RP6502-RIA

Rumbledethumps Picocomputer 6502 Interface Adapter.

1. Introduction

The RP6502 Interface Adapter (RIA) is a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 with RP6502-RIA firmware. The RIA provides all essential services to support a WDC W65C02S microprocessor.

1.1. Features of the RP6502-RIA

• Advanced CMOS process technology for low power consumption

• Real time clock with automatic daylight savings time

• 6502 reset and clock management

• ROM loader instead of ROM chips

• A proper UART

• Stereo audio

• USB keyboards and mice

• USB mass storage aka thumb drives

• USB gamepads for up to four player fun

• PIX bus for GPUs like the RP6502-VGA

2. Functional Description

The RIA must be installed at $FFE0-$FFFF and must be in control of RESB and PHI2. These are the only requirements. Everything else about your Picocomputer can be customized.

A new RIA will boot to the console interface. This console can be accessed in one of three ways: from a VGA monitor and USB keyboard if you are using an RP6502-VGA; from the USB CDC device which the RP6502-VGA presents when plugged into a host PC like a development system; or from UART RX/TX (115200 8N1) pins on the RIA if you aren’t using an RP6502-VGA. The console interface is not currently documented here. The built-in help is extensive and always up-to-date. Type help to get started and don’t forget there is deep help like help set phi2.

The console interface is not meant to be an operating system CLI. Everything about its design is meant to achieve two goals. The first is to enable installing ROM files to the RIA EEPROM which can then boot on power up—this delivers the instant-on experience of early home computers. The other goal is to enable easy development and experimentation—you can load ROMs directly from a USB drive or send them from a development system.

2.1. Reset

When the 6502 is in reset, meaning RESB is low and it is not running, the RIA console is available for use. If the 6502 has crashed or the current application has no way to exit, you can put the 6502 back into reset in two ways.

Using a USB keyboard, press CTRL-ALT-DEL. The USB stack runs on the Pi Pico so this will work even if the 6502 has crashed.

Over the UART, send a break. The tools included with the “Hello, world!” project templates use this to stop the 6502, upload a new ROM, and execute the new ROM. All with the push of one button.

WARNING! Do not hook up a physical button to RESB. The RIA must remain in control of RESB. What you probably want is the reset that happens from the RIA RUN pin. We call this a reboot. The reference hardware reboot button is hooked up to the RIA RUN pin. Rebooting the Pi Pico RIA like this will cause any configured boot ROM to load, like at power on. Resetting the 6502 from keyboard or UART will only return you to the console interface, which is great for development and hacking.

2.2. Registers

Address	Name	Description
$FFE0	READY	Flow control for UART FIFO. bit 7 - TX FIFO not full. OK to send. bit 6 - RX FIFO has data ready.
$FFE1	TX	Write bytes to the UART.
$FFE2	RX	Read bytes from the UART.
$FFE3	VSYNC	Increments every 1/60 second when PIX VGA device is connected.
$FFE4	RW0	Read or write the XRAM referenced by ADDR0.
$FFE5	STEP0	Signed byte added to ADDR0 after every access to RW0.
$FFE6 - $FFE7	ADDR0	Address of XRAM for RW0.
$FFE8	RW1	Read or write the XRAM referenced by ADDR1.
$FFE9	STEP1	Signed byte added to ADDR1 after every access to RW1.
$FFEA - $FFEB	ADDR1	Address of XRAM for RW1.
$FFEC	XSTACK	512 bytes for passing call parameters.
$FFED	ERRNO_LO	Low byte of errno. All errors fit in this byte.
$FFEE	ERRNO_HI	Ensures errno is optionally a 16-bit int.
$FFEF	OP	Write the API operation id here to begin a kernel call.
$FFF0	IRQ	Set bit 0 high to enable VSYNC interrupts. Verify source with VSYNC then read or write this register to clear interrupt.
$FFF1	RETURN	Always $80, BRA. Entry to blocking API return.
$FFF2	BUSY	Bit 7 high while operation is running.
$FFF3	LDA	Always $A9.
$FFF4	A	Kernel register A.
$FFF5	LDX	Always $A2.
$FFF6	X	Kernel register X.
$FFF7	RTS	Always $60.
$FFF8 - $FFF9	SREG	32-bit extension to AX - AXSREG.
$FFFA - $FFFB	NMIB	6502 vector.
$FFFC - $FFFD	RESB	6502 vector.
$FFFE - $FFFF	BRK/IRQB	6502 vector.

