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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga community support ideas => Topic started by: pixie on December 17, 2006, 04:28:19 AM

Title: I bet your z80 didn't do this...
Post by: pixie on December 17, 2006, 04:28:19 AM
electronics »  the v3 Z80 project (http://www.retroleum.co.uk/z80-v3demo.html)

At least mine didn't, not even close...
plus a tribute to Jay Miner is always nice :-)
Title: Re: I bet your z80 didn't do this...
Post by: InTheSand on December 17, 2006, 06:15:14 AM
Ooh!

Very cool! Been a while since I've done any Z80 assembly language stuff, but this looks like a fantastic project!!!

 - Ali
Title: ;-)
Post by: weirdami on December 17, 2006, 06:30:04 AM
mine does that. always has. wait. oh, right. i don't know what a z80 is.
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: pixie on December 17, 2006, 11:03:53 AM
Quote
mine does that. always has. wait. oh, right. i don't know what a z80 is.

I got to admit when I first read it though on ZX80 Spectrum, but then I went seeking and I got this results:

 * Radio Shack TRS-80
 * Sinclair ZX80, ZX81, and ZX Spectrum
 * Amstrad CPC and PCW series
 * MicroBee
 * The MSX standard home computers
 * Spectravideo SV-318, SV-328 and successors
 * Jupiter Ace
 * Sharp MZ
 * MGT (Miles Gordon Technology) SAM Coupé
 * Commodore 128

Well rather then being a computer Z80 is a processor line used on the above computers
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: JimS on December 17, 2006, 02:32:31 PM
That does look like a fun project...
Back in the Elder Days, i.e. before the Z80 was retro, I built a homebrew Z80 computer. Mostly I used magazine plans, but pretty much dropped the project once I got my Atari 800. Fun while it lasted though. ;-)

Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: skurk on December 17, 2006, 02:56:25 PM
Speaking of hombrew computers, I bought the book Apple I Replica Creation (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apple-Replica-Creation-Back-Garage/dp/193183640X/sr=11-1/qid=1166367141/ref=sr_11_1/026-7407022-4544466) ("Back to the garage") a while ago.

Maybe I should start building that puppy soon.  The fun part must be writing a custom ROM for it (*drools*)
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: huronking on December 17, 2006, 03:39:37 PM
Believe it or not there were even more.

But anyway my packet radio modem runs the toshiba incarnation of the Z-80 24 hours a day still.

Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: amiga92570 on December 17, 2006, 03:43:59 PM
You forgot the bally Astrocade, one of the first z80 machines. :-)
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: _ThEcRoW on December 17, 2006, 03:46:26 PM
Packet Radio Modem? or are you referring to a tnc?
:)
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: JimS on December 17, 2006, 05:54:57 PM
The Exidy Sorcerer used a Z-80. It also used  the plastic shells of 8-track tape carts to hold it's ROM carts.
I got my Z80 chip off a fried card from a printer at work.. a nice "mil-spec" ;-) ceramic package rated at a blazing 4mHz!

Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: InTheSand on December 17, 2006, 08:50:37 PM
Quote
JimS wrote:
That does look like a fun project...
Back in the Elder Days, i.e. before the Z80 was retro, I built a homebrew Z80 computer.


Ah, well hello from another former "homebrewer"! I have two Z80-based home systems, one cannibalised from an ancient multi-user CP/M system and the other based on the innards of a 3.5" RS232-interfaced floppy drive (briefly on the market in the UK in the 1990s).

However, both my systems are serial port based, e.g. no bitmapped graphics (though one has an AY-3-8912 beeper for sound!), so a project like that one would be very interesting to me...

Come to think of it though, assuming the MiniMig goes ahead and that its FPGA is reprogrammable in the final version, I guess there's no reason why other computer cores (ZX Spectrum, C64, etc) couldn't be developed to run on it? Or is there a reason why this wouldn't be possible?

 - Ali

P.S. @Karlos: nice pic! :-)
Title: Re: I bet your z80 didn't do this...
Post by: NoFastMem on December 17, 2006, 09:33:10 PM
Quote
I bet your z80 didn't do this...


Ehh, but my girlfriends do things his won't. :-D
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: ethierbach on December 17, 2006, 10:13:44 PM
OK, I haven't seen these two Z-80 systems mentioned yet:

The DEC Rainbow, having both a Z-80 and an 8088.  I could run both MS-DOS and CP/M in a dual-boot configuration.  (OK, "dual boot" back then meant having both system floppies on my desk, but hey...)

http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/rainbow.html

Z-MOB, a project from my alma mater (U of Maryland), a massively-parallel computer running 128 Z-80s together.  After getting the original running, they started looking at upgrading the thing to 68000s, which should bring some satisfaction to Amigans' hearts. :-)

http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA168127

-Ed-
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: InTheSand on December 17, 2006, 11:00:00 PM
And not forgetting the Commodore 128 - which had a 6502 and Z80 inside, also allowing "dual booting" into C64-mode, C128-mode and CP/M...

