The PicoMEM is an amazing software defined ISA card

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

It turns out that there is already a TSR for the PicoMem that allows you to switch floppy disks while booted into DOS. The TSR was part of the utility package on the Github repo. Freddy is also working on enhancing the Wifi features in the BIOS to provide more feedback than the current "no feedback" approach. The thing continues to improve!

[@troytaylor623]

I looked on FreddyV's github but didn't see the utility package you are referring to. I grabbed the floppy disk image sv86-720.img but didn't see any prg in the image that looked right.

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

@@troytaylor623 Hi, It is not via a driver, Press (left) Ctrl Shift F2 to change disks. It is also explained in the GiuHub doc

[@Inject0r]

Thanks for the informational video. I’m sure about what I’ll be buying this summer! Perhaps your “communicational lines” towards Freddy are a bit shorter than mine, so could you check if it’s possible to/works to put two (or more) RP2040’s on one card and make them work together, just to make sure they’re able to manage when handling those extra MHz-es, one Hz at a time. “RP2040-SLI” if you will. I’d love to see that! :)

[@DropDeadFrederick]

It'd be great if there was a display that'd connect to the picomem VIA the i2c interface that'd give you an LCD screen with some buttons that'd let you swap disks that way. Mount the LCD screen either in a 5 1/4" drive bay or some other location where it's easily accessible. Not everything plays well with TSR applications so having the option to have a separate LCD controller you could hook up would be great.

[@troytaylor623]

Hey Adrian, I just got my picomem last night and was trying to sort out why it wasn't saving my BIOS (didn't have the SD card in it.) So thanks for this timely video. I looked on the github page and couldn't find the TSR you were talking about. I also looked in the HDD Images and sv86-720.img floppy image and could find the TSR prg there either. Can you give some more info on where that TSR prg is for swapping floppy images?

[@falksweden]

Imagine if we 40 years ago was told that in the year 2024 people would still produce hardware new for our 40 years old computers, and that they would not only be totally insane but also very cheap. I'm still amazed by the amount of projects for our retro computers.

[@ericpaul4575]

And also contain a processor that is more powerful than the one on the main computer.

[@jacquelineliu2641]

@arnolduk123 Windows 1.0 was released in 1985. "40 years ago" was 1984. Windows 95 wouldn't come out until 10 years after Windows 1.0. So "people would be surprised about Windows not using year as version name" is nonsense.

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

@@ericpaul4575 And even with that, the RP2040 is only just fast enough (being overclocked over 2x stock clock speed) to properly talk on an ISA bus at 8mhz, something any Intel CPU even from the 70s can do with ease. :-)

[@der.Schtefan]

Nothing you said would have been a surprise. In the 80s, vintage collection was already a thing, people would romantisice about the 50s and old radios, cars, machines in general

[@shemlesh]

@arnolduk123 quite a few people, a lot of experimental operating system research in the late 80s, early 90s was around the idea of handling the transition from big iron and minicomputers, to microcomputers, to 1 user: many computers. Amoeba and Sprite were functional examples, building on the decreasing price of compute to turn networks of computers into a single system image from a users perspective

[@ronmaxwell]

The irony is that the Pico is way more powerful than the computer itself. But, seriously, this is an awesome card. Great idea. 😊

[@absolutetruth9975]

spoke my thought. 10000x faster perhaps

[@bmobert]

It's like attaching a 1000hp inline engine to a 10hp outboard motor to make the outboard run better. 😂

[@cristianoo2]

​@@bmobertno, to make it start turning left and right again, because the original driving wheel system was broken 😂

[@douggale5962]

It would be so fun to make a little 3D accelerator that uses DMA to copy offload software rendered frames to VGA video memory. It could DMA the render command list from RAM too, 10MB/sec would allow for ~150fps @ 320x200, 8bpp so it would be reasonable to keep up. Using 8MHz 3 cycles per 16 bits.

