Tor
Veteran Member
I'm looking for a setup which would allow me to experiment with CP/M again (I used to program and hack on CP/M systems in the 80's). Been through some emulators, but it's not entirely satisfactory. So now I'm looking for some real hardware to fool around with.
I'm more into the programming aspect than the hardware building part, although I can do some of the latter I figure N8VEM is too much hardware for me - particularly as collecting all the parts from this side of the pond would be costly and a lot of effort.
The eZ80sbc (eZ80sbc.com) seems like it would fit what I want - but as usual it looks like I got aware of it a few years too late from what I can tell - there doesn't seem to be anything for sale there anymore.
So, following the eZ80 idea, I'm currently looking at what Digikey has to offer, and here's where the current problem is - it's hard to tell exactly what you get with their Zilog kits. After some searching I came up with this page: http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Cat=2621773&k=ez80 development
The three top entries appear to be what I should look at. The first one (269-4671-ND) is, from what I can tell, a little board with an ethernet port and more. There's a PDF link to the right which says:
o 50MHz
o 10/100 Base-T Ethernet
o 512KB SRAM
o 256 KB Flash mem
o 1MB off-chip NOR Flash mem
o RTC clock with battery
and more
Way more than enough to run CP/M I think. This kit includes just this board afaict.
Then there's the next one down, (269-4561-ND), which, from the picture, _seems_ to include the first eZ80 board, and the specs (from another pdf) may agree. And there's a board to piggyback it on. This set includes a lot of other stuff, including power supply and compiler and things which should make things easier to start with.
The third one on that page (269-4560-ND) is much cheaper than the one above, but seems otherwise to be similar. First I thought that the module (called 'EZ80F91 mini module' in the description) was different from what comes with the 4560-ND, but now I'm not certain. The larger card seems to be different. But both the 4560 and 4561 points to the exact same PDF document, the 'EZ80F91 Dev Kit Users Manual'.
So, assuming that this would be a possible way to my own eZ80-based SBC capable of running CP/M and other interesting stuff, what am I gaining or losing by the different DigiKey selections? Are any of you familiar with their (somewhat terse) product descriptions?
-Tor
I'm more into the programming aspect than the hardware building part, although I can do some of the latter I figure N8VEM is too much hardware for me - particularly as collecting all the parts from this side of the pond would be costly and a lot of effort.
The eZ80sbc (eZ80sbc.com) seems like it would fit what I want - but as usual it looks like I got aware of it a few years too late from what I can tell - there doesn't seem to be anything for sale there anymore.
So, following the eZ80 idea, I'm currently looking at what Digikey has to offer, and here's where the current problem is - it's hard to tell exactly what you get with their Zilog kits. After some searching I came up with this page: http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Cat=2621773&k=ez80 development
The three top entries appear to be what I should look at. The first one (269-4671-ND) is, from what I can tell, a little board with an ethernet port and more. There's a PDF link to the right which says:
o 50MHz
o 10/100 Base-T Ethernet
o 512KB SRAM
o 256 KB Flash mem
o 1MB off-chip NOR Flash mem
o RTC clock with battery
and more
Way more than enough to run CP/M I think. This kit includes just this board afaict.
Then there's the next one down, (269-4561-ND), which, from the picture, _seems_ to include the first eZ80 board, and the specs (from another pdf) may agree. And there's a board to piggyback it on. This set includes a lot of other stuff, including power supply and compiler and things which should make things easier to start with.
The third one on that page (269-4560-ND) is much cheaper than the one above, but seems otherwise to be similar. First I thought that the module (called 'EZ80F91 mini module' in the description) was different from what comes with the 4560-ND, but now I'm not certain. The larger card seems to be different. But both the 4560 and 4561 points to the exact same PDF document, the 'EZ80F91 Dev Kit Users Manual'.
So, assuming that this would be a possible way to my own eZ80-based SBC capable of running CP/M and other interesting stuff, what am I gaining or losing by the different DigiKey selections? Are any of you familiar with their (somewhat terse) product descriptions?
-Tor