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Author Topic: Z180 (Read 27574 times)

Offline Zozosoft

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Re: Z180
« Reply #105 on: 2016.September.02. 17:08:38 »
Csak nem kapható...

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Just you can't buy it.

Offline lgb

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Re: Z180
« Reply #106 on: 2016.September.03. 23:43:12 »
Igen, az R800 igen jo valasztas lenne, ha manapsag lehetne kapni :) A masik szemelyes kedvencem a Zilog altal manapsag is gyartott eZ80. Ez igen gyors, csomo mindent tud, stb. Az "egyetlen" problema vele, hogy az I/O tartomany mind foglalt belso celra :( Es le sem tudod beszelni errol, tehat "ki sem jon az IC-bol" az I/O keres, ha az also 256 portra vonatkozik, ami ugye nekunk pont kellene.

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Indeed, R800 would be a great choice if it is available for sale nowadays :) My other personal favourite is the Zilog - even nowadays - manufactured eZ80. This is quite fast, with great features. There is "only" one problem. The I/O space is all used for internal purposes :( It cannot be instructed it not to do this, the I/O request is not even routed externally out of the chip, if it refers for the lower 256 I/O ports, what we would need.

Offline Ep128

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Re: Z180
« Reply #107 on: 2016.September.03. 23:50:50 »
Csak nem kapható...

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Just you can't buy it.

Használtan sem lehet beszerezni valahogy próbából egyet...?

Offline lgb

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Re: Z180
« Reply #108 on: 2016.September.04. 00:01:52 »
Használtan sem lehet beszerezni valahogy próbából egyet...?

Megprobaltam e-bay-en rakeresni, de ott se leltem :( Elvileg talan MSX turbo vagy milyen gepekben volt ilyen, de szerintem kb Japanban csak.

Offline gflorez

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Re: Z180
« Reply #109 on: 2016.September.04. 09:52:30 »
Talán Pear tud Xilinx-et programozni A-Z80-nal, hogy Enterprise-szal is működjön.

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Maybe Pear can program a Xiling with the A-Z80 and suit it to the Enterprise needs.
« Last Edit: 2016.September.04. 12:32:50 by szipucsu »

Offline lgb

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Re: Z180
« Reply #110 on: 2016.September.04. 16:44:32 »
Talán Pear tud Xilinx-et programozni A-Z80-nal, hogy Enterprise-szal is működjön.

Lehetne, ott a T-80 hasonlo project is pl. Sot, egesz Enterprise-t is lehetne FPGA-ban csinalni, ami igy nem emulacio, hanem hardware lenne (elvileg akar ugy is, hogy FPGA labaira ra lehetne tenni barmit, amit valodi EP-n a bovito buszra, mert hat ez hardware, nem egy software emulacio - ez utobbi eseten max az a gond, hogy az FPGA-k jellemzoen nem 5V-os TTL logikai szintekkel dolgoznak, szoval szint illesztes kene). Nemsokara lehet, lesz egy FPGA board-om, ha tul sok idom lesz, biztos megprobalom :) Az mas kerdes,  hogy szerintem legalabbis Pear project-eiben CPLD van, ehhez ugye mar FPGA kene.

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It can be, there is another similar project, the T-80. Moreover, you can create a whole Enterprise inside an FPGA, the result would be a hardware and not a software level emulation (in theory, it's even possible to connect anything onto the pins of the FPGA, what is possible to be connected onto the bus connector of a real Enterprise, after all, this is hardware and not emulation ... the only problem would be that FPGAs "typically" don't use the 5V TTL logic levels, so level converters would be needed). Soon, probably I get an FPGA devel board, if I have too much spare time, I will try it, anyway :) It's another question, that - at least IMHO - Pear uses CPLDs in their projects, but FPGA is needed for a task like these.[/quote]
[/quote]
« Last Edit: 2016.September.04. 17:19:20 by lgb »

Offline pear

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Re: Z180
« Reply #111 on: 2016.September.04. 17:08:02 »
I prefer CPLD, because they work immediately after power-up.
FPGA must first load a structure from external memory.
In return, they work faster, so if necessary, it must be.

I also willingly would see this project in action.

Offline lgb

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Re: Z180
« Reply #112 on: 2016.September.04. 17:23:32 »
I prefer CPLD, because they work immediately after power-up.
FPGA must first load a structure from external memory.
In return, they work faster, so if necessary, it must be.

