
The V4Z80P - A Z80 Based Laptop  - shard
http://www.retroleum.co.uk/electronics-articles/previous/the-v4z80p-a-z80-based-laptop/
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michael_dorfman
I'm an old 6502 guy myself, but this is seriously cool. I love projects like
this-- I hope it inspires others, especially the young'uns, to take a look at
some of the chips of yesterday.

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Nate75Sanders
An upgraded version of the Osborne 1? :)

<http://oldcomputers.net/osborne.html>

5" screen...Z80...

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erikano
From Wikipedia's article on the (Nintendo) Game Boy Color[1]: "The processor,
which is a Z80 workalike made by Sharp with a few extra (bit manipulation)
instructions, has a clock speed of approx."

From Wikipedia's article on the (Texas Instruments) TI-84 Plus Series[2]:
"CPU: Zilog Z80 15 MHz, with 6 MHz compatibility mode."

Does this mean that a simple program written in Z80 Assembly could be run on
both V4Z80P and Game Boy Color and/or TI-84 Plus with minor to no
modifications? Does anybody know of any examples of this?

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Color>

[2]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-84_Plus_series>

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rbarooah
No, because these machines have different I/O & graphics hardware and no
common operating system or BIOS layer to abstract them.

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chipsy
The specs are not just different, they're pretty much unresolvable.

The TI-8x series - even the 68k-based TI-89 - uses a 1-bit raster
display(grayscale is achieved with CPU-heavy high-frequency toggling) with
different resolutions and wider aspect ratios than the Game Boy, and it has no
built-in audio. The Game Boy has character-mapped sprite, background, and
foreground layers and audio functions with pulse, DPCM, and noise channels(it
should also be noted that like the NES before it, sound functions are
integrated onto a custom CPU; it has a substantially different instruction set
that is a cross of 8080 and Z80 capabilities). They both have plenty of
buttons, so there is at least a common functionality subset there.

The main advantage of the TI is that there's a large amount of memory/storage
for an 8-bit processor(128kb, 48kb user data within the OS, 1.5MB flash). The
Game Boy, like most cartridge consoles, is memory-starved and relies on ROM
for everything. So there's little hope for porting TI games to Game Boy, as
well.

Edit: Despite this, someone did a GB emulator:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a9ZhxMREj0>

It has quite a few quality issues.

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plinkplonk
whoa! Very impressive. I'd buy one of these if it were for sale.

I sometimes wonder why someone doesn't reissue the old Sinclair, Commodore,
BBC, and Amiga machines as a "retro special edition"(licensing issues?).

My first computer was an ZX Spectrum and I'd gladly pay for a brand new
machine.

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Jeema3000
Well it _has_ happened - just not with home computers like the ZX Spectrum or
Commodore 64, per se.

I'm thinking specifically of the Atari Flashback 2, which was a single-chip
reimplementation of the Atari 2600 (even has cartridge connector solder points
on the board). Then there's also the innumerable NES, Super NES, and Sega
Megadrive/Genesis clones that have been produced recently...

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rhoeft
Actually it has happened with the Commodore 64:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C64_Direct-to-TV>

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zavulon
Needs to have BASIC commands painted on the keys :))

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DanielH
I like what these guys did with one of his boards :)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8hL3Eiqh_c>

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WalterGR
_Originally I/O was fixed to the IDE port allowing master and slave drives
called IDE0: and IDE1: but now drive names are more virtual and are assigned
to devices (“DRV0:”, “DRV1:” etc)_

Is that wise? Shouldn't they be prefixed/suffixed with forward slashes?

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jfb
Utterly heroic singing piggery. My hat's off to the OP.

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rwmj
The video is excellent :-)

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t3rcio
a work of art...

