krivulak wrote on 2022-10-30, 20:34:

yesterday I've got a PicoGUS PCB as a gift and because of that I became interested in this topic and then I thought - why not go PC/104?
What do you think? Can I make it? I am not sure about the license stuff... Kept everything the same, just added my name as a "modificator"

Wow! This is so cool to see. It's so similar yet so different. You are free to modify my design! I've used the CERN OHL v2 Permissive license, which requires the work I've done to keep its license notice, but you are free to change anything else.

polpo wrote on 2022-10-31, 15:45:

Wow! This is so cool to see. It's so similar yet so different. You are free to modify my design! I've used the CERN OHL v2 Permissive license, which requires the work I've done to keep its license notice, but you are free to change anything else.

Nice, so glad to hear that!
Today I modified the board a little bit more, found out that I missplaced the PC/104 connector, modified the DMA select header since the duplicate pins for DACK and DRQ were feeling a little bit off, and added blocking capacitor for the DAC, just for safety measures.

Just looking at the rendering I'm wondering if the line-out (and maybe other parts) are gonna fit between two PCBs (even more with maybe other parts mounted on the SBC it's probably gonna sit on). In the rendering it at least looks to be higher than the connector.

MJay99 wrote on 2022-10-31, 20:00:

Just looking at the rendering I'm wondering if the line-out (and maybe other parts) are gonna fit between two PCBs (even more with maybe other parts mounted on the SBC it's probably gonna sit on). In the rendering it at least looks to be higher than the connector.

Exactly my thoughts hence why I replaced it with more standard MIDI jack - 2,5mm. I was only too tired yesterday to design new device since there are no 2,5mm jacks in KiCAD library.

The highest thing on the board now is the pins for setting IRQ and DMA and standard height of those pins are 8,5mm tall and the specification for PC/104 allows up to 14mm with proper spacers or 9mm without spacers so it should clear it easily.

I should have known this project was here as well. 😀 I just finished building the PicoGUS tonight and plan on programming and testing it later this week. It was a fun build. I thought the smaller pitch of the smaller ICs were going to give me trouble, but not at all. Can't wait to try this out.

https://twitter.com/rain2xx/status/1590123205 … 7elLEvP4sjNIROw

I got the boards in the mail and am now waiting for the parts to make their way to me from Singapore. Via economy international. Might take a while 🤣

How is game compatibility for now ?

Does ShadowCaster (MS-DOS) run for example ?

You guys are making me wish I had a board. I might have to look into that soon.

It's cool seeing a few of you here that I've talked to on Twitter!

matze79 wrote on 2022-11-09, 22:19:

How is game compatibility for now ?

Does ShadowCaster (MS-DOS) run for example ?

To be honest I have not focused at all on game compatibility when developing PicoGUS. My main interest in the GUS is in demoscene productions, so that's what I've done almost all of my testing with. But as a blanket rule, the large majority of games, especially those that use MIDI music or streaming audio, use DMA and I do not have that working reliably on the PicoGUS yet. There are a few Epic Megagames titles that work like Jazz Jackrabbit, though.

There is a compatibility list on the project's wiki on Github: https://github.com/polpo/picogus/wiki/Compatibility-list
I'll be coming out with a new firmware release soon that increases compatibility with a lot of demos and I'll be updating the list then.

You can see the latest progress in a video I have on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkJvkJVRscQ - I test a few games at the end, but they're there to show the card's AdLib emulation support. 😅

By the way I think I should rename this thread and update the first post now that I am no longer working on the original PiGUS project and instead am 100% dedicated to PicoGUS.

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-11-09, 22:33:

You guys are making me wish I had a board. I might have to look into that soon.

I have extra boards, where do you live?

polpo wrote on 2022-11-09, 22:59:

It's cool seeing a few of you here that I've talked to on Twitter! […]
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It's cool seeing a few of you here that I've talked to on Twitter!

matze79 wrote on 2022-11-09, 22:19:

How is game compatibility for now ?

Does ShadowCaster (MS-DOS) run for example ?

To be honest I have not focused at all on game compatibility when developing PicoGUS. My main interest in the GUS is in demoscene productions, so that's what I've done almost all of my testing with. But as a blanket rule, the large majority of games, especially those that use MIDI music or streaming audio, use DMA and I do not have that working reliably on the PicoGUS yet. There are a few Epic Megagames titles that work like Jazz Jackrabbit, though.

There is a compatibility list on the project's wiki on Github: https://github.com/polpo/picogus/wiki/Compatibility-list
I'll be coming out with a new firmware release soon that increases compatibility with a lot of demos and I'll be updating the list then.

