Firstly, I’d like to give thanks to Claude Schwarz and the whole team involved in the PiStorm project. Without their hard work, dedication and devotion to the project there would be no PiStorm32. We, I, salute you all. You can follow Claude on Twitter https://twitter.com/Claude1079

Secondly, the reason for this guide. Unlike many other “plug and play” accelerators the PiStorm is a different beast. Yes, it offers untold performance and features usually reserved for machines way beyond that of a humble 1200,  but it also assumes a certain amount of knowledge to get it working.

This guide is designed to help overcome that barrier and help those that might need a little help in the right direction. I know there is a beautiful EMU68 image that’s provided by most suppliers but I didn’t get the PiStorm32 to play around with CaffineOS. I wanted a fully featured Workbench with all the extra features, something to feel like “traditional” hardware but with the speed and extras that are often beyond most people’s budgets. If you’ve come here for a CaffineOS guide then you’re going to be disappointed. My series of guides, like my previous PiStorm 500 guide, will be dedicated to the “classic” PiStorm setup “Musashi”.

Note – my steps below are taken from https://github.com/captain-amygdala/pistorm/tree/pistorm32-lite – In no way am I trying to take you away from that guide, I’m just trying to help with a guide that might help those of us that might need a helping hand. As always, please feel free to leave feedback in the comments or reach out on our socials.

For clarity. This guide was produced on 28/2/2023. The Raspberry version is Bullyeye which was released on 2023-02-21. The git is currently shown as below

I’d also like to acknowledge Lemaru over on the official discord. This article is assumed only as working at the time it was created. Things go out of date and I will do my best to keep on top of it. Please let me know if there are any issues with this guide and I’ll update it as needed. You most definitely need to check out the discord using the link https://discord.com/invite/j6rPtzxaNW

With that out of the way, let’s go!

SD Card setup

Which SD card?

I’d recommend an SD card of at least 32GB in case you want to add multiple hard file files going forward from a known reliable brand – such as

• Grab your microSD card and pop it into your computer
• Download the Raspberry Pi Imager software from here https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/

• Once downloaded, run the setup. For windows, this was named imager_1.7.3.exe
• Click through the setup wizard and be sure that “Run Raspberry Pi imager” is selected at the end of the setup. You can click finish at that point.
• Raspberry Pi Imager will now open. Click Choose OS > Raspberry Pi OS (Other) > Raspberry Pi OS Lite (32-Bit) 
• Click Storage > Select your SD card. Please be careful and make sure you select the right drive. Looking at the storage space might help you with that (i.e. 15.9GB)
• Click Write and Yes

   

• The Imager will now install Raspberry Pi OS Lite (32-Bit) onto your SD card. Depending on the speed of your internet and computer, it might take a while. Go grab yourself a cuppa.
• Once complete and verified you’ll see this message

Raspberry Pi OS Setup

Now let’s get to setting up the Pi so you can connect it to the internet and have remote access to the file system. 

• Pop your newly written SD card into your Pi, connect a HDMI cable to a monitor and connect a keyboard to the USB port of the Rasberry Pi
• Turn on the Amiga and you’ll see the screen come to life

If you’re having an issue connecting an HDMI lead you can use a ribbon adapter or right-angle adapter. These are just some ideas, make sure you get the right cable, These links can and do change (thanks Amazon)

• You’ll see the OS do some initial configuration and reboot. This is normal

• You’ll now be the option to select your Keyboard  Layout. Pretty straight forward
• Now you’ll be prompted for a username and password. This will be the username and password created on the pi. Please make sure you keep a record of this as you will need it. We used what used to be the default – pi / raspberry

• Now you’ll be kicked to a login prompt. Use the credentials you created above and enter your username and password.

