pico-bk — BK-0010 - Prog.World

In my previous posts I mentioned that I had ported the emulator somehow BK-0010/BK-0011M on Murmulator (https://murmulator.ru).

What is a back-end computer? – It is a Soviet microcomputer from the late 80s of the last century, using a processor with a set of commands from an imported PDP-11.

There are quite a large number of BK0010/10-01/11/11M emulators, but they all require quite powerful equipment. That is, those who want to have them as a “set-top box” cannot afford it. However, I found a BK-0010 emulator for ESP8266 (https://github.com/konst-st/BK8266), i.e. for a fairly weak and cheap microcontroller. Moreover, the author had to work hard to squeeze in the option 11M.

Since I got interested in Murmulator, including for the purpose of organizing a back-end on it, God himself ordered me to take the work of konst-st and port it to RP2040 in the Murmulator harness.

The result of my efforts to port the original project was pico-bkwhich reached its 100th public build, fourth release candidate, and finally release: https://github.com/DnCraptor/PICO-BK/releases

What is the main difference between pico-bk and the original? – Integrated file management system – the file manager is accessible via the Esc button, it allows you to select mounted disks, connect via USB to the host machine to transfer files, run single binaries, select a configuration, and much more:

Selecting the current emulator configuration

Unfortunately, the launch mode of the BC with Focal remained unfinished. Perhaps I will return to it later.

The firmware has a built-in disk image with MKDOS, which runs by default in the modes with KNGMD:

Naturally, both standard display modes of the BC are supported – color 256*256 and b&w – 512*256:

In color mode, all 16 palettes of the BK0011M are supported, with hot keys for switching them (even in the BK0010 mode).

BC ANDOS is not supported yet, but it is possible to mount ANDOS disks from under MKDOS using the corresponding driver.

Funnily enough, thanks to pico-bk and the BC community, I managed to find a long-lost program I wrote in the late 80s, which was my first full-fledged computer game (https://r-games.net/bk001x/games/638-cavemonty.html):

CaveMonty (C) VZK - Vengerovich, Zernov, Kuzmin, Severodvinsk. — CaveMonty (C) VZK – Vengerovich, Zernov, Kuzmin, Severodvinsk.

I was immensely happy and delighted when I managed not only to find it, but also to launch it on my Murmulator. Iron BCs are now quite rare and expensive, and the Murmulator is an extremely budget solution.

Some enthusiasts have already recorded video walkthroughs of various games on pico-bk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z5nyzwfAXU (there are many different ones on the channel)

Overall – it turned out pretty good. There is something to improve, as usual, but the main thing is done – almost all the games of the old back-end can be played… again ))