Description
The PIco RomWBW is a PI PICO emulated Z80 CPM Computer. It is capable of running the ROM images created by RomWBW) which gives you a number of monitors, CPM alternatives, PASCAL and BASIC
Within CP/M, the kit will allow you to run a number of 1980’s Z80 text based games and features a port of Microsoft BASIC (MBASIC) and will run any CP/M-80 2 or 3 compatible software.
The kit will allow you to connect to the Pico RomWBW Machine either by USB serial or a FDTI compatible serial cable with a suitable serial emulator like TeraTerm, or minicom.
The kit comes with a PCB, SD card holder, buttons, switches, resistors and an engraved acrylic case with silicone feet. You also have the option of adding a pre programmed PI Pico and a programmed 500M SD Card, so you can dive into 80’s retro computing with no programming/setup required.
The SD card and Pico come programmed with the RomWBW Software compiled specifically for the PicoWBW and includes CPM monitor and CPM utilities and a range of CPM OS’s
On the rear of the computer is a switch to select FDTI or USB serial connection.
I/O Port 0 is brought out to the front panel LEDs and switches, which are used when booting to allow selection of which OS or disk to load. Details are in the RomWBW user guide.
The LEDs provide an indication of the loading process again Details are in the RomWBW user guide.
- The front panel also has three buttons “Dump”, “Aux”, Z80Reset and Reset.
- The Dump button dumps the content of the current 64K RAM bank directly to the flash drive.
- Z80Reset resets the emulated Z80 without affecting the contents of the ROM and RAM banks.
- The Reset Button resets the PiPico.
- The Aux button, currently has no function.
There is also a built in SPO256AL2 emulation for 80’s style speech synthesis and a small speaker is included
The software for the emulated RC2040 is still evolving and there are other features that can be found by looking at the Pico WBW git hub pages.
The SD images are compatible with the RC2014 Micro SD Card Module ( https://extkits.co.uk/product/rc2014-micro-sd-card-module/ ) when the RC2014 is running RomWBW
Details of the software build are here https://github.com/ExtremeElectronics/RC2040-ROMWBW and more details on ROMWBW are here https://github.com/wwarthen/RomWBW and thanks to Wayne Warthen for his help sorting out memory banks.
All trademarks, software and company names are the property of their respective owners
RomWBW is copyright Wayne Warthen and has been provided free of charge with his permission.
This product is designed for hobby use and is not suitable for industrial, commercial or safety-critical applications.
Notes:
The SD card connector requires some fine (1mm pitch) soldering, if you are unused to this sort of surface mount soldering, or are unsure, please ask when you order, and I will solder it for you.