[@annebaisden8717]

Yup. Same goes for the VIC and SID replacements for the C64 you can get these days. I like to call this the "Spaceship of Theseus" problem, where at what point do modern improvements erase the idea of it being something old-fashioned? This is also explored in Babylon 5 (of all places) where a motorcycle restoration project was given a Minbari power supply instead of a gas-burning engine - does this defeat the purpose of the work or not?

[@Null_Experis]

There's a huge potential for profit with this if this guy tools this thing for Industrial use and offers an ISA card for old industrial machines that can easily ass remote management, file sharing over wifi, and other features to interface with more modern equipment without disrupting the old highly specialized machines that some places still use. I can imagine old milling machines suddenly having access to off-site storage and backups, allowing their IT to remote into their control computers, or even allowing floor staff to access and start the machine remotely with their phones.

[@briannickel5131]

Who doesn't want ass remote management?

[@c1ph3rpunk]

@@briannickel5131HR is calling, they need to speak with you. 😂😂

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Indeed -- all those old CNC milling machine and what not using old DOS stuff could totally use this for remote control. Pretty epic!

[@Null_Experis]

@@briannickel5131 I'm not even sure what I was typing to get that typo, but I like it.

[@tjallingdalheuvel126]

I'd say you pressed a s instead of d and 'autocorrect' added a second one.

[@krzbrew]

That's amazing how retro hardware enthusiasts make new quality of life improvements to decades old hardware. Very nice!

[@edller1082]

That is amazing. A small detail about when you entered the bbs and said there was someone else logged from South Carolina. In fact, it said Criciuma, SC which is not South Carolina, this SC stands for Santa Catarina, a Brazilian State. The Criciuma is a city in the State of Santa Catarina, Brazil.

[@ctrlaltrees]

I've been playing with one of these and it really is a total game changer for these old PCs. If you're reading this - get one!

[@riz94107]

So glad to see the PicoMEM BIOS setup screen keeps up the tradition of misspellings

[@RetroTechChris]

It's an easy fix 😂. I've noticed a few here and there and flagged them to Freddy.

[@danieltaon]

Where?

[@Zeem4]

@@danieltaon "Extention" is one of them, should be spelled "extension".

[@oliverer3]

​@@RetroTechChris Aww they feel so era appropriate though :P

[@RetroTechChris]

@@oliverer3 LOL! I bet FreddyV can put them back if you want them!

[@MSGRetired]

Thanks for the plug of my BBS ! I just set it up a couple weeks ago. I was a sysop back in the late 80's early 90's and decided to fire up a BBS again .. Had a few people join the board from you showing it in this video. Thanks

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

NICE!

[@pazsion]

i loved the roleplaying games and muds. the early mmorpgs 🤓🥰 gorgeous ansii art sometimes as you explore and stuff.

[@rnts08]

What MUDs are you running? I'd love to get back into hellbound development. I used to be a demi and made tons of dungeons way back when.

[@Scoopta]

Hmmmm, you should add IPv6 AAAA records

[@Dynamit008]

​@@Scooptayou are a summing that he even has access to IPv6, many don't have still access to IPv6. But me personally has 3 big ranges so it's silly.

[@networkg]

In addition to being fantastic, the design of the setup utility is just beyond great. Superlatives aside, all of us in the retro community owe a debt of thanks to developers who have taken inexpensive modern hardware, like the pico, and opened an entire world of possibilities.

[@idio-syncrasy]

I love your joy and enthusiasm Adrian.

[@JohnVance]

On the one hand, this feels a lot like cheating. But on the other hand, it’s amazing to see the vintage computing scene so active and healthy that something like this can even exist. Really love it.

[@c1ph3rpunk]

As old hardware gets more and more rare, and more and more costly, we’re going to have to go emulated/virtualized along with that more and more.

[@basicforge]

Not cheating. We would all have bought this card if it existed back in the day.

[@fierelier7691]

@@basicforge but if we bought this card back in the day, it would have way less processing power, and would have been more expensive. if the raspberry pi pico had display out, it could just emulate the entire computer. i personally prefer the approach of separate cards built for one or two purposes, using with simple ICs and some low level firmware. this certainly wouldn't be the way i'd go for my builds, but i do agree with the top comment, it's nice this is helping vintage computers work today.

