PerryFi 2

1. Introduction
2. Licences
3. Obtaining the PCB
4. Bill of Materials (BOM)
5. Flashing the Firmware
6. Included Software
7. Special Thanks
8. Project PerryFi

Introduction

PerryFi 2 is a wifi expansion card for the Amstrad PCW series of computers.

It uses a Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller board to implement a Z80 DART and a 8523 timer at high speed, and an ESP-12F module to implement AT-style modem functionality along with SLIP and PPP networking.

The PerryFi 2 is designed to either plug into the PCW Backplane, or directly into the PCW's expansion port.

If you would like a pre-built version of the board, you can order one from the PCBWay project.

Index

Licences

The PerryFi PCB, and its source files, are licensed under the CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2: CERN-OHL-S.

CP/M is licensed under the CP/M Licence 2022.

BAUDEXT.FID is licensed under the MIT Licence.

SETSIO.COM and QTERM are believed to be in the public domain, as are the other programs featured on the disc images in this repo.

Index

Obtaining the PCB

As mentioned above, you can either order this directly from its project page on PCBWay, or from downloading the gerbers, and uploading them to your favourite PCB manufacturer. I highly recommend JLCPCB.

Index

BOM

Passives

Ref	Qty	Part	Source
C1	1	22uF 16V Electrolytical Capacitor	Mouser
C2	1	10uF 16V Electronic Capacitor	Mouser
C3 - C10	8	0.1uF / 100 nF (104) Ceramic Capacitor	Mouser
J3	1	1x4-pin Header Male	Mouser
R1 - R6	6	10K Resistor	Mouser

MCU Boards

Ref	Qty	Part	Source
A1	1	Raspberry Pi Pico Clone	AliExpress
U1	1	ESP12-F Module	AliExpress

Logic ICs

Ref	Qty	Part	Source
U2	1	74HCT125	Mouser
U3	1	74LVC244	Mouser
U4	1	74LVC245	Mouser
U5	1	74LS138	Mouser

Connector

The box header is for use with the PCW Backplane, whereas the female edge connector allows you to plug the PerryFi 2 directly into your PCW's expansion port.

Ref	Qty	Part	Source
CONN	1	2x25-pin 90-deg Keyed Male Box Header	AliExpress
EDGE	1	50-pin Female Edge Connector	AliExpress

Note that the box header is soldered to the front of the board, to the bottom two rows, but the edge connector is soldered to the back of the board.

When assembled with an edge connector, the PerryFi 2 connects to the expansion board on the back of the PCW with its front facing you, and the ESP12-F's antenna facing towards the edge of the PCW, not towards the middle.

Sockets

These are entirely optional. Note that you will save a lot of money shopping around on AliExpress versus buying sockets and pin headers from Mouser.

Ref	Qty	Part	Source
A1	2	20-pin Pin Header Male 20-pin Pin Header Female	Mouser Mouser
U1	2 1	1.27mm 8-pin Pin Header Male and Female 1.27mm 6-pin Pin Header Male and Female	AliExpress
U2	1	14-pin IC DIP Socket	Mouser
U3 - U4	2	20-pin DIP Socket	Mouser
U5	1	16-pin DIP Socket	Mouser

Index

Flashing the Firmware

There are two different firmwares to flash. These can be found in their respective repositories along with instructions for flashing them:

PicoDART - Raspberry Pi Pico Firmware PerryZi - ESP12-F Firmware

Index

Included Software

There are two boot images included; one for the Amstrad PCW 8256 family (dot matrix printers), and one for the 9512 family (daisy wheel printers). They both 720KB images, and are designed to be used on a modded Gotek.

Boot the relevant image on your PCW, and run the QTERMPF.COM terminal emulator. You will then be able enter AT+CONFIG to configure your wifi settings. For a complete list of commands, see the Command Reference on the PerryZi wiki.

There is also a third disk image, which contains additional communications software for you to try.

Index

Special Thanks

It's been a hectic four months working on this project, and I want to thank the following people:

• John Elliott, for writing the fantastic Joyce emulator, and for his brilliant PCW Hardware documentation. Without these, the project may not have been possible.

• Lee Taylor, for his technical help and support. It's always great to have someone more experienced to advise you.

• Salvatore Bognanni, for his endless enthusiasm, driving me on, and his keenness to help test.

• Stefan P for helping me with the ESP12-F KiCad footprint, and for his advice about exposing to GPIO pins for both MCUs. Without this, debugging the board would have been far more cumbersome.

Index

Project PerryFi

Project PerryFi consists of several separate components which make the PerryFi 2 possible:

• PerryFi 2 - Hardware
• PerryDART - Pico Firmware
• PerryZi - ESP8266 Firmware

Index