Microdisc replacement project

This is the right place to discuss on how to implement hardware vsync, adding a VIA or AY chipset, puting multiple roms, or how to design a new flash expansion card.
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ibisum
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Post by ibisum »

Wow, this is so exciting! I can't wait to get my first Cumulus board! :)
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ibisum
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Post by ibisum »

Yup and rightly so - anything that brings these classic systems into the limelight is worth the press, imho!

I haven't heard from him about the shipment of boards, but I'm really waiting with baited breath to see some sign of life!
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ibisum
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Post by ibisum »

UPDATE: My Cumulus (beta) board arrived this week! I'll be spending some time this weekend getting the necessary power and other cables set up so that I can get cracking at hacking with it on my Atmos collection!

Much, much gratitude to you retromaster, and to all the other Oric hackers keeping our lovely machines alive. I can't wait until the Cumulus solution is wide-spread and we see ourselves entering a new era of unlimited storage for new Oric applications! WOW, its amazing having so much storage on this system! :)
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Post by Dbug »

Lucky you :)

I had plans to help Retromaster by looking at the firmware code, but did not manage to find the time to actually do anything :(
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Post by Symoon »

Oooooh lucky one ;-)
Please tell us your first impressions soon!
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ibisum
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Post by ibisum »

My first impression is: it kicks ass! I absolutely cannot describe how amazing it feels to be able to load up a DSK file on my Atmos machine and use it, just like I had a real microdisc unit attached. Simply: WOW!

I've got to stop playing with it and start finding bugs now, though .. ;) I'd love to make the GUI a little more intuitive - it'd be superb to have a debug mode that shows you in more finer detail what is being written and 'where' on the virtual disk .. I think I could manage that.

But for now I will just play a bit, and get used to having an Oric with nearly-infinite storage in my grips! Its truly an amazing feeling after having longed for such capabilities for 20+ years ..
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Post by barnsey123 »

1 for me please...

While we're at it, is anyone thinking of re-creating the ATMOS in an FPGA (like the Minimig? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimig ). I see Torlus was doing something with an Oric-1 implementation - anyone know what the latest is there?

I'm worried about my Atmos lasting the distance and it'd be nice to have new hardware - this cumulus device looks like half the battle won already...wire up that to Torlus's oric-1 and we have brand-new oric hardware for 2011!

It's a great time for Retro stuff. Haven't touched my PS3 in a while... :D :D :D
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Post by ibisum »

I would love for Torlus to finish his project and produce an Oric-on-a-chip .. Something like an Atmos2 with SD-cards for disc would be amazing, especially if it were hand-held and had a built-in LCD screen ..

But in the meantime, I get a lot of love from my Pandora handheld, running Oricutron. This, for me, is what I always wanted in my teens: an Oric in my pocket! :)
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Post by Torlus »

Well, my Oric project would need a full rewrite ;)
Maybe some day... I've played a bit with the 6502 core of the FPGA64 project (http://www.syntiac.com/fpga64.html), and it would be perfect for this task.
I agree that a FPGA-based handhled would be great, as there are many FPGA cores available nowadays.
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Post by Symoon »

Just discovered there are now some Wifi or Bluetooth SD cards.
Do you think this could be used with our Orics, or would the drivers be so complicated or memory/CPU hungry that our good old machine will never be able to use them?
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ibisum
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Post by ibisum »

I think it'd be quite diffficult to easily add an SD-wifi card to the Oric/Atmos, even with the Cumulus interface ..

Wasn't there some sort of online browser/email client that was built for the smaller 8-bit systems, back-ported to the Atmos? I seem to remember some sort of online suite which was (amazingly) ported to work on the Atmos somehow, with a modem ..
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Post by ibisum »

Thats it! I have been wondering how well this works, maybe its time to build it and try it out ..
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barnsey123
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Cumulus case Concept

Post by barnsey123 »

All,

The following link contains a JPG of a case concept for the Cumulus device. Currently, Ibisum is in the process of putting a prototype case together and he like this design. Any feedback would be welcome.

Although not shown on the image the underside of the lid may contain useful information (multi-lingual instructions, support contact details etc - if room allows.

Try to picture it next to your machine. Although based on atmos colors it should be possible to create an oric-1 style batch if sufficient demand...I don't think we're that far yet though...

Image
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