[@ErazerPT]

@@fierelier7691 You mean like the FabGL VGA32? That they sell for peanuts? ;)

[@MaddTheSane]

In a way, I kinda wish the same was true for Classic Mac OS computers.

[@Colaholiker]

Not going to lie - it is epic that there is still a community that is dedicated to keeping all kinds of old computers running so that people can either relive their memories from way back in the day or that younger generations can experience what computing was like at that time. But regardless, it makes me chuckle that you basically plop in a card that has a computer on board which in itself has orders of magnitude more "computing oomph" than the original computer it gets plugged into. Even being on the very low end of the ARM spectrum, that little Cortex M0+ on the Pi Pico dwarfs an 8088 or 8086 no problem...At the same time, seeing the price of the Pi Pico, compared to what a PC cost when it was current tech, shows what giant leaps in development happened since.

[@JH-pe3ro]

There's actually two things that are really interesting about having the option of a new board with an MCU - first, that hobbyists can make new add-on cards without much difficulty now, and second - that for any given computing architecture, we can upgrade it to the level of that card. That removes any vintage limitations - the capability of all the computers is all "at the same level" now, limited just by development time. You can make this kind of upgrade for a PC, or an Apple II, or an Amiga, or anything else that you could figure out a way of shoehorning in, and you can make upgrades that copy the capabilities associated with one to the others. It inverts the usual thing of having to make software drivers that deal with hardware: a piece of "smart hardware" like this can act as the driver for something like a USB mouse.

[@k4be.]

And, the module contains a WIFI module which itself likely uses even more powerful CPU inside.

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

@@k4be. Exact :) The Wifi module is faster than the RP2040, like graphic card are faster than the PC. The important is that the Pico is not used to accelerate the PC CPU. It adds options that were possible on these PC : HDD, Floppy, Network, Adlib. All this were used on 8088 PC back in the time.

[@chitlitlah]

This thought crossed my mind a couple of years ago when I bought an Atari 800XL with a FujiNet device. The FujiNet is just a relatively tiny device that plugs into the back of the computer and seems like just a peripheral that's helping the computer out a little like an extra hand on a person, but really it's taking data from a network or an SD card and running circles around the Atari with its processing power to dumb things down to a level that the Atari can easily handle. It's more like the Atari is a peripheral for the FujiNet simply for the purpose of giving it a more nostalgic interface rather than simply using an emulator.

[@alysdexia]

@@freddyvretrozone2849not faster, dolt, but swifter

[@rickoneill4343]

Humans are amazing. I can't even begin to imagine how complex this was to create.

[@riz94107]

Tired: it works perfectly Wired: it Just Freakin Works!

[@rommix0]

It works alright. (eats Snickers bar) IT FRICKIN WORKS!!

[@nickwallette6201]

(In Olde English accent) "Your soundcard works perfectly."

[@krnlg]

I think theres a place both for cards like this that do everything by basically adding a whole faster computer inside, and recreations using modern parts to do things the same way real vintage expansion cards did it. Its great having cards like this for ease of use (and honestly this looks *great* especially the BIOS menu!) but cards with a bunch of TTL and whatever are great too because thats all part of retro computing!

[@lyfandeth]

A Raspberry as a universal ISA card...stunning, simply stunning.

[@the_kombinator]

TBH these machines were not meant to run for more than what, 4-5 years? I have a basement full of 80s and 90s PCs that work fully, even an NES and a Genesis (which is on now, we're taking stages in beating Sonic 2 lol). I can't seem to recall any newer consoles or computers working for even 10 years.

[@ultrametric9317]

This is cool. Nice to see convergence like this. In the day I wanted to know every last aspect of the PC. I got too busy to do that. I'm amazed at the detailed knowledge necessary to implement this idea! PS, the right words for LIM (Lotus-Intel-Microsoft) memory is "expanded". You can't get "extended" memory on less than a 286. EMM386 has options for dividing memory into expanded and extended memory side by side. The "/noems" switch prevents the default allotment. The earliest essential use of extended memory was in Netware 286. There was an DOS executable that did nothing but switch to protected mode and set up a large flat model address space for the OS to inhabit. Actual memory protection was not required and not used. That was essentially the birth of the practical LAN.