• Let’s get the Wifi setup and SSH enabled
• Type sudo raspi-config – press enter
• sudo raspi-config

• You’ll now be prompted with the Raspberry Pi Software Configuration Tool
• Select 1 – System Options

• Select S1 – Wireless LAN
• Select your country i.e. GB

• You’ll now be prompted for your SSID. This is your wireless network name
• Then for your passphrase (wireless password)

• Once complete you’ll be back at the main menu
• Select 3 – Interface Options > I2 – SSH > Click Yes to enable SSH Server

• Now select finish. Let’s see if you got your wireless details correct

• You’ll now be back at the command line – type ifconfig – this will display your IP address. Depending on your network setup it should be something like 192.168.X.X 
• ifconifg

• Make a note of the wlan0 address 
• As above mine is 192.168.1.179 – be aware that usually these addresses are issued by your router using something called DHCP. The address could change, the easiest way to make sure it doesn’t is to bind it in your router config. I can’t help you with that but for the minute don’t worry, its not likely to change before we finish this setup.
• You should now have remote access to the Pi in your PiStorm, time to install the PiStorm password

Musashi Setup

These next steps are where it gets a little tougher. You’ll need to get a couple of programs

• An SSH Client – for example Putty
• WinSCP – an easy-to-use file manager that supports SSH – note that PuTTY is installed with WinSCP but sometimes it’s useful just to use PuTTY for quick SSH access. Grab them both anyway

Get them installed and come back here for the rest! 

• Open WinSCP
• Click New Session and Select New Site
• In the Hostname field enter the IP address we recorded as above – it might be something like 192.168.1.179
• Enter the username name and password as you configured

• Click login and you’ll be connected to the Pi file system. You will need this to copy your desired kick ROM across. Even if you don’t want to change the ROM, having the knowledge on how to access the file system will help A LOT when trying to use the more advanced features – like copying across an Amiga HDF.
• You’ll see something like this when connected, it’s the “home” of your user

 

• Now let’s open PuTTY. Click the Open Session in PuTTY button as shown below

• PuTTY will open and you’ll see something familiar. It looks like it did when you were connected directly to the Pi. You now have a remote SSH session direct to the pi. 
• When connecting you may see some warning – select Allow / Accept – don’t be freaked out
• You might be prompted for your password as set up earlier in this guide – enter it

• Now we’re connected it’s time to jump to GitHub so you can copy-paste some commands. These are subject to change so you’re best getting them from there
  https://github.com/captain-amygdala/pistorm/tree/pistorm32-lite
• I’ll list the commands below but please double-check check the commands I’m using are correct. I’ll also add an extra step (upgrade).
• Copy the following then right-click in the PuTTY window. It will paste it in there for you to prevent any typing mistakes

1. sudo apt-get update
2. sudo apt-get upgrade
3. sudo apt-get install git libdrm-dev libegl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev libgbm-dev
4. git clone https://github.com/captain-amygdala/pistorm.git --branch pistorm32-lite
5. cd pistorm
6. make

• Steps 1 and 2 should work as expected however I have seen setup 3 fail for a number of items. I would suggest running it twice just to make sure. Some of the setups may take a while. Especially the last step, be patient. If prompted at any point for a Y / N response – type Y

• With all the commands complete you’re done with the setup

• Let’s go back to WinSCP and click in the right-hand file window. Right-click and select refresh. This will display the PiStorm folder created in the process above. Double-click the folder to open it. You’ll see lots of files as per the image below.
• We’re now going to copy a kick start ROM onto the Pi to help us show it working. In this case, I will take the 3.2 kick ROM file. In the left-hand window, navigate to your folder containing a ROM. * This looks a bit like dopus don’t you think? 😉
• Drag the ROM across to the right window. We’ll need to rename the ROM to kick.rom

• Right-click the ROM file copied and select rename.  Rename to kick.rom

• Time to get your Amiga 1200 connected to using its RBG or composite source. You should have two displays ready, one from the Pi and one for the Amigas RGB output.
• Let’s just back to PuTTY and start this bitch
• Type 
  sudo ./emulator

• If we did it right. You’ll see the terminal start the “emulator”

• You’ll now see that if you used a different ROM load to that on your Amiga 1200, the screen went black and as if by magic a new rom was loaded. Note that the video signal from the Amiga will not be sent via the Pi. It will, trust me. We’ll cover that in future parts.

Excuse the crusty Gif conversion 🙂 You get it though. It works.

You win. Time for another Cuppa

Whats next?

To make this actually useful there are a few things we need to do.

• Pi auto login
• Auto-start the emulator
• Add a Workbench HDF (hard disk file)
• Test the speed

Let’s hear from you

Are you struggling with any part of this guide? Is there something I could make more clear? Once I have it at the state that it’s auto logging in and starting the emulator I’ll release it as an SD card image to give you something to work from. Note that the kick files won’t be included but I’m sure you already have them.