digger wrote on 2025-07-03, 22:59:

For conventional memory, I'd reckon those waitstates might have quite some performance impact.

For EMS it might not matter as much.

It would be good to get some benchmark results to find out.

Exactly.. this is precisely what I was thinking. Tbh, I have 192kb UMB and 640kb base RAM already, I'm most interested in the EMS feature. 4mb EMS board would be the ducks nuts for me, but I'm less keen if it's going to run slowly like PS-RAM at 900kb/sec on the 2350 ..but I believe the PicoMEM is 2040 based.

I'm half tempted to write a utility to see what can be read/read per second but would prefer if there's an existing standard solution.

I've just got a PicoMem working with my Amiga 2088XT BridgeBoard card, and it's a wonderful piece of hardware. I have two questions, though:

- Floppy boot hard-hangs the system when the extra 128KB of PSRAM is enabled. I originally thought this was expected due to lack of DMA support, but I'm running the PM_x_5_36_25_x firmware and there's a comment from the earlier PM_W_Jan1 release notes that 'New: PSRAM Code improved (DMA Added)' - should this now work?

- The latest firmware also adds RTC support; is there a way to keep this powered without a permanent USB connection?

Thanks in advance!

NightShadowPT wrote on 2025-07-01, 23:41:

Hi, […]
Show full quote

Hi,

I still seem to be struggling with getting the PicoMEM to work with my Olivetti Prodest PC1.

I got the version from Serdashop (the regular one, not the blackgold), and even after updating the BIOS to the latest version I still get after every reboot the error "Low Memory Fail" and it just hangs there.

My best guess is that the PicoMem memory configuration at boot is conflicting with the PC1 default memory addresses.

Is there any way I can change this in the configuration of the PicoMEM? Or any other ideas on what I can try to make it work?

Thanks in advance

Hi,

Create a config.txt file with this inside:
BIOS C800
(For example to move the bios to c800)

Hi guys, i have some questions before buy a picomem card

First, i want to use for 2 things, first 4mb EMS, second, replace my picogus, because I only use for tandy sound. Is ok? tandy emulation works fine?

Second, i read about a bios, i dont want to have any bios, or any text on screen, i like my PC original clean boot, will be no problem about this?

And last one, is possible to use to have some UMB?if yes, how slow is? i use a Hercules card for UMB, work fine, but is super slow

thanks a lot

FreddyV wrote on 2025-05-28, 08:36:

Hi,

New PicoMEM Firmware is released :

! Memory size wrongly increased causing mainly PS/2 Mouse bug corrected.

Sorry for the months late confirmation; but this firmware update did indeed fix my PS/2 mouse issue!

Acorns wrote on 2025-08-28, 06:48:

FreddyV wrote on 2025-05-28, 08:36:

Hi,

New PicoMEM Firmware is released :

! Memory size wrongly increased causing mainly PS/2 Mouse bug corrected.

Sorry for the months late confirmation; but this firmware update did indeed fix my PS/2 mouse issue!

Hi,

It fixed the problem I got on my 386, and confirmed to work for other person.
What is the PC Memory size displayed by the PicoMEM BIOS (Foirst Screen) ?

To fix your problem, I may need... your PC It is close to impossible to fix a problem I can't reproduce.

Excuse my probably stupid question.

On the github project page I saw this:

"PicoMEM Hardware is not open.

NEW : SD and USB disk direct access A Network redirector driver allow full access to the SD and USB for DOS 3.2 + !
The PicoMEM is now the only board providing full USB drive in FAT23/ExtFS from DOS."

As the USB sticks and SD cards are slower and not reliable substitutes for real HDDs (or even CF cards), is there any possibility for a real hardware IDE controller with 40-pin connector to be added in future board revisions? I think there will be enough place in Pi Pico for adding an IDE controller BIOS - something like XTIDE BIOS. We all know that nowadays it's almost mission impossible to find a working vintage 8-bit ISA IDE HDD controller card.

analog_programmer wrote on 2025-08-31, 08:37:

As the USB sticks and SD cards are slower and not reliable substitutes for real HDDs (or even CF cards), is there any possibility for a real hardware IDE controller with 40-pin connector to be added in future board revisions? I think there will be enough place in Pi Pico for adding an IDE controller BIOS - something like XTIDE BIOS. We all know that nowadays it's almost mission impossible to find a working vintage 8-bit ISA IDE HDD controller card.

