Fred_M Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 (edited) 11 minutes ago, ndary said: How can i upgrade the firmware of the A8PICOCART? By reading the manual 😉 https://github.com/robinhedwards/A8PicoCart/blob/main/A8PicoCart Manual.pdf Firmware re-programming (advanced) To program a new version of the firmware to the cart, first unscrew the cartridge shell (if present) to reveal the PCB inside. There should be a single button on the purple Pico board, marked BOOTSEL. Press and hold this button as you connect the cartridge to your PC with your USB cable. The cartridge will mount as a mass storage device, but instead of showing up as a A8-PICOCART, it should instead show as a device labelled RPI-RP2. You can reprogram the Raspberry Pi by dragging a UF2 file into the explorer window. When the new firware has been programmed the device will dissappear, and remount as an A8-PICOCART with all files still present. The latest firmware is available on the project website: https://github.com/robinhedwards/A8PicoCart Edited April 2 by Fred_M 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drpeter Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 On 2/26/2024 at 12:48 PM, Magic Knight said: PCB's being less than a fiver from China Hello @Magic Knight, as a fellow UK resident, where do you source your Chinese boards from for under £5? Looking to make up some of these for a project I have in mind... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 I always use JLC PCB https://jlcpcb.com/?from=VGS&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-MaOo-qrhQMVbZRQBh35KwYREAAYASAAEgI2fPD_BwE 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magic Knight Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 19 hours ago, drpeter said: Hello @Magic Knight, as a fellow UK resident, where do you source your Chinese boards from for under £5? Looking to make up some of these for a project I have in mind... I use PCB Way in China. They are brill for recognizing price sensitive prototype orders vs comercial orders. They charge $5 (yes dollars) for 10 boards (plus postage). Above this then they see this as commercial and price goes up a little (but not heavy like uk prices). Board colour choices are red, blue green, yellow white or black. Purple or Matt versions are more expensive as less demand. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ascrnet Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 On 4/1/2024 at 9:33 AM, ndary said: Here is a video showing how the cart behave on the Atari 800 computer and how the Ultimate just remember that A8PICOCart was designed for XL/XE. there is no support for 400/800. 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drpeter Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 On 3/6/2024 at 8:04 PM, electrotrains said: If someone in the UK was willing to lend me one, then I could have a go - though unfortunately my day job looks like its going to be a lot more demanding for the forseeable future, so I’m unwilling to commit to this right now. I've recently acquired a spare 48K 400, and also have an 800 if necessary that I could lend to the cause. Let me know if and when you might have the time to work on this, and we can arrange for them to come & live with you for a while... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
electrotrains Posted April 7 Author Share Posted April 7 14 hours ago, drpeter said: I've recently acquired a spare 48K 400, and also have an 800 if necessary that I could lend to the cause. Let me know if and when you might have the time to work on this, and we can arrange for them to come & live with you for a while... Hi, thats a very kind offer - thank you. I will see if I can find some time over the summer. Will PM you around then? Robin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XL Freak Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 (edited) Finally got all the parts together to make 5 units. Nothing fancy, just the standard firmware. And they all work great. Including shipping, mine cost exactly $17.50 USD each. Yes, that's a little on the pricey side, but I had my casings black resin printed at JLCPCB, and they look awesome. I'm sure a batch of 10 or more would decrease the price somewhat. Note that the area on the front cover under the logo plate is extremely thin, and I had to assume liability for any failures before they would print them. I think next batch will be made by the gaming shop a few miles away. Was testing it with the S-Drive Mini from Lotharek, so I would have a place to have blank disks in .ATR format, and 90k/130k disks work fine. I didn't test 180k/360k, but 720k .ATR's don't work. That is probably a function of the S-Drive Mini. But the A8PicoCart did run all my assemblers just fine. I am impressed! Except for one thing... which is my fault lol. I superglued the logo plate onto the casing, and when the excess squeezed out, it made somewhat of a yucky mess, so I'm thinking there must be a better way. I went searching through this topic for a solution, but haven't found any. It would be nice if the plate was just integrated into the front casing so there was nothing to glue on. Even if they were just completely smooth so a label could be applied would be an improvement. But I am grateful to have them and y'all keep on making it better! Thanks!! Edit: JLCPCB wouldn't make the logo plates because they were just too thin to resin print, so that little game shop down the road made them for me using their standard 3d printers. Edited April 13 by XL Freak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XL Freak Posted April 13 Share Posted April 13 I didn't get to read every message in all 23 pages, so I'm not sure if anyone is producing these or not. If anyone wants one, but doesn't want to make a minimum batch of 5 pieces, I am willing to make them for the price of parts plus $10 assembly (no assembly charge if sending a kit) plus shipping to you. I will have prices tomorrow for the 3d printing at the game shop so I should have a final price. Send me a PM if you're interested. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoney Posted April 15 Share Posted April 15 Well, whoops. I bought one of these to try to run SDX on my 800, without checking and finding out it doesn't work with the 800. So ... I guess, anyone want to buy it off me? