The PicoIDE campaign here at Crowd Supply is now complete and we absolutely smashed our goal, reaching 1002% of our funding goal! Now comes the fun part: getting production underway. The biggest time lag we’re going to have is getting the injection mold tooling for the enclosure complete, so getting that started is my top priority at the moment. While waiting for the tooling, PCB production can happen in parallel. Future updates will keep you up to date in more detail as we progress to full production!

In the meantime, in this update, I thought I’d highlight some of the coverage PicoIDE has gotten from the retro community, especially from creators on YouTube.

Getting the Word Out

As my last project PicoGUS gained traction, I got to know a lot of creators in the retro community. And, because they’re lovely people, I’ve kept up with a lot of them on social media, on Discord, or just chatting at retro events like VCF Midwest. Once a number of them found out I was working on an IDE emulator, they were quite interested to see what I was up to! As I started planning out what my campaign would be like here on Crowd Supply, I knew they’d be a big part of getting the word out about it.

I’ve been a long-time fan of the This Week in Retro Podcast, which has the great tagline "Up to Date News for Out of Date Tech." When Dave, one of the hosts, knew the campaign was getting close to launching, he asked me if I’d like to be a guest on the podcast. I immediately said "yes", as getting to banter with Dave, Jason, and Chris sounded like a ton of fun! We timed it so the episode would come out as the campaign was just getting underway.

I also wanted to make sure people got a good look at the PicoIDE in action, and the retro content creators on YouTube are far better at doing that than I am. I reached out to several of my favorite creators, asking if they’d be interested in trying out a PicoIDE prototype. They all said yes! There was no expectation of coverage whatsoever – I know they’re busy folks so if they didn’t get around to it in time for the campaign or didn’t want to make a video, that was totally fair. But all of them covered it in one way or another, and I was so happy to see that.

I had no expectation of editorial control, either, so as each one came out I was slightly terrified that they’d be disappointed or have run into a dealbreaking issue. Fortunately, that was not the case, they all really liked it!

In my previous update about testing, I mentioned my beta testers, which certainly included these creators, because I knew they’d try it out exactly as a user would. As I got their invaluable early feedback, I made sure to release new firmware with fixes or update the documentation.

The first reviewer to come out with a full video was PhilsComputerLab. Phil is a great asset to the DOS-era, PC retro world. His guides and Dosbench benchmark pack are invaluable, and his videos are right in my wheelhouse of PC gaming nostalgia. He’s long wanted an easy-to-use optical drive emulator for DOS PCs so PicoIDE is right up his alley! Several of the issues that Phil ran into in his video, like not being able to load the vide-cdd.sys driver, have already been fixed.

LGR almost needs no introduction. Clint is an icon in the retro-computing space and his smooth delivery and cozy soft jazz intro evoke a warm sense of nostalgia. His "Oddware" series that covers strange peripherals and add-ons is probably my favorite. His video featuring PicoIDE is a bit different: it puts it up side-by-side with the ZuluIDE, a family of IDE emulators that has been on the market for some time now. Despite being the newcomer to the space, the PicoIDE came out extremely well in comparison and Clint highlighted many things about PicoIDE that I was really glad to see, such as the simplicity of options, the documentation, and the front panel interface.

Ctrl-Alt-Rees is a YouTube creator in the UK whose videos I’ve enjoyed for years. The eras that he covers are exactly what I’m looking for, and man, the PicoIDE looks great in that baby AT mini tower case, doesn’t it? A few of the things Rees ran into, like a potentially clunky firmware upgrade process and flexing buttons, are things I’m already working on and hope to have ironed out by the time production is complete.

PicoIDE isn’t just for PCs, so I was excited when Steve from Mac84 said he’d be happy to test out the PicoIDE. As you’d guess from his channel name, he’s all about classic Macs which are usually well served by SCSI emulators like the BlueSCSI. But several later Macintoshes had IDE interfaces, some with notorious compatibility issues. I was curious to see how the PicoIDE would fare on these machines, and Steve tested extensively. He found several Macs that PicoIDE didn’t play well with, so I’m looking forward to diving in to see what can be done to help support them!

Seeing how each creator approached covering the PicoIDE, with their own machines, use cases, and honest opinions, has been incredibly valuable. Their feedback has already led to firmware fixes and documentation improvements, while the issues they surfaced give me a clear list of things to work on as production progresses. If you’ve seen any of these videos and have questions about something that was shown, don’t hesitate to leave a comment on the videos and reach out on our Discord server or through the Ask a Question form here on Crowd Supply. And thank you again to all of the creators featured in this update! Your willingness to try out the PicoIDE prototype and share your experiences with your audiences made a real difference for this campaign and have helped it to be the success it has been so far.

And with that, we now move to the production phase of the campaign. Watch for future updates as we get this project closer to getting it in everybody’s hands and vintage computers!