This New ISA Card Is A Game Changer! PicoMEM First Look

[@uzaiyaro]

I’m not huge into retro computing, haven’t got the space or the spare cash. I’m just happy to see new gadgets coming out to make retro computing life easier, and I’m all for this.

[@ErikS-]

7:56 - MS-DOS 3.21! That's when my PC adventures started 🤓 Those times were so awesome!

[@AttilaSVK]

Sorry for nitpicking, but the PM2000 driver doesn't emulate an NE2000 card, the PicoMem itself does. The driver is just a packet driver, which is kind of an abstraction layer, so applications like those in the mTCP suite don't have to have support for zillion network cards. They know how to speak to the packet driver, and that's what speaks to the hardware itself. Btw, I'll be getting a PicoMEM for my SMEP PP-06 XT clone made in Czechoslovakia, as soon as I get that system up and running.

[@domramsey]

Great in-depth video, Rees! I'm always a little hesitant about using modern tech in place of period hardware, but I think this project will probably enable a lot of old, currently dead machines to see the light of day again, which can only be good.

[@Jonny5a]

My dad has an old ibm model 2 based luggable pc with a dead ESDI hard drive. Having trouble finding a replacement and we’ve wondered if something similar to this could work.

[@billalverson6168]

​@Jonny5a as long as you have an open ISA slot, it'll probably work. Assuming it physically fits. It works great on my Book8088 and Pocket386 machines

[@HAGSLAB]

What a great device! Love all of these modern solution for old tech with all the "quality of life" features that makes it easier to use and love these old machines.

[@alk7934]

This thing is really sweet. I def want to get one for my old machines. Thank you for the thorough review.

[@HappyCodingZX]

nice one - looks like a great way to give real hardware all the advantages of emulation.

[@catriona_drummond]

One step closer to the Pc of Theseus. I'll definitely have some of those though.

[@harcalion]

Great video! From reading the news about the PicoMEM in diagonal I thought it could do all of these things separately, perhaps re-flashing the Pico each time, but seeing it do all of them at the same time... Really amazing! Thanks for the comprehensive demonstration.

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

Hi, Re flash for different fonction is the PicoGUS.

[@harcalion]

@@freddyvretrozone2849 you are right, I mixed the two projects in my mind. Great work if you are THE Freddy V.

[@jeroentaverne8232]

​@@freddyvretrozone2849 not anymore 😊

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

​@@jeroentaverne8232 Technically yes, All the rom are inside and the pico reboot to swap them.

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

​@@harcalionYes it is me, thanks and it is not finished 😅

[@pkf4124]

There is nothing like adding features or abilities to computers games consoles or cars that just didnt exist when they were made. It just never gets old.

[@proteque]

such a great video showcasing the picomem and short and to the point showing hos to use it.

[@juanramonredoferrer5817]

I ve got two of them and possibly more in the future 😂😂😂 👏👏👏

[@RetroTechChris]

Such an amazing card!!

[@thepirategamerboy12]

I remember getting in trouble in Elementary school doing the Star Wars telenet thing because they thought I was "hacking." lol

[@Crystawth]

When I was in high school some friends and I loaded some no install required remote control software on some computers between computer labs. So we would mess with people and they accused us of hacking the computers lol.

[@smallmoneysalvia]

@@CrystawthI mean, you kinda did, didn't you? Like, it wasn't particularly in-depth or technically difficult, but it was unauthorized access which is what people usually mean by hacking.

[@PixelPipes]

I love this thing, although I do admit I bought it 99% just for the Wi-Fi. I stuck it in my Compaq Portable 3 luggable and Wi-Fi just makes a lot of sense in that machine. I couldn't get the hard drive emulation to work but I need to try the latest firmware. It's nice that it's got an option for monochrome, that should also work nicely with the gas plasma display. But this really is the end-all, be-all card for 8 and 16-bit PC enthusiasts.

[@robf228]

Absolutely a game changer!

[@mattscomp]

Unbelievably good piece of gear. Well done to Freddy and all that helped create it. Purists might say it's cheating. As someone that started with PC's in the era of XT's I'm glad it exists. Anything that makes things easier is a good thing esp for those new to retro.

[@tithund]

Even if you are a purist, it's a good troubleshooting tool. Myself, I would never permanently run an emulated sound board, but am less of a purist when it comes to ram and storage.

[@mattscomp]

@tithund fair enough. I think it's great having so many features on a single card too. Perfect for any smaller PC's that only have a couple of slots.

