Just a small clarification: The '245 buffers are required on this project due to the way the Address and Data lines are multiplexed going into the RP2040. There aren't enough GPIO lines without doing that when combined with the GPIO needs of the HDMI connector.
I have been working on my own retro computer project using the RP2040 and much of the information often citied about when you can attach an RP2040 to a 5v bus is misleading or outright incorrect. The RP2040 is not actually 5v tolerant in most situations and the official datasheet says it is not 5v tolerant. It can theoretically accept 5v inputs if the VDDIO pin can be guaranteed to be powered before any signals are applied but that is very hard to do in most situations. Most RP2040 chips do appear to be able to survive 5v signals for a period of time in spite of this but it is not a good idea. It causes the ESD ESD protection diodes in the RP2040 to draw current from the data lines and as a result sinks far more drive current from devices on the 5v bus than it really should. This in turn can potentially cause extra stress on possibly irreplaceable vintage ICs. There really is little reason to even attempt to use the RP2040 directly on a 5v bus given that proper level shifters are both plentiful and cheap - even bi-directional ones. They also provide a form of isolation in the same way that buffer chips do which is also generally good design practice for digital circuits.
The PCB of the original video board are gold plated while the board with the Raspberry Pi Pico are not - they are HASL. This board will gradually destroy your Apple II's edge connector. All properly fabricated PCBs for edge connection contact use ENIG of 2u or more or hard gold plating.
The RP2350 Pico 2 will have them as it it can have up to 18 additional GPIO, as well as GPIO for ADC, so it would also be possible to say add Mockingboard emulation as well and feed it over the HDMI
I'm the developer of the A2DVI firmware - and worked with Ralle on this project. There several reasons why the IIgs is currently not supported. One is that it supports arbitrary colors (configurable palette). The DVI/HDMI uses a protocol. The PICO isn't fast enough to really compute this on the fly. A2DVI needs to use a trick, basically relying on precomputed protocol fragments - prepared for each pixel combination that it ever needs to display. Works great with Apple II due to fixed and limited colors. IIgs would increase the difficulty by a lot (pre-computed table size would explode). Also, the IIgs supports "scan line interrupts". IIgs software can change the palette in between scan lines. So, it's not enough to just render the screen: but each scan line would need to be rendered at the exact correct moment of time, using the current palette settings. That adds a whole new layer of complexity. Maybe the PICO2 is able to do it. Maybe we'll have to wait for another successor - like PICO3... The remaining issues with Video7 mentioned by Adrian in the video are already fixed with the latest firmware. Also, the suggestion to use the switch for video mode configuration is already supported now. Final comment: (--comment redacted by me: I was originally being "very critical" here of some "clone" designs of the original A2DVI PCB, which we published on github with Gerbers+KiCad. My criticism included Chris and his variant shown here in this video. My criticism wasn't quite fair and hit the wrong person. I apologise - and therefore removed this part of the comment...).
If you need the bandwidth to handle the IIgs video (and even audio over the HDMI port) you might want to look at cheap Chinese FPGA modules like the Sipeed Tang Nano 9K. It’s a different tool set and way of thinking, but you have vastly more bandwidth available (750MHz x 3, 720p capable) without the need to pre-compute things. It adds to the BoM costs a little, but not horribly so ($20 for the Sipeed vs $5 for a Pi Nano).
30:12 I'm now convinced that 3D bar charts were expressly invented to demo the graphical abilities of 80s computers. I've never seen them used in any serious context.
Oh no? What about those HPGL pen plotters? They were amazing and produced the best 3D bar graphs ever in slow real time. (I seriously want one before they cost $1000's just like they did back in the day)
The chip in the Pico 2 (RP2350) can do DVI output without overclocking or PIO. It has a new capability called high-speed transmit (HSTX) which is specifically dusigned for applications like this.
The analog effects mode is amazing! Thanks for the side-by-side comparison. I love how it simulates the analog video world with a modern tool in a way that preserves the essence and feel of the vintage experience. This is a spot-on implementation.
9:15 - you should use a Level shifter with a RP2040/Pico if you are connecting its GPIOs to anything that isnt 3.3V because iirc its not officially 5V tolerant, means you might end up killing some picos or killing them over time.
@@owenvogelgesang7314 Actually the 5v tolerance was removed as of Aug data sheet update.... there is now a caveat that 5v is only tolerant if the IOVDD is powered by 3V3, thus you still need level shifters.
The maximum voltage for GPIOs in floating mode (a.k.a. input) is 5.0V for the RP2040, which doesn't qualify for the label "5V-tolerant", which requires the pins to tolerate 5.5V (10% margin). The RP2350 tolerates 5.5V, but as was mentioned before, with some caveats.
I got the A2 Analog VGA card after watching your earlier video, but I got hooked running it in its CP/M mode which disables its VGA functionality. Now I can use that with a separate HDMI card! Freaking sweet! Thanks for letting us know about this card!
i am currently building a HDMI card for the Sinclair spectrum , waiting for parts so not there yet but again the pi is proving to be the friend of the retro gamer
I think the new RP235x microcontroller might just have enough pins with the larger pin count variant. As well as faster CPUs and 3rd PIO block. Having hardware floats might help a bit too if needed.
already done with the graphics gremlin isa card, someone made a hdmi revision a while ago - will say that all these fan cards are pretty expensive, just getting a vga isa card and using a cheap adapter is more viable imo.
What Chris said about the traces is 100% true. HDMI/DVI use differential pairs. The pairs of traces act as transmission line and must be impedance matched using a PCB calculator tool. Matching the length of the traces is also critical.
Honestly, I've had a VGA card for my Apple IIe that I'm very happy with for ages, so I've mostly given projects like this a miss, but I'm sorely tempted to upgrade just to get that Analog FX emulation. The difference on the text is fantastic. Thanks for showing the comparison of that!
Love your videos. Every time I get a notification I know it's gonna be part mad scientist, part repair and part master class complete with a history lesson presented in a light-hearted and fun manner. Good stuff and keep it up.
Absolutely incredible! I really hope that the SHR modes and text color combinations from the Apple IIGS are eventually supported. My original CRT IIGS monitor is starting to show its age and I would love an inexpensive option to connect a modern display to it.
Cool product. It's great that they have so many options on their firmware. There's always the odd graphic screen that relies on color artifacting that u may want.
When I was a young lad my parents purchased a used Apple II+. It came with a nice green screen monitor, 1 disk drive, 64k upgrade language card, Okidata 82a printer, and Grappler + print card. The place I worked at had a Sun Remarketing catalogs. I wanted to run apple works and I know you could add another disk drive, and 80 column card. However due to the cost of even the disk drives. I sold my Apple II+ and invested into my Pc-Clone. Now it is years later I found out about, cpm card, and tons of other goodies like a rgb card. If I would have known the CPM card existed and a few other things. Probably would still have it. I loved playing with CPM on Kaypros. Speaking of RGB. I remember walking into a Radio Shack and looking at a Deck out CoCo 3 with RGB on it. It looks like a real computer. Compared to the TRS-80 Coco I had going to a small b/w tv.
