Raspberry Pi Pico, BBC Model B emulator.

[@nebpublic]

Hi Robin. Nice video. Phoenix was my fav too. The Fur Elise brings back memories of way too much time spent playing this game! Very cool BBC Micro!

[@robingrosset6941]

Hey Neil, nice to hear from you!

[@nebpublic]

@@robingrosset6941 I was watching a recommended video a couple of days ago and I thought ... I recognize that voice. Then I looked at the channel name! Looks like you're having fun.

[@msx80]

So basically the PICO is a perfect platform to write an emulator of an old 8 bit system or a simple fantasy console.. You got audio output, vga output, keyboard, etc.. awesome :)

[@SpeccyMan]

I would imagine DOSBox would work quite well too if it has been ported.

[@syrus3k]

@@SpeccyMan maybe.. the x86 architecture is quite a bit more complex than stuff like the zx spectrum.. probably a bit much in terms of RAM required to do it I'd imagine. I think most (all?) base systems had at least 64K of ram, then you need to store the emulator itself somewhere. Perhaps though, I mean it's a miracle you can even do this!

[@olaf_dreyer]

Love these videos!

[@bborkzilla]

Here's a vote for the Phoenix game repair!

[@HappyHackingVideoBlog]

Yes! I am interested in a video about the arcade PCB! :-D

[@damouze]

The most important question with any BBC micro emulator is of course: can it run Elite?

[@SpeccyMan]

For me it would be: Can it run Repton. 😁

[@bobmcbob4399]

Exile - you should try that. This is a metroidvania, well before Iga introduced the genre.

[@garethwood6587]

Managed to get this working on the Pi 4 but how do you configure the controls or quit games to return to the menu? Thanks!

[@farhanyousaf5616]

Yes, let's see a video abou the repair... Sorry if the commend is old. Subbed!

[@wcg66]

I'm using a board based on the Picomite VGA layout. Is it possible to get the BBC micro emulator working on that?

[@dunk_law]

Does this work with the Pimoroni Pico DV Demo Base?

[@mohammadm5011]

very very great I am trying to make this

[@wayland7150]

Finally I can afford a BBC B.

[@shaurz]

It's a shame the Pico Demo board doesn't have a PS/2 connector, but I guess they ran out of pins on the Pico?

[@qchan7]

Great!

[@retrofan0119]

Hi, thanks for this great video. Can you please share beeb_1080p.uf2 and master_1080p.uf2 files ? I am struuggling to compile them.

[@Xalior]

+1 for repairing one of my alltime favourite arcade games, please :) (I have an FPGA reproduction which I frequently play, because I've managed to _keep_ some self control about collecting original arcade kit.... and I know once I start, I'm done for - and probably also then divorced!) -Dx

[@Capt.Morgan-Retro]

Would this project also work using the Pimoroni Pico DV Demo Board instead of the VGA Demo Board?

[@robingrosset6941]

Yes I think it will work but will require some code changes from VGA output to DVI output. You can find a couple of videos on my channel for how to get HDMI or DVI output from a Pico. They may be helpful.

[@Capt.Morgan-Retro]

Thank you! @@robingrosset6941

[@Evilslayer73]

Awesome a turorial !!!!!!!thanks so much :) i have all my parts since a long time !!

[@CptDangerous]

Hmmm... when I try "cmake -DPICO_BOARD=vgaboard .." I get "Could NOT find Allegro (missing: ALLEGRO_LIBRARY ALLEGRO_FONT_LIBRARY etc..." Allegro appears to be a PCB design package so I'm not sure why the Beeb Em would require this? How do I get past this point?

[@robingrosset6941]

This is the allegro programming library. On a Mac its 'brew install allegro' to install . Here is the project link which should help. liballeg.org/

[@CptDangerous]

@@robingrosset6941 Hi Robin, thanks for the response. OK on the allegro library. Do I need the version for the host platform (Ubuntu on Pi) or for Pico?

