NanoMate Board for the DE0-Nano

For the Matchbox CoCo, the CoCo’s logic completely resides on the DE0-Nano board.  Realistically jumpers can be strung from the DE0-Nano headers to give the system the things it needs to be complete, but ideally you’d want some of that to be very close to the main board, and for the sake of compactness alone a consolidated solution is the best choice for making a snap-together CoCo clone.   In fact, without the NanoMate board we might be hard pressed to rename this CoCo clone to something more reflective of an octopus or tarantula.

The NanoMate upgrade board fits on top of a Terasic DE0-Nano FPGA board.

The NanoMate daughter board is a custom circuit board designed to plug on top of the DE0-Nano to give the extra hardware needed for the full CoCo design, including VGA, 1MB RAM, PS/2 keyboard and mouse, stereo audio, SD card drives, WIFI, Bluetooth serial, and a user I/O header accessible from BASIC or machine language.

This 4-layer board can be ordered from the OSH Park web site for about $88 for 3 boards. The components to fully assemble the board cost around $40 with most parts being available from Digi-Key.

 

Summary of features:

  • 1MB SRAM
  • 3-bit VGA (3 bits per component, or 512 possible colors)
  • SD card slot
  • MCP4822 stereo audio DAC and 1/8″ audio jack
  • Female VGA port
  • PS/2 keyboard
  • PS/2 mouse
  • 2×4 User I/O header
  • ESP8266-01 WIFI module header
  • HC-05 bluetooth module header underneath the board

 

Buy 3 bare NanoMate daughter boards from OSH Park

DIGI-KEY Preloaded Shopping Carts for the components that go on a bare NanoMate board. Take note that often Digi-Key will discontinue a certain part # while picking up other part #’s for what’s essentially the same exact part, so please study your shopping cart to see if all of the required items were added, and if not manually find them on the site and add them to your cart.

 

Optional modules that plug into the NanoMate:

  • LC-Tech / LC Studios SD card interface or any SD interface that has the same pin arrangement as the SD header. See board labeling for pin names.
  • HC-05 bluetooth serial module, underneath the board, runs parallel flush to the board surface.
  • ESP8266-01 WIFI module, observe the orientation arrow next to header.
rendering by Mike Craig

Please note that you’ll need to compare your FINAL ORDER with the Bill Of Materials below to determine what REMAINING parts you need to buy from places like Amazon, Ebay, Jameco, or another electronics supplier.

Why would you need the parts for *3* systems?? Because the NanoMate PCB supplier (OSH Park) only sells in multiples of 3 boards, and it is cost effective to do the same for the components and either send kits or fully assembled units to other people.

(2) – 2×20 straight male header (is keyed) for connecting NanoMate to DE0-Nano (Digi-Key S9200-ND)
(3) – 390 ohm, 5%, VGA lower bits
(3) – 820 ohm, 5%, VGA middle bits
(1) – 820 ohm or near for 3.3V front panel green LED
(3) – 1.8K ohm, 5%, VGA upper bits
(2) – 82 ohm – VGA HSYNC, VGA VSYNC
(8) – 10K ohm – for PS/2 bi-directional level shifters
(4) – 2N7000 transistor, for PS/2 bi-directional level shifters (Digi-Key 2N7000TACT-ND)
(3) – 0.1uF decoupling capacitors for SRAM and MCP4822 DAC
(1) – 2×4 straight male header for ESP8266-01 Wifi module (Digi-Key S7107-ND)
(1) – 1×6 right-angle male header for HC-05 or HC-06 bluetooth module (Digi-Key S5481-ND)
(1) – 2×8 straight male header for SD card module (Digi-Key S7076-ND)
(2) – AS6C4008-55PCN 512KB SRAM (Digi-Key 1450-1027-ND)
(2) – 32-pin sockets for SRAM (highly recommended!) (Digi-Key ED3053-5-ND)
(1) – VGA jack (Digi-Key A35116-ND)
(1) – audio jack (Digi-Key CP-43514-ND)
(2) – PS/2 jacks (Digi-Key CP-4060-ND) (Amazon, ebay, Amazon) (Has common/popular pinout; some connectors may need their anchors straightened using pliers due to the very tight fit on some NanoMate boards.  However, the snug fixture will reduce or eliminate issues resulting from plugging in PS/2 devices frequently.)
(1) – 5mm 3.3v green LED for front panel (Digi-Key 350-1598-ND)
(1) – MCP4822 stereo audio DAC (12-bit), but 4812 and 4802 will also work. (Digi-Key MCP4822-E/P-ND)
(1) – 8-pin socket for audio DAC (Digi-Key AE9986-ND
(1) – SD card module ($2.84 USA Ebay Seller, free shipping)
(1) – TSOP4838 infrared receiver (Digi-Key TSOP4838-ND)
(1) – ESP8266-01 WIFI Module (Amazon USA Seller, Amazon, ebay)
(1) – 47 uF decoupling capacitor for WIFI module (Digi-Key P5137-ND)
(1) – optional HC-05 bluetooth module (Amazon)
(1) – 2/4/8GB SD/SDHC memory card formatted as FAT32.

