RPi Pico As A Sinclair ZX Spectrum

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[@seanconnelly7811]

Hi Dev, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the 48K clone - mind blown! The Pico PIO is incredible.

[@DevelopIT]

And everything is written in C. Anyone who could do assembly for this device could do much more. On the following channel they have made Doom run on the Pico, this is much more intensive: kzbin.info/door/u2LJxnuCy-BrSUNJuNp5QAvideos

[@ionix2000]

Amazing video! Thank you. It reminds me of my childhood. 🙂

[@zetaconvex1987]

Impressive! I've never owned a Speccie, only a ZX81. It's nice to see some colour, and, well, 1K was rather limiting. It's suprising how much can be done on a Spectrum.

[@DevelopIT]

Sinclair really made some capable computers, considering they where made to be as basic as possible. I think their continued popularity shows that they where some of the best computers of the time.

[@wayland7150]

Alan Turin proposed the idea that any computer could emulate any other if you could provide it enough memory and were prepared to wait long enough. Thanks to computers becoming insanely fast over the 40 or so years since the 1983 home computer boom we can now emulated any of those computers with ease. OK, so we do need dedicated nerds to get this to work. My own Home Computer of the 1980's was the Dragon 32 and this is emulated with ease in XRoar. I'd really like to see this run on the PI Pico but this chap is a total Z80 nut so no chance of 6809 unless I do it myself.

[@mysticmarble94]

Really neat.

[@DevelopIT]

Not as neat as a burning chair. I think my favorite is the: Chaosgroup PhoenixFD - Burning Chair

[@meneerjansen00]

Have you got a video or a website where you explain what components to use and what program to load into the Pi? I'd like to do this too! :)

[@DevelopIT]

Eventually I plan to sell a PCB with programmed ESP32, other components sourced by user. But that is quite a while of at this point.

[@meneerjansen00]

@@DevelopIT Okay.

[@RunTheTape]

Amazing. It makes one think, are the microcontrollers from the future going to play GTA V full speed ? :D

[@benholroyd5221]

Possibly but the thing is Moore's law is starting to break and unless we find a fundamentally new technology then we probably aren't going to see such massive gains going forward. But you never know.

[@DevelopIT]

I think you are right, as power consumption reduces, the more they can get in a smaller space without requiring cooling.

[@germanskena6537]

Hello Develop IT, thank you for the video. Can you show how are the connections of the raspberry pico? to the keyboard, speakers, a microSD, etc. i search in the github and i didn't find any detail of THIS PROJECT. I see it wonderful, because i have a CZ Spectrum from Argentina (ZX Spectrum 48k clone) and a TK85, a Brazilian clone of ZX81, but none of them are working. And i want to assemble a Emulation with Raspberry pico, or ESP32... Sadly my knowledge of this devices is VERY POOR. That's the reason of asking directions for doing something with this. Again. Thank you for your videos.

[@DevelopIT]

The keyboard I have covered in detail in a video about two months ago. The speaker I covered about a moth ago. There is no micro SD it is all on the Pico flash memory. The actual target for the system is an ESP32 which will have an SD, the start of that project is a while back in the videos. It is ultimately intended to be a product so the source is not available, how ever if you watch all of my emulation videos I describe how all of the source code works while referring to it. So the information is there on how to do it, but it is a lot of work.

[@fastbeta]

we have made ZX Spectrum 128 with Beta Disk interface on pi pico

[@ytu52973]

My comment on the last video vanished. Here goes again. You are using VGA, would it be easy to use DVI (adafruit product 4984) instead?

[@DevelopIT]

This one ended up in held for review. I haven't seen any of the others. I think because it mentions a product. I have no experience with DVI so I don't know. The VGA is being used because it is being driven direct from the Pico. So the only components required are a few resistors, a small speaker, a transistor and a USB A socket.

[@RunTheTape]

I'm fairly certain there's already an implementation of HDMI output using the PIO. DVI and HDMI are quite interchangeable to some extent.

[@ytu52973]

@@DevelopIT This would be an even better solution if it works with your code as the connector is ready to go and plugs into HDMI. Otherwise need to find an old VGA monitor to use.

[@marknhopgood]

I am ready to give it a go. Can I help with the release / production?

[@DevelopIT]

I have an idea of the path I'm going to take. I want to get a couple of 6502 classics going in the emulator to a degree. I have the PCB laid out, I need to go though a bunch of testing and get an SD card interfaced. It's still a while off, but I think I have come to the conclusion I will be selling the bare PCBs with the software as a free download. The software will evolve over time. I appreciate the offer of help, but I will decline, as it is just a project that I am doing on the side.

[@marknhopgood]

@@DevelopIT I look forward to hearing more. Good luck with the project.

[@DevelopIT]

@@marknhopgood Thank you.

[@thekirgo]

Hi! Do you think it will be possible to adapt this emulator to smaller LCD's?

[@DevelopIT]

It should be able to drive LCDs as the display code is running on the second CPU core, separate from the emulation code.

[@thekirgo]

@@DevelopIT Do you maybe have any example code? I would like to try this on my 0.96 lcd

[@DevelopIT]

@@thekirgo I haven't connected a small LCD to a Pico yet. Sorry I have no code for this.

[@dmytromykhailiuta9268]

Is this project available for self-assembly?

[@DevelopIT]

Not currently. Ultimately I would like to sell as a PCB and pre-programmed ESP32 pair with any other components sourced by the user. But this is likely to be a while off. I'm currently completing the Z80 undocumented instructions and verifying correct operation. I have a few more emulators I would like to implement. And then throw it all into an ESP32 with WiFi uploading of ROM files.

[@dmytromykhailiuta9268]

@@DevelopIT , You do need an assistant with PCB design?

[@DevelopIT]

@@dmytromykhailiuta9268 I appreciate the offer, for this project I handle it myself as it should be quite a basic design.

[@krownsys5297]

Were van i found schematics ans code please

[@fastbeta]

we have schematics and firmware for similar projects