[@jesuxcc]

Wow, I have an ancient PC (i8088 4,75MHz, CGA, 256+384 KB RAM, no HDD, only floppies) and I clearly NEED one of these :)

[@magicknight8412]

So this thing can replace a whole bunch of cards and things? thats fantastic and looks like a reasonable price too

[@ErazerPT]

Fun stuff. I'm a software developer and never was into hw at all, but recently got into programming ESP32's and... for someone that grew up with ZX's, it's mind bending what a €10 MCU the size of a quarter can do. The PiStorm is pretty much the same for the Amiga. Heck, if you're not a purist you can get a FabGL VGA32 and have a 8088 clone the size of a gum packet... One way or another, MCU's can now take roles in places where you used to need at least FPGA's but at a much lower cost and more flexible. And you technically have "infinite expansion" once you solved the MCUmachine connection, as the MCU's can be chained using I2C, SPI or something else to provide additional functionality.

[@MrLurchsThings]

I see the monochrome issue has been fixed. I might try one on my Olivetti M24. Seems it still doesn’t play nice with the Tandy 1000 tho 😔

[@squirlmy]

interesting. The Tandy 1000 was video compatible with PCjr, although the Tandy was so much more successful, the standard became known as "Tandy Graphics Adapter". There was a driver for TGA in Windows 2, that also worked in Windows 3, I wonder if it can be utilized...

[@SynthwaveDuck]

This is way too cool! 😃 thanks

[@T313COmun1s7]

Being as the 4th PC I ever owned was the Atari 520ST, and later I had the Atari 520STM, I am very fond of the Digital Research GEM desktop as it and the OS for the ST were basically the same. My first IBM Clone ran DOS 3.2 and GEM for this very reason. So it is good to see it represented.

[@1kreature]

With the Pico emulating and supplying memory and bios like that one would expect memory monitoring and realtime tracing to be possible as well? So much fun!

[@BlackHoleForge]

This reminds me of 3D printers. If you want something, just print it out. Well in this case, need a sound card? VGA? Network? Floppy controller? There's a program for that. Awesome

[@masonowen3939]

Could be helpful with maintaining older CNC or industrial systems that use older industrial pcs. Being able to upload work files over wireless would be very convenient and the ability to usb devices would also be nice.

[@billalverson6168]

It's a great piece of hardware! My 11yo soldered a DAC onto it and everything is working awesome. I dont think you covered it but my favorite feature is using the fast 128KB as UMBs for my Book8088. With that I boot DOS 6.22 using only 10KB of conventional memory, even with mouse and doskey and other stuff loaded! I'll probably order another one

[@maaadkat]

HIMEM.SYS was for Extended, which is what you said when you meant Expanded. EMM386 was correct - that's for Expanded memory.

[@afreestone101]

Thanks for the excellent video. You've convinced me to order one of these for my Compaq Portable III (12MHz 286 with lovely amber plasma display). While its current HDD still works, I've been waiting for the day when the whole machine becomes a brick after it decides enough is enough (possible on its 40th birthday in 2027).

[@johnvanwinkle4351]

This is a really cool hardware device! I would like to see 286/386 emulation with pci/pcie slot capable.

[@TheAceWolfe01]

The wifi could definitely be improved simply by having an antenna outside the computer. Just a place to connect a regular wifi adaptor antenna on the back would be the simplest and cleanest solution for the end user

[@Ruskaga]

There were two versions of GEM on the PC, 1.0 and 2.0. Version 1.0 if I remember correctly was more capable and let you drag windows around.

[@jozsiolah1435]

You have to program the micro sd card’s physx processor with Samsung phone gaming, by getting the best cars and upgrades and playing. First the hc deletes, then beautiful physx will load and stays in the XC card, the A1 is a criminal feature, but the opponents’ criminality gets reduced after some playing. The card’s features, some of them will load and remains in the pc, and you can fix hundreds of devices with it. For example, the feature affects Doom, the dead enemies fall down from upper areas, and fall down the stairs. The best effect is on the car driving games, steering, crashes.

[@RetroSegaDev]

Wow what an amazing card!

[@jothain]

Cool. So it should be completely possible to access fairly modern smb1.0 shares from Windows or make little dedicated rpi nas next to seriously old hardware and access stuff wirelessly 😮

[@suitandtieguy]

Very impressive it does all that AND AdLib emulation. Is the AdLib emulation in this an open source project?

[@NightSprinter]

I'd absolutely want to get both this and the PicoGUS for my Amiga 2000 with 286 bridgeboard. Combine it with the ATI VGA Wonder XL/24 I have, I'd have quite a beast of a dual-purpose machine. Maybe tri-purpose, if I can find one of those Mac emulation boards. If the PicoMem can emulate NE2000, I wonder if that'd mean it would double as a network card for the A2000 via the bridgeboard with a proper Amiga driver?