[@gilbert1975nf]

38:19 - that is no South Carolina. Criciuma SC it's a city here in Brazil, I am pretty sure of it!😊

[@insanelydigitalvids]

What's so great about this "New Tech for Old Tech" is that it enhances the Old Tech to work in a modern environment without detracting too much from the retro experience --- and makes retro computing more affordable by bypassing the high prices of rare cards and peripherals. (No wonder Adrian is so enthusiastic about this project!)

[@lucasbracher]

@Adrian, at 38:19, it's not South Carolina, it's Criciúma, state of Santa Catarina in Brasil. Thank you for the video, it took me more than 30 years ago.

[@sreenathbh2610]

I bought a couple of RP Picos a couple of years ago with the intention to create revolution. Did nothing with them. Very nice to see these gadgets using the RP2040. Wow!!

[@aaronperl]

That is really cool. I personally have no use for it, but I love learning about these things. Nice work to the developer/designer of this thing, keep up the good work. Back in the late 90s I thought it would be cool to collect some old machines once I was finished with school and living on my own ... but I realized I probably wouldn't actually end up doing anything with them, and as computers have generally become so much easier to deal with (no IRQs, networking by default, USB, faster CPUs, etc), I've had less and less interest in doing it. But I do love living vicariously through your videos.

[@lougarou007]

Thank you for explaining so clearly. I can't wait to try the picomem

[@wocko1]

This card is just awesome to say the least! It blows me away how versatile that the Pi Pico really is, and it's a great way to keep these old computers going as well as unlock new capabilities such as WiFi, etc.

[@tony359]

What an amazing card! I can’t wait to see the future development of it! Thanks for showing it to us!

[@TotiTolvukall]

This was a happy video in my feed :) Thanks! I managed to watch only 1/10th of the video before jumping to conclusions and ordering a PicoMEM of my own. And then I ordered the Adlib emulator too. So I managed to spend a truckload of money. Here's hanging my hopes high :) The machine I'm aiming at putting it into is a very special one. An IBM PC 5150 with some exceptional history (which will be shared at the right time) Thanks for a very interesting and useful video!

[@barjammar]

Thanks Adrian. I ordered one. Also, I’m glad you have recovered your health.

[@wysoft]

Neat to see a Leading Edge here. It was my first XT clone PC when I was a kid - though I had the older Model M. It was enough to pirate a bunch of CGA games from my friend whose dad had nearly every PC game in existence going back to the original IBM PC days. When I got a newer 486, I took the Model M and threw it out of the third story window of my parents' house onto the driveway to see what would happen. It landed flat with a huge smack, nothing fell off or exploded out of it. I brought it back inside, hooked it up, and it still worked - except for the hard drive. That thing was pure steel like a tank, like so many PCs in those days.

[@JenniferinIllinois]

It's crazy what people are coming up with to keep old computers running. I love it!

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

GDI! _YOU'RE_ the one who bought that Model D out from under me! That setup is literally what my first computer growing up was. Although ours was dual-floppy when bought, I paid for a hard drive+controller from lawn mowing/babysitting money. We even had that same monitor.

[@ninjamaster3453]

I had an AT 286 12mhz. My first mod was saving up and adding a sound blaster card.

[@rigues]

Adrian, for the record, the other BBS user was in Brazil. Criciuma is a city in Santa Catarina (also abbreviated SC).

[@rghisi]

I had to go back and pause the video, couldn't believe it! 😂 What are the odds!?

[@ducasp]

Probably using a MSX 8 bit computer and the UNAPI Telnet client ❤

[@gdavids57]

Just a slight correction. SparkFun developed the QWIIC connector.

[@rockykorea5711]

This is an important parallel between new and old technology that is instructive for all of us

[@Estaran]

For years I was looking for such an "all in one" solution for the Schneider (Amstrad) PC1512 I inherited after my father sadly passed away in 2021. This is a very nostalgic machine for me as this was the first time, I ever played videogames together with my dad, while he used this PC mostly to program in Turbo Pascal etc. Should also be a nifty solution for backing up all those files that are for sure soon lost to time because of those aging floppys and floppy drives (the PC1512 I have here only came with dual 5 1/4" floppy drives and no HDD).

