Forrest

The PicoMite is an excellent choice - I’ve built two versions of the PicoMiteVGA https://geoffg.net/picomitevga.html The PicoMite is an extension of MicroMite Basic that has been running on various Microchip microcontrollers for well over a decade. The PicoMite was ported over to the Raspberry Pi Pico when many of Microchip controllers were hard to get during the chip shortage. Peter Mather led the project, ported the MMBasic interpreter to the Raspberry Pi Pico and wrote the hardware device drivers. Geoff Graham wrote the MMBasic interpreter and the manual. Mick Ames wrote the PIO compiler and its corresponding documentation. The PicoMite Basic has been constantly updated for the past 2.5 years to include many commands which were originally thought to be too complex for the Pico, such as VGA output, background sound output, sprites, 3D graphic commands. The timing critical PIO commands remain at the core of the PicoMite as with the previous MicroMites. There is an active community for the PicoMite and MicroMite at https://www.thebackshed.com/forum/ViewForum.php?FID=16 that Geoff Graham and Peter Mather participate in. Note there are two versions of the PicoMite 1. PicoMite outputs to a touchscreen TFT and is meant for embedded applications. Programming is done on another computer with a terminal emulator and connected thru USB. 2. PicoMiteVGA which outputs thru a VGA port and input thru a PS/2 keyboard. This is a standalone boot to Basic computer. Both versions can save programs on the built-in Flash on a Pico, or saved to an SD/Micro SD card formatted in FAT16 or FAT32

This table of XIO commands for various DOS versions may be helpful https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=XIO%20Command%20Codes%20DOS%20Handler

Thanks for the update on the testing with the 1050 drive. The reduced memory of the DIY hardware doesn’t bother me. I heard Thom speak at VCF East two weeks ago and asked him about the different versions of Fujinet, and he said don’t worry about it - the group is committed to supporting version 1.0 and greater on the Atari.

Yes, I’m aware there is no SIO pass thru on this Fujinet. I just wanted to know if the Fujinet was plugged into the end of the SIO would it function? Does Fujinet need to drive 1, and the 1050 drive 2?

Thanks for the alert about this version being available on eBay - it’s $15 less than the Brewing Academy version. Can the DIY version be plugged into the back pass of a 1050 Drive and both devices function correctly?

Not sure why Eric’s post is empty, but he also posted in the Commodore forum. in summary, Eric posted an update to the Badger6502 Pico Loderunner on YouTube This is an update to his device originally covered on Hackaday.com last year Lots to like - Loderunner, C64 Basic, Commodore 8 bit file server WIP, Atari 8 bit file server. Is there a full C64 emulator? Lots of original work.

Lots to like - Loderunner, C64 Basic, Commodore 8 bit file server WIP, Atari 8 bit file server. Is there a full C64 emulator? Lots of original work. it’s not like a PicoMite VGA. More similar to the RetroVGA computer you can get on Tindie running MCUME, but different. I attended VCF East 2 weeks ago and will not be at the Portland Retro Gaming expo. All I know is I want one. Can I buy one? How much?

Eric, Very cool! Please post more details. Your project reminds me of a PicoMite VGA, which I’ve built two https://geoffg.net/picomitevga.html

The Agon Light 2 looks like a cool computer. Now that Mouser.com is selling it for $59.34, it’s easy to buy in the U.S. Mouser I have a lot of open projects that need to be finished - will probably buy one in the fall.

The V3 card on Tindie https://www.tindie.com/products/land_boards/raspberry-pi-pico-card-with-vga-sound-kbd-v3/ is functionally the same as the official boards listed at the bottom of the page at https://geoffg.net/picomitevga.html The V1 and V2 boards on Tindie are slightly different with digital I/O ports driven by one or two chips. The boards are easy to build.

I’ve built two versions of the PicoMite VGA - the officially released version and the PicoGame that supports two joysticks/game pads. There’s a lot of activity for the PicoMite on www.thebackshed.com forum. One member just posted a Frogger clone that looks pretty good https://www.thebackshed.com/forum/ViewTopic.php?FID=16&TID=15842 The version of Micromite Basic on the PicoMite is very advanced and almost as full featured as the Color Maximite 2, although the graphics output is more similar to the original Color Maximite due the limited memory on the Raspberry Pico.