You can see the latest progress in a video I have on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkJvkJVRscQ - I test a few games at the end, but they're there to show the card's AdLib emulation support. 😅

By the way I think I should rename this thread and update the first post now that I am no longer working on the original PiGUS project and instead am 100% dedicated to PicoGUS.

Well met, again 😀

I'm more interested, to be honest exclusively interested in gaming use of this card so I will be more than happy to test it with games and report back in case you are interested in adding those to your compatibility follow-up.

polpo wrote on 2022-11-09, 22:59:

It's cool seeing a few of you here that I've talked to on Twitter!

You can see the latest progress in a video I have on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkJvkJVRscQ - I test a few games at the end, but they're there to show the card's AdLib emulation support. 😅

haha GUS Software Adlib Emulation is the worst ever.
Wolf3D sounds so off

i guess you mean your OPL2 Emulation.
Can`t see the Video right now.

Great work, keep it going!

appiah4 wrote on 2022-11-10, 06:25:

I'm more interested, to be honest exclusively interested in gaming use of this card so I will be more than happy to test it with games and report back in case you are interested in adding those to your compatibility follow-up.

Yeah, having help testing games would be great!

matze79 wrote on 2022-11-10, 08:15:

haha GUS Software Adlib Emulation is the worst ever. Wolf3D sounds so off […]
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haha GUS Software Adlib Emulation is the worst ever.
Wolf3D sounds so off

i guess you mean your OPL2 Emulation.
Can`t see the Video right now.

Fortunately this isn't using SBOS. It's the emu8950 OPL emulator that Graham Sanderson optimized for the RP2040, but with some of the features that he had to disable added back in, specifically the percussion support and timers. Timers on AdLib are funny, since the IRQ line isn't wired on the original board, it seems it's only really used by programs to detect the card.

IRQ is not used by anything as far as i know.

There is a Jumperblock on the Adlib but its not populated 😀

So... The prototype boards came and I assembled it. And I am quite happy!

I created a short video about the project so if you want, you can take a look at it and enjoy my happiness.
https://youtu.be/VZuFstWoktI

Hope Ian will write support for games since when this will be working, it would be the ultimate PC/104 card. Keep up the good work!

The last pieces of my puzzle arrived yesterday, so I should be able to try my hand at soldering this now. Those SMD components look impossibly small! Will I fuck it up? Won't I? Who knows..

krivulak wrote on 2022-11-30, 22:20:

So... The prototype boards came and I assembled it. And I am quite happy! […]
Show full quote

So... The prototype boards came and I assembled it. And I am quite happy!

IMG_0573.JPG

I created a short video about the project so if you want, you can take a look at it and enjoy my happiness.
https://youtu.be/VZuFstWoktI

Hope Ian will write support for games since when this will be working, it would be the ultimate PC/104 card. Keep up the good work!

Thats really nice! I expect this not to work on a NuXT Turbo XT due to the 8 vs 16 bit bus? Or is the 16 bit bus on the PiGUS optional?

pan069 wrote on 2022-12-01, 08:58:

Thats really nice! I expect this not to work on a NuXT Turbo XT due to the 8 vs 16 bit bus? Or is the 16 bit bus on the PiGUS optional?

The card is 100% 8-bit, the 16-bit extension is just passthrough for another cards, so it will totally work in 8bit bus. As a matter of facts, I was debugging it in 8-bit mode using another connector as a riser.

krivulak wrote on 2022-12-01, 10:50:

pan069 wrote on 2022-12-01, 08:58:

Thats really nice! I expect this not to work on a NuXT Turbo XT due to the 8 vs 16 bit bus? Or is the 16 bit bus on the PiGUS optional?

The card is 100% 8-bit, the 16-bit extension is just passthrough for another cards, so it will totally work in 8bit bus. As a matter of facts, I was debugging it in 8-bit mode using another connector as a riser.
photo_2022-11-30_22-32-03.jpg

Oh wow! That's great.

I've released v0.1.0 of the PicoGUS firmware: https://github.com/polpo/picogus/releases/tag/v0.1.0

- More compatibility! Nearly every program that does not use DMA now works. See the Compatibility List for the latest status on what works: https://github.com/polpo/picogus/wiki/Compatibility-list
- AdLib and MPU-401 emulation modes. I'm looking into enabling these modes via runtime configuration but for now they are separate firmwares.
- New version of pgusinit.exe to tweak problematic programs. Currently the only tweak is changing the audio rendering buffer size. Some programs behave better with a smaller or larger buffer than the default of 16 samples.

Now that I'm finally mostly happy with IRQs, I'll start on getting DMA working again. It was working on the prototype hardware design, so I'm hopeful it won't be a major undertaking.

Hi polpo,

would you also add covox support ? it should be very easy.
Just plain DAC 😀