Re:The RC2014 Retro Computer
by mikepavone on Sunday June 19, 2016 @02:50PM
(#11934099)
That demo is rather impressive, but the AVR in an Arduino is much faster than a Z80. This machine is running at ~7.37MHz (which is fast compared to old Z80 based personal computers) whereas the Arduino typically runs at 16Mhz. Further, an instruction takes a minimum of 4 cycles on the Z80 and many take longer whereas most AVR instructions take only a single cycle.
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I just went looking at different Z80s and it seems as if there was at least one Z80 made to support a fairly high clock frequency.
The highest I've found that I can order is clocked at 20MHz [0]
[0] - http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en?mpart=Z84C0020VEG&v...
I'm not interested in 3D graphics.
I'm interested in running a keyboard, a terminal of some sort, and some task switching OS.
No sound or anything else needed.
I do remember some of my (much older) friends talking about their Sinclair ZX Spectrum. From what I remember they said they had a Z80 in that.
That old computer was able to do basic text editing from what I remember.