This must be a record for the number of times I’ve posted about a project, without actually building the project, or even a half-way working prototype. I’m still fleshing out my ideas for a USB-to-ADB keyboard/mouse adapter for vintage Macintosh and Apple IIgs computers. In my last update, I described how USB interrupts would interfere with the software timing loops in my bit-banged ADB implementation, and sketched out a few possible solutions to the problem.

After more thought and research, I’ve decided to try the approach that my last post called “timer hacking”. It isn’t really a hack, but rather a better (but more complex) implementation of ADB for the microcontroller. It means removing all the blocking code and software delay loops from my initial ADB implementation, and replacing them with interrupts driven from timers and pin state change events. The ADB-related interrupts will be given higher priority than USB interrupts, and can even interrupt the USB interrupt handler. Because this new ADB code will be interrupt driven, using hardware timers, simultaneous USB activity shouldn’t cause any timing errors. I’m reasonably confident this should all work, but it’ll take time to implement.

I discovered that the PIC32MX I’m using has an input capture feature with a 4-deep FIFO. That will be much nicer than using a basic pin state change interrupt, because input capture records a timer value at the instant a pin changes state, instead of sometime later when the interrupt handler runs and executes code to query the current timer value. So timing measurements when reading ADB will be more accurate. The FIFO means the ADB interrupt handler will only need to be invoked after every 4 rising/falling edges on the ADB signal, instead of for every edge, which will help make things a little more efficient. For writing ADB, I’ll look at using the microcontroller’s built-in PWM hardware, changing the pulse width for each ADB bit, which should be slightly more efficient than using a simple hardware timer to toggle the ADB pin.

 
Taking a Break

Unfortunately, I can’t actually pursue this plan yet, with the PIC32MX USB Starter Kit II that I’ve been using. This kit has virtually none of the PIC’s pins broken out onto headers, essentially no I/O at all except for the USB ports. Earlier I managed to hack in a single external input by soldering a wire to an unused crystal footprint on the board, which was enough for some simple experiments. But that particular pin isn’t connected to the PIC32MX’s input capture peripheral. Some PIC32MX’s have the ability to dynamically remap the pins, but not this particular one. So in short, I can’t use input capture with this hardware.

Even if that weren’t the case, there are other reasons I want access to more I/O pins. It would be a huge help with debugging if I could connect a serial terminal to the PIC’s UART, and log messages with it. While there’s already a built-in debug-print capability that operates over USB, it seems incredibly slow, on the order of 100 characters per second. And I’d also like additional I/O to experiment with some of this device’s other planned features, like a power-on button connected to ADB’s “on” pin. I’d also like to start testing with the actual model of PIC32MX I plan to use in the final device, instead of the high-end PIC32MX795 in the USB Starter Kit. So it’s time for me to order a bunch of discrete parts, or maybe some much simpler PIC32MX prototyping board, and get working on a real prototype.

The trouble comes when I need to program the PIC32MX on this new board or prototype. Many are designed to be programmed via USB, but I can’t do that if the USB interface is already in use as a USB host. The USB Starter Kit II works around that problem by having two separate PICs, each with their own USB interface, but that’s complex and expensive. The other solution is to use a programmer like a PICkit 3 to program the chip via its ICSP pins, so that’s what I’ll do. Except I don’t own a PICkit 3. I ordered a PICkit 3 clone a while ago from Aliexpress, but it probably won’t arrive for several weeks. Until that happens, I’ll be taking a break from this project, aside from possible further sketching out of ideas on paper.