2.3. UART

Easy and direct access to the UART RX/TX pins of the RP6502-RIA is available from $FFE0-$FFE2. The ready flags on bits 6-7 enable testing with the BIT operator. You may choose to use these or STDIN and STDOUT from the RP6502-API. Using the UART directly while a STDIN or STDOUT kernel function is in progress will result in undefined behavior.

2.4. Extended RAM (XRAM)

RW0 and RW1 are two portals to the same 64K XRAM. Having only one portal would make moving XRAM very slow since data would have to buffer in 6502 RAM. Ideally, you won’t move XRAM and can use the pair for better optimizations.

STEP0 and STEP1 are reset to 1. These are signed so you can go backwards and reverse data. These adders allow for very fast sequential access, which typically makes up for the slightly slower random access compared to 6502 RAM.

RW0 and RW1 are latching. This is important to remember when other systems change XRAM. For example, when using read_xram() to load XRAM from a mass storage device, this will not work as expected:

RIA_ADDR0 = 0x1000;
read_xram(0x1000, 1, fd);
uint8_t result = RIA_RW0; // wrong

Setting ADDR after the expected XRAM change will latch RW to the latest value.

read_xram(0x1000, 1, fd);
RIA_ADDR0 = 0x1000;
uint8_t result = RIA_RW0; // correct

2.5. Extended Stack (XSTACK)

This is 512 bytes of last-in, first-out, top-down stack used for the fastcall mechanism described in the RP6502-API. Reading past the end is guaranteed to return zeros. Simply write to push and read to pull.

2.6. Extended Registers (XREG)

Address	Name	Description
$0:0:00	KEYBOARD	See Keyboard section
$0:0:01	MOUSE	See Mouse section
$0:0:02	GAMEPADS	See Gamepads section
$0:1:00	PSG	See Programmable Sound Generator section

3. Pico Information Exchange (PIX)

The limited number of GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi Pico required creating a new bus for high bandwidth devices like video systems. This is an addressable broadcast system which any number of devices can listen to.

3.1. Physical layer

The physical layer is designed to be easily decoded by Pi Pico PIO, which is just a fancy shift register. The signals used are PHI2 and PIX0-3. This is a double data rate bus with PIX0-3 shifted left on both transitions of PHI2. A frame consists of 32 bits transmitted over 4 cycles of PHI2.

Bit 28 (0x10000000) is the framing bit. This bit will be set in all messages. An all-zero payload is repeated on device ID 7 when the bus is idle. A receiver will synchronize by ensuring PIX0 is high on a low transition of PHI2. If it is not, stall until the next clock cycle.

Bits 31-29 (0xE0000000) indicate the device ID number for a message.

Device 0 is allocated to RP6502-RIA. Device 0 is also overloaded to broadcast XRAM.

Device 1 is allocated to RP6502-VGA.

Devices 2-6 are available for user expansion.

Device 7 is used for synchronization. Because 0xF0000000 is hard to miss on test equipment.

Bits 27-24 (0x0F000000) indicate the channel ID number for a message. Each device can have 16 channels.

Bits 23-16 (0x00FF0000) indicate the register address in the channel on the device.

Bits 15-0 (0x0000FFFF) is a value to store in the register.

3.2. PIX Extended RAM (XRAM)

All changes to the 64KB of XRAM on the RIA will be broadcast on PIX device 0. Bits 15-0 contain the XRAM address. Bits 23-16 contain the XRAM data. This goes out on the wire, but is never seen by the SDK. Device 0, as seen by the SDK, is the RIA itself and has no need to go out on the wire.

PIX devices will maintain a replica of the XRAM they use. Typically, all 64K is replicated and an XREG set by the application will point to a configuration structure in XRAM.

3.3. PIX Extended Registers (XREG)

PIX devices may use bits 27-0 however they choose. The suggested division of these bits is:

Bits 27-24 indicate a channel. For example, the RIA device has a channel for audio, a channel for keyboard and mouse, a channel for Wifi, and so on. Bits 23-16 contain an extended register address. Bits 15-0 contain the payload.

So we have seven PIX devices, each with 16 internal channels having 256 16-bit registers. The idea is to use extended registers to point to structures in XRAM. Changing XREG is setup; changing XRAM causes the device to respond.

