Category Archives: Retro Computing

Patreon: 986-Studio need your help

I hate to ask for such a thing, but unfortunately, working on electronic project, especially the one like the Madeleine Project, or my projects around the Oric cost some me money, and money doesn’t grow on tree. I’m currently in a situation where I’m stuck and can’t work on project because of money.

That’s why, I’ve started a Patreon page to allow people who want to support me on theses projects. I can’t offert a lots of rewards for the moment as it’s a bit early, but I will make the reward evolve with time. Currently you can have one of the current beta Madeleine board if you pledge enough, quantity are limited so you should hurry! 😉

You are not obliged to help me through Patreon, it will not change my project and how this blog is working, unless mentioned in a reward/goal, it will just allow me to work quicker and in better conditions on my projects. All pledge amount are welcomed, and if you want to help me, even $1 is a good gesture from you, so don”t be ashamed if you can’t, or only a for small amount.

Don’t forget to put a maximum on your pledge per month as I setup my account on pledge per update and not per month, as I don’t know the frequency of update I will do, I plan for approx 1 per month, but I may sometime update more than once, and you may not want to put more this month.

So, if you want to help me and my project, you are welcome to go to

https://www.patreon.com/godzil/

and become my patron.

Thank you to everyone who read this blog and to those who would want to help me,
Manoel

Oric Cumulus Revision 2 & other projects

Hi everyone,

I didn’t updated here really often during the last month because I was quite busy and didn’t had a lot of time to works on my projects. I have more time now, and wow, I’ve made a lot of things recently!

As I previously posted, the Oric Mouse project is underway, I’ve discovered a few stupid mistakes and I was too confident when I made the PCB, I’ve overlooked something on the voltage that the 6502 and 6522 will accept as logic high, and of course both of them doesn’t like the 3.3V that I send them as a logic high… The result will be that I need to do some changes on the schematics for that project, but no worries, I will still be able to use the prototype I’ve made, but it’s just slowing down the project a bit, but it will be back on track quickly.

Continue reading Oric Cumulus Revision 2 & other projects

OricMouse Project

Hi Everyone!

Here it’s time for a new project! (Why do I hear someone telling me that I already have too many project?)

So I’m prout to present you the OricMouse, a new opensource project for the Oric line of product that will add a Mouse input to the Oric!

The origin of this project come from Chema’s OASIS Project that you will find on the Defence-Force forum. OASIS is a game engine largely inspired by SCUMMVM and reading the topic I was thinking “this project need a mouse to be much more fun!
Continue reading OricMouse Project

Apple IIgs composite output video mode

I am the proud owner of an Apple IIgs, that was gifted, for a few years now and played a lot with it. But as I don’t currently have a RGB monitor for it, I always used the composite output to get the video display, and I always complained about the fact that this fancy stuff only want to display in monochrome, or maybe in NTSC. I’ve searched for information about that for some times now and never found anything intereseting, and lots of people (including apple?) says that the composite output is monochrome, at least in PAL regions.

Continue reading Apple IIgs composite output video mode

Oric Schematic Issue 7

Yes, nearly 1 year after the release of the Issue 6.1, I finally made the Issue 7 that would fix the VSYNC problem the previous release had!

What’s new in the Issue 7:

  • There is now a 2 pin header to plug a reset button
  • The hardware VSYNC should now work correctly
  • One of the two ROM socket has been removed to reduce the schematic complexity, but it is now possible to use the original ROM, or any EPROM without the need to change anything on the PCB, because the /ROMDIS signal has been changed!
  • Better, it is now possible, and easily to use a 32K EPROM with the addition of a switch (there are pin on the PCB for this) to select the memory bank.

Continue reading Oric Schematic Issue 7

Oric Schematic – Issue 6.1

After looking on my project roadmap, I’ve discovered that I’ve never released the Replic’Oric schematics!

But first, please be warned, this revision is not the final one for the Replic’Oric project as the hardware VSYNC part is currently broken and shouldn’t be implemented the way it is now on this schematic.

A newer version of the Oric Schematic has been release, please use this version for reference instead of the one in this post.

Continue reading Oric Schematic – Issue 6.1