Pseudonymous maker and classic computing fanatic “Rumbledethumps” has introduced a significant improve for his or her Picomputer 6502 retro-styled build-it-yourself microcomputer: a drop-in improve that provides Wi-Fi connectivity, courtesy of a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W microcontroller board.
“The RP6502 Interface Adapter W (RIA W) is a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W operating the RP6502-RIA-W firmware,” Rumbledethumps explains of the improve. “The RIA W supplies all of the options of the RP6502-RIA plus built-in wi-fi companies. [This] means your 6502 could be linked to the web. With this replace, you are able to do one thing you in all probability have not completed in 30 years: hook up with a BBS [Bulletin Board System].”
Rumbledethumps’ Picomputer 6502 began life as a breadboard construct earlier than later being upgraded to single-board pc standing, designed as a Commodore 64-inspired venture for classic computing followers and powered by the mixture of a MOS Expertise 6502 — within the type of Western Design Heart’s fashionable equal, the W65C025 — and a Raspberry Pi Pico board with its RP2040 dual-core microcontroller as an “interface adapter,” plus a second to behave as an elective graphics card if desired.
It is this Raspberry Pi Pico-powered “RP6502 Interface Adapter (RIA)” which Rumbledethumps has upgraded, taking the unique firmware and porting it to the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W. Whereas that additionally will increase its CPU efficiency and obtainable reminiscence, there is a extra essential characteristic that makes the improve worthwhile: the presence of a Wi-Fi radio.
The Wi-Fi connection can be utilized to synchronize the system clock or, extra excitingly, in modem emulation mode for BBS entry. (📷: Rumbledethumps)
This, Rumbledethumps explains, can join the Picomputer 6502 to a neighborhood Wi-Fi community and, from there, to the web. When you’re not going to have the ability to run an internet browser on the gadget, you may synchronize the system clock and emulate a modem connection — that means you may “dial in” to internet-connected bulletin board methods and chat prefer it’s the Eighties another time.
The RP6502-RIA-W is detailed on the Picocomputer 6502 web site; directions on constructing a Picocomputer 6502 or upgrading an present unit to the RP6502-RIA-W are additionally obtainable on the identical web site.