[@CptDangerous]

Ah, OK. A case of RTFM! At least one step further along now. Many thanks.

[@CptDangerous]

OK, giant steps - got the emulator working using a 3v3 USB to TTL adapter for the event forwarder. As I'm hosting this on a Pi I thought I'd use the Pi's UART0 (pins 8,10) but the event forwarder consistently refuses to send the escape sequences with message "Failed to write!". Modified the source to show what the return from the write() was - always zero, nil, zilch! Can you think of any reason the Pi's UART0 wouldn't work with event forwarder? Tried with /dev/serial1 (symbolic link to /dev/ttyAMA0) and /dev/ttyAMA0. I used raspi-config to disable console and enable uart. Slight complication here is I use Ubuntu for Pi as I'm not a fan of Raspbian/RasPiOS. PS can't find an email address for kilograham/Graham Sanderson otherwise I'd ask the author :-).

[@robingrosset6941]

@@CptDangerous sorry this is proving a challenge. I did find the forwarder a challenge too as the code did not compile on my Mac Book. I messaged Graham up on Twitter @kilograham5. I’ve found most of the Pi Foundation folks seem really responsive. I can say Ubuntu on Pi had issues for me with serial ports in the past. I switched to Raspbian and had no issues. Might be worth switching to Raspbian it usually does not take long to try. I do think someone should try to connect a PS2 keyboard directly to avoid the forwarder. Seems overkill to have to have 2 computers where 1 is just the keyboard. I might try to do that.

[@adammathieson1428]

would I need the same USB/UART adapter or are the all the same?

[@robingrosset6941]

They are generally the same but get one that has FTDI brand chip as the drivers are really good and just recognised by your OS. The other thing is you need one with 3.3v logic levels. Many are 5v only and that could damage the Pico.

[@adammathieson1428]

@@robingrosset6941 OK Thanks, great vid

[@meneerjansen00]

Is the audio out analog (i.e. directly usable on a speakers) or digital? The website says "I2C"...?

[@robingrosset6941]

Its analog audio you just need headphones or amplified speaker.

[@msx80]

Also, would it be possible to dedicate one of the two cores to generate VGA (and maybe audio) signals and use the other for actual program execution ?

[@robingrosset6941]

So video coming soon on HDMI output that uses half the I/O lines to VGA. You can also create a screen buffer and have one core tender video while to other just writes to the screen buffer. Also there is a ZX Spectrum and C64 emulator coming.

[@hstrinzel]

Is there ANY WAY to connect a KEYBOARD to this, more or less DIRECTLY? It seems a bit weird to use a $1K Mac to "emulate" a keyboard... THANKS IN ADVANCE! Great project!

[@SpeccyMan]

Assuming you can apply power to that board some other way you could use a USB keyboard connected to the Pico via an OTG adapter if the emulation supports it.

[@jackburton9507]

wow,wish I had your knowledge ,I own the vga board by mistake in ordering something that wasn't what i thought it was...looks nice hanging on the wall though , great work .

[@ZXSpectrum128K]

there's two quad core pi zero boards out now

[@RetroMarkyRM]

nice, but how do I do this with Windows please? (the files from git hub I mean)

[@robingrosset6941]

The best place to start is to follow the getting started guide for Windows. There is a link here www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=143&t=301620

[@RetroMarkyRM]

@@robingrosset6941 ok, thanks :)

[@romba6]

Have done a successful build on Rasp Pi 4 - thank you for video... how do you change the ROM e.g VDFS or change disks ?

[@declanmalone1279]

What are the commands for getting this to run on a pi 4

[@AdrianJarvis-zk7ld]

surely someone can build one of these into a little box that you just attach to a monitor and keyboard with all the piss about. $40?

[@TheBauwssss]

Woah! I wasn't AT ALL expecting this, but the shaky video is making me incredibly nauseous 🤢🤮 I get very easily sea sick or car sick when I'm staring at a screen too (although I can play VR for hours with absolutely 0 issues), so perhaps it isn't much of a surprise after all