4. Keyboard

The RIA can provide direct access to keyboard data. This is intended for applications that need to detect both key up and down events or the modifier keys. You may instead use the UART or stdin if you don’t need this kind of direct access.

Enable and disable direct keyboard access by mapping it to an address in extended RAM.

xreg(0, 0, 0x00, xaddr);  // enable
xreg(0, 0, 0x00, 0xFFFF); // disable

Extended RAM will be continuously updated with a bit array of USB HID keyboard codes. Note that these are not the same as PS/2 scancodes. Each bit represents one key with the first four bits having special meaning:

* 0 - No key pressed

* 1 - Overflow - too many keys pressed

* 2 - Num Lock on

* 3 - Caps Lock on

uint8_t keyboard[32];
#define key(code) (keyboard[code >> 3] & \
                  (1 << (code & 7)))

5. Mouse

The RIA can provide direct access to mouse information. Enable and disable by mapping it to an address in extended RAM.

xreg(0, 0, 0x01, xaddr);  // enable
xreg(0, 0, 0x01, 0xFFFF); // disable

This sets the address in extended RAM for a structure containing direct mouse input.

struct {
    uint8_t buttons;
    uint8_t x;
    uint8_t y;
    uint8_t wheel;
    uint8_t pan;
} mouse;

The amount of movement is computed by keeping track of the previous values and subtracting from the current value. Vsync timing (60Hz) isn’t always fast enough. For perfect mouse input with fast mice, use an ISR at 8ms or faster (125Hz).

int8_t delta_x = current_x - prev_x;

Mouse buttons are a bitfield:

* 0 - LEFT

* 1 - RIGHT

* 2 - MIDDLE

* 3 - BACKWARD

* 4 - FORWARD

6. Gamepads

The RIA supports up to four gamepads connected via USB. There is no way to support all controllers without writing three different classes of drivers: XInput, Sony, and HID. So that’s what’s in the RIA. Even so, there is no standard button layout for HID so des.c will need to be adjusted to support new gamepads.

Therefore, the recommended gamepads for the Picocomputer are: Xbox 360, Xbox One/Series, DualShock 4, and DualSense 5. There are plenty of third-party Xbox and PlayStation controllers which should work fine as well.

If your HID or third-party gamepad doesn’t work, it probably needs to be added to des.c. Any issues submitted in this regard cannot be resolved by Rumbledethumps—who doesn’t have your gamepad. The community needs to step up here if excellent third-party and HID controller support is desired.

Be aware that this project pushes TinyUSB to its limit. Okay, let’s be frank here: the TinyUSB stack is janky as hell and doesn’t have any documentation. If you do a lot of plugging and unplugging it will eventually crash. Some devices will also break the boot sequence. Any issues submitted in this regard cannot be resolved by Rumbledethumps. The community needs to step up here if an excellent USB stack is desired.

Enable and disable access to the RIA gamepad XRAM registers by setting the extended register. The register value is the XRAM start address of the gamepad registers. Any invalid address disables the gamepads.

xreg(0, 0, 2, xaddr);  // enable
xreg(0, 0, 2, 0xFFFF); // disable

Extended memory will be continuously updated with gamepad information. The 10-byte structure described here repeats for a total of 40 bytes representing four gamepads.

The upper bits of the DPAD register are used to indicate if a gamepad is ready for use and what kind of gamepad it is. The connected bit is high when a gamepad for that player slot is connected. The Sony bit indicates that the player is using a PlayStation-style gamepad with Circle/Cross/Square/Triangle button faces.

Note that there are both digital and analog values for the left and right analog sticks and analog triggers L2/R2. This lets an application completely ignore the analog values if it desires.

Applications that want to use a simple “one stick and buttons” approach are encouraged to support both the dpad and left stick (merged). This is because gamepads without analog sticks usually present their direction pad as an emulated left analog stick. It also gives players using modern gamepads the option of using the dpad or analog stick.

Applications supporting L2 and R2 should be aware that some gamepads will only present digital information so the analog values will only ever be 0 or 255. This is seen on 8BitDo controllers in Dinput mode— see your controller’s manual to learn how to switch to Xinput mode which will give you the analog information.

Note that the DPAD and STICKS registers are 8-way. You wouldn’t see a 4-way joystick on an early home computer unless it was custom made. Some games, like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, are well known for using 4-way joysticks. It’s easy to decode the analog stick values into quadrants using only the 8-bit adder of a 6502, so go ahead and port your favorite 4-way game without worry.