EDIT: I guess that should read "triple booting"!  :-)

Did many (any?) C128 users ever run CP/M on their machines?

 - Ali
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: LoadWB on December 17, 2006, 11:33:08 PM
I used several different CP/M language compilers, like Small C, Pascal, and COBOL on my 128.  I had a highly customized boot disk and am planning to get back involved with one of the newer Z80-specific Kernals (IIRC, the original CP/M+ v3 is actually 8080.)
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: InTheSand on December 17, 2006, 11:38:14 PM
Interesting to know!

And you're right about the 8080 - all original CP/M versions were designed to run on that and don't use the additional features the Z80 provides...

 - Ali

P.S. I'm glad Zilog changed the assembly language opcodes when the Z80 was produced... 8080 assembler is just plain nasty! Familiar-ish, but just... wrong....!!!
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: JimS on December 18, 2006, 12:45:03 AM
Quote

InTheSand wrote:
Quote
JimS wrote:
Back in the Elder Days, i.e. before the Z80 was retro, I built a homebrew Z80 computer.


Ah, well hello from another former "homebrewer"! I have two Z80-based home systems, one cannibalised from an ancient multi-user CP/M system and the other based on the innards of a 3.5" RS232-interfaced floppy drive (briefly on the market in the UK in the 1990s).


Hi, fellow former-homebrewer.

My system was built from some magazine articles in Kilobaud (the CPU, RAM, and front panel) There was a 64x16 text display, memory mapped, built from a Byte article, and altered  from the original 32x16. An EPROM card, and parallel keyboard port were my own designs. I also modded the original 4K RAM design from the Kilobaud article into 16K by changing the 2102 RAMS to 2114s.

The original Kilobaud article was written by a guy who went on to become a space shuttle astronaut, which I always thought was cool. :-)

At the time, I worked for Burroughs, and could get junked parts. I had a whole bunch of wire-wrapped boards pulled from failing mainframes. I unwired several of these, and built my boards on them. I was able to swap for a compatible backplane that held these cards. Some surplus DEC paddle switches (probably from a PDP?) made the front panel. It kinda reminds me of the pictures of the Amiga Lorraine prototype, much simpler though.

Anyway, it was a fun project, even if it never went much further. After I bought the Atari, I was too busy to write an OS for the homebrew. Still have it though. :-)

I don't know about other cores for the minimig.. there's a 68000 (a real one) on there that would have to be shut down for some stuff... Hmmm I wonder if you could make it into an Atari ST/Falcon, or a classic Mac? Or would the PPC Macs be "classic", and the 68K macs be "classic classics"?

-Jim

Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: InTheSand on December 18, 2006, 08:50:32 AM
Sounds like your homebrew project was a good one! Nice to have a real display rather than slow and boring RS232 terminals or emulators to display any output!

I created the rudimentary parts of a basic OS for my machines - usual BIOS/BDOS-type functionality, plus a command interpreter with monitor-like functions (dump/fill areas of RAM, show/change registers, upload code, etc) but haven't done anything with it for years.

As for MiniMig cores... If the 68K can be shunted out of the way, the FPGA core itself is probably more than capable of emulating an entire basic 8-bitter like the Spectrum... Or perhaps the 68000 could be used to run the Z80 code with the FPGA emulating the rest of the hardware? I guess there'd then be synchronisation issues though... But I'm sure someone will have a go!

 - Ali
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: Karlos on December 18, 2006, 10:55:34 AM
Quote

InTheSand wrote:
P.S. @Karlos: nice pic! :-)


Cheers. Pity it wasn't a genuine Zilog though :-(
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: InTheSand on December 18, 2006, 11:01:13 AM
Yeah, bloomin' clone rubbish!!!  :-)

 - Ali
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: Agafaster on December 18, 2006, 12:50:42 PM
Mmmm Z80! top CPU!

I toyed with the idea of a homebrew computer based on one of those. ever since my GCSE Electronics project in 1988!
(I had to do something less ambitious - an Audio ADA for my speccy - didnt work!)
I am now going to resurrect the idea (as far as possible with 3 kids, a wife :roll:, two amigas to play with, and sorting the wimmins' problems with the house PC!)
I kinda got stuck on getting the RAM interface between CPU and Video sorted out (trying to prevent these from clashing), but I have ideas there...
Title: Re: I bet your z80 didn't do this...
Post by: koaftder on December 18, 2006, 12:58:56 PM
People can say what they want about Amiga, but the reality is that the comunity is chock full of real hackers.
Title: Re: I bet your z80 didn't do this...
Post by: Karlos on December 18, 2006, 02:07:57 PM
Pity the homebrew guys don't use one of these (http://www.zilog.com/products/family.asp?fam=218)... you can get a linear 16MB address space on those and they are z80 code compatible.

I was toying with the idea of using a Z180 as an expansion/upgrade experiment for a spectrum. It has a builtin paged MMU for up to 1MB of external memory and other enhancements.

