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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Maximite featured on 8-Bit Guy
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panky Guru  Joined: 02/10/2012 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1116 |
Peter, Seems to me that the 100 pin mz would make a perfect cmm3 - I for one don't need the rs485 or can but others may. The actual chip price is not that different so cost should not be an issue (other than the crystal which is a bit pricey). I would very definitely love to get my hands on an mz "CMM3" - one of your existing 100 pin boards would be perfect I think with minimal,if any, changes. My 100 pin mz Navigation board should arrive in few days so I am looking forward to trying to port some of the maximite programs to it. Thanks for all your contributions, Doug. ... almost all of the Maximites, the MicromMites, the MM Extremes, the ArmMites, the PicoMite and loving it! |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10568 |
It supports BLIT. Geoff has never been happy with the sprites implementation in the CMM so I didn't implement that but blit is very powerful 640 x 480 x 8-colour (and 640 x 400) with no material impact on available memory (still 320K left!) Yes and PS2 Mouse Agreed but the CMM doesn't have that either The big disadvantage of the Pi is boot times and the fact you can crash it. It simply isn't as robust as a dedicated single chip solution without OS and never will be. |
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| robert.rozee Guru Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2463 |
is 640 x 400 intended for use with 16:9 monitors? could the number of horizontal lines be set to other values if needsbe to achieve square pixels? again, i'm thinking that going forward 4:3 monitors may start becoming rarer. true, the RPi boot time is an issue. i guess that could only be addressed with an extreme pruning/customizing of the linux distro, but even then crashability issues may remain. it is the veritable rabbit hole. if the MZ's usb port were sacrificed to being a permanent USB host, with the only requirement of USB keyboard support, how difficult would creating the necessary code be? with a 1455 on the board, the MZ really doesn't need to have the ability to connect to a PC itself. cheers, rob :-) |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10568 |
Not really, the issue isn't the MZ code but the monitor won't recognise different line numbers as a valid VESA signal and won't lock on. Even 640x400 isn't very well supported. Pixels on 640x400 are 11x10 so not too rectangular. Should be relatively easy (by USB standards  ) |
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twofingers Guru Joined: 02/06/2014 Location: GermanyPosts: 1671 |
That's pretty true! But I missed the ability to create and handle windows (non MS!  ) on Maximites in a simple way (ie store and load a range of the screen). ... just a thought ... Michael causality ≠ correlation ≠ coincidence |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10568 |
You can do this with BLIT READ and BLIT WRITE on both the MM+ and MMX within the limits of available memory |
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| twofingers Guru Joined: 02/06/2014 Location: GermanyPosts: 1671 |
Thanks Peter, I didn't know that! Maybe a feature that can also be transferred to the Maximites. Some day ...  causality ≠ correlation ≠ coincidence |
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Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9750 |
Re. Pi Boot times: Puppy Linux for the Raspberry Pi is about 8 seconds from power-on to the desktop on an 'Old' Pi2 B(quad-core 1GB) once installed and setup. That's not bad. Have not tried it on a Pi3, but would probably be slightly faster on one of those. Puppy Linux for the Pi won't run on the Pi-zero at the moment, but a zero would be a good board for Puppy to use. My tests were when I was using a Pi2 and Puppy Linux to setup that WAN MM console experiment a month or so ago using SER2NET application from the command prompt to allow WAN connections to the Pi2 serial port. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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mallorn Newbie  Joined: 14/01/2018 Location: SwedenPosts: 9 |
I'm one of 8-bit guy "older" YT subsribers. After I watched his video I started to google around... and finally I found this place. I'm interested in getting MM eXtreme 144 (I wrote an e-mail to WhiteWizzard asking for PCB or assembled set already ...) Guess it is time for me to use Rpi until I will be able to lay hands on my own MMX. Or I can get one somewhere else? |
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| WhiteWizzard Guru Joined: 05/04/2013 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2959 |
As some of you are aware, I have had some serious personal matters to sort out here so have been very quiet on TBS (and email) over the last few weeks. Anyway, things are finally getting sorted and I am getting around to the last few outstanding orders - despatching most this week. @mallorn I have responded to your emails this morning and can sort out a MMX144 for you. Check your emails and we can 'chat' IMHO; the MMX144 is an excellent basis for a 'new and updated' MaxiMite. I was heavily involved with 'suggestions' for Geoff and Peter over Christmas 2016 and about the only two things I thought missing have already been identified here in this thread. 