check the header on the bottom of the SOM. those pins can get broken if you're not careful but I wouldn't expect that to not work at all. I had some pins on one of mine that I missed soldering but that made the screen show up without blue instead of no screen altogether. is this the only WeeCee board you have? it's always nice to have a spare to test your SOM on when possible.

I now have 3 different revisions of the WeeCee that I've named WeeCee Redux. my goal was originally just to port over the original WeeCee project that Rasteri designed into KiCad but I couldn't find an elegant way to do that, so I measured everything out by hand and laid it out in KiCad to try to match as closely as possible to the front and back plates that were already made.
As I got a little further into the project and figured out how to do more, I started swapping certain things out that I felt would be appreciated on this project like a power on/off circuit, USB C instead of Micro USB for the power adapter, and a reset button.
After ordering a batch of those and fixing some minor issues I decided to swap the PS/2 port out for the HIDman circuit which worked great!
The next thing I did was improve the sound chips ground planes and power filtering as well as adding a power LED and SD activity LED. This necessitated creation of new plates for both the front and back.
The other 2 revisions I made were both including the Raspberry PI CM4 module. 1 added it to the existing revision I had using the crystal chip for sound and the other, which is a bit more ambitious, swaps the crystal chip for a PicoGus.
I haven't been able to get this one working completely yet unfortunately as I can't get the PicoGus to detect using pgusinit but once that problem is resolved, this will be a very nice little device for most things that don't require 3d acceleration! the CM4 alone adds a ton of potential features like floppy disk emulator, Wi-Fi, MT-32PI, emulation, etc. I'm getting closer to releasing the CM4 versions but the initial version i'm calling "original recipe" is a basic WeeCee with the quality-of-life improvements I made. This one works very well and I've had it running stress tests in windows 98 non-stop on my desk at work for a couple weeks now.

Here's some pictures of that version:

once I do the final testing on this one I will make the project available for anyone who wants them on Github.

Here's a quick shot of the version with the CM4 and the Crystal chip:

and FINALLY the bane of my existence for the past 4 months, what I'm referring to as the TL3 edition as it's based on the TinyLlama 3 concept:

to be clear, the only thing that doesn't work on the TL3 version is the PicoGus. it flashes no problem, and the activity light goes on but it's not detected on the bus despite a regular PicoGus being detected using the SoM while on the PC/104 motherboard I made with 8 standard ISA slots, so I know it's not a SoM compatibility issue. I will have to look more into it in the near future but I felt I was comfortable enough at least posting SOMETHING about it now.

snipe3687 wrote on 2025-03-17, 17:15:

I now have 3 different revisions of the WeeCee that I've named WeeCee Redux. my goal was originally just to port over the origin […]
Show full quote

I now have 3 different revisions of the WeeCee that I've named WeeCee Redux. my goal was originally just to port over the original WeeCee project that Rasteri designed into KiCad but I couldn't find an elegant way to do that, so I measured everything out by hand and laid it out in KiCad to try to match as closely as possible to the front and back plates that were already made.
As I got a little further into the project and figured out how to do more, I started swapping certain things out that I felt would be appreciated on this project like a power on/off circuit, USB C instead of Micro USB for the power adapter, and a reset button.
After ordering a batch of those and fixing some minor issues I decided to swap the PS/2 port out for the HIDman circuit which worked great!
The next thing I did was improve the sound chips ground planes and power filtering as well as adding a power LED and SD activity LED. This necessitated creation of new plates for both the front and back.
The other 2 revisions I made were both including the Raspberry PI CM4 module. 1 added it to the existing revision I had using the crystal chip for sound and the other, which is a bit more ambitious, swaps the crystal chip for a PicoGus.
I haven't been able to get this one working completely yet unfortunately as I can't get the PicoGus to detect using pgusinit but once that problem is resolved, this will be a very nice little device for most things that don't require 3d acceleration! the CM4 alone adds a ton of potential features like floppy disk emulator, Wi-Fi, MT-32PI, emulation, etc. I'm getting closer to releasing the CM4 versions but the initial version i'm calling "original recipe" is a basic WeeCee with the quality-of-life improvements I made. This one works very well and I've had it running stress tests in windows 98 non-stop on my desk at work for a couple weeks now.
to be clear, the only thing that doesn't work on the TL3 version is the PicoGus. it flashes no problem, and the activity light goes on but it's not detected on the bus despite a regular PicoGus being detected using the SoM while on the PC/104 motherboard I made with 8 standard ISA slots, so I know it's not a SoM compatibility issue. I will have to look more into it in the near future but I felt I was comfortable enough at least posting SOMETHING about it now.

Wow you've been busy!