[@saganandroid4175]

Anything with an ISA slot? What about big box Amigas? That wifi networking would be handy.

[@interlace84]

Awesome nostalgic vid! Some more great games to play/demo on that machine: Wolf3D (it should pick up the EMS memory and hopefully run on an 8086) Any Sierra Games (kings quest 3, police quest & leisure suit larry on 8088 & an amber display were golden memories) Also try Outrun, Streed Rod 2, Lemmings, Tunnels of Armageddon etc :)

[@squirlmy]

it may seem a bit like cheating, but Planet X3 and Petscii Robots are fun to play. Gameplay I'm sure 80s game designers wouldn't think possible on those CPUs

[@brentgreeff1115]

Awesome. Does this work with any IBM compatible? - That yellow monitor is amazing - wish the whole vid was camera capture.

[@wskinnyodden]

Himem.sys give you XMS - eXpanded memory ok, which expands directly from the base memory up. EMM386 gives you emulated EMS on top of Himem.sys, as EMS, like you see on the Pico will be mapped to within the 1st megabyte and is paged in and out as needed, so Extended Memory is correct for EMS as it extends a system that did not have support otherwise for large amounts of memory. EMS was intended as a way to have large amounts of memory on the XT.

[@Phil-D83]

These pi boards are remarkably useful

[@AladimBR]

Great review. Question: would PicoMEM still be a good addition for a Slot 1 / Socket 7 motherboard with ISA slots? The flexibility with floppy and hdd images would improve quality of life on retro pc setups when trying different things, swapping software (different startup DOS, OS/2, Win98) etc… plus the addon possibilities for joystick (usb), mice and other stuff.

[@paulov9626]

Now I can listen to Kernkraft 400 in real 8 bit splendour 🤣🤣

[@josefranciscocarrascobenit5403]

What about adding external antenna to the pico for better signaling?

[@galimirnund6543]

I haven't used ISA, industry standard architecture, (if I remember right) in years!! That was back in .... wish I had an old PC lol..

[@squirlmy]

funny industry story: Compaq and a group of clone makers coined the term "ISA" well after it came into existence, IBM left their the IBM PC bus nameless. They accepted the label, because they were trying to move the industry to their proprietary MCA bus. This was a clear sign that IBM was losing control of the PC market.

[@Nukle0n]

Sorry if I missed it but, if you're gonna swap floppy disks on the fly, like for a game that requires you to swap disks or that DOS installer, how does that work?

[@Flamelily-IT]

You absolutely can. From the Wiki page, "Can I change a Floppy after DOS Boot ? Yes, select an other image (A: Only) Press Left Ctrl + Shift +F2"

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

​@@Flamelily-ITNeed to run PMINIT /k to enable the keyboard shortcut

[@Flamelily-IT]

@@freddyvretrozone2849 ok Freddy, maybe its worth adding that to the Wiki entry

[@JeremysRetroBar]

I was wondering the same thing. Thanks for asking.

[@squirlmy]

Because most of the early PCs were sold without a hard drive, swapping out disks was fully implemented from the beginning. I'm guessing you're not old enough to remember physical 5.25" disk switching, in machines with two floppy drives and no hard disk!

[@al.d9592]

Very nice. Reminds me of Blue SCSI, which does not support sound or usb

[@thecount25]

Can we have a single card that combines PicoMEM and PicoGUS? I don't care if it's more expensive or needs two Picos. The fact that it only uses one slot makes it a perfect add-on for nearly every PC without many ISA slots.

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

Hi, it will be possible with new generation pico with more gpio.

[@thecount25]

@@freddyvretrozone2849 Why not just do it with more than one Pico? Could you make a PCB with three slots for Picos, and you can have it all now? The cards are cheap already, so I wonder if doubling or tripling the price will be much of an issue for most people with these types of systems ($150$ for a do-it-all ISA card). They don't even have to populate all the Picos up front.

[@thecount25]

@@freddyvretrozone2849 True, but it's possible now by just putting both designs on one board.

[@thecount25]

@@freddyvretrozone2849 Possible now too with 2 Picos

[@squirlmy]

the problem with many 8088 and 8086 PCs is that ISA slots are used for many other things, that would eventually be incorporated on the motherboard. So even with five or even 8 slots, the problem is that many of them are taken up with ordinary cards just for running disks, parallel and serial ports, joystick ports, etc.

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

What a beast!