Offset	Name	Description
0	DPAD	bit 0: Direction pad up bit 1: Direction pad down bit 2: Direction pad left bit 3: Direction pad right bit 4: Reserved bit 5: Reserved bit 6: Sony button faces bit 7: Connected
1	STICKS	bit 0: Left stick up bit 1: Left stick down bit 2: Left stick left bit 3: Left stick right bit 4: Right stick up bit 5: Right stick down bit 6: Right stick left bit 7: Right stick right
2	BTN0	bit 0: A or Cross bit 1: B or Circle bit 2: X or Square bit 3: Y or Triangle bit 4: L1 bit 5: R1 bit 6: Select/Back bit 7: Start/Menu
3	BTN1	bit 0: L2 bit 1: R2 bit 2: L3 bit 3: R3 bit 4: Home button bit 5: Undefined bit 6: Undefined bit 7: Undefined
4	LX	Left analog stick X position. -128=left, 0=center, 127=right
5	LY	Left analog stick Y position. -128=up, 0=center, 127=down
6	RX	Right analog stick X position. -128=left, 0=center, 127=right
7	RY	Right analog stick Y position. -128=up, 0=center, 127=down
8	L2	Left analog trigger position. 0-255
9	R2	Right analog trigger position. 0-255

7. Programmable Sound Generator

The RIA includes a Programmable Sound Generator (PSG). It is configured with extended register device 0 channel 1 address 0x00.

• Eight 24kHz 8-bit oscillator channels.

• Five waveforms: Sine, Square, Sawtooth, Triangle, Noise.

• ADSR envelope: Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release.

• Stereo panning.

• PWM for all waveforms.

Each of the eight oscillators requires eight bytes of XRAM for configuration. The unused byte is padding so multiplication is a fast bit shift.

typedef struct
{
    unsigned int freq;
    unsigned char duty;
    unsigned char vol_attack;
    unsigned char vol_decay;
    unsigned char wave_release;
    unsigned char pan_gate;
    unsigned char unused;
} ria_psg_t;

Internally, the audio is generated by Pulse Width Modulation. A decoupling and low-pass filter circuit converts the digital signal into line-level analog.

Enable and disable the RIA PSG by setting the extended register. The register value is the XRAM start address for the 64 bytes of config. This start address must be int-aligned. Any invalid address disables the PSG.

xreg(0, 1, 0x00, xaddr); // enable
xreg(0, 1, 0x00, 0xFFFF); // disable

All configuration changes take effect immediately. This allows for effects like panning, slide instruments, and other CPU-driven shenanigans.

The gate is checked at the sample rate of 24kHz. If, for example, you unset and set it between one pair of audio output samples, then it will not begin a new ADSR cycle.

Name	Description
freq	0-65535 Oscillator frequency as Hertz * 3. This results in a resolution of 1/3 Hz.
duty	0-255 (0-100%) Duty cycle of oscillator. This affects all waveforms.
vol_attack	Attack volume and rate. bits 7-4 - 0-15 volume attenuation. bits 3-0 - 0-15 attack rate.
vol_decay	Decay volume and rate. bits 7-4 - 0-15 volume attenuation. bits 3-0 - 0-15 decay rate.
wave_release	Waveform and release rate. bits 7-4 - 0=sine, 1=square, 2=sawtooth, 3=triangle, 4=noise. bits 3-0 - 0-15 release rate.
pan_gate	Stereo pan and gate. bits 7-1 - Pan -63(left) to 63(right). bit 0 - 1=attack/decay/sustain, 0=release.

Value table. ADR rates are the time it takes for a full volume change. Volume attenuation is logarithmic.

Value	Attack	Decay/Release	Attenuation Multiplier
0	2ms	6ms	256/256 (loud)
1	8ms	24ms	204/256
2	16ms	48ms	168/256
3	24ms	72ms	142/256
4	38ms	114ms	120/256
5	56ms	168ms	102/256
6	68ms	204ms	86/256
7	80ms	240ms	73/256
8	100ms	300ms	61/256
9	250ms	750ms	50/256
10	500ms	1.5s	40/256
11	800ms	2.4s	31/256
12	1s	3s	22/256
13	3s	9s	14/256
14	5s	15s	7/256
15	8s	24s	0/256 (silent)