Great work.

rasteri wrote on 2025-03-17, 18:50:

snipe3687 wrote on 2025-03-17, 17:15:

I now have 3 different revisions of the WeeCee that I've named WeeCee Redux. my goal was originally just to port over the origin […]
Show full quote

I now have 3 different revisions of the WeeCee that I've named WeeCee Redux. my goal was originally just to port over the original WeeCee project that Rasteri designed into KiCad but I couldn't find an elegant way to do that, so I measured everything out by hand and laid it out in KiCad to try to match as closely as possible to the front and back plates that were already made.
As I got a little further into the project and figured out how to do more, I started swapping certain things out that I felt would be appreciated on this project like a power on/off circuit, USB C instead of Micro USB for the power adapter, and a reset button.
After ordering a batch of those and fixing some minor issues I decided to swap the PS/2 port out for the HIDman circuit which worked great!
The next thing I did was improve the sound chips ground planes and power filtering as well as adding a power LED and SD activity LED. This necessitated creation of new plates for both the front and back.
The other 2 revisions I made were both including the Raspberry PI CM4 module. 1 added it to the existing revision I had using the crystal chip for sound and the other, which is a bit more ambitious, swaps the crystal chip for a PicoGus.
I haven't been able to get this one working completely yet unfortunately as I can't get the PicoGus to detect using pgusinit but once that problem is resolved, this will be a very nice little device for most things that don't require 3d acceleration! the CM4 alone adds a ton of potential features like floppy disk emulator, Wi-Fi, MT-32PI, emulation, etc. I'm getting closer to releasing the CM4 versions but the initial version i'm calling "original recipe" is a basic WeeCee with the quality-of-life improvements I made. This one works very well and I've had it running stress tests in windows 98 non-stop on my desk at work for a couple weeks now.
to be clear, the only thing that doesn't work on the TL3 version is the PicoGus. it flashes no problem, and the activity light goes on but it's not detected on the bus despite a regular PicoGus being detected using the SoM while on the PC/104 motherboard I made with 8 standard ISA slots, so I know it's not a SoM compatibility issue. I will have to look more into it in the near future but I felt I was comfortable enough at least posting SOMETHING about it now.

Wow you've been busy!

Great work.

Thanks man! your work has really inspired me 😀

@snipe3687

any chance of fitting an FC1307 chip on there? it looks like you've run out of space though.

Duffman wrote on 2025-03-17, 22:51:

@snipe3687

any chance of fitting an FC1307 chip on there? it looks like you've run out of space though.

So the problem I’ve had with that isn’t space necessarily but availability of the IC. I can’t seem to find any stock of the chip by itself. I suppose I could take one apart and salvage the IC but one of my goals was the build it with parts that are somewhat readily available. If you know where I can get a handful of them to prototype with I would give it a shot!

@snipe3687

I've managed to find stock of an FC1306T here -

https://www.hkinventory.com/public/PublicEnqu … From=PartNumber

and databook here -

http://www.bitsavers.org/components/ktc/FC130 … /KTC_FC1306.pdf

I'm not sure if it can work for SD cards though, the databook mentions SD cards, so maybe?

edit:
There are some FC1307A here
https://www.omo-ic.com/chip/33a/fc1307a-1190.html

Awesome revision! I'm in awe (and a bit jealous...)

Very cool, @snipe3687
Some very handy revisions to the weeCee

Duffman wrote on 2025-03-18, 00:45:

I've managed to find stock of an FC1306T here - […]
Show full quote

I've managed to find stock of an FC1306T here -

https://www.hkinventory.com/public/PublicEnqu … From=PartNumber

and databook here -

http://www.bitsavers.org/components/ktc/FC130 … /KTC_FC1306.pdf

I'm not sure if it can work for SD cards though, the databook mentions SD cards, so maybe?

Looks like either FC1306T and FC1307A should work
Here's a blog post that mentions an SD-to-IDE adapter using the FC1306T
https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/isa-compactflash-ad … r-and-sd-cards/

Mu0n wrote on 2025-03-25, 13:50:

Awesome revision! I'm in awe (and a bit jealous...)

HA that's funny because when I built my first WeeCee and I was reading through this thread for troubleshooting I was a bit jealous of your troubleshooting skills! but seriously if anyone has any ideas for things to add I will do my best to accommodate. I'm still learning a bit here 😉

Fanstastic work. Sorry I was unable to help you much. I was busy with the PC110, which you probably know about. I hope we can use some stuff from the PC110 here. Here is link if anyone interested: https://github.com/ahmadexp/Open-Source-PC110/tree/main/PCB

ahmadexp wrote on 2025-03-26, 06:42:

Fanstastic work. Sorry I was unable to help you much. I was busy with the PC110, which you probably know about. I hope we can use some stuff from the PC110 here. Here is link if anyone interested: https://github.com/ahmadexp/Open-Source-PC110/tree/main/PCB

Wow. that's such a cool project. I'll have to look into it a bit more!

ahmadexp wrote on 2025-03-26, 06:42:

Fanstastic work. Sorry I was unable to help you much. I was busy with the PC110, which you probably know about. I hope we can use some stuff from the PC110 here. Here is link if anyone interested: https://github.com/ahmadexp/Open-Source-PC110/tree/main/PCB

by the way, did you get the board I sent you back in, what was it? November or something? 🤣

Yes, I have it sitting on my desk. I just did not find enough bandwidth to get the parts and start assembling it, and I am super sorry about that.

ahmadexp wrote on 2025-03-29, 17:17:

Yes, I have it sitting on my desk. I just did not find enough bandwidth to get the parts and start assembling it, and I am super sorry about that.

no worries at all! I have a bunch of projects on my desk at the moment too.

snipe3687 wrote on 2025-03-17, 17:15:

https://imgur.com/69t0wnV.jpeg […]
Show full quote

These are awesome! I managed to build a WeeCee, and I’m using a MiSTer MT32-PI connected externally, with its DAC audio routed back into the sound chip. It works great, but I really love the idea of using the PicoGUS instead of the Crystal chip—such a brilliant concept!

I think you could bring the Ethernet port back by using vertical connectors like this one—they’re super convenient. I don’t think vertical SD card connectors exist, but you could use a standard one on a small breakout PCB and mount that vertically on the main board. It would make for the craziest, most fully packed mini PC ever!

Keep up the great work—I can’t wait to build one myself!

mbandalauk wrote on 2025-04-04, 18:57:

These are awesome! I managed to build a WeeCee, and I’m using a MiSTer MT32-PI connected externally, with its DAC audio routed b […]
Show full quote

snipe3687 wrote on 2025-03-17, 17:15:

https://imgur.com/69t0wnV.jpeg […]
Show full quote

These are awesome! I managed to build a WeeCee, and I’m using a MiSTer MT32-PI connected externally, with its DAC audio routed back into the sound chip. It works great, but I really love the idea of using the PicoGUS instead of the Crystal chip—such a brilliant concept!

I think you could bring the Ethernet port back by using vertical connectors like this one—they’re super convenient. I don’t think vertical SD card connectors exist, but you could use a standard one on a small breakout PCB and mount that vertically on the main board. It would make for the craziest, most fully packed mini PC ever!

Keep up the great work—I can’t wait to build one myself!

That's a great idea actually with the breakout board. I've been experimenting with breakout boards for other projects. let me see what's possible 😉

I will try my luck here in case someone knows:
I have a Vortex86 DX based SBC, with the default AMIBIOS in the Vortex86DX SOM.
The problem is that the fine-scrolling games (Turrican II, SuperFrog, Supaplex) all have "hiccups" during gameplay. I tried disabling caches, I tried all values in the freq multiplier... And I can't see a way to get smooth scrolls in these games as they are intended to have.

Any idea if there is a better video ROM for the VOLARI Z29S graphics chip that the Vortex86 DX has?
I know the video ROM can be replaced by dumping the SOM BIOS with BIOSMP.EXE and the video ROM can be swapped using AMI MMTOOL, but I need to know if there is a video ROM better suited for DOS VGA games for the VOLARI Z29S. Do you guys know something about this?

vanfanel wrote on 2025-05-09, 20:08:

Any idea if there is a better video ROM for the VOLARI Z29S graphics chip that the Vortex86 DX has?
I know the video ROM can be replaced by dumping the SOM BIOS with BIOSMP.EXE and the video ROM can be swapped using AMI MMTOOL, but I need to know if there is a video ROM better suited for DOS VGA games for the VOLARI Z29S. Do you guys know something about this?

I'm not sure if an alternative BIOS would help there. Isn't legacy VGA compatibility all about being compatible at the hardware register level? Anyway, the SeaBIOS project does include a generic VGA BIOS that maybe you can try. You would likely lose BIOS-level support for VBE modes beyond legacy VGA, though. Also you might risk bricking your Vortex module, so be careful.

digger wrote on Yesterday, 11:25:

vanfanel wrote on 2025-05-09, 20:08:

Any idea if there is a better video ROM for the VOLARI Z29S graphics chip that the Vortex86 DX has?
I know the video ROM can be replaced by dumping the SOM BIOS with BIOSMP.EXE and the video ROM can be swapped using AMI MMTOOL, but I need to know if there is a video ROM better suited for DOS VGA games for the VOLARI Z29S. Do you guys know something about this?

I'm not sure if an alternative BIOS would help there. Isn't legacy VGA compatibility all about being compatible at the hardware register level? Anyway, the SeaBIOS project does include a generic VGA BIOS that maybe you can try. You would likely lose BIOS-level support for VBE modes beyond legacy VGA, though. Also you might risk bricking your Vortex module, so be careful.

I think the culprit was using USB instead or PS/2 in the end.
But I didn't know that I would use the SeaBIOS VGA BIOS on the Vortex! I thought BIOS ROMs were tailored to the low-level registers of each card in order to work at all...