
Z-Berry: Z-80 computer - mmastrac
https://sites.google.com/site/zberrysbc/home
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flavio81
"Z-Berry is the smallest Z80 based computer ever built."

Not to be pedantic, but the Timex Sinclair 1000 of 1981 had a lower chip count
than this computer.

Take a look at the board:
[http://oldcomputers.net/pics/ZX81-mb.jpg](http://oldcomputers.net/pics/ZX81-mb.jpg)

And it even includes the RF modulator.

Of course, the Z-berry is a _far_ more powerful Z80 computer.

Ready to run again all your CP/M 80 programs?

PS: What would have RULED would be to include in the Z-Berry a socket for the
SID* sound chip or at the very least two POKEY* chips.

* SID: Commodore 64 sound chip. POKEY: Atari 8-bit (800/400/800XL/etc) sound chip.

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colejohnson66
Maybe he meant the literal smallest?

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userbinator
If we extend the definition of "Z80 computer" to include those which aren't
using the original Zilog Z80 DIP40 CPU, e.g. SoCs, then these may be the
smallest:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S1_MP3_player](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S1_MP3_player)

[https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=138](https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=138)

[https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=139](https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=139)

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jacquesm
The obvious way to solve the 'will crash when switching banks because next
instruction is from different bank' is to replicate the bank switching code to
all banks.

~~~
makomk
Of course, in order to copy the bank switching code to the other banks you
need to switch to them first. Which means that this copying can only be done
by the ROM.

~~~
jacquesm
No, you'd do that with a little bit of PIC running in one of the other parts
of RAM.

~~~
makomk
Only one bank can be active at a time, so the only RAM you can run the code
from is the same bank that you're trying to load code into. Slight chicken-
and-egg problem.

~~~
jacquesm
No, that's not how these systems work. The bank switched RAM is switched in
banks of 16K, so you can keep 48K 'constant' while the other 16K is switched
as a window in the 256K.

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zokier
I think of all the modernish Z80 computers FAP80[1] is my favorite. Of course
it is also massively more complex project than this, but that complexity
enables FAP80 to function as a proper standalone computer that you could
actually use if you were so inclined.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13438610](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13438610)

~~~
hoodoof
I really enjoyed reading the blog posts about the build of this. Gave me so
much insight into the inner workings of those machines.

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mysterydip
I like it. Compact, supports keyboard and SD card and display. I'd like to
read up more on it but the pages are a bit sparse (and I can't view the
youtube videos where I am, so I'll have to check those later).

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hoodoof
Off the specific topic, but on topic of retro machines, but I feel that the
new BBC micro:bit project should actually have been a rebuild of the actual
BBC micro, but with an HDMI display/USB/network.

~~~
jamiek88
That would have been awesome.

The econet system too, this time with email and web access but still the
hackable LAN that was so much fun to navigate and spoof.

?&D22=100 to change my station number to the IT teachers station when he'd
left for the day. Thus all logs were from his machine, seemingly.

He _hated_ me and my mate. To the point where he had spooled all system
privileged activity to actually print out (not to a text file, he wasn't the
smartest even to us 14 year olds) to paper.

It was his genius plan to narrow down which room we were logging into from!

The next day we see a locksmith changing the locks to his private computer
room.

He never did catch us. Someone snitched in the end. We told a friend who
boasted unbeknownst to us to others and the jig was up.

Banned from computers for the rest of school.

A really cool science teacher got us involved with the weather station (it
recorded data from NOAA sats to the BBC micro!!) so got the ban amended to 'no
computers with network access' so we could use the computer in his lab.

Of course we then learned how to splice cables and made a reeeeeally long
econet cable and had a system of lookouts.

Good times.

Thanks Mr. Bush you were a good guy who nurtured our interest. AS for you Mr.
Pollard, as an adult I get why you hated us but still, if you'd have asked us
to help with the network or the lab or something we could have avoided our
war.

Sorry guys, big barely relevant anecdote but hopefully someone else will smile
at the fun days of the BBC Micro and remember the econet hacks.

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dajt
That looks really cool. I built the cpuville kit a few years ago but its I/O
decoding was borked, it didn't expose enough control signals through its
extension mechanism, and its pin headers were at an odd spacing so you
couldn't just plug a prototyping board onto it.

I designed a and built new I/O extender to fix all those problems but PCB
design is not fun for me so I never made a PCB for it.

This one looks to have none of those problems.

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vhodges
There's this too:
[http://sowerbutts.com/socz80/](http://sowerbutts.com/socz80/) (100+Mhz)

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Theodores
But does it run Linux?

If not then good luck writing code to page out to that 512k of RAM. I do
wonder what the 1980 computer scene would have been like if 512k was there
because that was the smallest amount available, instead of the normal 16k. It
was only when the PC came along that this amount of memory was available. PC
programs took a while to be as concisely optimised as home computer code had
to be. So maybe the scarcity of RAM was a good thing.

~~~
perbu
Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. But the Z80 is a 8 bit CPU. Linux
was never ported to any 8 or 16 bit architectures - for rather obvious
reasons.

~~~
pacaro
Well, the ELKS[1][2] project has been working on a 16bit port on and off since
the late 90s. At one point Alan Cox[3] was an active contributor.

[1] [http://elks.sourceforge.net/](http://elks.sourceforge.net/)

[2] [https://github.com/jbruchon/elks](https://github.com/jbruchon/elks)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cox)

~~~
pk3
ELKS is an excellent example as well as uClinux[1], which has made its way to
a few 16-bit platforms[2].

[1] [http://www.uclinux.org/](http://www.uclinux.org/)

[2]
[http://elinux.org/images/6/68/Porting_uClinux_CELF2008_Griff...](http://elinux.org/images/6/68/Porting_uClinux_CELF2008_Griffin.pdf)

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ddofequaldevhda
[http://www.sunrise-ev.com/z80.htm](http://www.sunrise-ev.com/z80.htm)

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_sbrk
Not the smallest, not even close.

[http://noplabs.com/cpm50/cpm50.html](http://noplabs.com/cpm50/cpm50.html)

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amelius
Why not simply run a Z80 emulator on a raspberry pi?

~~~
nategri
Why not simply make guacamole in a cement mixer?

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Insanity
This is really cool! I've recently been playing around with z80 emulators, but
it must be neat to try it on an actual device.

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Jaruzel
I would love for some one to make something like this but with 286/386 CPUs.
Would be great for the retro PC crowd.

~~~
jseutter
Something like this already exists: [https://www.linux.com/news/here-
come-x86-hacker-boards](https://www.linux.com/news/here-come-x86-hacker-
boards) . I _think_ these should be able to run DOS.

If you want to go full retro, x86 is relatively difficult due to the support
circuitry needed. Full ISA, ram, ports, etc. PCs were fairly complex machines
back in the day.

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VectorLock
The real question is: If you could run CPM on this, what CPM software would
you want to use?

~~~
flavio81
Visicalc?

I recall using a PROLOG interpreter on a Kaypro II under CP/M. Worked neat.

Also i used an ALGOL-60 compiler. In fact, just a subset of ALGOL-60. So, in
some ways, a limited subset of a subset of Pascal.

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geijoenr
you should definitely take a look at Fuzix,

[https://github.com/EtchedPixels/FUZIX](https://github.com/EtchedPixels/FUZIX)

