• Fuzix lives!

    adam.klotblixt • 09/18/2022 at 05:42 • 0 comments

    This morning I logged in to Fuzix and got the first fortune-cookie.

    Thanks to the help of Alan Cox, I can now run Fuzix on real PZ1 hardware as well as emulated courtesy of the RC2014 emulator. Feels great!

    Now I have a ton of work ahead to understand more of how Fuzix works.

    FUZIX version 0.4pre1
Copyright (c) 1988-2002 by H.F.Bower, D.Braun, S.Nitschke, H.Peraza
Copyright (c) 1997-2001 by Arcady Schekochikhin, Adriano C. R. da Cunha
Copyright (c) 2013-2015 Will Sowerbutts 
Copyright (c) 2014-2022 Alan Cox 
Devboot
512kB total RAM, 448kB available to processes (15 processes max)
Enabling interrupts ... ok.
Mounting root fs (root_dev=0, ro): OK
Starting /init
init version 0.9.0ac#1
Checking root file system.
Current date is Sun 2022-09-18
Enter new date: 
Current time is  7:17:04                                                        
Enter new time:                                                                 
                                                                                
 ^ ^                                                                            
 n n   Fuzix 0.3.1                                                              
 >@<                                                                            
       Welcome to Fuzix                                                         
 m m                                                                            
                                                                                
login: root                                                                     
                                                                                
Welcome to FUZIX.                                                               
#

  • CPLD take 2

    adam.klotblixt • 08/10/2022 at 18:48 • 0 comments

    Here is my finished version of the CPLD-based HW. Works really well, using a CPLD to manage RAM-access and decode the different memory ranges. The Pico has much less to do and only needs to read the add/data if an I/O-operation is happening. This results in more than twice the speed compared to the PCB-version with buffers only.

    This is clearly the way I would like to move ahead, with an ATF1504 CPLD as only glue logic between RAM, 65C02 and Pico. Due to the global chip shortage this will not happen any time soon, so I will shelf this proof of concept until sometime in the future when we can buy the chips we want,

    Quick BOM:
    - ATF22LV10C CPLD
    - 74HC670 x2 for bank switching
    - 74LVC244 for reading low byte of address
    - 74LVC245 to read/write data byte
    - 65C02 CPU
    - 512KiB SRAM
    - Pico acting as a complete and smart I/O-solution plus top-page ROM
    - SD-card holder
    - small speaker for SID-sound output

  • Different take

    adam.klotblixt • 08/06/2022 at 06:32 • 0 comments

    I was not satisfied with the performance of the previous version of PZ1_Pico, too many cycles were spent driving memory. So I went in the direction of CPLD to see how far that would take me.

    It turns out quite far. With an unbuffered addr/data interface and an overclocked Pico, I could run the 65C02 @8MHz on the rats nest pictured below! The CPLD (ATF22LV10) performs RAM timing/decoding and there are 2x 74HC670 to deal with banked memory. The Pico handles top page ROM duty as well as all I/O-devices implemented. It also drives the CLK of the 65C02.

    I REALLY didn't expect this to work at these speeds! I thought the 74HC670:s and the bread board would be big hurdles to reach much more than 2MHz, but I was obviously wrong.

    This is not the final result, I've already built a version that adds 2 buffers for the data/addr so it is possible to get the number of used Pico-pins down to only 16 for interfacing with the 65C02 and CPLD. That leaves 10 gpio for all the I/O I want to drive, just like on the PCB-version. That is an even messier rats nest that will not show up in this post :)

    There is a major problem with this implementation: the global chip shortage has most CPLDs I've looked at in severe scarcity. I have a few chips that I can make my prototypes with, but I couldn't build any more if I wanted to.