[@paulstubbs7678]

The best part has to be that bonkers joystick! where do you get them?

[@SergiuszRoszczyk]

SimCity works perfectly fine on 8088 CPU with 640 kB of RAM. I was playing it back in the day, and recently run it on Hyundai Super16V which is TurboXT system. Your problem is that crappy EGA-like GPU that Atari did

[@squirlmy]

it's also one of the few games, really one of the few applications of any kind, that can utilize a math co-processor, like the 8087 or 287

[@SergiuszRoszczyk]

@@squirlmy good to know. One reason to put 80287 to my 286 board 👍🏻

[@jarnailbrar6732]

Amazing !

[@Flash1857]

ISA card, well Luke that’s a name I haven’t heard in ages

[@SlyInH3ll]

I'm still waiting for Tandy 1000 support. Haven't found an update on that lately 😢

[@ChristopherGaul]

This seems like it might also be a great addition to an Amiga Bridgeboard setup. Anyone care to test that and post the results?

[@mattsword41]

how does hdd speed compare vs f CF card on ide on higher end systems eg 486? Presume a fair bit slower due to 8 bit bus?

[@SomePotato]

Im only at minute 7, but I already want one for my Olivetti M24. Edit: Is it possible to swap floppy images at runtime? That would be essential to installing multi floppy software.

[@Vanessaira-Retro]

A very neat piece of kit. Should be pretty helpful in many various projects.

[@drzeissler]

I am thinking about an addon for my A2286 Bridgeboard....

[@drzeissler]

I can swap out my networkcard and get this thing instead....

[@cybernit3]

Maybe a powerful version could exist with SVGA, more memory, Soundblaster; if only they had things like this back then.

[@cdoty]

I wonder at what point the bandwidth of a single ISA slot would become an issue?

[@jeroentaverne8232]

​@cdoty All ISA slots are in parallel anyway so bandwidth is shared

[@SockyNoob]

Amazing what people are making nowadays.

[@phillipzx3754]

My other computer is an Amiga 3000/40.

[@TempAccount358]

Can you use a USB keyboard with this card?

[@MarcKloos]

You didn't show how to change floppy disk images from within DOS.

[@Flamelily-IT]

Run PMINIT /k to enable the keyboard shortcut, which is Left Ctrl + Shift +F2 to select an other image (A: Only)

[@Denvermorgan2000]

Cool card.

[@AlT-vt3gb]

what does it add? just one card for all?

[@AlT-vt3gb]

is it hard to find a serial mouse now? are old adlib cards hard to find, is memory expensive to upgrade these machines? just wondering.

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

​@@AlT-vt3gbHi, Yes, Yes and Yes 😀 I don't tell that because I am the PicoMEM creator :) I was really surprised how reactive the usb mouse and joystick are. I enjoyed playong with a joystick the first time in my life with it on xenon 2.

[@peteconradjr.8605]

Why would it use micro usb of all things

[@Mr_Meowingtons]

How is that tellnet star wars thing still working i tried that 3 weeks ago and i cant get it to work on any PC i try it on :(

[@MarcKloos]

Did you load ANSI.sys?

[@ArtemAleksashkin]

That's funny, but pico can run even doom

[@IkarusKommt]

...or one can forego old hardware and use rpico directly....

[@Yesterzine]

I'm guessing you know this but not everyone will. Commander Keen started life as a pitch from id to Nintendo to do a PC version of Super Mario Brothers 1 on NES. Shockingly Nintendo didn't go for it and so they retooled it as their own character.

[@tychothefriendlymonolith]

More flux, good sir. More flux.

[@darak2]

Well, it's certainly cheating (putting a far more powerful computer inside of another and relying on emulation) but as hardware becomes older and more expensive, using intelligent hardware to interface with the modern world, or add any missing parts, is going to become more and more common.

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

Hi, Like explained by Ian in another post, it is a microcontroller and power is needed to emulate hardware to be able to react in some nano seconds... A gotek Only emulating floppy has a cortex M4 cpu, this is cortex M0....

[@neakmenter]

Did you just give us your WiFi password????

[@MikeKranidis]

Probably yes but, are you planning to go external to his house to gain access to his Wi-Fi router?

[@neakmenter]

@@MikeKranidis well. not me personally - that'd be proper weird! lol, but he has previously documented where the workshop is... and some people are proper weird...

[@mrdali67]

What a horrorendous screen .. LOL 😂

[@kimberlyjacobsen4148]

Overpowered Soundcard 🤣🤣🤣

[@Aranimda]

The fact that you have to solder on parts is beyond me. It alienates many users who do not have the skill and equipment to do so. It's a pity that it is not a solution that works out of the box.