I also willingly would see this project in action.

Surely (and you know these better than me, that's another point here), but CPLDs are usually not "large" enough to be able to contain a whole synthesized Z80 (not even mentioning a whole Enterprise-128 in once). At the other hand, even "very old" and cheap FPGAs (like the Cyclone II from Altera, something like $10 for an old and small devel board) can be used as Z80 with some additional functions as well, behaving a computer, basically: http://searle.hostei.com/grant/Multicomp/index.html A more decent FPGA would be able to do much more than this cheap old one, that's another thing important to be noted :)

Offline gflorez

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Re: Z180
« Reply #113 on: 2016.September.04. 17:54:58 »
Gondolkodom (ábrándozás) egy kis lapon (?), amelyet az EP-ben lévő igazi Z80 helyett lehetne csatlakoztatni a géphez.

Egy gyors emulált Z80 független az alaplapi órajeltől (?). Ez más Z80 alapú gépekkel is működne ...

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I am thinking(dreaming) on a little board that could be connected instead of a real Z80 inside the Enterprise.

A fast emulated Z80 independent of the boards clock. It would suit also other Z80 based computers...
« Last Edit: 2016.September.05. 14:26:33 by szipucsu, Reason: Translation - Fordítás pontosítása. Aki jobban ért hozzá, jobban pontosíthatná! »

Offline ergoGnomik

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Re: Z180
« Reply #114 on: 2016.September.04. 17:57:37 »
There are FPGAs, like LatticeXP2, that have internal Flash storage, so they can also be "instant on" devices. Or, if there is no need to update the firmware, there are one time programmable FPGAs, too. AFAIK.

Szerk.: Amilyen bamba vagyok, csak most vettem észre hogy ez egy magyar nyelvű téma. Akkor legyen itt magyarul is.
Léteznek FPGA-k, mint például a LatticeXP2, amik rendelkeznek belső flash tárolóval, így ezek is képesek "azonnal bekapcsolódó" eszközök is lenni. Vagy – ha nincsen szükség a firmver frissítésére – léteznek egyszer programozható FPGA-k is. Már amennyire jól tudom.
« Last Edit: 2016.September.04. 19:45:06 by ergoGnomik »

Offline lgb

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Re: Z180
« Reply #115 on: 2016.September.04. 18:51:03 »
There are FPGAs, like LatticeXP2, that have internal Flash storage, so they can also be "instant on" devices

Maybe, I don't know honestly. However, since "plugging an FPGA" into the Z80 socket would need some daughter-board anyway (eg for logic voltage level shifting, and to bridge the different socketing, for sure), so it won't hurt too much to have some kind additional parts for the FPGA bitstream and maybe a low-performance low-pincount MCU to do the job. In SMD form, these are almost nothing. AFAIK, there are FPGAs from Atmel (hmmm, now Microchip?) combining flash and some MCU core as well, in addition of FPGA.

Quote
Or, if there is no need to update the firmware, there are one time programmable FPGAs, too. AFAIK.

I don't know, there can be ASICs for a given purpose but those are very expensive to produce (though probably one-time price, the mass production is quite cheap after that) with a price tag like 100000$. But for true FPGAs with OTP feature ... I don't know ... And it also closes the possibility to "bug fix" something later (though that's true for ASICs as well).

But please note, that I am really not an experienced one in this topic ... Just I would like to be :D

Offline ergoGnomik

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Re: Z180
« Reply #116 on: 2016.September.06. 13:08:21 »
Maybe, I don't know honestly. However, since "plugging an FPGA" into the Z80 socket would need some daughter-board anyway (eg for logic voltage level shifting, and to bridge the different socketing, for sure), so it won't hurt too much to have some kind additional parts for the FPGA bitstream and maybe a low-performance low-pincount MCU to do the job. In SMD form, these are almost nothing. AFAIK, there are FPGAs from Atmel (hmmm, now Microchip?) combining flash and some MCU core as well, in addition of FPGA.

I don't know, there can be ASICs for a given purpose but those are very expensive to produce (though probably one-time price, the mass production is quite cheap after that) with a price tag like 100000$. But for true FPGAs with OTP feature ... I don't know ... And it also closes the possibility to "bug fix" something later (though that's true for ASICs as well).