  • Optimizations and a new HW revision

    adam.klotblixt • 07/19/2022 at 08:12 • 0 comments

    I've been trying out different ways of optimizing the code to maximize the headroom for more HW-blocks in the Pico, and in doing that I happened to read the datasheet of the SRAM. There are 2 ways of controlling the read/write cycle, and I used the more traditional with CS tied to ground, WE & OE controlled by 2 separate signals from a 74LVC373. The 373 register was needed because the Pico has too few gpio pins. The other way of controlling the read/write cycle is to tie OE to gnd, WE to R/W of the 65C02 and use CS to tell when a read OR write cycle is occuring, saving a gpio pin.
    I repurposed the SYNC-pin from the Pico that I didn't use anyway and now control the SRAM directly without going through the register (which takes extra time).
    4 lifted legs and 3 soldered wires is all it took to mod the circuit, no cut traces.

    The SW has also been reorganized some to enhance the performance a bit further.

    All in all, I went from 18500/20000 down to 14900/20000 with all these changes. Well worth it!

    Now I just have to document it all and respin the schematic and layout before ordering new PCBs. Or maybe wait for further inspirations to pop up...

  • PZ1_pico 2.0

    adam.klotblixt • 07/17/2022 at 07:12 • 0 comments

    A second release of the Pico code is now ready on GitHub. No HW changes have been made, the PCB I ordered actually works!

    This time I use my scheduler to multitask and manage the 512KiB RAM properly. Nothing new functionally compared to the Teensy-version of PZ1, only a proper port to the Pico-version. I use the second core on the Pico for sound :D

  • Holiday update

    adam.klotblixt • 07/04/2022 at 17:23 • 0 comments

    On holiday, but still coding in a few spare timeslots :)

    The added SD-card reader works, files on FAT16/32 can be used now.

    EhBasic with multitasking starts, still needs some more testing.

    65C02 runs @1MHz with everything enabled on 133MHz Pico. SID emulation and mixing at 44100Hz, no filters. Only core 0 used so far. PIOs could probably be used to offload a significant amount of load by reading/writing the buffers.

    Looking bright!

    Now all the work left to get this up to snuff for a GitHub release.

  • Live on GitHub

    adam.klotblixt • 06/25/2022 at 09:16 • 1 comment

    The PZ1_Pico project is now available at GitHub: https://github.com/NollKollTroll/PZ1_Pico

  • It works!

    adam.klotblixt • 06/23/2022 at 06:49 • 0 comments

    I wrote some low-level tests to make sure the buffers worked properly before implementing the simplest system. A version of EhBasic running in 16KiB ROM (in the Pico) and 48KiB of the external SRAM with one serial port via the Pico USB connection. Runs at a bit faster than 2.5MHz without optimizations or overclocking of the Pico.

    I didn't think I'd get it correct on the first try, but the PCB really works as intended, YAY!

    I'll wrap it all up neatly and make a decent Github repository of code/PCB/docs before going back to porting Fuzix.

  • Real HW, Pico edition

    adam.klotblixt • 06/17/2022 at 09:26 • 0 comments

    I got the PCBs from China yesterday! 5 pcs, 75x100 mm, 4 layer. They are REALLY nice and professional looking, a far cry from the double-sided stuff I did in the kitchen 25 years ago :)

    So far everything seems correct. Power supply lines are correct and the first 74LVC373 buffer works correctly. More soldering to be done and a lot more test-SW to write.

    PCBs front, back and partly soldered

  • Taking a break

    adam.klotblixt • 05/24/2022 at 06:12 • 0 comments

    I got stuck in trying to debug what went wrong in the Fuzix boot.

    To combat that frustration I've been working on learning Kicad 6 properly, while also trying to design a PZ1 PCB around the Raspberry Pi Pico instead of the Teensy.

    The Pico is really cheap and readily available but has too few gpio pins, so I use five 74-chips to expand the usage of the available pins. This should work well but requires more cycles on the Pico.

    Kicad 6 is really nice to work with, though the bus/wire concept in the schematic capture could really be more streamlined and documented better. I also got Freerouter running, so the resulting PCB is a 75x100mm 4-layer card. Compared to the commercial package I used before 2000, this is a very powerful, quick and easy tool to use!

    I'll do a few more inspections spread out over a few days before I feel ready to order a PCB.

    This revision of PZ1 has a proper 65C02 CPU and 512KiB SRAM with the Pico acting as glue logic and 6502-I/O. The 74-chips are gpio-expanders to the Pico.