Only problem is, no time :-(
Title: Re: I bet your z80 didn't do this...
Post by: Agafaster on December 18, 2006, 02:47:17 PM
Quote

Karlos wrote:
Pity the homebrew guys don't use one of these (http://www.zilog.com/products/family.asp?fam=218)... you can get a linear 16MB address space on those and they are z80 code compatible.


I saw that ! (I've been furtling too ;-) )
kinda nice - not having to fart around with paging protocols and memory maps!

Quote

I was toying with the idea of using a Z180 as an expansion/upgrade experiment for a spectrum. It has a builtin paged MMU for up to 1MB of external memory and other enhancements.


I've had those what if... moments meself.

can you imagine Centipede on a 50MHz speccy ? :-o :lol: :crazy:

Quote
Only problem is, no time :-(


me neither :shrug:
Title: Re: I bet your z80 didn't do this...
Post by: bhoggett on December 18, 2006, 03:15:18 PM
I used to program a Z8 in assembler for an embedded security surveillance device many years ago, and I remember it was fun - though perhaps not the most productive way of doing things, particularly since the devices were meant to be small cost effective alternatives to a more complex model we were selling. I remember that afterwards when people saw that in my resume they kept saying "You mean a Z80, don't you?".   :lol:
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: JimS on December 18, 2006, 03:38:18 PM
The fun thing about the display was that it used a TV camera sync generator for it's basic timing. The dot clock and H & V blanking were independent and adjustable. So I could adjust it to fit the monitor or the TV. Even record it properly on the VCR.... no genlock though. :-)

The next plan was to put some routines in EPROM... but thats where it ended. Now and then I think about using that eeprom kickstart hack to burn a ROM for it. :-)

On the minimig, I believe there already are cores for many of the old 8-bit machines free for the asking on places like opencores.org or fpgaarcade. I don't see why someone couldn't port one of those to minimig. Personally, I think a 'hacker friendly' approach to minimig would be to replicate Dennis' 68000 and I/O boards and attach them to a stock Spartan III dev board. Xilinx has a dev board for $149 that ought to be suitable. Still, we'll have to see what happens with minimig, if someone puts out a kit or what..

-Jim
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: CLS2086 on December 18, 2006, 07:23:20 PM
Gaps, I'm the only fan of these :

(http://vg5k.free.fr/img/flotte.jpg)

http://vg5k.free.fr/index.php?lng=EN (http://vg5k.free.fr/index.php?lng=EN)

The missing link between Odysse2/Videopac+ Basic module and the MSX  :-)
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: kvasir on December 18, 2006, 08:32:24 PM
I thought the game boy color also used a z80, but its been awhile since I looked into it.
Title: Re: ;-)
Post by: InTheSand on December 18, 2006, 09:09:42 PM
The eZ80 does look like a nice CPU to base a project on... As Karlos says though, time is always a problem!

If this project (http://members.cox.net/supersparky/eZXSparky/) goes anywhere, I'd be very interested in getting one if they ever became available for sale... A 40MHz 1Mb Speccy-ish machine sounds fun!!!

@kvasir - yes, the original Gameboy and the colour version use Z80 derivatives but they're not 100% compatible due to some differences in the instruction set.

 - Ali
Title: Re: I bet your z80 didn't do this...
Post by: rzookol on December 18, 2006, 09:11:46 PM
Have You seen this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SymbOS
Title: Re: I bet your z80 didn't do this...
Post by: InTheSand on December 18, 2006, 09:24:12 PM
@rzookol: no, hadn't seen that, thanks for the info! Looks interesting, but I guess the Spectrum doesn't meet the hardware requirements due to its colour attribute layout...

Another Z80-related project is SpeccyBob (http://www.chuntey.com/speccybob/), which builds a Spectrum clone out of common parts (mostly 74xxx).

 - Ali
Title: Re: I bet your z80 didn't do this...
Post by: Chain on December 26, 2006, 11:19:06 PM
http://www.xgamestation.com/view_product.php?id=33
Title: Re: I bet your z80 didn't do this...
Post by: InTheSand on December 27, 2006, 05:03:15 AM
Ooh! I want one!

Seems a very good deal at US$250...

Might have to see what the bank balance is like once all the Christmas stuff is out of the way!

 - Ali
Title: Re: I bet your z80 didn't do this...
Post by: Dr_Righteous on December 27, 2006, 05:25:23 AM
The Horizon collators I use at work have 2 Z80 processors each (I work in a bindery). Amazing how such an old CPU is still quite useful even today. Just like the 680x0 processors being used in modern network routers and firewalls.
Title: Re: I bet your z80 didn't do this...
Post by: InTheSand on December 28, 2006, 09:37:02 PM
There's no reason why ye olde 8-bitters can't continue to be used for stuff that doesn't require much in the way of CPU grunt. Nice to know you have some still in action!

 - Ali