Incredible work! I'd love to see this built into an old MAU case for the Apple IIc. Already has the 15-pin connector cut-out... (something like a CentreCom AT-210TS) With that, a WiFiModem, and a FloppyEMU, we'll be laughing with the "unexpandable" IIc.
I just picked up a PICO9918 which is basically the same idea as this, but it replaces the TMS-9918 and 9928 in devices like the Coleco Adam/Colecovision, and any other computer/game that uses the 9918. It outputs VGA. It is very cool!
The RP2040 chip on the Pi Pico is rated at 133 MHz and all these RP2040 DVI tricks require running it at 252 MHz. That’s a 90% overclock. The RP2350 has a double pumped high speed transmitter and hardware TMDS encoder so it can do VGA resolution at only 126 MHz. It’s just a much better solution, and the chip is basically the same price. Hopefully we’ll see these projects all move over.
I can't wait to get a stack of RP2350 boards and chips. I've built my own 8-bit/16-bit "computer" by designing cores that run on a few RP2040's that each act like purpose built chips that handle different aspects of the computer. Sure, it's technically just emulation that I started to replicate a Z80 and 8086 compatible system similar to my NEC PC88VA3, but it was a fun project nonetheless for me that's more interested in low level/bare-metal programming. I've since moved to a software based "fantasy computer" (thing Tic80) that uses a module approach to design different "expansion cards" that are purely software implementation to act as virtual graphics/sound cards and more. I/O, Storage, Serial, etc. are integrated into the main core that's a fantasy CPU that uses a faux Assembly instructions similar to both a Z80 or 8086 depending on the mode you're in. That project is running off a newer Radxa Zero to simplify it, just being deployed as a contained ultra light Linux setup over bare-metal to keep it easier to set up for new people to learn about computers with. I've considered rewriting for bare-metal using RP2350(s) on a purpose built board, but with the goal of being easy to run and access, I'd rather just built it for a lightweight lower power SBC so basically any compatible SBC can run it from there on up.
there is no problem to run your fantasy computer on rp2040. i have zx spectrum 128k emulation + ay8910 emulation + vga and dvi + ram expansion up to 2048k emulation + ula plus (64 color graphics) emulation and all these things on single pi pico rp2040
THAT is a super-cool project. Here's a crazy idea: Replace the pico with a picow and update the software to add wireless lights-out functionality. Maybe with RDP and/or VNC support... it could even have a simple SSH mode.... soooo many posibilities!
Gets a custom PCB in 2024, if only people had more of these cards back in the day and apple carried over support for them... my guy it didn't happen because no one had the hardware. It was cost prohibitive for the time. Its great to see you max out Apple II hardware though.
WOW ! ... never knew about this video7 board even though I have used A2 since the 13 sector II days and later II+ clones, IIe! ... and also Dazzle Draw crystal clear in colour! ...... so if foreground and background text screen colour is able to be controlled in the video7 mode, the implication is that a colour (color) ANSI text terminal emulation would be possible (at least for regular alpha numeric characters in 40 column mode) !
Unfortunately it wouldn't work as is, but with an interposer under the CPU. This project here is supposed to do it using the IIc video port but I don't think the hardware is out yet. github.com/V2RetroComputing/v2c-firmware You best bet is the RGB2HDMI project which can decode the serial data right from the IIc video port perfectly. github.com/IanSB/RGBtoHDMI
@@EEVblog Hello Mr EEVblog. Hopefully Adrian will answer, but I can help: This project can’t do that, but another project the, the A2C Tangy Pack can. It uses a Tang Nano 9K fpga dev board (that probably has the power to run an Apple II core). There is a video from KansasFest about a month ago covering it and ct6502 has video on it 3 weeks ago: “163: Hook your Apple IIe and IIc up to HDMI”
The Pico 2 is even better for this too, the Raspberry Pi team saw that people were using PIO for stuff like DVI video, so they added a HSTX peripheral to RP2350 which is specially designed to handle software defined high speed digital output cleanly.
Software defined CGA/EGA card for the PC next? Having a card support composite decoding in CGA modes while still supporting RGB EGA modes at the same time would be really nice.
I like your idea of switching between color and monochrome, but I'm guessing it would be easier to just add another accessible GPIO pin. Then you wouldn't have to hack the machine itself, the modification would transfer to any machine where you use this card. I thought everyone in our "field" knew DVI and HDMI are signal compatible. You just need a passive adapter to interface them. This has allowed me to keep many old monitors working until they just fall over from old age, all with a $3 or so passive adapter bolted to the back. DVI doesn't support audio, but I never expected my monitor to handle audio, so that's fine.
While the RP2040 is 5v tolerant, I have seen people say that the load it puts on the 5V side might cause damage. Using level shifters just makes it safer for a little extra cost.
i never had much exposure to the Apple ][, as it wasn't as popular here in Germany as it was in North America (for one, the NTSC artifact color wouldn't work in the PAL part of the world), but I think it is cool that there are enthusiasts out there creating new hardware to keep these vintage home computers running. What does make me chuckle though (and I don't mean that in any bad way, it is just funny) is the fact that the RP2040 on this adapter has orders of magnitude more "computational oomph" while costing a fraction of what an Apple ][ cost back in the day. It's like putting a formula 1 engine into a tuck from the 1970s, just to keep it driving on the road. It feels wrong in a way, but at the same time if that allows more people to still experience this era of early home computing, that's a win.It sure beats all those still functional machines ending up on a landfill just because there's nothing to display the video on.
For the IIGS there is the VidHD, which also works for the Apple II. There are a few videos on YT about it. It’s $135 USD+shipping, so not that cheap, however it runs on a SBC, not a microcontroller.
I was tempted to write the same snarky comment 😄 The first computer I ever got to play on was an Apple ][, I'm a little sad I never took the opportunity to acquire my own. On the other hand, where would I put it?! I've got no room for all the junk I've already got! I'm satisfied with the emulators and downloaded disks, that all works fine for me.
@@Grunchy005 FWIW I'm not being snarky! I really find the, hmmm, let us say "irony" delightful! It really brings home what Moore's law has meant since my Junior High bought an Apple II to today.
RP2040 is not 5V tolerant according to datasheet, it looks like it can withstand 5V though, but you never know for how long, so you'd rather want shifters if you want others to use it.
