USBSID-Pico: Plug Real Commodore 64 SID Chips into Modern USB
Usbsid-Pico: Bridging Real Commodore 64 Sound to Modern USB
Retro enthusiast LouD created USBSID-Pico, an open-source board that connects genuine MOS 6581/8580 SID chips to modern devices via USB, MIDI, and WebUSB. Powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico, it uses PIO state machines for cycle-accurate clocking, supports dual SID chips, and auto-senses voltages to protect rare silicon. The project evolved from early prototypes to certified hardware, with versions adding mixed SID setups and jumperless operation.
Modern software emulation gets close, but nothing truly replaces the analog filters and warm distortion of real vintage hardware.
- orphea
> So -O3 isn't a "nice-to-have" for this firmware; it's load-bearing.
Lmao, this is a good one!
> Here's a picture of my cat :-)
Come on, this is cheating! Okay, fine, here's my upvote :-P
Awesome post, thanks for sharing your journey. I was making a similar project but I put it aside and didn't finish it. I couldn't get any real SID chip as they cost a small fortune each, even if you can find one for purchase. I bought [1] as sort of a replacement. The sound was quite nice.
- byako
my commodore 64 finally speaks usb. now if only it could tell me where i left my 1994 save game. awesome project
- lstodd
Spy vs Spy touch is very nice. Thank you.