No Vinculum? No Problem! Emulating an 8-bit VDIP1 using a Raspberry Pi
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- Опубліковано 15 лип 2024
- I wanted to build a project that used an FTDI Vinculum VDIP1 IC, but I could not find this IC in stock anywhere, and although I could find an appropriate replacement, a V2DIP1-48, I didn't want to wait. So I decided I'd try an experiment to see if I could replace the missing VDIP1 module with a raspberry pi. The goal was to make the pi function essentially like an 8-bit IO peripheral in a vintage computer system. I implemented the circuit using a pair of 74HCT574 latches, together with a 74HCT74 flipflop to handle some handshake signals. I wrote a short python program that emulate the firmware of the VDIP1 module. Then I used this together with my Heathkit H8 computer to transfer files from the raspberry pi to the H8. For more vintage computer projects, see www.smbaker.com/
- Наука та технологія
Very nice work! I like the use of the latches for signal communication.
Neat! I don't own an H8, but it's fascinating to see what others can do with it and modern peripherals.
Perfect Solution 👍
Very very cool
Nice work! Did you ever complete the speech synthesizer board for the H8? Did I miss it?
Nice video as always! I don't know the VDIP1 but couldn't you use an easily available CH376S?
Nice solution. I wonder if it is also possible with an arduino. It does have interrupts for handling the two signals. And the arduino is operated at 5 volt, so no resitors needed/
Yeah, I think an Arduino or a Pico or a Parallax Propeller all could have pulled this off. Raspberry pi is something I can get working in a couple hours. The others might yield a more efficient solution, but would take more time and be a little less versatile.
That's pretty cool. I've been thinking about doing the same thing at some point.
You're making me nervous though, as I'm about to get into writing hard sector images onto physical dsdd media with a virtual sector generator. Sounds like the same thing you're having trouble with. D:
If you have actual hard sector media, maybe that will go easier for you. In my case, I was either using a Gotek with HXC's firmware that supports hard sectors, or I was using a soft-sector floppy drive with HSFE (hard sector floppy emulator). The physical floppy works fine when read and written from the H8. I did not try writing the physical floppy from a computer other than the H8, as my HSFE is built into the H8's H17 controller board.
@@smbakeryt I was hoping to figure out a way to also use the gotek through the VSG, and convert the images to something soft-sector that the gotek could deal with using the flashfloppy firmware, or patch flashfloppy to support the hard sector images. I guess I am dubious of the HxC firmware being closed source, as it prevents me from adding stuff like keyboard control and on-screen display to it. But getting flashfloppy working with hard sector images may be a pretty tall order, I dunno. Heh. I suspect that I'll end up just sucking them over the serial port and writing them out to physical media.
Maybe stick an arduino and a pico on it too.