Table of Contents
Eazy80 Rev2, Glue-less Configuration
Introduction
Eazy80 rev2 replaced Eazy80 rev1 pc board. Rev2 pc board has two different built configurations. Even though they share the same pc board, the two configurations are significantly different from each other such that two separate homepages are needed to describe each. This homepage describe the Eazy80 Glueless configuration. Eazy80-512 RomWBW configuration is described in a separate homepage.
Features
- Z80 up to 22 MHz
- Z84C90 with 2 serials, 4 timers and discrete I/O
- 128K RAM
- 64K PROM or EEPROM
- CP/M ready
- Three classic RC2014 expansion connectors
- 100mm X 100mm pc board
- No glue logic design
Theory of Operation
This is a classical microprocessor design with CPU, I/O, RAM and ROM but with one unusual feature: To keep the part count at minimal, both RAM and ROM are chip selected when Z80 is accessing the memory space. To boot up, only ROM's output enable is asserted at reset; In this mode RAM is selected but write-only; the first routine in ROM firmware is to read its own code and write it back into the same location; this unusual operation does not affect the read-only ROM, but duplicate the ROM program into the write-only RAM. When the duplication operation is completed, the firmware enable the RAM's output enable and disable ROM's output enable so now the program is running in RAM.
The RAM is 128K and its highest address is controlled by KIO output, PC0, which selects the low or high 64K bank of RAM. The ROM write operation mentioned above writes identical software to both high and low 64K bank of RAM such that when the RAM switches bank, the program execute the exact same program on the other bank, so the execution continue as if nothing has happened. The very top of each 64K bank ($FF00-$FFFF) contained a collection of bank-sharing routines. This is the mechanism to pass data between 2 banks of 64K RAM.
KIO has an independent serial clock so the processor clock can change without affecting the serial communication rate. In some cases, the CPU clock can be successfully overclocked to 30MHz by simply replacing the nominal 22MHz oscillator with 30MHz oscillator.
Design Information
Original schematic is combination of both glue-less 128K configuration and 512K RomWBW configuration. It is confusing, so it is simplified below:
Schematic of glue-less 128K configuration
PCB assembly guide
Software
EaZy80 monitor, this is Simple80 monitor rev0.92 with few changes tailored for EaZy80.
CP/M 2.2 for EaZy80, this is Simple80 CP/M22 BIOS with few changes.tailored for EaZy80.
Ladislau Szilagyi has enhanced HiTech C compiler to use the 2nd bank of 64K RAM. This enhancement allows larger C programs to be compiled. He also created an enhanced version of TE editor that uses the 2nd bank of 64K RAM to handle larger file. The TE editor itself is compiled using the enhanced HiTech C. The is the CF disk image that contains enhanced HiTech C, TE editor source codes, and compiled TE editor. Copy the unzipped image file to 64MB or larger CF disk using disk imaging tool like Win32DiskImager.
TE editor. This is the compiled TE editor mentioned above. Below is a screen shot of the editor in operation.