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

I develop the PicoMEM with the PC1512 on mind it was also my first computer.

[@Estaran]

@@freddyvretrozone2849 Amazing! I'll hope there will be a seller located in Europe soon, as sadly importing one from the US is quite expensive because of import duties and shipping.

[@JohnSmith-iu8cj]

Watching this video from start to finish shows how good this is

[@laserspaceninja]

"It just freaking works" (TM)

[@Olveron]

I ordered a picomem. My XT has a hard card and two floppy drives, I just don't have a system other than my XT with a 5 in floppy drive. I have been stuck. I love that I can finally replace my hard card, and get files onto the system. Looking forward to playing with this isa card.

[@summerlaverdure]

that's absolutely incredible! 😍 so cool to see the retro computer community keeping old machines alive with things like this. Excellent video Adrian, thank you for making it!

[@subynut]

It's wild what that little Raspberry Pi Pico is capable of! Super neat!

[@douro20]

I may look into one of these for my PS/2 Model 25- when I get the thing back together. NTP support would be really nice in the future. I don't remember ANSI.SYS being terribly slow- at least in DOS 4.01 which is what I had on my first PC. My 5150 is currently running PC-DOS 2000.

[@thomas-i5o7h]

Very interesting little board. I must confess that this is the first time I have ever heard of it.

[@horusfalcon]

Good to see you with the Leading Edge Model D again, and I can't thing of a better reason that another card making retro possible without pain.

[@Cherijo78]

The one improvement id like to see is a header to be able to use an external or front panel/bay mountable card reader. The big advantage of using an XTIDE and GoTek in my current 5160 is having the usb and cf card ports mounted right in the 2 right drive bays of my machine for access (the half height 32mb RLL HDD that still works and 360k floppy are on the left). Getting to the back of the machine to change out an SD card would be a serious PITA where I have my 5160 set up. I like the idea of this card though, and might consider it in future for another machine! Good job!

[@pperk97]

Hi Adrian, i use 2 the Pico cards in my Atari. The Sidecart device in the Atari ST has simular abilities. And the A8Pico for my 800XL. Great devices. Thanks for the video.

[@baronvonschnellenstein2811]

Thanks for this review / walk through, Adrian :) What I'm seeing here is an excellent "first stop" for an ISA card to put in a resurrected XT / AT and get it going. - A "Swiss Army Knife" ISA card that will get one out of most jams. Certainly a "must have" for those restoring XTs. I think those dedicated RAM expansion and controller replacement cards still have a use-case in terms of performance / compatibility.

[@communalnoodle1356]

Adrian, this is an amazing rindown on this card - grat explanation of the advantages and dissadvantages. Its great to see it in use and see how itnworks. 😊

[@ed.puckett]

How frickin cool is that? Pretty frickin cool!!

[@Dorff_Meister]

So much MSDOS coming back to me. It's been so long. Fun video and an absolutely amazing card. If I ever wanted to get back into DOS, this would be the way to go.

[@stathissim]

Amazed! I was watching the entire video with my mouth open. Ordered

[@terryknipe5497]

what a fantastic device! could breathe an insane amount of life into some of those XT class machines in tiny tiny cases that are incredibly difficult to expand - like my (sadly long-gone) childhood Amstrad PC20.

[@johanlaurasia]

I watched the majority of this video before I realized that you're wearing AJ's Forgotten Machines t-shirt. AJ is part of our CoCo community at Glenside, and he's a really great guy. Looking for ward to seeing you at VCFMW.. only 112 days (but who's counting!!)

[@jeroenvanlieshout4848]

Just ordered one as I was still looking for a integrated network solution. Very nice demonstration about the capabilities and hopefully it improves over time.

[@KAPTKipper]

I'm building an A8PicoCart, a software defined Atari 8-bit cartridge. I've also seen SIDPICOs that use the PICO too. They are $3-5 for a 16MB version. Supercheap.