The maximum voltage for GPIOs in floating mode (a.k.a. input) is 5.0V for the RP2040, which doesn't qualify for the label "5V-tolerant", which requires the pins to tolerate 5.5V (10% margin). The RP2350 tolerates 5.5V but with some caveats.
I love cards like this and it is great that people are producing new APPPLE II cards. I only have 2 criticisms: 1. Please make the boards in ENIG or Hard Gold for the expansion edge connector at least. HASL was never meant as an edge connector and it does leave residue and known to dirty slots. 2. 90% of the time when these type of videos come out announcing or reviewing cards like this they are never in stock and basically it can be months to years before some of the ones featured were actually available. I get these are hobby projects but even hobby projects can have sufficient stock. /End of criticism .
Running ICs at voltages higher than what they're rated for, even if they're tolerant of other voltages, will quite often shorten the lifespan of said components. By how much will be on a case by case basis, but that's effectively the tradeoff. You can decide if it's worth it.
Oh Adrian, I just wish you could find it within yourself to be ….. more enthusiastic!! 🤩🤩🤩 Just kidding, bud! Hang in there. As you said, we do indeed live in wonderful and Amat times! I remember the 70s, when all of this was hitting the beach. It’s been an amazing ride.
Pico clones often have slightly different pinouts on the board pins. The RP2040 itself is obviously the same, but you might not be able to just drop a clone board in without some modifications. Just something to be aware of if you’re shopping for one.
Super cool. Would probably be even better with a DVI port, as that could be _adapted_ to either HDMI _or_ VGA! 😃 I love all this 'software defined' stuff... I've actually got a Nintendo 64 cartridge which uses an RP2040 and additional flash memory to emulate a game cartridge. It's perfect for playing translation patched games or homebrew.
It's strange that setting "Analog Render FX" to "Enabled" doesn't actually enable them for everything, at least in the firmware version that you tested (41:20 - it appears not to activate it in single high-res mode, only in double high-res mode). When actually operative, though, this effect looks like the color algorithm that I implemented in the emulator ApplePC in 1995. I modeled it after what the Apple Color Monitors at my high school appeared to do on close inspection, which is take each DHGR pixel, and assign it a color depending only on its horizontal position modulo 4. That color is then spread additively to itself and the next 3 pixels to the right of it (4 pixels total). So the color of each pixel is determined only by itself and the 3 pixels to the left of it. (HGR is treated exactly the same as DHGR except for being preprocessed by pixel-doubling everything horizontally. Unlikely, apparently, the A2DVI firmware version you tested.) Unfortunately I didn't have a digital camera back then, so I was only able to guess at what the RGB components of those 4 colors were, tweaking it at home until the result resembled what I remembered it looking like on the school monitors, while also conforming to a mathematical model I thought was likely to be correct. I also got some requests for an RGB monitor emulation mode, but since I never saw Apple II RGB color in person, nor a IIGS, I never had anything to model it after (and didn't trust the other emulators of the time to use as an example). It's interesting to learn now that there were RGB solutions that provided whole new video modes!
Fun stuff. And I've been "harping" about something similar, which is bringing "software based hardware" to old machines.Some sort of bridge from host to SPI/I2C and bam, "infinite peripherals" for "not much money". In this case, a beefier Pi would be the SPI/I2C part itself, you'd just connect the other peripherals to the Pi... I'm a software developer not a hw guy, so I've been tinkering with the concept in a way that fits my world better, by using UAE's builtin bsdsocket to implement "proof of concept". And who would have guessed, if you have 100Mb I/O and a slow CPU, for many a task it's simply faster to send data and get the result back. Sort of fun when you go from CPU bound to I/O bound. But having "near real time" JPEG decoding with good scaling and color quantization is something a 68k can only dream of, yet, trivial to any "spare core" on my 5600... That was the whole idea of expansion boards after all, it's just that now it easier to do them in software in new (off the shelf) hardware than it is to build "custom hardware".
I would really like to see some generic RP2040 cards for various systems with a display output, SD card input and some generic connector like SPI and i2c that the community can use as a base for all sorts of software defined card projects
The "BASIS" mode is likely for the BASIS 108 (pronounced "BAH-sihs" as it's a German computer), which featured a 6502 and Z80, so it ran DOS 3.3 (not sure about ProDOS) and BASIS's own variant of CP/M. I've played with one in my time. Heavy box and otherwise nice machine, especially if you want to run something like WordStar.
Thanks for this! I had a few boards built and got it to work amazingly! Were you able to get that HDMI to VGA adapter to work on yours? I've been trying to get it to work for my video switcher that has a VGA in and passthru for my capture card and even directly connected to my CRT screen cant get a signal from it.
Id love to go back in time to like 1979 and tell these people that 40+ years later people would still be using the Apple || and still making add in cards and other things for it!
Perfect project, shown how the world was changed till 30..40 years. But didnt understand why people using whole rpi module instead of only rp2040 chip. Yes, its increased BOM, lighltly complicated assembly, but you'll have much more electrically and mechanically optimized PCB. I'm using the modules only for the prototyping, like they main purpose.
@@CarlosWagnerCosta if it’s an Apple II clone with slots and a (stolen) Apple ROM it should be fine. The Apple II was a design using standard parts, the only proprietary thing was the ROM.
I'm glad the pico exists for these projects because the raspberry pi, even the zero, is way too fast, I mean what's the point of having a retro computer if you're gonna put a modern computer that's like 100x the speed and could just emulate it and cut out the middleman, but I feel much better about a device like this that's *just* powerful to pull it off.
I like the way scanlines can make something like this look, but I always like more of a subtle 25% dimmer scanlines. 100% scanlines just looks too exaggerated and dark. I could see why this can't be done if this would need some extra processing time though, and this is just my opinion, i don't mess with apple hardware. :p Neat it seems to work with a bunch of weird soviet clones too. Just setting the character set could probably get some of the software looking right/readable on a US Apple 2.
IIRC, the Apple][ runs video data out of ram on the off clock cycle from the processor, interleaving the ram between the processor and the video, small matter for a pi to sniff it out, complete with addresses and video mode settings.
so , if you can't have both this new board & the old original running in parallel, could there be a Daughter board to feed an analog (corrected) signal to the old composite/VGA displays ? the delay would be minimal (only one conversion from digital-to-analog ?) & there'd be software control of that analog signal. (as opposed to a Hardware converter box)
@@marcusmayfield9499 very! Like every other sell. And while the a2fpga project is on GitHub, but I’m not sure everything is there to build your own card.
Oh how interesting! No wonder they ended up with that all in one RGB solution with that Waferscale chip used on the Enhancer IIe and IIc. Really those extra modes are super clever with how they work!
AGAT is a Soviet / Russian clone of the Apple II family. One of the fonts that you scrolled through was Cyrillic (which would be appropriate on an Agat).