I think the XTide project might have that need pretty well covered.

douglar wrote on 2025-08-31, 18:58:

I think the XTide project might have that need pretty well covered.

Yes, but what if I want one universal 8-bit ISA card instead of 2 or 3 task-specific cards 😉

FreddyV wrote on 2025-08-30, 21:45:

Hi, […]
Show full quote

Hi,

It fixed the problem I got on my 386, and confirmed to work for other person.
What is the PC Memory size displayed by the PicoMEM BIOS (Foirst Screen) ?

To fix your problem, I may need... your PC It is close to impossible to fix a problem I can't reproduce.

Sorry, may have been a language issue! I was posting to say the issue was fixed, and the PS2 mouse is working perfectly.

Thank you for your work, troubleshooting, and fix!

Acorns wrote on Yesterday, 09:55:

FreddyV wrote on 2025-08-30, 21:45:

Hi, […]
Show full quote

Hi,

It fixed the problem I got on my 386, and confirmed to work for other person.
What is the PC Memory size displayed by the PicoMEM BIOS (Foirst Screen) ?

To fix your problem, I may need... your PC It is close to impossible to fix a problem I can't reproduce.

Sorry, may have been a language issue! I was posting to say the issue was fixed, and the PS2 mouse is working perfectly.

Thank you for your work, troubleshooting, and fix!

It is me, I did not read correctly 😀

analog_programmer wrote on 2025-08-31, 08:37:

Excuse my probably stupid question. […]
Show full quote

Excuse my probably stupid question.

On the github project page I saw this:

"PicoMEM Hardware is not open.

NEW : SD and USB disk direct access A Network redirector driver allow full access to the SD and USB for DOS 3.2 + !
The PicoMEM is now the only board providing full USB drive in FAT23/ExtFS from DOS."

As the USB sticks and SD cards are slower and not reliable substitutes for real HDDs (or even CF cards), is there any possibility for a real hardware IDE controller with 40-pin connector to be added in future board revisions? I think there will be enough place in Pi Pico for adding an IDE controller BIOS - something like XTIDE BIOS. We all know that nowadays it's almost mission impossible to find a working vintage 8-bit ISA IDE HDD controller card.

Hi,

In my latest Firmware revision, I did improve a lot the seek time.
So, the PicoMEM is now much faster than an XTIDE.
Seek time is even faster than on the Real IDE Disk on my test Pentium PC.
USB Stick speed will have a huge speed up soon as well (x10 speed)

PicoMEM 2.0 Will have the MicroSD in SDIO, no more SPI (Faster)

Ian scott is working on a Pico IDE board, and I may one day integrate it to have a dual Pico (RP2350) board)

douglar wrote on 2025-08-31, 18:58:

I think the XTide project might have that need pretty well covered.

PicoMEM with my latest test firmware is now much faster than XTIDE, and it is even much faster on 8088/8086 PC (thanks to RAM to RAM copy and no IO)

FreddyV wrote on Yesterday, 17:56:

Hi, […]
Show full quote

Hi,

In my latest Firmware revision, I did improve a lot the seek time.
So, the PicoMEM is now much faster than an XTIDE.
Seek time is even faster than on the Real IDE Disk on my test Pentium PC.
USB Stick speed will have a huge speed up soon as well (x10 speed)

PicoMEM 2.0 Will have the MicroSD in SDIO, no more SPI (Faster)

Ian scott is working on a Pico IDE board, and I may one day integrate it to have a dual Pico (RP2350) board)

Hi, FreddyV, and thank you for the answer! Your PicoMEM project is really cool and seems like it has a big potential to evolve into something like 8-bit ISA "swiss army knife".

FreddyV wrote on Yesterday, 17:59:

douglar wrote on 2025-08-31, 18:58:

I think the XTide project might have that need pretty well covered.

PicoMEM with my latest test firmware is now much faster than XTIDE, and it is even much faster on 8088/8086 PC (thanks to RAM to RAM copy and no IO)

So it sound like you are saying that XTide gets < 900KB/s using PIO transfers, but you are able to get something between 1MB/s to 2MB/s using MIO transfers, yes?

Does it use a buffer in an upper memory block to do the transfers ?