[@davidellis6995]

Loved the "geekout-o-rama". Thanks. Flash back on the BBS.

[@shmehfleh3115]

That thing's pretty cool. I hope a 16-bit ISA slot version gets released at some point. I don't personally care about XT-class machines; they're too slow and limited to do much with. But a lot of those features would be really handy on an 386 or newer, especially one with limited room for ISA cards like my Toshiba T5200.

[@k7a]

Especially if they can add a CD-ROM emu where you can load CD images on virtual drives like they've done here with floppy and HDD. Man that would be cool. Absolute epitome would be an easy way to connect full powered Pi for MT-32 midi emulation. Feels like the sky's the limit on this whole concept.

[@dwincraig5350]

I used to work at a PC Shop in Alexandria Virginia and I used to repair and sell the Leading Edge Model D!

[@kooziesan]

Without any further ado...I'm still waiting for the "let's get right to it!"

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

It's like an if-then statement that never gets met. You're just waiting forever ;-)

[@Dwedit]

The term "PSRAM" refers to Psuedo-static RAM, meaning that it is DRAM that can refresh itself without external refresh circuitry, and be simply wired onto a board like it was SRAM. It does not necessarily mean that it's accessed over an SPI bus. But on this device, it looks like it is indeed on an SPI bus.

[@kpanic23]

Maybe I'm strange, but I like loud fans and loud whirring hard drives on my vintage computers... Makes them sound like a living beast!

[@saifal-badri]

FreddyV rocks I must say, amazing job with the all in wonder card 😂 I snagged one immediately

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

Thanks, hope you will like it.

[@volvo09]

What a cool device, I love what people are doing to keep old computers alive, even if this is the engine equivelant of connecting a 1000hp dragster engine to your 80 hp cars motor to use as it's starter 😂

[@yyzkevin416]

Maybe a closer analogy would be upgrading the radio in your classic car for bluetooth instead of AM radio. Your car engine is unchanged. Maybe some new tires for safer traction etc.

[@mattgarlets3939]

I learned how to type on a model D! We had a whole computer lab full of them with amber monochrome amber screens!

[@AS-ly3jp]

Is there a Board with a RaspberryPi, which you can put in a XT/AT System, wich allows you to use Keyboard, Diskrive, all the Ports on the Backside and Harddrive like the PiStorm or Vampire Project for Amiga? That would be cool!

[@LoneBlackBear]

As a vintage comp user, my tandy 1000RL-HD only has one ISA slot, so while I would like to spend 100s buying the whole line up, I couldn't use them all and couldn't afford them all, this picomem is my saviour...

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

Hi, Please wait a little until I add support for Tandy 1000 (In my short term objectives)

[@233kosta]

Oh man those original IBM XT keyboards are AMAZING!

[@d34dbolt20]

This is great. I’ve been wondering when something like this would be created. Lots of potential with boards like this. I’ll likely be ordering at least one for testing. I have two nice XTs that could use something like this.

[@BuddhaPhi]

Thanks for the review, Adrian. The card is already backordered on Texelec as of 5/20/2024. So they maybe had a day or two supply.

[@markykid8760]

I might buy an old PC just to use this thing. Amazing

[@mamayl8592]

Sounds awesome. Lots of cool things lately for retro tinkerers!

[@duncanyoung8688]

love the vids Adrian keep me up when ime down

[@jeromethiel4323]

I think the best use of this card would be for testing. Because you could drop it into the machine, and have it emulate a lot of stuff, meaning you only have to troubleshoot the MB or video card, or sound card, or whatever without worrying about other vintage parts not playing well with others.

[@DoctorOnkelap]

Hi Adrian, thanks for the tip about this product. I will use it to resurect my old Tulip SX Compact 2 which was my first computer. It is actually a Dutch made 386sx and is still working except for the 3,5" floppy. Replacing that floppy drive with others I have (I remember even trying that when it first failed). Would you happen to know why other floppy drives simply refuse to work on a 386sx?

