In this video, I design and build a Z180 CPU Board for the RC2014 Motivation I wanted to try a CPU that runs at faster clock speeds and has more built-in peripherals than the Z80. More built in peripherals means less external boards needed for mundane features, and more room in the backplane for “interesting …
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Z80 Retrocomputing 17: Enhanced Z80 CPU Board for RC2014
I set out to build a fancier CPU board: Design I wanted the CPU board to have the following features: on-board oscillator, so that a separate clock board is not necessary power-on reset circuit reset header for external reset switch status LEDs for common signals such as RD, WR, MREQ, IOREQ, M1, and HALT Below …
Read MoreBuilding an Xi 8088 PC
In this video, I construct an Xi 8088 PC, based on the design by Sergey Kiselev: Overview This was a long, involved project. I started out by ordering a set of boards from Todd over at the retrobrew forums: These boards included: 8-slot backplane with BIOS POST code display Xi 8088 CPU board (CPU, RAM, …
Read MoreZ80 Retrocomputing 16 – Unix on RC2014
I this video, I install a Unix variant called Fuzix on the RC2014: No new hardware is introduced in this video, I use the same Flash-ROM/RAM board that I used for RomWBW. Thanks to William Sowerbutts for pointing me to the distribution and helping me along with a few issues. There were a couple of …
Read MoreZ80 Retrocomputing 15 – CP/M on RC2014 Revisted, Using RomWBW
In this video, I build a new Flash ROM / RAM board and use it to install the RomWBW CP/M distribution on the RC2014: I’ve already done one video on CP/M on the RC2014, but when I built the Zeta 2 Single Board Computer, I liked Sergey Kiselev’s design so much that I thought I’d …
Read MoreQume 842 8″ floppy drive with a RC2014 Z80 retrocomputer
In this video, I try out a pair of Qume 8″ floppy disk drives with the RC2014: Most people who have read my retrocomputing series probably have some familiarity with 3 1/2″ drives or with 5 1/4″ drives. The 8″ drive preceded the 5 1/4″. I never had the experience, having entered the computer scene …
Read MoreBuilding a Zeta V2 Single Board Computer
I was so impressed with the Zeta 2 design when I built my floppy controller for the RC2014 that I decided to go ahead and build a Zeta V2 as well! As you’re probably aware if you’ve read my previous blog posts, one of my recent hobbies has been retrocomputing, building computers based on the …
Read MoreZ80 Retrocomputing Part 14 – RC2014 Floppy Controller Boards
In this post, I build a couple of different floppy controllers for the RC2014, and run CP/M on them. If you haven’t read my other video on CP/M on the RC2014, please start there. Motivation Why a floppy controller when I have a perfectly good CompactFlash board? The floppy is more period accurate. If you’re …
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