But please note, that I am really not an experienced one in this topic ... Just I would like to be :D
Yes, of course. It depends on which solution, single OTP FPGA or FPGA+MCU+Flash, meets board-space constraints better.

It was not by a mistake that I didn't mention custom ASIC at all, I too heard about the magnitude of cost of such solutions. And I explicitly mentioned that OTP FPGAs can be considered only when it is sure that the design is complete and free of error up to a generally usable level. Meanwhile I also found this.

You're not the only one lacking experience in this field. But there's a Hungarian guy who recently made a TED 7360/8360 (Commodore 264 series main system IC) replacement in FPGA. Maybe he could give some advise.

És most magyarul is:
Természetesen igen. Attól függ, hogy melyik megoldás – egyetlen OTP FPGA vagy FPGA+MCU+Flash – illeszkedik jobban a NYÁK terület kötöttségekhez.

Nem tévedésből nem említettem egyáltalán az egyedi cél ICket, én is hallottam az ilyen megoldások költségének nagyságrendjéről. És külön kiemeltem, hogy OTP FPGA-kat csak akkor lehet fontolóra venni, amikor bizonyos hogy a dizájn teljes és az általános használat szintjén hibamentes. Időközben még ezt is találtam.

Nem te vagy az egyetlen akinek nincs tapasztalat ezen a téren. Azonban van egy magyar ürge, aki nemrégiben készített egy TED 7360/8360 (a Commodore 264-es sorozat rendszer IC-je) helyettesítőt FPGA-ban. Talán ő adhatna tanácsot.

Offline lgb

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Re: Z180
« Reply #117 on: 2016.September.06. 16:42:16 »
Yes, of course. It depends on which solution, single OTP FPGA or FPGA+MCU+Flash, meets board-space constraints better.

It was not by a mistake that I didn't mention custom ASIC at all, I too heard about the magnitude of cost of such solutions. And I explicitly mentioned that OTP FPGAs can be considered only when it is sure that the design is complete and free of error up to a generally usable level. Meanwhile I also found this.

I see. Then it is my fault that I haven't even heard about OTP FPGAs, nice to know. Looks interesting, thanks. However I feel, that it's more important than to do the right think, and no need later for "firmware upgrade" as it's wouldn't be possible then :D Of course the same is true for ASICs as well. These FPGAs are not so "big" at the other hand, I have no idea what can be the smallest synthesized Z80 in term of logic cells, gates (it's not the same as the "transistor count" of a real Z80 of course, the situattion is bit different), or whatever.

Actually an FPGA implemented Z80 can be useful for some "scary" things, ie to provide RAM expansion right at the "CPU FPGA board" level. Since EP128 only "shares" the VRAM and other RAM is accessed only by the CPU, you can have all the RAM other than VRAM private to the CPU (though then you must "cache" writing of 0xB0..0xB3 I/O ports to have your own idea how segment/page "mapping" should be done). Maybe that's an odd idea, but with this, in theory it's possible to get insane CPU performance when only the "normal" RAM is needed, and "slowing down" is only needed if external I/O ports OR memory (I mean VRAM here now) access is needed (and still you can have an internal "shadow copy" of VRAM and serve _read_ requests by CPU from there on full speed, and only slow down on writes). Of course only, if it makes sense, ie it can give faster RAM than through the rest of the machine. Basically AFAIK (!!!) SuperCPU for Commodore 64 works like this: if its internal memory expansion is referred it can go near to 20MHz (?) and only there are problems when the "legacy" memory is needed to be accessed within the C64 (but SCPU is a complex topic, it uses tricky caching etc to try to reduce the number of these cases).

it's another question if it makes sense at all, or again, I have quite insane and "too futuristic" ideas, especially of kind, I wouldn't be able to realize either :) Also, even if it's sane idea for somebody, these theory should be made optional, since these ideas mess up the timing some software expects, or anything ... I just thought, if C64 (and C128 too) can have SCPU, why not having something similar for EP (though the idea is not very same, as SCPU uses a "real" 65816 CPU, and we talk here about the FPGA realization of a Z80 or something like that at least). Anyway, I like to dream :-D Greatings from the wanabe FPGA expert (so in English: not at all expert) :D[/quote]