Building a computer

This is part three in my slow journey towards creating a home-brew Z80-based computer. My previous post demonstrated writing some simple code, and getting it running under an emulator. It also described my planned approach:

Hookup a Z80 processor to an Arduino Mega.
Run code on the Arduino to emulate RAM reads/writes and I/O.
Profit, via the learning process.

I expect I'll have to get my hands-dirty with a breadboard and naked chips in the near future, but for the moment I decided to start with the least effort. Erturk Kocalar has a website where he sells "shields" (read: expansion-boards) which contain a Z80, and which is designed to plug into an Arduino Mega with no fuss. This is a simple design, I've seen a bunch of people demonstrate how to wire up by hand, for example this post.

Anyway I figured I'd order one of those, and get started on the easy-part, the software. There was some sample code available from Erturk, but it wasn't ideal from my point of view because it mixed driving the Z80 with doing "other stuff". So I abstracted the core code required to interface with the Z80 and packaged it as a simple library.

The end result is that I have a z80 retroshield library which uses an Arduino mega to drive a Z80 with something as simple as this:

#include <z80retroshield.h>


//
// Our program, as hex.
//
unsigned char rom[32] =
{
    0x3e, 0x48, 0xd3, 0x01, 0x3e, 0x65, 0xd3, 0x01, 0x3e, 0x6c, 0xd3, 0x01,
    0xd3, 0x01, 0x3e, 0x6f, 0xd3, 0x01, 0x3e, 0x0a, 0xd3, 0x01, 0xc3, 0x16,
    0x00
};


//
// Our helper-object
//
Z80RetroShield cpu;


//
// RAM I/O function handler.
//
char ram_read(int address)
{
    return (rom[address]) ;
}


// I/O function handler.
void io_write(int address, char byte)
{
    if (address == 1)
        Serial.write(byte);
}


// Setup routine: Called once.
void setup()
{
    Serial.begin(115200);


    //
    // Setup callbacks.
    //
    // We have to setup a RAM-read callback, otherwise the program
    // won't be fetched from RAM and executed.
    //
    cpu.set_ram_read(ram_read);

    //
    // Then we setup a callback to be executed every time an "out (x),y"
    // instruction is encountered.
    //
    cpu.set_io_write(io_write);

    //
    // Configured.
    //
    Serial.println("Z80 configured; launching program.");
}


//
// Loop function: Called forever.
//
void loop()
{
    // Step the CPU.
    cpu.Tick();
}

All the logic of the program is contained in the Arduino-sketch, and all the use of pins/ram/IO is hidden away. As a recap the Z80 will make requests for memory-contents, to fetch the instructions it wants to execute. For general purpose input/output there are two instructions that are used:

IN A, (1)   ; Read a character from STDIN, store in A-register.
OUT (1), A  ; Write the character in A-register to STDOUT

Here 1 is the I/O address, and this is an 8 bit number. At the moment I've just configured the callback such that any write to I/O address 1 is dumped to the serial console.

Anyway I put together a couple of examples of increasing complexity, allowing me to prove that RAM read/writes work, and that I/O reads and writes work.

I guess the next part is where I jump in complexity:

I need to wire a physical Z80 to a board.
I need to wire a PROM to it.
- This will contain the program to be executed - hardcoded.
I need to provide power, and a clock to make the processor tick.

With a bunch of LEDs I'll have a Z80-system running, but it'll be isolated and hard to program. (Since I'll need to reflash the RAM/ROM-chip).

The next step would be getting it hooked up to a serial-console of some sort. And at that point I'll have a genuinely programmable standalone Z80 system.

Tags: arduino, arduino mega, computer-building, github, gitlab, retroshield, z80 | No comments

Building a computer - part 3

Recent Posts