Great video, amazing product, thanks! Will A2DVI work with Apple II Europlus models? AFAIK Europlus was able (w/o additional card) to display color on Apple Color Composite Monitor IIe (A2M6021) but not on AppleColor Composite Monitor (A2M6020). I’m still unsure how that magic worked.
Talking about the selectable foreground / background colors on that add-on card about halfway in, which came first? That card or the VIC-II's extended background mode on the 64? (but on the latter, you are limited to the first 64 characters in the set).
Was triggered when Adrian was talking about that card watching the bus in combination with some hardware toggle on the back and repurpose that switch/jumper. Thinking out loud here: Wouldn't it be an option to watch for a keycombo if that reaches the bus and activate/overlay some config setting straight from the RPi just like that bootdisk was doing? Even halt the 6502 perhaps. But activate it like a KVM switch.
How does this work with //e memory cards that include more than 64k of RAM in the extended 80 column slot, such as the AE Ramworks? Bus snooping that gets tricky since IIRC, the 80-col/DHGR video data always comes from the lowest 64k bank, which means you would need to pick only writes when that lowest bank is selected. The same issue might apply to //gs support.
I published the firmware source for my Apple IIc VGA adapter, and hope to see someone fork the project with DVI support there as well. I had originally rejected doing an HDMI/DVI version of the VGA cards since the way the signaling is implemented is a cheat and I didn't want to risk having returns if someone's display didn't like the voltage offset in the differential signals. Adafruit and some others pioneered the DVI signal generation with the RP2040, and even they put a disclaimer that it might not work with all displays.
I wonder if something similar can be done to thee Commodore PET 2001? I believe the video memory is readable from the expansion bus. If not, you could shim a board between the mobo and the video RAM chips. I would love to see THAT.
Imagine what would have happened if Apple had included 80x25 text mode with the ability to change the foreground and background color per character way back on the ][+, with a font (in character ROM) that has the funky characters of the IBM PC character ROM from 0x80 to 0xFE. The release of the poor IBM PC (5160, I think?) would have been less than exciting, despite the advertised 4.77 MHz clock speed, as it would have really only added flashing characters as a new feature. Even worse if Apple could have overclocked the 6502 to 2 MHz, but that wouldn’t be possible until the 65C02, IIRC. Oh, well. Well, now we have these (mostly), thanks to this new card. Too bad I don’t have a //e anymore. 😢
Unfortunately, HDMI is covered by patents. That's why devices like this are implementing DVI (which is compatible with the video portion of HDMI) and using an HDMI connector. True HDMI with audio would require an HDMI license.
@@dnwheeler the raspberry already has hdmi You are supposed to be able to write software to use it. Doesn’t make sense to me that you have to pay a special license If I make a computer game for the pc I don’t have to pay a license for each person that plugs their monitor in. If it can’t be done fine Not a big deal I was just curious because if everything is being done in software it would make sense to me to also emulate a sound card in software.
@@dnwheeler a2fpga uses a Tang 20K dev board and as well as video also emulates the mockingboard at the same time and supports video from the IIGS too, and sends sound via HDMI, though it seems like some TVs don’t like the output. ReActiveMicro sells the card with a Tang 20K assembled for $199 (yikes!), but the project is also on GitHub. Ct6502 and Lon TV have done videos on it, as have a number of other TH-camrs more dedicated to only the Apple II.
I don't really understand why this version has moved things around in that way, maybe there is a good reason for it but it seems like it's just made it less convenient. In addition to the HDMI port being on the "wrong" end, it also makes the Pico USB inaccessible for reprogramming unless you have a special cable or mount it on tall pins...
The video connector was moved to allow the card to work with the Franklin Ace case design, to use every slot in a ][+ case, and to allow a chassis mounted connector without placing undue stress on the PCB connector. There is adequate clearance between the RP2040 and the host PCB to allow a micro USB cable to be used for programming without issue.
I still feel the amusement of seeing something far more powerful than the original computer doing something relatively mundane as part of an accessory or upgrade to the orginal, just think how small the computers that went to the moon could have been if they just used a Pi Pico... :P
![ลองสุ่มไอโฟน 990 โกงมั้ย? [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.101 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bfsWe0j492k/mqdefault.jpg)
Just a small clarification: The '245 buffers are required on this project due to the way the Address and Data lines are multiplexed going into the RP2040. There aren't enough GPIO lines without doing that when combined with the GPIO needs of the HDMI connector.
Some of the clone PIs have more GPIO. The "purple" ones have GPIO 23 - 29 and have 16MB of flash storage.
I have been working on my own retro computer project using the RP2040 and much of the information often citied about when you can attach an RP2040 to a 5v bus is misleading or outright incorrect.
The RP2040 is not actually 5v tolerant in most situations and the official datasheet says it is not 5v tolerant. It can theoretically accept 5v inputs if the VDDIO pin can be guaranteed to be powered before any signals are applied but that is very hard to do in most situations. Most RP2040 chips do appear to be able to survive 5v signals for a period of time in spite of this but it is not a good idea. It causes the ESD ESD protection diodes in the RP2040 to draw current from the data lines and as a result sinks far more drive current from devices on the 5v bus than it really should. This in turn can potentially cause extra stress on possibly irreplaceable vintage ICs.
There really is little reason to even attempt to use the RP2040 directly on a 5v bus given that proper level shifters are both plentiful and cheap - even bi-directional ones. They also provide a form of isolation in the same way that buffer chips do which is also generally good design practice for digital circuits.
The PCB of the original video board are gold plated while the board with the Raspberry Pi Pico are not - they are HASL. This board will gradually destroy your Apple II's edge connector. All properly fabricated PCBs for edge connection contact use ENIG of 2u or more or hard gold plating.
The RP2350 Pico 2 will have them as it it can have up to 18 additional GPIO, as well as GPIO for ADC, so it would also be possible to say add Mockingboard emulation as well and feed it over the HDMI
@@KAPTKipper Do they also have the 2040s Programmed IO? This is requiring the PIO
I'm the developer of the A2DVI firmware - and worked with Ralle on this project. There several reasons why the IIgs is currently not supported. One is that it supports arbitrary colors (configurable palette). The DVI/HDMI uses a protocol. The PICO isn't fast enough to really compute this on the fly. A2DVI needs to use a trick, basically relying on precomputed protocol fragments - prepared for each pixel combination that it ever needs to display. Works great with Apple II due to fixed and limited colors. IIgs would increase the difficulty by a lot (pre-computed table size would explode). Also, the IIgs supports "scan line interrupts". IIgs software can change the palette in between scan lines. So, it's not enough to just render the screen: but each scan line would need to be rendered at the exact correct moment of time, using the current palette settings. That adds a whole new layer of complexity. Maybe the PICO2 is able to do it. Maybe we'll have to wait for another successor - like PICO3...
