I try to make a fast as possible Enterprise:
Previously 6 and 7.12 MHz turbo modes existed. About 20 years ago I tried 8Mhz but it is unstable. At that time I had only Z80B CPU.
Now I have new Z84C0010PEG CPUs, and standalone crystal oscillators (instead replacing the crystal in the motherboard clock generator circuit).
Firstly tried again the 8Mhz:
working!Ok, lets try the 10Mhz:
working!!!It looks stable, tested for an hour on two different motherboards, one with the old 08-04 Nick, and one with the new 08-47.
Only very few modifications were needed to reach this speed:
-original 8Mhz System Clock generator circuit replaced with 20Mhz crystal oscillator
-Z80A replaced with 10Mhz Z80
-R12 short circuited
-100ns EPROM used for EXOS
Video memory access controled by Nick fixed timing, then no problem. Other RAM/ROM needed to be replaced with faster ones, but today very fast SRAM and Flash ROM chips are available.
Ok lets try something better
Put a Z180 CPU into the Enterprise! In the old times news about the next Enterprise model developed with Hitachi Super Z80 (Zilog later licensed back, and named to Z180), unfortunately this machine never released.
Now I try to build this configuration.
On same clock speed, the Z180 20-30% faster than the Z80.There is the wiring diagram, and photo of the prototype
It is a surprise but working
Current beta version of EXOS 2.4 now can identify and initialise the Z180.
It is a problem, because the Z180 divide by 2 the external clock signal for the CPU core. The stretched CPU clock from the Nick mess up the Z180 CPU core clock generation, then the video accessing is too slow
Now I try to build Wait signal genarator for the video access, then Z180 use the System Clock, and waited by the Wait signal.