[@michaelturner2806]

16:42 watching this while distracted I was surprised to suddenly see a gnome head pop out of nowhere! (The IDE cable kinda looks like a red pointed hat, face, and blue beard.)

[@bobingabout]

27:02 I had to listen to that twice. Dos would be using FAT16, which has a 2GB partition limit, and this is what I thought you were referring to the first time I listened. FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit, so would give you a 4GB hard limit for hard drive image. So yes, what you're saying is right, assuming your SD Card is format to FAT32.

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

Hi, SD can be anything, extfs as well 😀

[@bobingabout]

@@freddyvretrozone2849 I'm sure it can, but Adrian did specifically mention Fat32, and since MS-DOS 6.22 only supports FAT16, then in this context, the only reason why he could be mentioning it as an issue, is if his SD card is format to FAT32. Given that the core is a Pi, I'm sure it could use an SD card format to any partition type the Pi, or whatever OS the pi is running, can understand.

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

@@bobingabout I did limit the image size to 4gb to support FAT32 uSD and above, it is not really reasonable

[@bobingabout]

@@freddyvretrozone2849 My original comment was simply me trying to understand why Adrian specifically said "FAT32". In my opinion, a 4GB hard drive image file limit is reasonable to a device targeting old DOS machines.

[@massimopessino7606]

Just ordered one! Messing around with a Zenith eazypc that was supposedly not expandable and that uses XTA HD interface. Turns out that the expansion port is just a pin version of Isa bus. Will see what we can get out of it with the PicoMem all in one!

[@photovincent]

Just went for a quick look and now 45 minutes are gone. Fascinating stuff. I’m generally not a fan of using SBCs for emulation that overpower the system itself by many factors, but this does look like a neat piece of work and the bios interface makes for a great not-quite time period appropriate setup. Also, using wifi for networking beats running coax cable again and trying to plug that into a 21st century router 😇

[@Aeduo]

I had a leading edge growing up. A later 386 model. We had it up until like i dunno 1999 or 2000. It couldn't do a whole lot but I was also too young to know how to get it to do much. I did pick up a fair bit of shareware off of AOL though like ant attack and empipe.

[@DarrenCoull]

The RP2040 is truly a versatile device - I don't have an old PC for this, but I DO have an Atari STE and am using a device called the SideCART - maybe a future video idea? Plugged into the ST's cartridge port, it does things such as RTC, floppy (even loading from internet) and HDD emulation. Like this device, the SideCART is still in (very) active development. Worth checking out!

[@BandanazX]

So cool. Would like to see something like this adapted to the PCjr... maybe with a DMA controller thrown in for good measure.

[@LazloNQ]

Any more features and this board will become it's own standalone computer. It basically already is! LOL! Nice piece of work...

[@alexgayer85]

That’s a really cool card. Wish I still had an XT to play with! Hey, I just noticed I’m wearing my Forgotten Machines shirt today too! 😂

[@herbiehusker1889]

Can you use this to use a USB keyboard? I cannot find an affordable XT keyboard.

[@MarkRose1337]

It's planned for the future

[@volvo09]

That would be a good feature. It's not super easy to find an XT keyboard anymore.

[@alexandrecouture2462]

I use a PS/2 keyboard to XT adapter with a little circuit and controller on my IBM 5150 and it works, but even then, PS/2 keyboards aren't that common anymore.

[@alain99v6]

@@alexandrecouture2462 I use the same thing too , bought on ebay from Bulgaria , a good deal

[@herbiehusker1889]

​@@alexandrecouture2462I have several ps/2 keyboards; where do you get the adapter.

[@az09letters92]

Now I want to see this with the new RP2350 (or Raspberry Pico 2 board)!

[@tehaxor69]

And I thought it was pretty cool connecting my graphing calculator to the internet via an ESP32. This is very cool.

[@sleveee]

they're already back ordered. but i put in an order anyway! have a vendex turbo-888 that i could use this in.