Ok, thanks for the update.

Tschak909, I really enjoyed your talk at 9 am on Saturday 4/15 at VCF East on the background, current status and future of Fujinet. You and the 13 other developers working on this project on multiple platforms should be proud of how far this project has progressed. I was watching Adrian’s Digital Basement on YouTube and saw you gave Adrian a FujiApple device to review. I just checked https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/vcf-east-virtual-show/ and it looks your talk has not been posted yet, but it should be in a week or two. Thanks again for all the hard work!

Does the TenoxVGA adapter also work with the Viking Moniterm board installed in a Mega ST computer?

The Agon Light seems close to the specs of your proposed system. The Agon Light was released last year and the specs are: An eZ80 running at 18.432 MHz, system memory (parallel SRAM, 512KB), a µSD-card slot and several general-purpose I/O lines. The 'terminal' or Audio/Video subsystem contains an ESP32-PICO-D4 system-on-a-chip running at 240 MHz, 8MB of memory (pSRAM) and ports for video (VGA), audio and keyboard (PS/2). Agon™ takes 5V input power either from its USB or GPIO port. The developer's website is https://www.thebyteattic.com/p/agon.html Olimex is taking pre-orders for an assembled version for 50 pounds at https://www.olimex.com/Products/Retro-Computers/AgonLight2/open-source-hardware

Those 5 lines on the edge don’t look good. Is that a piece of loose tape near the 5 lines? I would pull the Mylar out of the connector and wipe it off with some IPA. Then check the traces with a magnifier for cracks and repair any with the defogger repair kit mentioned above.

Desktop Publishing was not very fast back in the day. Pagestream and printing to an Atari Laser printer could use all your computer resources.

Thanks for posting. Current Notes was one of my favorite Atari magazines and I was sad when they stopped publishing. I noticed your recent article on Archimedes Spiral published in Analog #7 in 1982. This program required nearly 3 hours to run on the Atari 400/800. I typed this program into my newly built PicoMiteVGA computer, a DIY computer based on the $4 Raspberry Pi Pico. The PicoMiteVGA finished the program in 7.8 seconds! The computer costs a total of $25 to build, including the custom PCB - link here https://geoffg.net/picomitevga.html

FYI Mytek designed the board the Brewing Academy is selling. More info on the board https://ataribits.weebly.com/tk-ii-stereo.html Mytek is active on this board if you have any questions

I prefer not to use Aliexpress - you never know about quality and I’ve heard plenty of horror stories. According to your schematic, it appears 3.3V is only used for the SD card. I checked a reference design from Adafruit on an Arduino Uno SD card data logger hat #1141 and Adafruit used a 3.3V LDO regulator with a 150 mA output. From a power perspective, it looks like the 3.3V LDO 300 mA regulator I choose above will work

The boards should be here in about a week or two. All parts are ordered except the Atmega328p - seems Adafruit and Mouser are out of stock until 8/8/22. I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned they were in stock last week ? The other item out of stock is the 3.3V 400 mA regulator listed on the BOM - Mouser, Digikey and Newark is out of stock until 11/22. This regulator is classed as an automotive part. I researched alternates for over an hour - most SOT-223 regulators have a different pinout. The only one that was in stock with the correct pinout was the Microchip TC1108-33VDB. I’m hoping the 300 mA output in enough for this board. Price was good at $.73 so I ordered two. Can you check the data sheet and see if this is a good alternate?

I use the most inexpensive shipping option, which they estimate at 10-15 days. I just ordered 5 boards, default board options for $2 + $3.90 = $5.90. JLCPCB typically builds the boards in 2 days, and they’ll be delivered in about 3 weeks.

I hope you give feedback to the seller of the “refurbished” monitor - hopefully you’ll get at least a partial refund.

JLCPCB is very inexpensive. I ordered (5) boards that measured about 4 inches square two months ago. I received the boards in 2 1/2 weeks and the total price, including shipping was about $18.

Thanks for the feedback. I’ll pass on the chip programmer and instead choose the Adafruit #123 Atmel 328p with the ADAboot bootloader for $5.95. I’ll swap it into my very old Arduino clone and program the SDrive software with an FT232RL programmer. I like your simple design and I’ll report back once the boards are ordered from JLCPCB and assembled.