I just use a standard Xilinx USB programmer, one like this: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/25478804...

Thanks for taking the time to check that, Mark. I'll be demonstrating your enhanced Elite at the ABUG Scotland meeting later this month, good to know I should pack a joystick 🕹️😀

Superb. He has done a magnificent job, with lots more still to come.

Superb! This is the Elite the Elk should have had back in the day.

Yep, looks like it. It's an easy fix if you know the problem exists, just make sure bits 0-3 always contain the current bank number when writing to &FE05.

SW RAM on the Elk is more standardised than the beeb, but the documentation is vague so there are oddities between various hardware. Big one is requiring bits 7-4 of &FE05 to be zero when doing bank switches. Some hardware (early ElkSD128s included) don't enforce that and will bank switch regardless

10 is 2 in binary, and 2 is an entirely acceptable number of donuts 🍩🍩

Getting some strong Project X vibes, there 😀

🤯

Oh for the days when graphics chips had public datasheets...

The current prototype has a CPLD emulating a pair of SN76489 sound chips. I'm working on implementing an 8-bit sample channel with its own discreet memory on the cartridge.
www.youtube.com/shorts/_t0ZZ...

In theory they all work the same, just with the SW ram in different banks. But there are some wrinkles with the way SW paging is implemented on some hardware. See stardot.org.uk/forums/viewt...

I should probably post an update on Stardot and get some feedback, as the project is rather stalled because I can't decide where to go with it.

I might just take you up on that! I have a basic VGM player working with a single SN76489, but that's about the limit of my 6502 skills.

The low number of new games using SW ram is quite discouraging for us hardware guys. No point in doing the design if it gets ignored. The new sound card I'm working on for the Elk will probably never be produced in any numbers because I'm not convinced games will make use of it.

Loved this series, so it's a little bittersweet to be reading the last book.