 

Assembly Guide

Most components are either obvious or marked with the part # on the board. The only difference in the rev.3 and rev.4 board is the rotation of the WIFI module header.

For the rev.3 board, the WIFI module must extend away from the board. For the rev.4 board, the WIFI module faces in the direction of the arrow next to the header.

  • R1 ……….. 82 Ohm resistor for VGA HSYNC
  • R2 ……….. 82 Ohm resistor for VGA VSYNC
  • R3,R6,R9 ….. 390 Ohm resistor for VGA Red0,Green0,Blue0
  • R4,R7,R10 …. 820 Ohm resistor for VGA Red1,Green1,Blue1
  • R5,R8,R11 …. 1.8K Ohm resistor for VGA Red2,Green2,Blue2
  • R12-R19 …… 10 KOhm resistor for PS/2 level conversion
  • R20 ………. ~150 Ohm (bright) to ~820 Ohm (dimmer) resistor for front panel LED
  • C1,C2,C3 ….. .1 uF (104) ceramic capacitor for decoupling
  • C4 ……….. 47 uF 25V electrolytic capacitors for WIFI module decouple
  • Q1-Q4 …….. 2N7000 N-channel MOFSET transistor for PS/2 level conversion.

You MUST REMOVE the DE0-Nano’s top plastic dust cover and 4 SCREWS before installing the NanoMate daughter board!
Keep the screws which will be used to fasten the whole system including the Nanolog board to the bottom of the plastic case.

 

NanoMate GPIO1 Cyclone IV Pin NanoMate GPIO1 Cyclone IV Pin
IR Data In T9 SD CS F13
User IN-C R9 SD MOSI T15
WIFI IO1 T14 SD CLK T13
WIFI Reset R13 SD MISO T12
WIFI Receive R12 DAC LDAC T11
VCC5 GND
WIFI Transmit T10 BT TX R11
WIFI CHPD P11 BT RX R10
VGA Blue 2 N12 BT KEY P9
VGA Green 2 N9 BT STATE N11
VGA Red 2 L16 DAC SCK K16
VGA Blue 1 R16 DAC SDI L15
VGA Green 1 P15 DAC CSN P16
VGA Red 1 R14 SRAM CE2n N16
VCC33 GND
VGA Blue 0 N15 WIFI IO0 P14
VGA Green 0 L14 KEY CLK N14
VGA Red 0 M10 KEY DATA L13
VGA HSYNC J16 MOUSE DATA K15
VGA VSYNC J13 MOUSE CLK J14
NanoMate GPIO0 Cyclone IV Pin NanoMate GPIO0 Cyclone IV Pin
User IN-B A8 IO3 D3
User IN-A B8 IO2 C3
SRAM A15 A2 IO1 A3
SRAM A17 B3 FRONT LED B4
SRAM A18 A4 SRAM A16 B5
VCC5 GND
SRAM A14 A5 SRAM WEn D5
SRAM A12 B6 SRAM A13 A6
SRAM A7 B7 SRAM A8 D6
SRAM A6 A7 SRAM A9 C6
SRAM A5 C8 SRAM A11 E6
SRAM A4 E7 SRAM OEn D8
SRAM A3 E8 SRAM A10 F8
SRAM A2 F9 SRAM CE1n E9
VCC33 GND
SRAM A1 C9 SRAM D7 D9
SRAM A0 E11 SRAM D6 E10
SRAM D0 C11 SRAM D5 B11
SRAM D1 A12 SRAM D4 D11
SRAM D2 D12 SRAM D3 B12

Author: Roger Taylor