ArcadeIT!  Development System

Programming the ArcadeIT!

ArcadeIT! is an open system with a complete firmware that supports all ports of the board. Specific libraries are included to allow you to program the system.

The source code of the firmware is well commented and easy to customize. It has been developed with the free IDE by ST: STM32CubeIDE. In the package are included template projects, examples, demos, applications and all the libraries needed by the system, but if you want, you can program it from the ground using different libraries as long as they will be CMSIS compliant.

Provided by ST there are: LL, SPL and HAL libraries. These are CMSIS compliant, robust, and safe to use. You only need to follow the ArcadeIT! hardware specs and the STM323F469 user manual/datasheet.

The current version of the firmware has been developed around the Strandard Peripheral Library 1.8 for educational purpose, in the future different versions at different levels will be developed together with predefined templates to start your application from.

Firmware v1.03 drivers:

• MCU clock frequency test pad for debug purpose.
• Two status LEDs.
• Real Time Clock.
• Advanced programmable “task scheduler” for the execution of repetitive tasks.
• SRAM: 320KiB + 64KiB in MCU.
• SDRAM expansion: 16MiB on board.
• Expansion: 22 bits address bus, 8 bits data bus and a control bus in four addressable slots.
• Custom “Dynamic Memory Manager”: manages dynamic allocation of memory on the MCU internal SRAM or on the embedded SDRAM.
• SD card storage devices partitioned with FAT32 file system.
• VGA video signal generation with resolutions up to 640x480@60Hz 12-bit bpp on a dedicated port.
• Parallel LCDs on two dedicated ports.
• Audio driver with 4 separated channels for playing audio files, or with a single channel for playing a real-time generated audio.
• USB port for HID keyboard devices.
• SPI port for SD card or other devices.
• I2C port.
• Multipurpose port used for parallel Atari/SEGA compatible joypads.
• Serial port communication.

Special courses and tutorials will take place to learn how to use the firmware, covering the setup of the toolchain to the development of games and entertainment machines.

Demos and applications:

• Terminal emulation with a command shell on serial communication, or USB keyboard input and VGA/LCD output.
• In shell SD-CARD and RAM-Disk files management with DOS-like commands.
• simple image viewer, HEX/ASCII file viewer, simple sound player.
• 2D/3D vector graphics.
• Mathematics.
• S.A.M. voice synthesizer.
• Text and code editor for ASCII texts, LUA programs, and batch files for shell command scripts.
• PAC-MAN clone game.
• SEGA SG-1000 console emulator.
• CBS Colecovision console emulator.
  
  ... And many more to come on the official GitHub repository page of the ArcadeIT! project.