PicoMEM Project : Pi Pico on an ISA Board.

[sampson]

I just received my PicoMEM today and plan to put it into one of my Book8088 systems. I'll start playing with UMBs and floppy support first, and report back if I have any notable observations.

 

[Betamax80]

I just received my PicoMEM today and plan to put it into one of my Book8088 systems. I'll start playing with UMBs and floppy support first, and report back if I have any notable observations.

I must say floppy support is generally excellent - everything is only really for pure DOS mode.

 

[jdredd]

Got my PicoMem v1.11 board today!

IBM Model 30 - 8086 - 640k - NEC V30 8mhz CPU with math coprocessor.

Installed, along with the Trident 1mb VGA card and CH375 card with FreddyV drivers.

Card set to IRQ 3

1) Not 100% sure what I did, but my main disk drive got corrupted right away. I should have removed it first? Nothing important lost.
2) Adlib works! Rail Road Tycoon sounded great!
3) Made 256mb HDD Image - Works great so far. DOS 6.22 Installed.
4) WIFI works great so far. Using the NE2000 from PicoMem Github. Also mTCP for all internet traffic support.
5) EMS - Using PicoMem EMS driver from GitHub - nothing found?
6) EMS - Using LoTech EMS driver - 2mb found and works ( I have a lotech 2mb card I removed so had been using this before )
7) Every time I turn system off, EMS settings are cleared out, and I have to re-enable it?
8) Every time I turn system off, USB Host ( i set to off) is back to ON again?
9) Not 100% sure related yet to #8?... CTMouse.exe is what i've used in past. It seems to detect my PS2 mouse. But mouse is virtually unresponsive. Stuck in bottom corner.
10) If forget to put in microSD card, and try to create an HDD image. It doesn't seem to have a fail message? But if you do have microSD in but didn't make the HDD folder, it knows folder doesn't exist and complains.
- Did not test floppy image support
11) I like the PicoMem BIOS like setup. Would like to see maybe A save option? So can exit without saving changes?

Other than some qwirks maybe, this is really cool. Can remove hard drive / rj45 network card / lotech card ... and replace with 1 card. And now I have 1 open slot free. ( I have a riser card with a 4th slot on back side )

I'll mess with it more tonight / this week. I think it has latest firmware and such but could be wrong.

 

[jdredd]

Comparisons of storage speed tests I've done. Kind of interesting I think.

PicoMem - Virtual HDD - 256mb
Write Speed : 856.98 KB/s
Read Speed : 1080.74 KB/s
8k Random, 70% read : 14.9 IOPS
Sector random read : 18.7 IOPS
---------------------------------
ISA>USB - CH375 / FreddyV Drivers ( 1gb USB thumb drive )
Write Speed : 240.98 KB/s
Read Speed : 282.49 KB/s
8k Random, 70% read : 12.7 IOPS
Sector Random read : 21.2 IOPS
---------------------------------
PS2XT2SD ( 32gb microSD card , 256mb partition)
Write Speed : 138.33 KB/s
Read Speed : 248.69 KB/s
8k Random, 70% read : 7.2 IOPS
Sector Random read : 9.7 IOPS
---------------------------------
Lo-tech XT-CF-lite rev.2 ( 512mb CF card, 256mb partition )
Write Speed : 166.44 KB/s
Read Speed : 181.08 KB/s
8k Random, 70% read : 13.8 IOPS
Sector Random read : 32.4 IOPS

 

[jdredd]

I think another issue I am having is WIFI dropping / becoming unresponsive after some idle time has passed.
Usually a few minutes if that... like.. i dunno... 5 ?

Router sits right next to the system. And only this system is connected to it.

I run a web server from the system.

It works for a while but then quits responding to anything.

If I reboot all is well again... until it idles for a bit.

Using the mTCP HTTPSERV

 

[jdredd]

Got some time tonight to play with the PicoMem board.

1) Small visual bug. Set IRQ to 10 for WIFI. Then set it to say.... 9. It will now show 90 on the screen.
2) Set the EMS Port to 2A8. Now the PMEMM.exe detected the EMS and 4mb of EMS memory showed up.
3) One time, with PMMOUSE.exe ... I got Divide overflow error? I still have yet to get my PS2 mouse to work if PicoMem is installed. The IBM Model 30 has two PS/2 ports. Uninstall board, boot off floppy or old drive, and mouse works.
4) I switched to PM2000.com which works it seems.
5) Even with using PM2000.com, my HTTPServ goes silent after a while. If I keep hitting up the web server it works. But if i leave it idle for a few minutes. No longer works.

