New Model Development Updates

[greg221b]

Thanks Ewan!
I can't find any info on this David Vermont, fortunately the 256TC case is gorgeous.
Greg

[ChickenMan]

Greg, have a look in this Microbee Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/groups/100158753790849

[MbeeTech]

HDMI / I2S sound PCB's arrived today, and I've built 2 up ready for when I get time next week to do more development 
on the projects.

   

Looking forward to getting this going.

[CheshireNoir]

 Maybe this weekend I'll finally finish off the clear acrylic version of that case?

John

I really like the sound of that John.  Would be great option for the 'uncased' new kit as well.
Perhaps we can investigate this and get you something for your efforts, while making it available
as a product?

Well I was planning on releasing it as Open Source so happy for you to make them kits if you want. Currently it's got a lot of "hand finishing" at the final stages, which is why I haven't put it up anywhere yet.

I'll finish this one to completion and see how it goes.

BTW, it was all designed in CorelDraw. Anyone else remember that?

John

[MbeeTech]

BTW, it was all designed in CorelDraw. Anyone else remember that?

Wow, CorelDraw, yes I remember that.  I used it to create artwork for advertising many moons ago.

[Mr Lurch]

The next steps in the development cycle are all about Video and Sound outputs.

My intention is to do away with the old composite and RGB video outputs (Gasp!).
It's getting tricky these days to find suitable monitors / video output solutions to see
a Microbee's output with good quality.  While there are still plenty of TV's around that
will accept the standard monochrome composite video output from the bee,
colour output usually means finding an upscaler or a device with a Scart input and 
making up suitable cables / interface circuitry.  
I just don't want people to have to buy something else to get a decent picture out of 
their new kit.

Proper HDMI output is now what I've decided to implement.  It makes it simple to get
decent quality video out, and no problem with finding a suitable display to run it on.



I've designed a small development board [above] for the parts I want to use that will go onto 
the FPGA board in place of the RGB output section.  The PCB has been ordered today.
If you have a look at the board, it also has an I2S DAC for the sound and line level stereo output.
The I2S bus also connects to the HDMI transmitter, so you will be able to have sound output
from your chosen display as well (assuming it has speakers) via the HDMI cable.

I'll be upscaling the Microbee's video within the FPGA to either 640 x 480 or 1280 x 960.
I will wait and see the results of the upscaling on both resolutions before committing to one.

As well as supporting the Microbee's normal bit bashed (via the PIO) sound, I'll be implementing 
8 bit dual channel (stereo) sound FIFO's.  The bit bashed sound will be summed into the stereo 
audio as well.

I'm very much looking forward to getting these 2 important parts implemented.

Stay tuned.

Sounding awesome.
Like Ive said before, can't wait to get my grubby little hands on one.

[snake]

Hey Ewan,

Will the new Microbee output BeeThoven and BeeTalker sounds at the same time?

[MbeeTech]

Hey Ewan,

Will the new Microbee output BeeThoven and BeeTalker sounds at the same time?

Short answer - No.
The BeeThoven and BeeTalker units (designed by Milan Hudecek of Robotron) needed to be used
via the Bee's parallel port, so if you still want to plug one of those into the parallel port and use it, you can.
The software for them talks to the PIO via Z80 I/O ports 0 & 1 (data & control) and has a special handshaking 
arrangement to talk to the 8910 and SP0256 (music & speech respectively).  So, they were never designed to 
be plugged in / usable at the same time.

There is a 8910 compatible FPGA core in verilog that I may add at some point, but I'm not committing to that because
it will need to use different I/O ports in the Z80's I/O space (not ports 0 & 1) and would not have the same software 
interface - ergo, the existing software would not work with it.  I know it wouldn't take much to write some new software
to get sound that way, but as I said, I'm not committing to it at this point.

I've chosen to go forward with dual sound FIFO's (IE: stereo sound output) instead.  I believe that to be far more flexible
and better quality.

For the few people that might want to play with BeeTalker, there will still be some kits available to build to connect to the 
parallel port.  I don't see BeeTalker as being a draw card.

[MbeeTech]

Not much of an update for the moment, but currently reworking the screen display logic for the upscaled output, including
logic simulation to make sure it works well.

Had to clear the decks of production (assembly services) work, and some repairs before I could get to it again.

[MbeeTech]

Hello All.

After quite an extensive look at the raster generation logic and complete replacement of most of it
to suit the new upscaled output, today I got to hook up a monitor and see what popped out.
To be honest, I wasn't really expecting much, if anything, as re-doing the logic was quite complex,
and took quite a lot of work with simulation as well.

Anyway, the first thing I checked was Vsync and Hsync timing with the CRO, and they were spot on.
The display is configured for 640 x 480 @ 75hz with vertical scaling to take the bee's normal [max] 275 lines
and convert it to 480 lines.
So, I hooked up a normal LCD monitor, and although the display is not perfect and there are things I'll need to
investigate further, this is the output I get :

   

As you can see, there is a bit of fixing to do, but I'm actually pretty pleased with the vertical scaling quality.
It's a pretty simple scheme I've implemented, but it's doing the job quite reasonably.  

Anyway, I'll have to put it aside again to tackle assembly service jobs on the pick and place machine for the next week, 
but I'll be keen to move this ahead as quickly as I can.  I may have some time at night to make some progress in the next
few days as well.