PicoIDE is an open-source hardware IDE/ATAPI drive emulator based on a Raspberry Pi RP2350 board and designed to replace hard drives and CD-ROM drives in vintage computers with microSD card storage.
Users don’t need to burn optical discs or deal with old IDE hard drives with bad blocks, and instead, they can simply put their disk images on a microSD card and swap between them as needed. Two versions are offered, namely the PicoIDE Base featuring full IDE/ATAPI emulation in a standard 3.5-inch enclosure with a microSD card slot, and CD audio output, and the PicoIDE Deluxe, adding an ESP32-C3-based front panel with WiFi connectivity, an OLED, and navigation buttons.
PicoIDE specifications:
- MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller
- CPU
- 2x Arm Cortex-M33 cores @ 150 MHz
- 2x Hazard3 RISC-V cores @ 150 MHz
- Up to two cores can be used at any time (configured at boot)
- Memory – 520KB SRAM
- Storage – 8KB OTP
- CPU
- Storage – MicroSD card slot; support for FAT32 or exFAT
- IDE/ATAPI device emulation
- 40-pin IDE connector
- Emulates ATAPI CD-ROM drives and IDE fixed hard drives using Programmable I/Os (PIOs) and multi-word DMA; double-buffered read-ahead for optimal throughput
- Images stored on a microSD card
- CD-ROM formats: .bin/.cue (with audio track support), .iso
- HDD formats: .img, .hda, .vhd (with CHS geometry), .hdf
- LBA and CHS addressing modes for maximum compatibility
- Configurable vendor/model strings for compatibility with picky systems
- CD Audio Output
- PCM5100A DAC
- MPC-2 header for internal sound card connection
- 3.5 mm line-out jack for external audio
- Wireless (Deluxe version) – WiFi for remote image management in AP or client mode using an ESP32-C3 chip/module on the front panel.
- Expansion – QWIIC connector for additional expansion
- Misc
- Headers for external activity LED and action button
- SPI header for future expansion and the front panel for the Deluxe version
- RGB activity LED showing drive state at a glance (no image, image inserted, drive activity, update progress)
- Deluxe version
- 1.3-inch 128×64 OLED display
- 4-way navigation buttons
- Power Supply – 5V via 4-pin Molex power connector
- Dimensions – Full 3.5-inch drive bay enclosure (injection molded for final product, 3D printed for prototypes)
The firmware supports hot-swap image selection by reinserting the microSD card, configuration via an .ini on the microSD card, and firmware updates through the microSD card. A DOS host utility named pidectl can be used for image switching without a front panel, and the Deluxe version also supports a Web interface for browsing, selecting, and uploading images, as well as WiFi configuration, firmware updates, and configuration file editing.
The PicoIDE will be fully open-source hardware with the PCB designs and enclosure CAD files released under CERN-OHL-S-v2, the firmware for the Raspberry Pi RP2350 and ESP32-C=S3 released under GPLv2. All resources will be available on the project’s GitHub repository before shipping. In the meantime, you can always check out the documentation.
Polpotronics LLC has just launched the PicoIDE drive emulator on Crowd Supply with a $35,000 funding target that’s already been surpassed. Rewards start at $69 for the Basic model, while the Deluxe variant requires a $110 pledge. Shipping is free to the US, and adds $12 to the rest of the world. Deliveries are scheduled to start by mid-June for the Base model, mid-August for Deluxe Black, and mid-September for Deluxe Beige.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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