Board Bring Up Hardware
Building the Hardware for FujiNet
This document will take you thru most of the steps needed to source, build, and setup the FujiNet hardware to connect and interface with specific platform. The software bring up is covered in the Board Bring Up Software document. It has been created with valuable snippets of information that has been posted on the Discord server and by research notes and diagrams from various team members working on FN and communicating via Discord.
If you are reading this, and not on the Discord you should stop by: https://discord.gg/7MfFTvD
- Platform - a specific set of hardware devices from a manufacturer with common IO characteristics. Examples: Atari 8bits (SIO), Apple II (SmartPort), ADAM (ADAMnet), Commodore 64 (IEC).
- FujiNet - a hardware peripheral that uses the ESP32 and various IO connectors to attach to different platforms.
- ESP32 - the heart of the FN, the SOC that runs the firmware and does the work to connect the platforms to the Internet
- BOB - the break-out-box, an add-on device that connects to an Atari FujiNet and provides pins to connect to other devices
There is a lot of information available on the Internet about the ESP32, this document will just mention it in passing here because it is the heart of the FujiNet ecosystem. The more you are familiar with the ESP32 and it's functions the more the hardware and software in this project will make sense.
Please note that the FujiNet software always uses the WROVER versions - they have more RAM and more Flash than the WROOM versions. FN devkits use the ESP32-DevKitVCE for development. Using the WROOM version with its smaller ram will cause issues.
These platforms have retail FujiNets that are available to buy fully assembled and are plug-in-play.
The Atari 8bit platform is fully supported and you can purchase a retail FujiNet and use it. It has fully tested hardware, CONFIG and WEB that supports all FujiNet functions.
These platforms require a development kit and custom wiring to interface to the FujiNet
Used for any platform that does not already have a specific retail FujiNet device created for it.
Purchase the following equipment to outfit your devkit
Must Purchase:
Should purchase: (no affiliate links, Amazon is just an example)
- [Breadboard Jumpers (https://www.amazon.com/Makeronics-Breadboard-Prototyping-Electronics-Experiment/dp/B07Z4W6V6R/)
- Dupont Wires
- Solderless BreadBoards
The very first revision of the FujiNet Atari device, a 1.0 board, can be used as a 'devKit' with the addition of a Break-out-Box (BOB) which is available from FujiNet Online Store.
- BOB [/images/fn_hbu_bob_1.png]]
Using the BOB with a 1.0 board (repeat: only the 1.0 boards work) is just like using a DevKit on breadboard.
The AppleII (A2) port is using the SmartPort protocol to interface with the Apples. This means the A2 device must have a SmartPort (SP) DB19 interface in order for the FN to work. Apple IIc, IIc+, IIGS all have SP built in. For Apple II+ and IIe you need to get a SP set of ROMs to use in an existing Disk2 controller or use the new YellowStone SP Card from BMOW.
In addition to the DevKit above you need to order some equipment for the FN to connect into the SP on the platform. Below are necessary unless you are going to wire up your own connection from scratch.
Apple II + / e:
- BMOW Yellowstone
- ROM CHIPS - NEED LINK
For IIc, IIc+, GS;
Once you have your Devkit and your DB19 plug (or the BMOW IDC20-DB19) you can now connect up the DevKit to the Apple. Below are some diagrams to help.
[/images/fn_hbu_bmow-gpio_diagram.png]] Wire up the ribbon header to the GPIO pins on the ESP32.
[/images/fn_hbu_apple_sp_to_gpio_code-comments.png]] Comments in the code show the mapping between Apple SP, GPIO and Atari SIO.
You can use a FN 1.0 and BOB board to connect to Apple.
[/images/fn_hbu_bob-to-bmow20.png]] Wire up the ribbon header to the BOB.
- WIP - to be added
- WIP - to be added
- WIP - to be added
- WIP - to be added