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

Hi, You can buy it with the DAC solder. I send him the picomem before the dac was supported 😉

[@James_T_Quirk]

Once again you IBM Users catch up to Amiga's ... Pi Zero's work for Amiga's as well, where they are called a Pistorm...

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

Hi, I did the PicoMEM with inspiration from the Pistorm, even if I had the idea before the Pistorm arrived. My other inspiration were the C64 microsd and Finalgrom (ti99). At hardware level, it is totally different, pistorm use a cpld and regular pi. Picomem use a Pi pico (microcontroller) and does not replace the cpu.

[@James_T_Quirk]

@@freddyvretrozone2849 OK, I am long term user, started before DOS, with CPM, I do not need to relive the Speed of going from Z80 to 8086 or 80286, but Very Nice adding all the Sound, USB, RAM, SD Card etc, All Great, I may even get 1 for a Old Chendai 286 LapCrusher I have here, but I may have to update its screen, You have given me work to do !!, I would be Happy if it included a TURBO Button some 4 core CPU maybe overkill, but Broderbunds Ancient Art of War will run @ full tilt ... 😃Thanks for your Efforts in C64 as well as I still have Vic20's, C64's, Amiga's I do like to see at least the possibility of a Upgrade ...

[@SergiuszRoszczyk]

Pi Pico is not Pi Zero, so IBM PC doesn’t need separate computer to emulate computer - ok, that’s joke of course ;)

[@Sjeedughait]

like the rest of the world, does not excist. completly censured out. weird dude.

[@arty2k]

What a waste of good hardware!

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

? Did you see all the vidéos about pico used to blink Led ? Lot of good hardware (computers) were saved by the picomem

[@PeterRichardsandYoureNot]

Is this neat that this little board can emulate about 80% of the hardware in an old xt? Yes. It’s pretty neat…but that’s about it! There is absolutely no need for this on any level. I mean, these old xt boxes with 286 class processors don’t even support protected mode and barely support expanded memory! I mean, why would you want to run an old pos hardware that has massive energy needs for so little computer power! All of this is made moot by dosbox or any one of a hundred other emulators that run on both windows and macOS giving full dos support for running old dos software if needed. I mean running dos itself is not exactly fun…it’s an old txt based os. It has nothing fun to do that makes you sit there and go “you know, I really miss running that dos command…fdisk!” And in virtual machines you can swap stuff around super fast and have access to network infrastructure through the host. I find this to be the most useless piece of hardware I’ve have seen reviewed, bar none.

[@humidbeing]

This thing removes all the stuff I find fun and nostalgic about using old computers. No thanks. This is for lazy casuals.

[@sweetlilmre]

@@humidbeing the stuff YOU find fun. The "lazy casuals" remark is just gatekeeping bullshit, try harder, be better.

[@GoatTheGoat]

Using such a device completely ruins the retro PC experience. The PicoMem is orders of magnitude more powerful than the PC you connected it to.

[@ianpolpo]

You do you if you want to use 100% original hardware. I wouldn’t really say it’s orders of magnitude more powerful though. This uses the RP2040 which is a microcontroller. It’s lower specced in some ways than the Cortex-M4 microcontroller in a Gotek floppy emulator, for example. The fact that it can do more than the Gotek with less horsepower is impressive.

[@sweetlilmre]

I guess it all depends on how you define "the retro PC experience". If you're into the self flagellation aspects of retro hardware, where you spend more time trying to get a system running than actually enjoying it, then I guess you have some kind of a point. Albeit not a great one.

[@T3hBeowulf]

As ridiculous as it seems, I'm happy to have the following pieces of delightful overkill connected or installed in my 486: * a PicoGUS (similar DNA, RP2040 based ISA card). It has excellent GUS emulation and a Wavetable header. * In the Wavetable spot, I have a McCake running mt32pi on a RP4 Compute module to emulate the Roland MT-32. * Outside the system, I have a USB4VC with a RPi4-1GB board that accepts a USB keyboard, USB mouse and Xbox 360 controller and plugs into the PS/2, Serial and 15pin game ports on the computer. That 486 is none-the-wiser for the sheer power of compute handling its peripherals and yet, I still happily call this a valid and acceptable retro-computing experience.

[@kunka592]

One man's "ruined retro PC experience" is another man's amazing retro PC experience, I guess.

[@DaveVelociraptor]

Gatekeeping bollocks. Using this device can replicate one or more missing features or cards from an old machine. If that bothers you don't use it. "Completely ruins" is nonsense