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KRG-Rosa Posted April 15 Share Posted April 15 Hello, I have a question for you that I read under one YouTube video. Could I use a raspberry pi zero instead of a pico? Maybe this would solve the memory problem (128kb), what do you think about it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woj Posted April 15 Share Posted April 15 1 hour ago, KRG-Rosa said: Hello, I have a question for you that I read under one YouTube video. Could I use a raspberry pi zero instead of a pico? Maybe this would solve the memory problem (128kb), what do you think about it? Short answer: no. Long answer: it probably has most of the required things / pins, there the problem is the boot speed, predominantly (my guess), even in bare metal scenario. But also a total hardware and price overkill I'd say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bent_pin Posted April 15 Share Posted April 15 Pretty sure the zero has to write to the pins in chunks, where the pico can write all pins at the same time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XL Freak Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 (edited) $10+shipping for A8PicoCarts, assembled or kit. I will provide free assembly as a service to the community for the first one or two per customer. I will send kits for purchases larger than that. ** I've finally gotten the price on the 3d printed cart shells, as promised above. These are modified (thanks to @electrotrains for providing the actual 3d files) where the logo plate is removed from the design altogether and the recess is filled in and the logo is embedded in its place. I will have a pic of a sample in a day or two. And I've figured if I purchase more than 5 pcb's at a time, say 20, I can produce A8PicoCarts for about $10 each. Shipping from JLCPCB isn't cheap, but the PCB's are. Edit: These new cart shells are regular 3d print on professional printers, not resin printed from China. I don't currently have pcb's or pico's purchased, so if you're interested, send me a PM and I'll get some on the way. The last batches took almost exactly 2 weeks to arrive after I ordered them. A day or two for assembly, then a few days for shipping to you. If anyone is wondering, I built 5 the first go-round, and all are functioning perfectly. I will say they work great with .CAR files allowing DOS to loaded from a floppy (for Mac/65 for example for loading and saving files) .XEX files are loaded and execute, but don't allow proper loading of DOS in my test runs. I haven't figured out how to use it with a .ATR file while using it as a cartridge too. Edited May 3 by XL Freak 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 2 hours ago, XL Freak said: Shipping from JLCPCB isn't cheap, but the PCB's are. If you're not in a rush, JLCPCB used to offer a very cheap shipping option, with the only caveat being it would take 3-4 weeks. I've used it a few times without any problems other than the long wait. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XL Freak Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 5 hours ago, mytek said: JLCPCB used to offer a very cheap shipping option, with the only caveat being it would take 3-4 weeks. I haven't seen those options. I usually click on each option to weigh the cost to ship time, so there is an 8-12 day option but its only a few bucks cheaper. ordering 20 pcb's instead of 5 brings the cost per pcb down way more... I'm really surprised there isn't any more interest... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woj Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 1 hour ago, XL Freak said: I'm really surprised there isn't any more interest.. What, for the A8PicoCart? They are dead easy to DIY... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XL Freak Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 true, but not everyone wants to build the minimum of five. I am still hoping a few folks will jump on the chance to get a single cart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woj Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 3 hours ago, XL Freak said: true, but not everyone wants to build the minimum of five. I am still hoping a few folks will jump on the chance to get a single cart I built two out of the 5 boards I got, no need to worry about the other three, they serve all sorts of support services very well (most recently as a "load" for my hot plate calibration), it was still worth it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 I usually like to buy 10 of something, especially when it's as small as a cart. The extra 5 boards hardly makes a difference to the cost, and I like to give away some of the extras, as well as have ample stock on hand if I need one or two in the future. At least for my projects, I find the component costs to be more of an issue. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drpeter Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 (edited) 6 hours ago, XL Freak said: true, but not everyone wants to build the minimum of five. I am still hoping a few folks will jump on the chance to get a single cart Someone in the UK is selling them on eBay assembled in a cart shell for £26.58 including postage, which is $33.37- and they're selling 2-3 a week! And someone in the US is selling unassembled kits (no cartridge shell) for $23! Edited May 3 by drpeter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drpeter Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 6 hours ago, XL Freak said: true, but not everyone wants to build the minimum of five. I am still hoping a few folks will jump on the chance to get a single cart A useful option for the other 4 cartridges is to configure them to autorun a specific ROM, so they can be played plug-in-and-go like a traditional cartridge. The a8Pico is so cheap to build, it's actually as cheap as burning an EPROM and mounting it on a traditional cartridge board for this purpose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drpeter Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 23 minutes ago, drpeter said: Someone in the UK is selling them on eBay assembled in a cart for £26.58 including postage, which is $33.37- and they're selling 2-3 a week! To put that in context, I sourced boards (with gold fingers) and components for unit cost of £2.87, (including shipping to UK & taxes) plus £5.13 unit cost for 3D-printed case- total unit cost £8.00 per a8PicoCart, which is about what vintage a8 cartridges go for on UK eBay unboxed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XL Freak Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 44 minutes ago, drpeter said: Someone in the UK is selling them ... $33.37 ... And someone in the US is selling unassembled kits (no cartridge shell) for $23! I would assume they're trying to make a profit. and there's nothing wrong wiith that. I'm just doing it to help out the community and get this fantastic piece of hardware out there in the hands of the users... thx for letting us know! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magic Knight Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 48 minutes ago, drpeter said: Someone in the UK is selling them on eBay assembled in a cart shell for £26.58 including postage, which is $33.37- and they're selling 2-3 a week! And someone in the US is selling unassembled kits (no cartridge shell) for $23! Currently the cheapest in the UK is £11 a piece from EBay 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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