 

[FreddyV]

My PicoMem board will be here tomorrow! Eager to try it out in my IBM Model 30 with the NEC V30 8mhz.
Got the Adlib add on also.

Things of interest for me.

1) WIFI Internet vs hared wired car installed.
2) Adlib quality
3) EMS support vs LoTech 2mb card installed.

I don't see this on the list of tested devices, but hoping this works out well!

Any concerns / settings /ect I should know / worry about?

Hi,
You need to check the doc on the Github.
For IBM Model 30, you may have difficulties to have the legacy disk working.
Also, be carefull about possible port / ROM Address conflict.

 

[FreddyV]

Hi @FreddyV - having issues getting the USB OTG mouse support to work (I have a 3 port OTG hub) - I have a book8088 v2, and wondered if the serial / parallel irq's are causing an issue?

I use it on the Book as well, so no conflict with existing internal hardware.
I did a special section on the Book8088 on the Github:

Computer Specific configuration

PicoMEM Doc and Firmware. Contribute to FreddyVRetro/ISA-PicoMEM development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[FreddyV]

Got some time tonight to play with the PicoMem board.

1) Small visual bug. Set IRQ to 10 for WIFI. Then set it to say.... 9. It will now show 90 on the screen.
2) Set the EMS Port to 2A8. Now the PMEMM.exe detected the EMS and 4mb of EMS memory showed up.
3) One time, with PMMOUSE.exe ... I got Divide overflow error? I still have yet to get my PS2 mouse to work if PicoMem is installed. The IBM Model 30 has two PS/2 ports. Uninstall board, boot off floppy or old drive, and mouse works.
4) I switched to PM2000.com which works it seems.
5) Even with using PM2000.com, my HTTPServ goes silent after a while. If I keep hitting up the web server it works. But if i leave it idle for a few minutes. No longer works.

IRQ > 7 is not supported for the moment, I added the possibility for >7 for my tests.
3) I am not totally sure about the IRQ used by PS/2, maybe conflict ?
5) Interresting, Check if there is no problem in the wifi power mode is in my plan.

 

[FreddyV]

Got my PicoMem v1.11 board today!

IBM Model 30 - 8086 - 640k - NEC V30 8mhz CPU with math coprocessor.

Installed, along with the Trident 1mb VGA card and CH375 card with FreddyV drivers.

Card set to IRQ 3

1) Not 100% sure what I did, but my main disk drive got corrupted right away. I should have removed it first? Nothing important lost.
2) Adlib works! Rail Road Tycoon sounded great!
3) Made 256mb HDD Image - Works great so far. DOS 6.22 Installed.
4) WIFI works great so far. Using the NE2000 from PicoMem Github. Also mTCP for all internet traffic support.
5) EMS - Using PicoMem EMS driver from GitHub - nothing found?
6) EMS - Using LoTech EMS driver - 2mb found and works ( I have a lotech 2mb card I removed so had been using this before )
7) Every time I turn system off, EMS settings are cleared out, and I have to re-enable it?
8) Every time I turn system off, USB Host ( i set to off) is back to ON again?
9) Not 100% sure related yet to #8?... CTMouse.exe is what i've used in past. It seems to detect my PS2 mouse. But mouse is virtually unresponsive. Stuck in bottom corner.
10) If forget to put in microSD card, and try to create an HDD image. It doesn't seem to have a fail message? But if you do have microSD in but didn't make the HDD folder, it knows folder doesn't exist and complains.
- Did not test floppy image support
11) I like the PicoMem BIOS like setup. Would like to see maybe A save option? So can exit without saving changes?

Other than some qwirks maybe, this is really cool. Can remove hard drive / rj45 network card / lotech card ... and replace with 1 card. And now I have 1 open slot free. ( I have a riser card with a 4th slot on back side )

I'll mess with it more tonight / this week. I think it has latest firmware and such but could be wrong.