[@redgek]

rp2040 is basically 2x (dual core) i486 or even Pentiums, integer speed wise IIRC, so that card is like adding a whole computer into your computer to emulate stuff for it ;)

[@bewilderbeestie]

One thing they should think about is doing a DOS IFS (like MSCDEX or one of the network drivers) which pushes the actual filesystem implementation onto the RP2040. It'll be less compatible than the existing BIOS emulation, but it would completely avoid the problems with big filesystems on DOS --- you could access the entire SD card in a single partition.

[@eformance]

I don't think this card "obsoletes" a bunch of cards, what it does is make these capabilities available via modern components. The biggest problem I see with "Adlib" cards is getting the sound chips. If the Pico can emulate the sound chip, and it can emulate the 5v chips of the XT IDE, and it can emulate other peripherals, all while using a software designed "hardware stack", that's great. It would be interesting to see someone emulate an XT from scratch with video support on a Pico, then maybe tie multiple picos together to make a modern hardware emulator? Yeah, at that point it's not far removed from Dos Box, but it's still hardware and that scratches an itch that Dos Box doesn't.

[@erickvond6825]

That's actually pretty awesome.

[@jrherita]

14:24 - is that a missing RAM chip in the upper left? Maybe Parity? (Looks like 9 rows?)

[@alexandrecouture2462]

What I'd really like for my IBM PC 5150 is a VGA card, because for now, I only have a CGA card and I use a composite to VGA adapter for display output.

[@romiolover6852]

I have a question, in your opinion what causses the yellow screen during booting a commodore amiga 500?

[@root42]

31:00 DOS=UMB should allow DEVICEHIGH and LH to be used.

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Those commands don't work on XT machines. (Require a 386 with shadow memory) Third party tools allow moving DOS into upper memory on XT machines.

[@root42]

@@adriansdigitalbasement Oh wow! Didn't know that. I never had an XT. On 286 you can at least use DOS=HIGH with HIMEM.SYS loaded, and IIRC there are UMB drivers for 286s as well.

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

@@root42 Hi, DOS=HIGH need a 286, DOS=UMB should work, and need the USE!UMB driver. Also, this work better on an XT With 640Kb of RAM, as the UMB Will be "Fast", anyway, an XT Does not need to have DOS High, as an XT with 640Kb can have everything running. UMB on XT can be more usefull for "Not CPU intensive" drivers like Mouse. or for application data. On a 286, the PicoMEM added RAM will be slow, as it is on the 8Bit ISA BUS, so, this can be used for really really low CPU intensive applications. (It is not specific to the PicoMEM)

[@root42]

@@freddyvretrozone2849hi! Probably a 6MHz AT could utilize the PicoMem, as it is already very slow. :) But yeah I think the PC and XT are the best candidates.

[@ninjamaster3453]

A 286 12mhz leading edge was my first PC

[@shivanSpS]

Why only Adlib? sound blaster emulation is not possible? or it is not done?

[@scottmm78]

I have a few motherboards for the batteries have destroyed the keyboard port and keyboard controller chip circuits so if this could do USB keyboard that would be perfect

[@ferrari2k]

That is a really cool project! The floppy disc switching would be a nice feature, though, especially for multi-disk games or a new DOS installation or something like that :)

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

Hi, it is already present (Ctrl Shift F2 shortcut)

[@ferrari2k]

@@freddyvretrozone2849 That's really cool, so you will go into the Phoenix-like BIOS and can change the floppy image there? That is neat! Oh and btw, do you have any idea where I would get that "tools" disc that Adrian always uses with all the test software on it? Just playing around with PCem, just found that and the ROMs and having a blast! :D

[@DaveF.]

Nice - I just used a Raspberry Pi Nano (not pico) to had a second processor capability to me BBC master - it's truely incredible how quickly it can run now compared to the original CPU (and original 'Tube' second processors) - but the other constraints of the system still limit it - running DOS or CP/M on it (or Unix perhaps - it can now run PDP11 code) - would not be a fun experience. There's only so far you can go with this sort of stuff - maybe the next version of this could use a Pi Nano rather than the microcontroller based pico. I wonder if the SDcard is also a bottlenick for disk performance.

[@marcwolf60]

Oh I need this. I have a Data General One. Yes look it up.