it: `DirtyRatFirmware_rev.0.1_pio.uf2`. Please try it out and let me know if you are still having issues with some of your boards. Thanks!
I remember in my old PCI 486 BIOS an option to set the ISA clock speed either as a fixed value or fraction of the PCI bus. I played with it and some ISA cards did not like if i went above 10MHz
Any chance you would make a Book8088 (or Hand386) version of your PCB like PicoGUS? The Book8088 would greatly benefit from a serial mouse plugged directly into the Book8088 port...
It would be a bit tricky, as I don't own a Book8088 so I wouldn't have a way to test it. I guess the best way would be to use some sort of book8088-to-ISA adapter ?
can you build something like this for a c64? something just like it adding in wavetable perhaps? more sound channels? maybe a better vic II card? more colours, more vram, higher resolutions.
This is like asking someone who has just built a car "that's a nice car but can you build a truck?". Yes, probably, but they're pretty excited about the car they just built. Great project by the way! This is fantastic!
It is for this type of requests that for example TerribleFire got angry with the Amiga comunity. Something it is not ready yet, he is doing it for free and people asking to start something else.
there's other people doing something similar for c64. there's a pico -> c64 cartridge board out there. I think it's now just a ram interface. dunno if it would need hw changes to start acting as more things. c64 has lots of replacement emulator-board-as-chip-replacement projects though. for the graphics chip as well to get cleaner output.
@@lasskinn474 none of that is what im talking about though, its all the same as the original tech. im talking about a video card/graphics board, maybe gpu (small one) and a sound card for the c64, im not talking about doing the same thing over and over again
This is a really cool project! I would love to see you swap our the Pico for a Pico W and then emulate an NE2000 network card (or another commonly supported card) to create a DIY WiFi card for old machines
Yes, and maybe even with ROM support!
Yeah that would be awesome!
There is PicoMEM for this
A serial port debugger for your serial port. I love it!
Great to see you persisting at this project!
Awesome Job Brotha!
Im really wanting to build a Dos Rig. I Picked a PIII a few weeks back to restore with the kiddos
Tremendous work!!!
Cool project! But I would like to suggest one change to the design: You can use shift registers to handle the data and address lines and minimize the number of Pico pins needed. The ISA bus is quite slow, there will be no problems with this
This need to completely change the board and the code , making it similar to my board.
Honestly, compiling cutemouse in dos isn't too bad. Just use dos box and a bat file, I think 2.1 comes with a bat file to use as your base.
awesome work mate!
486 bus timing can be much faster than standard PC bus times would Playing with the settings in the bios help?
Did some testing with Rev. 0.1 boards, the results are a mixed bag.
Best results were on a Digis 486NL motherboard, works great with ISA frequency of 6.67MHz or less, at 8MHz has an erratic behavior and also interferes with the keyboard, above 8MHz it doesn't work. It can work without disabling the COM ports on a Windbond Multi-IO card.
386SX board with SCATsx chipset locks as soon as the mouse is moved after the driver is loaded.
Doesn't work on a PCChips M520 Socket 7 with 430VX chipset.
Tested some mice, works great with Logitech B100, NGS Flame Black and a Wireless keyboard+mouse combo from Ewent model EW3256, some others didn't work.
One issue with the Pico reset, had to take the board out of the ISA slot to reset it, if I turned the PC off and then on right away with minimal wait time, the Pico wouldn't work and the led stayed off. Waiting some minutes makes it work again, but taking the board out of the slot is quicker, inside a case is a different story. Maybe there are some timing issues that prevent it to work on 8MHz ISA and above, do you want me to try anything else? Do you have an e-mail address so I can send you some video footage? Thanks.
PS: will update this post with more info when I test other motherboards.
Thank you for the detailed feedback!
Boards can be a bit picky. I've had it working on a board with a 8MHz ISA bus, but it would not work on a different one with the same 8Mhz bus frequency. My guess is that it has to do with the timing of the IORDY signal, which may differ between boards.
I think there may be a way to get more tight timings using some PIO code. I would need to experiment with it a bit though.
The Pico reset is indeed annoying. I need to update the board with a proper reset circuit. I think I have even pushed some changes that implement to some extent, but I will have to look into it again and upload a proper PCB release.
Thanks again, I will keep you posted.
@@scrap_computing do you think it will be possible to reuse these 0.1 boards with new firmware/driver? Maybe using some code from PicoMem and PicoGus projects to have tighter timings? This small board is nice for mouse support only.
@@BaguetesGarage Yes, I am in the process of replacing some of the time-critical code with PIO code, which should make it more robust. It will still work on these 0.1 boards. The driver won't need any changes.
Good news! I just tested the updated firmware on one of my systems that had issues with the old one, and it's working great! I have uploaded it on github, in the release section of the DirtyRatFirmware project page, and I have named it: `DirtyRatFirmware_rev.0.1_pio.uf2`.
Please try it out and let me know if you are still having issues with some of your boards.
Thanks!
@@scrap_computing great news, I will test it tomorrow and give you some feedback.
concerning the 456-board. Perhaps the ISA-busspeed is to high or out of spec.
Maybe a termination issue? Just a thought.
I remember in my old PCI 486 BIOS an option to set the ISA clock speed either as a fixed value or fraction of the PCI bus. I played with it and some ISA cards did not like if i went above 10MHz
Impressive! Very much appreciated:)
Fantastic work!
Any chance you would make a Book8088 (or Hand386) version of your PCB like PicoGUS? The Book8088 would greatly benefit from a serial mouse plugged directly into the Book8088 port...
It would be a bit tricky, as I don't own a Book8088 so I wouldn't have a way to test it. I guess the best way would be to use some sort of book8088-to-ISA adapter ?
Just need to USB Code to the PicoGUS. :)
How is it working under windows 95 with this driver?
I am not sure. Can you use a DOS driver in windows 95?
Why not use esp32 which has 20-30 I/O pins?
The Pico has these PIOs which could help with some of the bus logic.
Could this ISA Blaster be PCI Blaster, would a PCI bus card work in dos?
PCI is quite a bit faster, so I think it would be trickier to get the timings right.
can you build something like this for a c64? something just like it adding in wavetable perhaps? more sound channels? maybe a better vic II card? more colours, more vram, higher resolutions.
This is like asking someone who has just built a car "that's a nice car but can you build a truck?". Yes, probably, but they're pretty excited about the car they just built.
Great project by the way! This is fantastic!
I think there's already something like that called the ArmSID. It has extra waveforms abd such
It is for this type of requests that for example TerribleFire got angry with the Amiga comunity. Something it is not ready yet, he is doing it for free and people asking to start something else.
there's other people doing something similar for c64.
there's a pico -> c64 cartridge board out there. I think it's now just a ram interface. dunno if it would need hw changes to start acting as more things.
c64 has lots of replacement emulator-board-as-chip-replacement projects though. for the graphics chip as well to get cleaner output.
@@lasskinn474 none of that is what im talking about though, its all the same as the original tech. im talking about a video card/graphics board, maybe gpu (small one) and a sound card for the c64, im not talking about doing the same thing over and over again
Is that Kermit the frog talking?
Had no idea he was into retro computing 🐸! Legend