exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

stephen_usher wrote: 29 Jul 2025 21:22 They were in an unopened bag with a date code of 2013... so not exactly something I use often. :-)

That's his excuse (and he's sticking to it)!
;)
:poke:

The Pico keyboard matrix emulation PCBs are out for delivery! :-)

stephen_usher wrote: 01 Aug 2025 10:28 The Pico keyboard matrix emulation PCBs are out for delivery! :-)

Good stuff :)

PCBs arrived just after lunch, so I could do a quick build. One minor issue with the DB9 sockets I bought as the plastic overlapped one of the header positions, but nothing a pair of wire cutters couldn't fix.

The good news is that it works at least as well as the breadboard version. I've not yet tested the RS232.

stephen_usher wrote: 01 Aug 2025 15:18 PCBs arrived just after lunch, so I could do a quick build. One minor issue with the DB9 sockets I bought as the plastic overlapped one of the header positions, but nothing a pair of wire cutters couldn't fix.

The good news is that it works at least as well as the breadboard version. I've not yet tested the RS232.


IMG_4532.jpeg


IMG_4533.jpeg

:girldance:

And the RS232 works!

However, when powered from the power connector the 74LS244 wasn't getting any power as it seems that the Pico doesn't power VBUS if powered from VSYS, so a bodge wire was necessary.

So now I can run the QL + Pico board completely independently from the Pi400 and just connect with a serial cable.

You know those times when you are annoyed at your past self for writing code which should have had functionality separated out but for expediency it wasn't? Well...

Anyway, I've separated out the serial port character parsing code from the main input loop of the Pico code. Phew! Now I can start thinking about the USB stuff.

You know what the problem with the Pico SDK documentation is?...

It's written from the standpoint of the person who wrote the SDK and not a beginner.

Case in point, compiling the examples. The Readme.md just skims over the set-up and where to run cmake or with which parameters, just with a cursory mention that it's in the documentation somewhere (which it isn't) and then just lists the examples themselves, mostly saying that the files were copied from other examples elsewhere.

The rest of the SDK documentation is similarly vague about the basics.

Getting TinyUSB working's going to be "interesting(tm)".

Thankfully, someone's done the hard work for me and posted on Github.

USB keyboard stuff in the works. I can already capture key events.

I gave up with the PicoSDK and installed the Arduino stuff for it, that worked as it was supposed to fortunately. I even used it to design some control equipment for the steam boilers at work.