The remaining issues with Video7 mentioned by Adrian in the video are already fixed with the latest firmware. Also, the suggestion to use the switch for video mode configuration is already supported now.
Final comment: (--comment redacted by me: I was originally being "very critical" here of some "clone" designs of the original A2DVI PCB, which we published on github with Gerbers+KiCad. My criticism included Chris and his variant shown here in this video. My criticism wasn't quite fair and hit the wrong person. I apologise - and therefore removed this part of the comment...).
Is the 8bitdevices one an official/"authorized" version?
@@MacRetroFly-ef8ccwhere’s the “official” one that supports your efforts?
Would be good for Adrian to see and respond to this comment.
If you need the bandwidth to handle the IIgs video (and even audio over the HDMI port) you might want to look at cheap Chinese FPGA modules like the Sipeed Tang Nano 9K. It’s a different tool set and way of thinking, but you have vastly more bandwidth available (750MHz x 3, 720p capable) without the need to pre-compute things. It adds to the BoM costs a little, but not horribly so ($20 for the Sipeed vs $5 for a Pi Nano).
@@stevetodd7383 There is already a project using the Tang 20K to do exactly this - a2fpga.
30:12 I'm now convinced that 3D bar charts were expressly invented to demo the graphical abilities of 80s computers. I've never seen them used in any serious context.
Oh no? What about those HPGL pen plotters? They were amazing and produced the best 3D bar graphs ever in slow real time. (I seriously want one before they cost $1000's just like they did back in the day)
Adrian......you are knocking this out the park. Really well explained leading up to the HDMI card.
he didn t even connect anything to the hdmi port! he used his converter...
The chip in the Pico 2 (RP2350) can do DVI output without overclocking or PIO. It has a new capability called high-speed transmit (HSTX) which is specifically dusigned for applications like this.
The analog effects mode is amazing! Thanks for the side-by-side comparison. I love how it simulates the analog video world with a modern tool in a way that preserves the essence and feel of the vintage experience. This is a spot-on implementation.
I bet you never thought an apple 2 would have hdmi well you thought wrong silly goose🤣🤣
9:15 - you should use a Level shifter with a RP2040/Pico if you are connecting its GPIOs to anything that isnt 3.3V because iirc its not officially 5V tolerant, means you might end up killing some picos or killing them over time.
The newer RP2350 is officially 5V tolerant, I believe, but yeah the RP2040 is not.
@@owenvogelgesang7314 Actually the 5v tolerance was removed as of Aug data sheet update.... there is now a caveat that 5v is only tolerant if the IOVDD is powered by 3V3, thus you still need level shifters.
The maximum voltage for GPIOs in floating mode (a.k.a. input) is 5.0V for the RP2040, which doesn't qualify for the label "5V-tolerant", which requires the pins to tolerate 5.5V (10% margin). The RP2350 tolerates 5.5V, but as was mentioned before, with some caveats.
Yes! There's so many new projects like this that have been developed in recent years to support our retro computers ❤
I got the A2 Analog VGA card after watching your earlier video, but I got hooked running it in its CP/M mode which disables its VGA functionality. Now I can use that with a separate HDMI card! Freaking sweet! Thanks for letting us know about this card!
i am currently building a HDMI card for the Sinclair spectrum , waiting for parts so not there yet but again the pi is proving to be the friend of the retro gamer
Nice! Now we need PC ISA graphics with DVI output.
I think the new RP235x microcontroller might just have enough pins with the larger pin count variant. As well as faster CPUs and 3rd PIO block. Having hardware floats might help a bit too if needed.
already done with the graphics gremlin isa card, someone made a hdmi revision a while ago - will say that all these fan cards are pretty expensive, just getting a vga isa card and using a cheap adapter is more viable imo.
Also still love seeing the Plexus in the background.
What Chris said about the traces is 100% true. HDMI/DVI use differential pairs. The pairs of traces act as transmission line and must be impedance matched using a PCB calculator tool. Matching the length of the traces is also critical.
Software defined card sort of like Wozniak's floppy disk controller. Full circle indeed.
can you please give some info on "Wozniaks floppy disk controller"?
Honestly, I've had a VGA card for my Apple IIe that I'm very happy with for ages, so I've mostly given projects like this a miss, but I'm sorely tempted to upgrade just to get that Analog FX emulation. The difference on the text is fantastic. Thanks for showing the comparison of that!
I'd love to see you cover the 68030/40 Mac era. No longer that interested in Apple IIs, but that is an amazing device in how it does what it does.
Love your videos. Every time I get a notification I know it's gonna be part mad scientist, part repair and part master class complete with a history lesson presented in a light-hearted and fun manner. Good stuff and keep it up.
Always wanted an Apple II when I was a kid, but had to make do with a ZX81, as Apple II was way too expensive. Still a great machine for its age.
Absolutely incredible! I really hope that the SHR modes and text color combinations from the Apple IIGS are eventually supported. My original CRT IIGS monitor is starting to show its age and I would love an inexpensive option to connect a modern display to it.
When I saw the card I thought it was an HDMI2RGB on an 8bit card. Nope. It’s frikking amazing! Thanks for showing it to us
amazingly insightful and informative, much appreciated
Cool product. It's great that they have so many options on their firmware. There's always the odd graphic screen that relies on color artifacting that u may want.
When I was a young lad my parents purchased a used Apple II+. It came with a nice green screen monitor, 1 disk drive, 64k upgrade language card, Okidata 82a printer, and Grappler + print card. The place I worked at had a Sun Remarketing catalogs. I wanted to run apple works and I know you could add another disk drive, and 80 column card. However due to the cost of even the disk drives. I sold my Apple II+ and invested into my Pc-Clone. Now it is years later I found out about, cpm card, and tons of other goodies like a rgb card. If I would have known the CPM card existed and a few other things. Probably would still have it. I loved playing with CPM on Kaypros. Speaking of RGB. I remember walking into a Radio Shack and looking at a Deck out CoCo 3 with RGB on it. It looks like a real computer. Compared to the TRS-80 Coco I had going to a small b/w tv.
The number of retro projects using the Pi PICO is amazing, all across different brands.
Incredible that the Pico can generate a compliant HDMI/DVI bitstream on the fly, even a low-resolution one using some tricks.
Incredible work! I'd love to see this built into an old MAU case for the Apple IIc. Already has the 15-pin connector cut-out... (something like a CentreCom AT-210TS) With that, a WiFiModem, and a FloppyEMU, we'll be laughing with the "unexpandable" IIc.
I'm already looking forward to the awesome retro projects people will do with the RP2350 that was released recently!
I look forward to Saturday nights watching you videos.
