Z80 Testing The 80s Way

November 12, 2024 by Al Williams 24 Comments

According to [MTSI], if you used a Z80 chip back in the 1980s, it almost certainly passed through the sole Fairchild Sentry 610 system that gave it the seal of approval.

The Sentry was big iron for its day. The CPU was a 24-bit device and ran at a blistering 250 kHz. Along with a tape drive and a specialized test bed, it could test Z80s, F8s, and other Mostek products of the day. There was a disk drive, too. The 26-inch platters stored under 10 kilobytes. Despite the relatively low speed of the CPU, the Sentry could test devices running up to 10 MHz, which was plenty for the CPUs it was testing. The actual test interface ran at 11 MHz and used an exotic divider to generate slower frequencies.

According to the post, an informal count of the number of chips in the device came up with around 60,000. That, as you might expect, took a huge power supply, too.

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Strange English Teaching Computer Might Have Been Big In Japan

October 21, 2024 by Al Williams 9 Comments

[Ctrl-Alt-Rees] bought something strange on an auction site: a Japanese Cefucom-21 from 1983. No? Didn’t ring a bell for us either. The legend on the front boldly proclaims: “CCI Multipurpose SLAP Computer,” so maybe it is some kind of computer, but it is definitely strange. For one thing, the “screen” isn’t a screen at all. [Rees] has found that it has something to do with teaching English. You can see the odd beast in the video below.

We don’t know how common these were in Japan, but they appear to be virtually unknown everywhere else. Inside is a Z80 computer based on a Sanyo PHC-25, which is a little better known.

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DIY Core Rope Memory Z80 Demonstrator Generating A Fibonacci Sequence

October 16, 2024 by Dave Rowntree 14 Comments

We’ve seen a few retro products using core rope memory, such as telephone autodiallers. Obviously, we’ve covered the Apollo program computers, but we don’t think we’ve seen a complete and functional DIY computer using core rope memory for program storage until now. [P-lab] presents their take on the technology using it to store the program for a Z80-based microprocessor demoboard, built entirely through-hole on a large chunk of veroboard.

For the uninitiated, core rope memory is a simple form of ROM where each core represents a bit in the data word. Each wire represents a single program location. Passing a wire through the core sets the corresponding bit to a logic 1, else 0. These wires are excited with an AC waveform, which is coupled to the cores that host a wire, passing along the signal to a pickup coil. This forms an array of rudimentary transformers. All that is needed is a rectifier/detector to create a stable logic signal to feed onto the data bus.

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No Z80? No Problem!

September 16, 2024 by Jenny List 17 Comments

Earlier this year Zilog stopped production of the classic 40-pin DIP Z80 microprocessor, a move that brought a tear to the eye of retro computing enthusiasts everywhere. This chip had a huge influence on both desktop and embedded computing that lingers to this day, but it’s fair to say that the market for it has dwindled. If you have a retrocomputer then, what’s to be done? If you’re [Dean Netherton], you create a processor card for the popular RC2014 retrocomputer backplane, carrying the eZ80, a successor chip that’s still in production.

The eZ80 can be thought of as a Z80 system-on-chip, with microcontroller-style peripherals, RAM, and Flash memory on board. It’s much faster than the original and can address a relatively huge 16MB of memory. For this board, he’s put the chip on a processor daughterboard that plugs into a CPU card with a set of latches to drive the slower RC2014 bus. We can’t help drawing analogies with some of the 16-bit upgrades to 8-bit platforms back in the day, which used similar tactics.

So this won’t save the Z80, but it might well give a new dimension to Z80 hacking. Meanwhile, we’re sure there remain enough of the 40-pin chips out there to keep hackers going for many years to come if you prefer the original. Meanwhile, read our coverage of the end-of-life announcement, even roll your own silicon if you want., or learn about the man who started it all, Federico Faggin.

A black device with a monochrome LCD sits on a wooden table. It's keyboard extends below the frame. On the screen is the "Level 29" BBS service login.

Internet Appliance To Portable Terminal

August 8, 2024 by Navarre Bartz 3 Comments

Few processors have found themselves in so many different devices as the venerable Z80. While it isn’t powerful by modern standards, you can still use devices like this Cidco MailStation as a terminal.

The MailStation was originally designed as an email machine for people who weren’t onboard with this whole computer fad, keeping things simple with just an adjustable monchrome LCD, a keyboard, and a few basic applications. [Joshua Stein] developed a terminal application, msTERM, for the MailStation thanks to work previously done on decoding this device and the wealth of documentation for Z80 assembly.

While [Stein] designed his program to access BBSes, we wonder if it might be a good way to do some distraction-free writing. If that wasn’t enough, he also designed the WiFiStation dongle which lets you communicate over a network without all that tedious mucking about with parallel ports.

If you’d like something designed specifically for writing, how about an AlphaSmart? Wanting to build your own Z80-based project? Why not start with an Altoids-sized Z80 SBC, but don’t wait forever since Z80 production finally ended in June.

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Baldur’s Gate III Comes To The TRS-80 Model 100

June 12, 2024 by Tom Nardi 8 Comments

To say that Tandy’s TRS-80 Model 100 was an influential piece of computer hardware would be something of an understatement. While there’s some debate over which computer can historically be called the “first laptop”, the Model 100 was early enough that it helped influence our modern idea of portable computing. It was also one of the most successful of these early portables, due in part to how easy it was to write your own software for it using the built-in BASIC interpreter.

But as handy and capable as that integrated development environment might have been, it never produced anything as impressive as this Baldur’s Gate III “demake” created by [Alex Bowen]. Written in assembly, the game’s engine implements a subset of the Dungeons & Dragons Systems Reference Document (SRD), and is flexible enough that you could use it to produce your own ASCII art role-playing game that can run on either a Model 100 emulator like Virtual-T or on the real hardware.

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CP/M On An Eight Line Display

May 13, 2024 by Al Williams 5 Comments

How many lines do you need on a CP/M terminal? More is usually better, of course, but the MicroOffice RoadRunner managed with an 8-row, 80-column LCD screen. That may sound anemic, but in 1983, it was high-tech, as was the RoadRunner, and [Tech Time Traveller] tells us about them in a recent video you can see below.

The intro to the video shows some really strange old laptops before it gets to the RoadRunner. The machine used a Z80 work-alike CPU and a form of CP/M with some organizer functions. The machine didn’t have floppies or other disk storage, but did have four cartridge slots that could hold more memory, a spreadsheet, BASIC, or a text editor. The memory cartridges were static RAM with battery backup, so they retained data when you pulled them from the slot. Assuming the battery didn’t die.

Unfortunately, this particular machine suffered some shipping damage. In addition to the cartridges, it also had a removable battery and modem. At around the eight-minute mark, the case comes off, and inside are — surprise — more internal cartridges.

While MicroOffice isn’t a household name today, it was founded by a former Exxon executive and tapped a CEO and investor from Timex. It was funded by the likes of Olivetti. The computer rolled out in late 1983 and lived until Telxon bought MicroOffice in 1985.

Attempts to run Zork were not fruitful. There really wasn’t enough memory, and file transfer was a bit wonky. If you want a modern Z80 laptop, we know of one with 16 cores. As clunky as the RoadRunner looks, it still beats the old suitcase computers.

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