Tag Archives: hardware

Electronic, Oric, Oric Cumulus, Retro Computing, StratoCumulus

Oric Cumulus Revision 2 & other projects

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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 →

Game Console, Wonder Project!, WonderMadeleine, WonderSwan

WonderMadeleine code release

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Ahoy WonderSwan users, developers and hackers!

The WonderMadeleine HDL code is available on the treasure island of GitHub. That’s some treasure chest you’ve got there.

(sorry for the pirate speak ;))

So yes the HDL code for WonderMadeleine is now available, to fit in the Altera EPM240T100C3 MAX II CPLD (a TQFP100 CPLD so not too big and easy to solder)

There is currently no support for external EEPROM, RTC of GPIO, but they will come shortly, I need to finish the documentation on how to access them from the IO port as current documentation is merely wrong. I’ll also publish a more correct hardware documentation at the same time.

This HDL code is currently licensed with the CC BY-ND-NC 4.0 license, that mean that

  • You cannot take CPLDs, burn them and sell them
  • But you can create your own cart and use the CPLD burn with the code, and you can sell the game cart you made using this CPLD (as you are not making profit from the CPLD, but from your game)
  • I’m currently not fond in allowing fork of this project until it is fully finished, but I will be really happy for patch proposal for supporting another CPLD or correcting bugs
  • And you can’t integrated this code in a larger project. that mean that you can’t integrate it with other HDL code in a bigger CPLD or FPGA.

Some of this limitation may change in a near future, but they are applicable at the time this line as been written.

I may provide in a near future a template board, either only the borders for a board that fit in existing cartridge, or even a basic board with the Bandai, Flash ROM, SRAM and save battery, depending on people’s need.

I hope that this project will help the WonderSwan homebrew scene grows as it deserve it. This game console is just an unknown jewel.

986 Studio, Electronic, Wonder Project!, WonderLyzer, WonderMadeleine, WonderSwan

Finally…

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Ten years ago, two student from the Cornell University (North Australia) released the first public homebrew cart and software for the WonderSwan that does not use the WonderWitch. See here.

Their project was a major breakthrough as they where the first to document the WonderSwan hardware, and they are the original authors of the well known wstech document.

And after they made their release… nothing more. There were no concrete or public hardware development for the WonderSwan that went to a releasable product.

Until today!

Continue reading Finally… →

Electronic, Projects, WonderLyzer, WonderSwan

Second update on WonderLyzer

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I’m sending right now the data to process the batch of PCB, due to some test (printer’n’paper test are the best thing to do!) I found that I stupidly use the width of the internal cartridge PCB instead of the cart itself, and found out that the PCB was going more than expected in the swan, so I do a small modification on the PCB to use a more accurate width, and add a T shape like on top to support more the cart connector, and adding a small surprise on this part.

Continue reading Second update on WonderLyzer →

Arduino, AY-3-8910, Electronic, Software

Another AY entry :)

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Hello everyone 🙂

After my previous post on Arduino an AY-3-3910 / YM2149 a lots of people complain that I didn’t deliver the code for the playing with a YM/AY chip with an Arduino, WITHOUT using any external hardware especially not a quartz 🙂

I know that lots of people complain the first time that I didn’t deliver the code for the playing with a YM/AY chip with an Arduino, WITHOUT using any external hardware especially not a quartz 🙂

I told at the time that I won’t deliver until I made a YM player.

Well I didn’t do a YM player.  Sorry to tell that.

Continue reading Another AY entry 🙂 →