Great Video like always 🎉🎉🎉 a big Hello From Spain 😊😉👍
I just picked up a PICO9918 which is basically the same idea as this, but it replaces the TMS-9918 and 9928 in devices like the Coleco Adam/Colecovision, and any other computer/game that uses the 9918. It outputs VGA. It is very cool!
The RP2040 chip on the Pi Pico is rated at 133 MHz and all these RP2040 DVI tricks require running it at 252 MHz. That’s a 90% overclock.
The RP2350 has a double pumped high speed transmitter and hardware TMDS encoder so it can do VGA resolution at only 126 MHz. It’s just a much better solution, and the chip is basically the same price. Hopefully we’ll see these projects all move over.
Thanks for the detailed comparison.
I can't wait to get a stack of RP2350 boards and chips. I've built my own 8-bit/16-bit "computer" by designing cores that run on a few RP2040's that each act like purpose built chips that handle different aspects of the computer. Sure, it's technically just emulation that I started to replicate a Z80 and 8086 compatible system similar to my NEC PC88VA3, but it was a fun project nonetheless for me that's more interested in low level/bare-metal programming. I've since moved to a software based "fantasy computer" (thing Tic80) that uses a module approach to design different "expansion cards" that are purely software implementation to act as virtual graphics/sound cards and more. I/O, Storage, Serial, etc. are integrated into the main core that's a fantasy CPU that uses a faux Assembly instructions similar to both a Z80 or 8086 depending on the mode you're in. That project is running off a newer Radxa Zero to simplify it, just being deployed as a contained ultra light Linux setup over bare-metal to keep it easier to set up for new people to learn about computers with. I've considered rewriting for bare-metal using RP2350(s) on a purpose built board, but with the goal of being easy to run and access, I'd rather just built it for a lightweight lower power SBC so basically any compatible SBC can run it from there on up.
Hi, any chance you’ve made a video about your tinkering?
there is no problem to run your fantasy computer on rp2040. i have zx spectrum 128k emulation + ay8910 emulation + vga and dvi + ram expansion up to 2048k emulation + ula plus (64 color graphics) emulation and all these things on single pi pico rp2040
THAT is a super-cool project. Here's a crazy idea: Replace the pico with a picow and update the software to add wireless lights-out functionality. Maybe with RDP and/or VNC support... it could even have a simple SSH mode.... soooo many posibilities!
Gets a custom PCB in 2024, if only people had more of these cards back in the day and apple carried over support for them... my guy it didn't happen because no one had the hardware. It was cost prohibitive for the time. Its great to see you max out Apple II hardware though.
WOW ! ... never knew about this video7 board even though I have used A2 since the 13 sector II days and later II+ clones, IIe! ... and also Dazzle Draw crystal clear in colour! ...... so if foreground and background text screen colour is able to be controlled in the video7 mode, the implication is that a colour (color) ANSI text terminal emulation would be possible (at least for regular alpha numeric characters in 40 column mode) !
Nice! I wouldn't mind a version of that for my Apple IIC if that's possible?
Unfortunately it wouldn't work as is, but with an interposer under the CPU. This project here is supposed to do it using the IIc video port but I don't think the hardware is out yet. github.com/V2RetroComputing/v2c-firmware
You best bet is the RGB2HDMI project which can decode the serial data right from the IIc video port perfectly. github.com/IanSB/RGBtoHDMI
@@EEVblog Hello Mr EEVblog. Hopefully Adrian will answer, but I can help: This project can’t do that, but another project the, the A2C Tangy Pack can. It uses a Tang Nano 9K fpga dev board (that probably has the power to run an Apple II core). There is a video from KansasFest about a month ago covering it and ct6502 has video on it 3 weeks ago: “163: Hook your Apple IIe and IIc up to HDMI”
They're not quite bit-banging. They're using the PIO processors on the RPI to do it. And they may have to overclock it a bit, too.
The Pico 2 is even better for this too, the Raspberry Pi team saw that people were using PIO for stuff like DVI video, so they added a HSTX peripheral to RP2350 which is specially designed to handle software defined high speed digital output cleanly.
Great Video Adrian Thanks for the info I did not see this At VCF M-W. And side note Great meeting in person at VCF M-W hope to see you next year 2025
Thanks! Love it!
I last used an Apple IIe back in 1990. When I wote my term paper in AppleWorks.
Software defined CGA/EGA card for the PC next? Having a card support composite decoding in CGA modes while still supporting RGB EGA modes at the same time would be really nice.
No I didnt know that video was possible. Apple II's is all we had in our High School in the 80's so that blows my mind.
I like your idea of switching between color and monochrome, but I'm guessing it would be easier to just add another accessible GPIO pin. Then you wouldn't have to hack the machine itself, the modification would transfer to any machine where you use this card.
I thought everyone in our "field" knew DVI and HDMI are signal compatible. You just need a passive adapter to interface them. This has allowed me to keep many old monitors working until they just fall over from old age, all with a $3 or so passive adapter bolted to the back. DVI doesn't support audio, but I never expected my monitor to handle audio, so that's fine.
I couldn't get proper monitor for my C64 back then because it was too expensive. I can't get one today either. The reason stays the same.
I’m hearing Fat City music in my nightmares now.
It seems like Adrian has suffered from this since childhood
While the RP2040 is 5v tolerant, I have seen people say that the load it puts on the 5V side might cause damage. Using level shifters just makes it safer for a little extra cost.
i never had much exposure to the Apple ][, as it wasn't as popular here in Germany as it was in North America (for one, the NTSC artifact color wouldn't work in the PAL part of the world), but I think it is cool that there are enthusiasts out there creating new hardware to keep these vintage home computers running.
What does make me chuckle though (and I don't mean that in any bad way, it is just funny) is the fact that the RP2040 on this adapter has orders of magnitude more "computational oomph" while costing a fraction of what an Apple ][ cost back in the day. It's like putting a formula 1 engine into a tuck from the 1970s, just to keep it driving on the road. It feels wrong in a way, but at the same time if that allows more people to still experience this era of early home computing, that's a win.It sure beats all those still functional machines ending up on a landfill just because there's nothing to display the video on.
What a great project!
For the IIGS there is the VidHD, which also works for the Apple II. There are a few videos on YT about it. It’s $135 USD+shipping, so not that cheap, however it runs on a SBC, not a microcontroller.
I loved this episode. Great analysis on the graphics technicals. My wife actually said: “You guys are nerds”. My response: “Yes, yes we are” 😂😂😂
Am I the only one tickled pink that this is 2x133MHz with 264 kB device to get a 6502 1MHz 4k computer talking to a monitor?
Thinking about the transistor count difference is fun!
I was tempted to write the same snarky comment 😄
The first computer I ever got to play on was an Apple ][, I'm a little sad I never took the opportunity to acquire my own. On the other hand, where would I put it?! I've got no room for all the junk I've already got! I'm satisfied with the emulators and downloaded disks, that all works fine for me.
