Q68 wifi dongle updates...

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Dave
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Q68 wifi dongle updates...

Post by Dave »

Given the positive response and some suggestions from my small group of testers, I am making some changes to the V2 Q68 dongle. I will release the V1 dongle as a limited run, just to satisfy immediate demand. It seems the response to my dongle was so positive that it could be a nice, generally useful product all over the place in the retro community.

One of the main problems my test group reported was that it was hard to configure the serial to work. Getting the speed, start/stop bits and etc to match was a bit of a pain, considering the dongle would just do nothing and tell you nothing until it was connected.

So, I have decided to add a small OLED 128x32 character display to it. I am going to add the following functionality:
A button. If pressed once it will show the configured serial port speed. If pressed again, it will cycle through the speeds, 300, 600, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 76800, 115200, 230400, 460800....

Once a wifi link is established it will show AP name, IP, signal strength, serial speed, and maybe an up/down data counter. It's going to be pretty cool, and I might be able to sell a LOT of these into the retro community. Like, in the US market, *THOUSANDS*...

I'll also add to the PCB pads for the PHY and magnetics for hard wired 10/100 ethernet so it could be a built-time option for an extra tenner or so.

Anyone want to help me write the firmware? It's just C++ in the arduino dev environment. Anyone who contributes code would get a far share of the proceeds. I think a device like this would sell for $50+ to the US retro community in a consumer friendly package.


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Re: Q68 wifi dongle updates...

Post by NormanDunbar »

Just out of curiosity Dave, did you get any volunteers to help write the firmware?


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Dave
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Re: Q68 wifi dongle updates...

Post by Dave »

Not from within the "very small" QL community. I found someone in the local Commodore community who is assisting, and getting me to 80% of where I need to be.

Mostly, it's pre-configuring the IC so the GPIO are set up as the correct interfaces, but also so it understands the QL version of ASCII.


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Re: Q68 wifi dongle updates...

Post by NormanDunbar »

Ok, thanks.

I was wondering if you needed all the firmware doing or just the bit you explained above.


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Norm.


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Re: Q68 wifi dongle updates...

Post by Dave »

The firmware is 90% done. I have hired an ESP32S expert to do the last 10%. It's worth the money, as this has general usefulness across many platforms....


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Re: Q68 wifi dongle updates...

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Re: Q68 wifi dongle updates...

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi,

Excellent video, showing the capabilities of the ESP8266, can the ESP32S do as well.


Regards,

Derek
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Re: Q68 wifi dongle updates...

Post by XorA »

Derek_Stewart wrote:Hi,

Excellent video, showing the capabilities of the ESP8266, can the ESP32S do as well.
Video talks about 80Mhz, the ESP32S unfortunately seems to be limited to 40Mhz on I2S pins :-(


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Re: Q68 wifi dongle updates...

Post by Dave »

The ESP32S has many improvements and a couple of sacrifices.

I have been using it as a very capable multiple clock generator up to 40MHz.

I haven't really been working on it, since my Q68 isn't set up yet. I have also been distracted by an unexpected home repair projects that has taken over a week and has a few more days to go still.


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