🇦🇺 Amstrad CPC PicoROM: Part 1 (Building & flashing) [TCE #0519]

Big thanks to @MBCallow for giving me a PCB for his quite simple ROM board design ... a Raspberry Pi Pico, some diodes and an edge connector.

Collecting the ROMs is probably the most difficult part ... people seem to think any software for a vintage computer is a "ROM" ... argh ... I put them in the same class of people who, just to annoy me I assume, pronounce "8x" as "8 ex" instead of "8 times" ... 🤯

Matt is still working out the kinks with flashing it on a non-Linux environment (I had issues with MacOS and WIn10) ... but it does work!

I tried it out on my Schneider CPC, and I'm planning to try it out on the Amstrad 464plus and 6128plus as well (with a suitable Centronics-to-edge connector, and then one with a built-in Centronics connector). It should work on Amstrad CPC 464, 664 and 6128.

More to come in Part 2 once I understand how to use it:

A big thanks to @MrWaalkman (as always) for sending me the Pico - hopefully he doesn't mind me using it for this!

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Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio

[VKFVAX]

Nice one! Makes me wish I hadn't given the 6128 away.

[MrWaalkman]

Glad to see that the Pico came in handy!

[whetphish]

Good to know you managed to get this working - I've been trying for a while now. At 16:16, you say you were able to transfer the files on your Windows 10 machine. How did you do this? Whenever I try, as soon as I drop one .UF2 file onto the mounted drive in File Explorer, it ejects. Then, if I put it into BOOTSEL mode again, and drop the next one, it does the same thing. I end up with the CPC booting with CPC 6128 ROMs on my 464, but none of the RSX commands work. I asked Matt about this on the CPCWiki forum, but so far haven't heard back.

[telemedic]

I’m not the only one that gets vexed about the term “roms”. I think this dates back to mame and mess. As all the games in arcade machines are held in rom. These days if I want a machines roms, I search for firmware. I feel your pain

[WacKEDmaN]

you shoulda just put right angle pins on that board, not the edge connector....and then used it in one of the MX4 extensions...that way ya can run the ROM board and say a RAM board (and others) at the same time..
the M4 wifi board i have is pretty much the same functionality, just upload the roms via the wifi interface..(or load via commands on the CPC)...but much, much easier to use

[MichaelEhling]

"Not rehearsed." Heck. What fun would your channel be if rehearsed? :)