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fruit-bat / pico-zxspectrum

ZX Spectrum for Raspberry Pico Pi RP2040
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Pico W ? #61

Open Ripper912 opened 1 year ago

Ripper912 commented 1 year ago

Hi ,

Is it possible to use PicoW instead of a standard one? The Wi-fi options could be quite handy ;-D Dont you think?

Thanks & regards for any feedback

fruit-bat commented 1 year ago

Hello,

I don't have a PicoW at the moment so I cannot say for sure... but having had a look at the pinout it should work just fine. Sorry I know this isn't a very helpful answer but I'm afraid you are trailblazing the PicoW adoption at the moment.

andrewlavens commented 1 year ago

Obviously YMMV but I've given the Pico W a try with the Pimoroni DV Demo Base. I was able to run the pre-made uf2 and sound, video and USB keyboard were fine. I can't try other devices as I don't have them.

(And this project is fantastic, by the way!)

siffland commented 1 year ago

If you happen to land a Pi Pico W, the SDK kit looks like you can connect bluetooth devices, hence a bluetooth keyboard. How cool would that be a ZX with a bluetooth keyboard or controller, or both.

ArnoldUK commented 1 year ago

It is possible to use bluetooth controllers with the standard Pico through the USB connector using a OTG cable. Simply plug the bluetooth dongle into the Pico's micro usb socket and supply power through VSYS. Works for me with my mini bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Personally, I don't see any benefits with having wifi on an 8-bit z80 emulator. Serial uart, usb and sdcards are more than enough.

fruit-bat commented 1 year ago

I do have a Pico W now but it's still in its package. When I get chance I will see how involved using a bluetooth keyboard is. Also, believe it or not I am running out of cpu cycles for all this stuff... a lot of which is take up by trying to make the audio acceptable.

ArnoldUK commented 1 year ago

The audio is good enough for me and I wouldn't expect perfect audio signals to sound good through a tiny 8 ohm speaker. I think the file and menu system could be improved and I'm working on adding a graphical GUI at the moment but my time is limited.

When you compare the size, interfaces, logic and power usage of the pico to all of the physical hardware that it is emulating, that is quite remarkable.