1) Ok, Really sorry for that, the only thing I can think about is an issue with DMA I am already working to correct it.
7) I found why, just create a config.txt blank file on the uSD and EMS settings will stay. (Corrected in my current internal release)
8) I will check that.
10) To check as well.
11) It is in the plan... when I have time

For proper follow up, maybe you can add a bug entry on the GitHub ?

 

[jdredd]

For proper follow up, maybe you can add a bug entry on the GitHub ?

I created a number of issues on github for you to track.

Other than some silly things to deal with, this thing is so cool otherwise!

 

[sampson]

Got some time to play around with the PicoMEM on the Book8088 and was able to get UMBs working which was my primary goal. I'll start playing with disk images and stuff later. SB support would be bad ass! I have DOS 6.22 booting up with 10KB used conventional RAM so I'm pretty happy with it. I'm using a combination of USE!UMBS.sys with DOSMax/ShellMax @ D200-F000 - I'm not sure if this is the correct range or method/drivers but it seems to be OK so far. Thanks Freddy and community!

 

[docangle]

I ma having trouble trying to get adlib support going, the LED on the sound card/chip is red, and I am using the following pin outs on PicoMem 1.11 Board to Sound Card/Chip:

VSYS/5V -- VIN
GND -- GND
GP28/TX -- LCK
GP26 -- DIN
GP27 -- BCK
GND -- SCK

In the PicoMem I had both options under audio set to on.

 

[jdredd]

I ma having trouble trying to get adlib support going, the LED on the sound card/chip is red, and I am using the following pin outs on PicoMem 1.11 Board to Sound Card/Chip:

VSYS/5V -- VIN
GND -- GND
GP28/TX -- LCK
GP26 -- DIN
GP27 -- BCK
GND -- SCK

In the PicoMem I had both options under audio set to on.

That seems correct. I got one if these and plopped it right on, turned the adlib support on and it worked without any hassle for myself.
I too have the 1.11 board.

 

[docangle]

View attachment 1282288

That seems correct. I got one if these and plopped it right on, turned the adlib support on and it worked without any hassle for myself.
I too have the 1.11 board.

I purchased these from Aliexpress a while back. They look the same, I just used the female-to-female pin connectors that came in the package, the board does light up RED, and I downloaded the adlib jukebox, it has a test file and it says it is playing but no sound. Are you using headphones or powered speakers? it should work with either albeit low sound with no powered headphones. I am wondering if these need to be programmed somehow? Kind of doubt it I don't see any eprom capabilities on the device.

 

[docangle]

I found out the issue, you have to set the jumpers on the back of the card via solder pads. Found info @ https://github.com/polpo/picogus/wiki/Building-your-PicoGUS

 

[jdredd]

Ah, I got mine from Texelec ( who i got picomem from ) so assume they must have did this already.

 

[sampson]

I found out the issue, you have to set the jumpers on the back of the card via solder pads. Found info @ https://github.com/polpo/picogus/wiki/Building-your-PicoGUS

great catch. looks like the DACs I ordered already use this jumper configuration, but I will be on the look-out.

I ordered a 4-pack of GY-PCM5102 I2S IIS DACs and may end up with 1 or 2 extras - I'd be happy to mail it out to someone that could make good use of it

 

[sampson]

Got my PicoMem v1.11 board today!...
5) EMS - Using PicoMem EMS driver from GitHub - nothing found?
6) EMS - Using LoTech EMS driver - 2mb found and works ( I have a lotech 2mb card I removed so had been using this before )
7) Every time I turn system off, EMS settings are cleared out, and I have to re-enable it?

Hi, did you get EMS working reliably on the Book8088? I missed where you used the LoTech driver. I was able to get the PicoMEM driver to load and do something but the system has a hard-lock or 'divide overflow' within a few seconds of booting DOS (if it even finishes booting). UMBs are working great but It'd be really neat to see an XT showing >1MB RAM just for fun or to try running Doom8088. Which PicoMEM BIOS settings are you using (EMS port, etc) and what config.sys/driver arguments? thx

 

[Betamax80]

This is interesting - I've been using the PicoMEM EMS driver and have been able to get 4mb!
I've also been playing with USE!UMB - this has been very fiddly on the Book8088 and has certainly caused some hangs - I've now got it working but as I have the VGA card there is very little net benefit to using it.