@@Grunchy005 FWIW I'm not being snarky! I really find the, hmmm, let us say "irony" delightful! It really brings home what Moore's law has meant since my Junior High bought an Apple II to today.
Bit banging HDMI on an ARM Cortex M0+ is a flex
RP2040 is not 5V tolerant according to datasheet, it looks like it can withstand 5V though, but you never know for how long, so you'd rather want shifters if you want others to use it.
The maximum voltage for GPIOs in floating mode (a.k.a. input) is 5.0V for the RP2040, which doesn't qualify for the label "5V-tolerant", which requires the pins to tolerate 5.5V (10% margin). The RP2350 tolerates 5.5V but with some caveats.
i have the VGA adaptor that plugs in to my 1 mb RAMWorks III it works good.. every slow on my apple IIe is FULL! :D
I love cards like this and it is great that people are producing new APPPLE II cards. I only have 2 criticisms: 1. Please make the boards in ENIG or Hard Gold for the expansion edge connector at least. HASL was never meant as an edge connector and it does leave residue and known to dirty slots. 2. 90% of the time when these type of videos come out announcing or reviewing cards like this they are never in stock and basically it can be months to years before some of the ones featured were actually available. I get these are hobby projects but even hobby projects can have sufficient stock. /End of criticism .
Running ICs at voltages higher than what they're rated for, even if they're tolerant of other voltages, will quite often shorten the lifespan of said components. By how much will be on a case by case basis, but that's effectively the tradeoff. You can decide if it's worth it.
Oh Adrian, I just wish you could find it within yourself to be ….. more enthusiastic!!
🤩🤩🤩 Just kidding, bud! Hang in there. As you said, we do indeed live in wonderful and Amat times! I remember the 70s, when all of this was hitting the beach. It’s been an amazing ride.
Pico clones often have slightly different pinouts on the board pins. The RP2040 itself is obviously the same, but you might not be able to just drop a clone board in without some modifications. Just something to be aware of if you’re shopping for one.
Yes, the website is up and running.
Super cool. Would probably be even better with a DVI port, as that could be _adapted_ to either HDMI _or_ VGA! 😃
I love all this 'software defined' stuff... I've actually got a Nintendo 64 cartridge which uses an RP2040 and additional flash memory to emulate a game cartridge. It's perfect for playing translation patched games or homebrew.
This is awesome.
It's strange that setting "Analog Render FX" to "Enabled" doesn't actually enable them for everything, at least in the firmware version that you tested (41:20 - it appears not to activate it in single high-res mode, only in double high-res mode). When actually operative, though, this effect looks like the color algorithm that I implemented in the emulator ApplePC in 1995. I modeled it after what the Apple Color Monitors at my high school appeared to do on close inspection, which is take each DHGR pixel, and assign it a color depending only on its horizontal position modulo 4. That color is then spread additively to itself and the next 3 pixels to the right of it (4 pixels total). So the color of each pixel is determined only by itself and the 3 pixels to the left of it. (HGR is treated exactly the same as DHGR except for being preprocessed by pixel-doubling everything horizontally. Unlikely, apparently, the A2DVI firmware version you tested.)
Unfortunately I didn't have a digital camera back then, so I was only able to guess at what the RGB components of those 4 colors were, tweaking it at home until the result resembled what I remembered it looking like on the school monitors, while also conforming to a mathematical model I thought was likely to be correct. I also got some requests for an RGB monitor emulation mode, but since I never saw Apple II RGB color in person, nor a IIGS, I never had anything to model it after (and didn't trust the other emulators of the time to use as an example). It's interesting to learn now that there were RGB solutions that provided whole new video modes!
Fun stuff. And I've been "harping" about something similar, which is bringing "software based hardware" to old machines.Some sort of bridge from host to SPI/I2C and bam, "infinite peripherals" for "not much money". In this case, a beefier Pi would be the SPI/I2C part itself, you'd just connect the other peripherals to the Pi...
I'm a software developer not a hw guy, so I've been tinkering with the concept in a way that fits my world better, by using UAE's builtin bsdsocket to implement "proof of concept". And who would have guessed, if you have 100Mb I/O and a slow CPU, for many a task it's simply faster to send data and get the result back. Sort of fun when you go from CPU bound to I/O bound. But having "near real time" JPEG decoding with good scaling and color quantization is something a 68k can only dream of, yet, trivial to any "spare core" on my 5600...
That was the whole idea of expansion boards after all, it's just that now it easier to do them in software in new (off the shelf) hardware than it is to build "custom hardware".
I would really like to see some generic RP2040 cards for various systems with a display output, SD card input and some generic connector like SPI and i2c that the community can use as a base for all sorts of software defined card projects
The "BASIS" mode is likely for the BASIS 108 (pronounced "BAH-sihs" as it's a German computer), which featured a 6502 and Z80, so it ran DOS 3.3 (not sure about ProDOS) and BASIS's own variant of CP/M. I've played with one in my time. Heavy box and otherwise nice machine, especially if you want to run something like WordStar.
This is pretty cool but I wonder if this is of interest to the C64 scene? Is there a foundation for a VIC-II Kawari competitor in this?
I think handling sprites and the whole VIC-II emulation might require at least another RP2040...
@@root42 Good point, didn't even think about sprites.
Oooh snap I have the same t-shirt :-)
Man I need something like this for my iici lol.
Thanks for this! I had a few boards built and got it to work amazingly! Were you able to get that HDMI to VGA adapter to work on yours? I've been trying to get it to work for my video switcher that has a VGA in and passthru for my capture card and even directly connected to my CRT screen cant get a signal from it.
Id love to go back in time to like 1979 and tell these people that 40+ years later people would still be using the Apple || and still making add in cards and other things for it!
Some of them apparently knew. Remember, they had conferences with the motto "Apple II Forever"... :)
I have never ever seen these video modes on any Apple II. Amazing!
Yeah after all these years it amazes me too!
Thanks for the video Adrian, would have been nice to mention the original product though...
Perfect project, shown how the world was changed till 30..40 years.
But didnt understand why people using whole rpi module instead of only rp2040 chip. Yes, its increased BOM, lighltly complicated assembly, but you'll have much more electrically and mechanically optimized PCB.
I'm using the modules only for the prototyping, like they main purpose.
This is awesome! Should this possibly this works with the Brazilian TK-2000, a microprofessor II clone?
@@CarlosWagnerCosta if it’s an Apple II clone with slots and a (stolen) Apple ROM it should be fine. The Apple II was a design using standard parts, the only proprietary thing was the ROM.
