pico-atom 1.3

What's new since 1.2

• Exit to shell. The menu's main page has Exit to shell, between Save settings and About. It unmounts the card and reboots into the PicoCalc shell through UF2 Loader. If the emulator was not started by the loader, or there is no card, it stays put and says why on the status row.
• Files on the card carry the shell's time. Saved settings, tapes, discs and snapshots are stamped with the clock the shell keeps, at its local offset. If the clock was never set, files get 2026-01-01 00:00 as before. The emulator never sets the clock.

Install

Hold BOOTSEL and copy pico-atom.uf2 to the RP2350 drive, or install it with UF2 Loader for Exit to shell to work. This is the release build (-DPICO_ATOM_UART=OFF): no UART log. ROMs go on the SD card under /atom/roms/ as described in the README.

Full changelog: v1.2...v1.3

pico-atom 1.2

What's new since 1.1

• Alt+I no longer eats the next Enter. Insert is Shift+Enter or Alt+I; an Alt+I with Alt let go first used to swallow the following Enter. The key is now decided when it arrives, with Alt as it was then.
• A tapped Shift or Ctrl reaches the Atom. A modifier pressed and released quickly was applied and undone before the guest saw it; its release now waits as a key's does.
• Rewinding a tape stops the deck. Rewinding a playing tape used to start it again from the beginning; it now leaves the tape stopped at its start, as a real deck does.
• New document, docs/emulator-lessons.md: what this project taught about writing an emulator on the PicoCalc.

Install

Hold BOOTSEL and copy pico-atom.uf2 to the RP2350 drive. This is the release build (-DPICO_ATOM_UART=OFF): no UART log. ROMs go on the SD card under /atom/roms/ as described in the README.

Full changelog: v1.1...v1.2

pico-atom 1.1

What's new since 1.0

• 300 MHz Pico clock and a 4 MHz Atom. host_clock = 300 in /atom/pico-atom.cfg, or Pico clock on the Machine page, runs the RP2350 at 300 MHz; clock = 4 then gives a 4 MHz guest. On a 150 MHz host a 4 MHz setting runs at 2 MHz and the status row says so. Tapes still play at 1 MHz only.
• VIA port B on the GPIOs. The 6522's port B is a user port on the PicoCalc's free pins, push-pull outputs and pulled-up inputs as on the real chip, switched from the Setup page. On by default in this build.
• Menu keys. F1–F5 open Tapes, Discs, Snapshots, Setup and Machine straight from the Atom or Pause; Alt+H shows the keys and F10 the About page, which now shows the chip's temperature.
• The heartbeat reports the battery gauge and die temperature (development build).

Install

Hold BOOTSEL and copy pico-atom.uf2 to the RP2350 drive. This is the release build (-DPICO_ATOM_UART=OFF): no UART log. ROMs go on the SD card under /atom/roms/ as described in the README.

Full changelog: v1.0...v1.1

pico-atom 1.0

Initial release