Trying out a DV Demo Base

I regularly check in to the various Pi and Pico stores to see what’s new and what I could have fun with. The excellent people at the good ship Pimoroni have produced something called the DV Demo Base that caught my eye. It’s a development board but I almost see it as a motherboard for the Pico (albeit one you’d have to program yourself). There’s an HDMI socket for video only, independent power in, microSD card slot and a headphone socket. The sound is provided by a PCM5100A which should take some strain off the CPU. I couldn’t resist - hurry up and take my money! - and placed an order.

Not long after I’d received it, the brilliant Fruit-Bat published a new version of his ZX Spectrum emulator that was designed for the base. Despite all that work soldering a mini ZX Spectrum emulator together it had to be worth a try. After all, I already had the pieces! After five minutes downloading and flashing the image to the Pico I had a working Spectrum emulator. I’d purchased the base during a sale so it and the Pico (with headers) came to £21 together. Pretty impressive for a ready-to-go Spectrum! As with all these things, a few extras were needed: a cheap USB keyboard, USB adapter, microSD card and power supply. But I had all of those things (the power came from an old mobile phone charger) and even buying them new shouldn’t cost more than another £20. So we’re at £41 for the device. I can still happily live with that!

You can absolutely build a Spectrum emulator in other ways. A Raspberry Pi Zero running ZXBaremulator would certainly work. You can run one of a number of emulators on any PC made in the last 10-15 years or so. But the thought of an instant-on device that can just be switched off at the end of a learning session (OK, gaming) sounds just like my experience from the (very) old days. Plus this thing uses almost no power; I’ll have to measure it if I have something sensitive enough!

I’ll put another video together for a demo. Now all I need is a case…

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See also:

• DV Demo Base Video
• ZX Spectrum on a Pi Pico (Part 4)
• ZX Spectrum on a Pi Pico (Part 3)