@@av_oid thanks. I will try it
I'm glad the pico exists for these projects because the raspberry pi, even the zero, is way too fast, I mean what's the point of having a retro computer if you're gonna put a modern computer that's like 100x the speed and could just emulate it and cut out the middleman, but I feel much better about a device like this that's *just* powerful to pull it off.
I like the way scanlines can make something like this look, but I always like more of a subtle 25% dimmer scanlines. 100% scanlines just looks too exaggerated and dark. I could see why this can't be done if this would need some extra processing time though, and this is just my opinion, i don't mess with apple hardware. :p Neat it seems to work with a bunch of weird soviet clones too. Just setting the character set could probably get some of the software looking right/readable on a US Apple 2.
(me 20 minutes ago) alright to-do list! let's get to work. (me 15 minutes ago) adrian you diabolical......
step one reverse engineer the apple 2 gs step two make and sell your new superior apple 2 gs laptops🤣🤣
IIRC, the Apple][ runs video data out of ram on the off clock cycle from the processor, interleaving the ram between the processor and the video, small matter for a pi to sniff it out, complete with addresses and video mode settings.
so , if you can't have both this new board & the old original running in parallel,
could there be a Daughter board to feed an analog (corrected) signal to the old composite/VGA displays ?
the delay would be minimal (only one conversion from digital-to-analog ?) &
there'd be software control of that analog signal. (as opposed to a Hardware converter box)
I wonder if there will be some sort of Pico implementation of the Mockingboard. The kit from Reactive Micro, while very nice, is very expensive.
@@marcusmayfield9499 very! Like every other sell. And while the a2fpga project is on GitHub, but I’m not sure everything is there to build your own card.
The guy who started Video7 was the same engineer who did the chipsets at Apple for the IIe and IIc
Oh how interesting! No wonder they ended up with that all in one RGB solution with that Waferscale chip used on the Enhancer IIe and IIc. Really those extra modes are super clever with how they work!
AGAT is a Soviet / Russian clone of the Apple II family. One of the fonts that you scrolled through was Cyrillic (which would be appropriate on an Agat).
Great video, amazing product, thanks!
Will A2DVI work with Apple II Europlus models? AFAIK Europlus was able (w/o additional card) to display color on Apple Color Composite Monitor IIe (A2M6021) but not on AppleColor Composite Monitor (A2M6020). I’m still unsure how that magic worked.
It does work on Apple II Europlus.
@@cvt8353 Thanks!
Good 😊
Thanks!
Amazing! Thank you!
Talking about the selectable foreground / background colors on that add-on card about halfway in, which came first? That card or the VIC-II's extended background mode on the 64? (but on the latter, you are limited to the first 64 characters in the set).
Was triggered when Adrian was talking about that card watching the bus in combination with some hardware toggle on the back and repurpose that switch/jumper. Thinking out loud here: Wouldn't it be an option to watch for a keycombo if that reaches the bus and activate/overlay some config setting straight from the RPi just like that bootdisk was doing? Even halt the 6502 perhaps. But activate it like a KVM switch.
How does this work with //e memory cards that include more than 64k of RAM in the extended 80 column slot, such as the AE Ramworks? Bus snooping that gets tricky since IIRC, the 80-col/DHGR video data always comes from the lowest 64k bank, which means you would need to pick only writes when that lowest bank is selected. The same issue might apply to //gs support.
What a great opportunity for my insomnia! :D Let's do it Adrian
Looks awesome. I still love that CRT look though!
I published the firmware source for my Apple IIc VGA adapter, and hope to see someone fork the project with DVI support there as well. I had originally rejected doing an HDMI/DVI version of the VGA cards since the way the signaling is implemented is a cheat and I didn't want to risk having returns if someone's display didn't like the voltage offset in the differential signals. Adafruit and some others pioneered the DVI signal generation with the RP2040, and even they put a disclaimer that it might not work with all displays.
I wonder if something similar can be done to thee Commodore PET 2001? I believe the video memory is readable from the expansion bus. If not, you could shim a board between the mobo and the video RAM chips. I would love to see THAT.
Imagine what would have happened if Apple had included 80x25 text mode with the ability to change the foreground and background color per character way back on the ][+, with a font (in character ROM) that has the funky characters of the IBM PC character ROM from 0x80 to 0xFE. The release of the poor IBM PC (5160, I think?) would have been less than exciting, despite the advertised 4.77 MHz clock speed, as it would have really only added flashing characters as a new feature. Even worse if Apple could have overclocked the 6502 to 2 MHz, but that wouldn’t be possible until the 65C02, IIRC. Oh, well.
Well, now we have these (mostly), thanks to this new card. Too bad I don’t have a //e anymore. 😢
Apple IIe's aren't supposed to do that. I wonder what Jobs and Waz would say. A definite quantum leap of next level goodness.
Pretty sure that V7:3 means "Video 7: mode 3".
Correct. :)
Ok so any chance to add sound card support to the same card? HDMI supports sound and video.
Unfortunately, HDMI is covered by patents. That's why devices like this are implementing DVI (which is compatible with the video portion of HDMI) and using an HDMI connector. True HDMI with audio would require an HDMI license.
@@dnwheeler the raspberry already has hdmi You are supposed to be able to write software to use it. Doesn’t make sense to me that you have to pay a special license If I make a computer game for the pc I don’t have to pay a license for each person that plugs their monitor in. If it can’t be done fine Not a big deal I was just curious because if everything is being done in software it would make sense to me to also emulate a sound card in software.
@@dnwheeler a2fpga uses a Tang 20K dev board and as well as video also emulates the mockingboard at the same time and supports video from the IIGS too, and sends sound via HDMI, though it seems like some TVs don’t like the output. ReActiveMicro sells the card with a Tang 20K assembled for $199 (yikes!), but the project is also on GitHub. Ct6502 and Lon TV have done videos on it, as have a number of other TH-camrs more dedicated to only the Apple II.
@@krakenunboundraspberry pi yes, but pico does not have hdmi.
@@krakenunbound The Pi Pico doesn't have HDMI - the "regular" Raspberry Pi's do (and they pay the HDMI license fee for those).
I don't really understand why this version has moved things around in that way, maybe there is a good reason for it but it seems like it's just made it less convenient. In addition to the HDMI port being on the "wrong" end, it also makes the Pico USB inaccessible for reprogramming unless you have a special cable or mount it on tall pins...
The video connector was moved to allow the card to work with the Franklin Ace case design, to use every slot in a ][+ case, and to allow a chassis mounted connector without placing undue stress on the PCB connector. There is adequate clearance between the RP2040 and the host PCB to allow a micro USB cable to be used for programming without issue.
I still feel the amusement of seeing something far more powerful than the original computer doing something relatively mundane as part of an accessory or upgrade to the orginal, just think how small the computers that went to the moon could have been if they just used a Pi Pico... :P