Anyone reading this forum anymore?

Hi all,

Presenting my Wi-Fi Cartridge for the Commodore 64!


(Click for album)


Before you get too excited, let me tell you a bit about it...

1. This is the first non-trivial circuit board that I've ever designed, and I'm self-taught, so "real" electrical engineers might
have designed parts of it differently. I'm happy to share the schematics with experts to get some feedback though, and open to
suggestions.

2. That said, it does work. I have to tweak a few things, and I found two design mistakes so far, but it works!

3. I made it for my own use and learning, but I'm definitely planning on making a few to sell if there is interest. Note that it's going to be the Cadillac of cards, around $200. There are cheaper approaches, but they wouldn't be as cool.

4. It only supports 2400 baud. I'm aware of the UP9600 baud hack, but I wanted to focus on finishing this and get it working without the extra complexity. Maybe - emphasis on *maybe* - for a future version.

5. It passes through all the RS-232 signals in case you want to do something fancy, like run a BBS.

6. The software has only barely been started, to prove out the functionality. It's Arduino-based so you can customize/expand it all you like.

7. I'm strongly leaning towards deviating from the Hayes AT-based approach and building in a menu-driven system instead (see screenshot in the album).

8. You interface with it through a standard Terminal program. Not compatible with the RR-Net, 64NIC+, etc.

9. There are a few different ways you can configure it. You could skip the Wi-Fi portion entirely and use it as an interface to the
outside world, all the Arduino pins (including Analog In/PWM Out, etc) are broken out on a header at the top of the card. You can also run it standalone and power it from a separate 3.3-16V power supply.

10. Woohoo!

Awesome!

And very well done, especially considered you're self taught. I'm very impressed!! (Seems there is hope for us uneducated bastards after all, lol!)

On a side note: What about creating a general Arduino cartridge for the C64/128 for development and experimenting? As I understand it that's pretty much what you got going under the hood?

Thanks! I used Fritzing, it's very beginner-friendly: http://fritzing.org/home/

You can't actually program the Arduino from the 64 with my setup, you need a PC and adaptor for that. The upcoming Comet+ gives you more direct access to an Arduino for development experimenting though: http://cometplus.net/