PicoIDE it be amazing if it got to 1000%

10 hours left for the PicoIDE, you can watch this video by Rees if you want to know more about the device www.crowdsupply.com/polpotronics...

10 hours left

Will be test printing at some point, need to figure out best angle

Some minor adjustments for @pointerfunction.bsky.social to fix, otherwise fits great 😁 The Sovol SV08 Max for me printed great. yes there are VFDs but thats because i never calibrated it for them 😂. I did buy a chamber heater for it, pain to fit as i need to access under it and its heavy and big

👀 👀 👀

Doing a test print of a neogeo’s aes bottom by @pointerfunction.bsky.social in his favourite colour pink transparent petg 😂

New blog post: Remote diagnosing a PET 2001 video fault from one photograph. blog.tynemouthsoftware.co.uk/2026/02/diag... Includes a look at how the PET video system works with redrawn schematics. It also turns out to be a surprisingly early PET 2001.

JLCPCBs are Red JLCPCBs are Blue Here is my affiliate link So you can get some too jlcpcb.com/download?fro... My blog is now sponsored by JLCPCB, although this was not quite how I planned to announce that.

Back in black (soon)

Todays build was also another flashfloppy pcb but for the Tatung Einstein. It uses the 3” drive but the drive is different to the CPC and Spectrum Its slightly bigger and also its an Edge connector like on 5.25” PC Drives All works, and yes will print a black case for it Cases still need tweaking

Today built myself a specific CPC 3” drive flashfloppy pcb with sdcard and jog wheel.

Rebuilt my Laser Active Remote with new PCB as the old one was Battery Damaged. Transferred all the old components and it Works!

The PicoIDE Crowd Supply campaign is now live! Back the project to be among the first to get yours! PicoIDE is an open IDE/ATAPI drive emulator for retro systems. www.crowdsupply.com/polpotronics...

Fancy building a miniITX Einstein, well now you can 😁

Need a new Acorn A3000 Motherboard because yours is battery damaged, Back in stock at Rob’s new store. He also has some Amiga 500++’s boards too lectronz.com/products/aco...

The Remote Control i got with the Laser Active was badly corroded by batteries. So only one thing for it 😂

Made myself some specific flashfloppy pcb’s.

I got this yesterday Torch CPN. Basically a bbc micro with custom rom by torch to do cpm stuff with the Torch z80 communicator card, and also has modem for prestel stuff. Took the beeb stuff out (issue 7) and works, i did hook up a gotek and played snake on it 🤣 (has a speech chip too)

Got some Junk PC Engines from Japan, one of them is a Rusty Boy, So put it in the buzzy bath first….

I think i am getting the hang of FreeCad. Made an adjustable Flash Floppy case, using one of the various flash floppy PCB’s i have. Not published yet as i need to order and test.

miniITX Einstein Chuckie Egg version anyone 😂

Max Repo board, Initial build, it works!

This weekend I implemented command passthrough to #PicoIDE over SMART Command Transport (which is done via creative use of the SMART log get/set commands). This way you can get status of the PicoIDE, load disc/disk images, etc., and being implemented with SMART means it works in user mode in Windows

Made a start to remove components from the old A2386 bridgeboard for the new pcb i got as the old board was battery bombed.

It's official! #PicoIDE, the open source IDE/ATAPI drive emulator I've been working on for the better part of this year, will be launching at Crowd Supply! Go there to sign up for updates and to be notified when the campaign is live: www.crowdsupply.com/polpotronics...

Some progress on the Nintendo PlayStation: some programmable logic acts as a bridge between SFC and CD hardware. Set up in a loopback configuration, the BIOS now thinks it's talking to the mechacon MCU. Mock firmware is ready to go once this part is debugged.

Main board replica now on Github github.com/Board-Folk/E...

Today i went to the Woodbank Garden Centre, met Elvis the Parrot, had an amazing breakfast in the cafe and fun in the old penny arcade.

I recently got the Commodore Max, and i used the excellent Tool DuPal v3 (github.com/DuPAL-PAL-DU...) to get the logic out of the MOS6703 (PLA’ish). With the help of HKZLab, @grandoldian.bsky.social and @jensrestemeier.bsky.social we got something, just needs testing after i rebuild my max 😄

Validated the Board Folk #LaserActive SYPS repro using a PSU that went supernova! In the process, I replaced the dead optocoupler & primary side BJT plus a pair of 2.2k resistors that were open circuit. You can see how rancid the original board was 🤮 Found 2 errors to fix also!

Well, Lee, Adrian and Mark - how about this? DesTestKernal - a version of DesTest that you can program onto an appropriate PROM as a replacement for the C64 kernal ROM. When cartridges fail you, this little beauty might just get the job done! factorofmatt.com/destestkernal

Had a great day at the @visitthecave.bsky.social met some lovely folk, even @morefunmakingit.bsky.social Didn’t take many photos, but here is one of me playing 1942 on an Amiga

Sat waiting for the Lavender Bakehouse to open to have pancakes and bacon, before heading off to the @visitthecave.bsky.social

Here, have a video of it working, as a treat:

Another night, another photo of my monitor teasing what I'm working on.

i've added support for more RAM chips to the Pico DRAM Tester! 4027 (4K x 1) 4108 (8K x 1 that are 4116s with only half test good: MK4108, TMS4108, etc) 4132 (32K x 1 that are 4164s with only half tested good: TMS4532, M3732) there are also bug fixes. github.com/schlae/pico-...

I've just released version v3.2.0 of the PicoGUS firmware with lots of great improvements, such as a fix for freeze in SB mode, volume setting (thx Delphius), high-quality resampling of OPL2 audio (thx korneliuszo) and way more Click through to read the full release notes: github.com/polpo/picogu...

Why Hello There 😍 Loving the size

Sixtyclone Bird Seed+, @peepouk.bsky.social and @grandoldian.bsky.social originally did the birdseed. I added the + bit, being converting the logic ic’s to smt and also added in c0pperdragons analog only modulator replacement (i have tweaked since this, to add to the silkscreen as i forgot)

Looks like on the forums other people have this kind of issue with their originals. Can't figure out what is is.

Did an Einstein TC-01 replica board with @peepouk.bsky.social. All good and well, except the keyboard plays a tune - on the boot screen. 🤷 😅

After being extremely cryptic about the new hardware project I'm working on in my last "photo of my monitor" post, here's a hopefully less cryptic one. Now that more things are working, here's a clue that is hopefully a little more obvious about what it is:

To help with fixing the region flicker, i made a flex pcb. github.com/Board-Folk/N...

cant wait for this, the start of ide awesomeness with a pico

I am hereby pleased to announce that I am now the current owner and acting CEO of CEFUCOM. I'm looking for angel investors to provide the ¥350 required to purchase the company; enquire within.

#PicoGUS is now an ODE! I've just released firmware v3.0.0, which adds Panasonic CD-ROM drive emulation. Put some ISOs or BIN/CUE files on a USB stick, plug it into your PicoGUS, and you've got a virtual CD-ROM drive that works in DOS and Windows 9x and supports CD audio. github.com/polpo/picogu...

Making a very very slow start in reversing the Acorn A7000/Plus. Did sand down the front side, gone a little too far in places. Hopefully work it out 😂 Will be months if not years (already been about 2) 😆 There are tiny little traces hidden in the layers first job building symbols and footprints

A little side project i asked my friend @zaxour.bsky.social for A TI99/4A USBC-PD internal psu replacement I didnt have the external psu with the weird connector on it Just had to harvest the power switch, power connector and led from the original