This New ISA Card Is A Game Changer! PicoMEM First Look
8,748
Published 2024-07-26
The brand new PicoMEM ISA card from FreddyV supports hard and floppy drive emulation, extra RAM, AdLib emulation, WiFi, USB controller support and so much more! I think it's going to be a real game changer for these old PCs. So let's put it through its paces.
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Relevant Links:
PicoMEM GitHub: github.com/FreddyVRetro/ISA-PicoMEM
DAC Board: shop.flamelily.co.uk/picomem
AtariPC: www.ataripc.net/
WinWorld: winworldpc.com/
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Where To Buy:
Texelec (US): texelec.com/product/picomem
Flamelily (UK): shop.flamelily.co.uk/picomem
Serdashop (EU): www.serdashop.com/PicoMEM
FreddyV (EU): docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScwYPvnVoGynLLgP_…
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Chapters:
Chapters:
00:00 Intro & DAC Install
03:42 BIOS Configuration Menu
06:29 Floppy & HDD Emulation
11:12 Updating PicoMEM Firmware & Installing
14:35 RAM Expansion
18:27 WiFi
22:40 AdLib Sound Card Emulation
26:19 USB Mouse & Game Controller Suppor
All Comments (21)
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nice one - looks like a great way to give real hardware all the advantages of emulation.
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Sorry for nitpicking, but the PM2000 driver doesn't emulate an NE2000 card, the PicoMem itself does. The driver is just a packet driver, which is kind of an abstraction layer, so applications like those in the mTCP suite don't have to have support for zillion network cards. They know how to speak to the packet driver, and that's what speaks to the hardware itself. Btw, I'll be getting a PicoMEM for my SMEP PP-06 XT clone made in Czechoslovakia, as soon as I get that system up and running.
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This thing is really sweet. I def want to get one for my old machines. Thank you for the thorough review.
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I ve got two of them and possibly more in the future 😂😂😂 👏👏👏
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Great in-depth video, Rees! I'm always a little hesitant about using modern tech in place of period hardware, but I think this project will probably enable a lot of old, currently dead machines to see the light of day again, which can only be good.
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Absolutely a game changer!
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One step closer to the Pc of Theseus. I'll definitely have some of those though.
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There is nothing like adding features or abilities to computers games consoles or cars that just didnt exist when they were made. It just never gets old.
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I remember getting in trouble in Elementary school doing the Star Wars telenet thing because they thought I was "hacking." lol
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Unbelievably good piece of gear. Well done to Freddy and all that helped create it. Purists might say it's cheating. As someone that started with PC's in the era of XT's I'm glad it exists. Anything that makes things easier is a good thing esp for those new to retro.
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Wow, I have an ancient PC (i8088 4,75MHz, CGA, 256+384 KB RAM, no HDD, only floppies) and I clearly NEED one of these :)
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Such an amazing card!!
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It's a great piece of hardware! My 11yo soldered a DAC onto it and everything is working awesome. I dont think you covered it but my favorite feature is using the fast 128KB as UMBs for my Book8088. With that I boot DOS 6.22 using only 10KB of conventional memory, even with mouse and doskey and other stuff loaded! I'll probably order another one
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I haven't used ISA, industry standard architecture, (if I remember right) in years!! That was back in .... wish I had an old PC lol..
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Wow what an amazing card!
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Thanks for the excellent video. You've convinced me to order one of these for my Compaq Portable III (12MHz 286 with lovely amber plasma display). While its current HDD still works, I've been waiting for the day when the whole machine becomes a brick after it decides enough is enough (possible on its 40th birthday in 2027).
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Amazing !
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I see the monochrome issue has been fixed. I might try one on my Olivetti M24. Seems it still doesn’t play nice with the Tandy 1000 tho 😔
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I love this thing, although I do admit I bought it 99% just for the Wi-Fi. I stuck it in my Compaq Portable 3 luggable and Wi-Fi just makes a lot of sense in that machine. I couldn't get the hard drive emulation to work but I need to try the latest firmware. It's nice that it's got an option for monochrome, that should also work nicely with the gas plasma display. But this really is the end-all, be-all card for 8 and 16-bit PC enthusiasts.
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Sorry if I missed it but, if you're gonna swap floppy disks on the fly, like for a game that requires you to swap disks or that DOS installer, how does that work?