1> Sprites. Fully aware of BLIT, but some SPRITE functionality similar to the MaxiMite would be a massive bonus. Fortunately this is a software thing so could appear in a future MMBASIC release  2> USB keyboard. Even though PS2 keyboards are available, there are many more USB choices out there. New PS2 keyboards of a decent quality are becoming harder to find as time goes on. Having built and used most of the MMX range of Peter's designs, I can say that the MMX144 is the 'closest technical fit' to a MaxiMite. My only comments would be to 'shrink it down' in size as the MMX144 is rather large! A small 'box', plug in a VGA, a USB keyboard, a PSU, and slot in an SD card. Allow the usual 40pin TFT header; and a GPIO header(s) and you have a self contained product able to fulfil many scenarios (embedded or standalone). I understand that people with an existing MaxiMite may appreciate a Firmware update to incorporate the excellent MicroMite features; but this must surely be a massive exercise for Geoff for little gain My suggestion is simply to use the excellent MicroMite firmware and add Sprites and USB keyboard support.Some people will argue that SPRITEs are not needed for an embedded controller and I would fully agree. However, there is a ton of space in the MZ, so why not incorporate 'everything' and just have one Firmware to maintain?? Then use it as a controller (with the TFT option?), or use it as a Games machine, or as a 'Coding console'. . . . WW |
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| amitor Newbie Joined: 15/01/2018 Location: United StatesPosts: 4 |
Hello everyone, I'm another 8-Bit Guy subscriber that has been impressed with his video, and now I should be getting the MMX144 soon, thank you WW! Coming to it as a retro computer enthusiast, this will at least initially be a device for game programming through VGA. In that context, the one missing feature that has been mentioned is the SPRITE command. The other item I want to understand is the VGA modes on the CMM vs MMX - specifically the "high-speed" mode. Since MMX is substantially faster (and VGA is natively supported?), is it safe to assume that the 640x480 is similar/faster speed-wise? |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10568 |
The MMX only has two VGA modes 640x480 and 640x400 they should be fast enough. See this for drawing speed |
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| WhiteWizzard Guru Joined: 05/04/2013 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2959 |
The MMX144 is FAST; and certainly has been able to handle everything I have thrown at it. I am confident that a SPRITE like feature will appear sometime in the future; and for now there is the BLIT command. I spoke with Peter today and he gave me an idea as to how to use BLIT to 'simulate' sprite activity. There is one 'tweak' that Peter suggested could be made to allow BLIT to act as 'transparent' - so watch this space as I believe more and more people will be requesting this capability. Unfortunately it is nothing I can implement; Peter is the Graphics guru - so we must try bribe him somehow |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10568 |
You mean like this |
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| WhiteWizzard Guru Joined: 05/04/2013 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2959 |
Now you're just showing off! But yes, I do mean like that  Is that also with 'collision detection' I see there? OR is the jumping (when the two 'collide' into each other) an actual (dare I say it) bug/feature? 'Layers' next (pretty please)  . . . . . |
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| Boppa Guru Joined: 08/11/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 816 |
I dont know if they would work, but many years ago all keyboards used to come with a ps2/usb adapter or usb/ps2 adapter depending on keyboards- these appeared to be a 'dumb' adapter with no internal electronics eg usb ps2 ps2 usb could these be used to adapt keyboards (in particular the top one would in theory allow any usb keyboard to be used) |
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| WhiteWizzard Guru Joined: 05/04/2013 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2959 |
@Boppa, USB 'only' keyboards are 'technically' more complex than PS2 keyboards; so using a USB 'only' keyboard with a USB-to-PS2 adaptor will simply not work due to the incorrect protocol. Some keyboards have both USB and PS2 protocols built-in and typically come with a USB connector at the end of the cable (for when plugging into USB) and will in this situation use the USB protocol. And because these keyboards can also 'speak' the PS2 protocol, then when using a USB-to-PS2 adaptor, will then allow correct operation when inserted into a PS2 socket. The adaptor is just 'dumb' like you say, and just makes the physical connections allowing the PS2 protocol to talk to the 'end device'. PS2 only keyboards will not work in a USB port (when obviously using a PS2-to-USB adaptor) due to the incorrect protocol. Put simply, some people will say they have a USB keyboard working with an adaptor connected to a PS2 device. But in reality, they have a keyboard with both protocols built in, and use an adaptor to simply make the physical connection. I have 'simplified' the above explanation - but hopefully this makes sense . . . WW |
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| EckRenrew Newbie Joined: 16/01/2018 Location: BrazilPosts: 1 |
Yea, thanks to that video review, I was introduced to this little wonderful machine. Otherwise, I'd probably miss it. After a long struggle with Altronics' website (Altronics doesn't accept any credit card payments for international orders ), I just got to finally purchase this kit through MAD Electronics on eBay; ended up paying a little more than I expected on shipping, but at least I will get my hands on a Colour Maximite.This will make me the second person in Brazil to own one (the first being forum user @Mauro Xavier).  |
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| Boppa Guru Joined: 08/11/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 816 |
bugga, thought it would be too easy |
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| amitor Newbie Joined: 15/01/2018 Location: United StatesPosts: 4 |
:) This is great at this resolution. |
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