bedroom Z80

Description:

The bedroom Z80 is a Z80-based microcomputer with an advanced I/O system, boot scheme, and graphics hardware:

• On boot, the coldboot ROM will search a FAT SD card for a bootfile, load it into RAM, and execute it. Due to a quirk in the way the Z80 (and CP/M) operates, once the ROM has finished its work, it will remove itself from the memory address space.

• It will be able to recognise a signifigant number of I/O devices. One recognised, the I/O device will be assigned an area of I/O space, and a driver will be loaded to communicate with the device.

• The graphics system will be more advanced than most homebrew computer projects. It will have a custom TTL logic graphics card that will be able to display 320x200 in 256 colours, or 640x400 in 4 shades of grey over VGA. Possible other modes include 320x400 or 640x200 in 16 colours, from the 256 colour palette.

Todo:

• Design mainboard

• Design graphics board

• Program ROM

• Port software (customized FUZIX)?