Building a Raspberry Pi Pico Powered ZX Spectrum | #PiPico #zxspectrum

hi today I'm going to be looking at a Raspberry Pi Pico powered ZX Spectrum let's get [Music] started this video is sponsored by PCB way.com my go-to place for pcbs but did you know they don't just manufacture pcbs you can also get 3D prints in a range of Technologies and CNC services from them too PCB prototype the easy way with PCB way.com to build a PCO ZX you'll need to order the PCB which is available from PCB ways shared project area at this URL and you'll find the link in the video description the design above Rus has a few options for your build this is the board that I ordered so let's look at this first this board is designed to fit inside a ZX Spectrum 48k rubber keyboard case down here you'll find a des description required components and the firmware Etc this board is a keyboard only and can be used with the smaller board that I ordered and finally there is this one this board features both the motherboard and keyboard on a single PCB ordering is straightforward add to cart specify the shipping and then PCB quantity and specs I went with a blue PCB and a lead free surface finish then finally save to cart and pay this design supports both three through hole and surface mount components and I decided to go with the surface mount components for my build I also gave hot air soldering a go for the first time and I love the way that the components get pulled into the middle as the solder paste melts [Music] I decided to hand sold of the micro SD card reader as I didn't know how forgiving its internal plastic could be to a lengthy blast of extremely hot [Music] air the 3 and a half mil audio jack didn't quite have the correct footprint for the board so I just bridged the leg to the pad with some extra solder when soldering the P Pico in place I soldered the two diagonal Corners first to ensure that it was straight before soldering the rest of the pads although the switches won't be used once the board is fitted inside a case I fitted them anyway so that I could use them for some initial testing [Music] [Music] next I downloaded the firmware from the project page and to flash it to the Pico you need to press and hold the boot select button whilst connecting it to a USB port on your computer the PPO then appears as a removable drive and to flash the firmware I simply dragged and dropped the firmware onto the device the drive was automatically ejected as soon as the file had finished copying the micro SD card needs to be formatted for fat 32 and requires a specific folder structure for the Pico z x to see the games the good news is that that folder structure is automatically created on the card when the picco Z x sees a blank card inserted here is what the folder structure looks like in the root of the drive is a folder called ZX Spectrum and inside that are two folders and a config file tap files get placed in the tapes folder and z80 files get placed in the snapshots folder since the z80 files are snapshots of a running machine they will load instantly whereas the Pico z x emulates a cassette player and loads the tap files at the same speed as if they were being loaded from tape for my initial test I hooked everything up but left the board outside of the case on the rear of the motherboard is a reset switch and a menu switch entering the menu enables access to the machine settings and the files on the micro SD card the menu can be navigated using the buttons on the motherboard or a joystick to load a tap file start the tape loader then press the menu button select tape player select tapes and then select the desired tap file finally press the menu button again to return to the ZX Spectrum I'll speed up the video for the loading process I've shown this game before on the Commodore 64 and commodore Amiga and it's available from h. [Music] iio now that I know the machine works okay it's time to case the board before it will fit in the bottom of the case this bit of plastic will need cutting off after trimming the bottom of the case I discovered that the top part also needed a trim after cutting the top part of the case and filing smooth I assembled the case here is a view of the rear of the case after I trimmed and filed it I didn't need to touch the three holes on the right the one on the far right is where the reset and menu buttons are accessed the next hole along is where the 3.5 mil audio jack is and then the next hole has the micro SD card slot in it it is also possible to connect a USB keyboard or game controller to the Pico ZX for a quick test I connected a USB receiver for this keyboard whilst it works I did find it a little tricky without the correct key cap Legends especially when it came to finding out which of the keys was the symbol shift key right time for a classic again I'll speed up the video during the loading so what are my thoughts on this well I kind of like it you know it's very budget friendly especially with the p Pico rocking in at just £390 at the moment so the whole project was quite budget friendly to build I like the fact that it has the joystick Port built into it that was very good so I found the built-in speaker to be a little bit quiet it probably needs an amplifier sitting in between the Raspberry Pi Pico and the speaker so a great test with this is I took it into the office to see how it would go down and it went down very well indeed in fact one person went as far as to say well come on Adam you purchased more than one off of each component surely you can build me one so I think it was a hit there subscribe for more videos like this click here to learn about the ZX Spectrum next and click here to watch whatever YouTube thinks you will enjoy next until next time take care

Channel: iNimbleSloth

Views: 11,442

Keywords: Tutorial, gamer, gaming, iNimbleSloth, ZX Spectrum, ZX, Spectrum128K, ZX Spectrum Clone, retro, retro games, retro gaming, Spectrum games, Commodore

Id: zTIMitiR2Pk

Length: 12min 43sec (763 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 02 2024