V6Z80P V1.1 etc

After a marathon soldering session I’ve just completed the first batch of 10 V6Z8oP v1.1 boards.. The latest revision of the PCB allows alternative oscillators to drive the CPU - this opens up more emulation possibilities. One popular request is for accurate ZX Spectrum Emulation,  and this can now be achieved with the addition of a 14MHz crystal (divided down by the FPGA to 3.5MHz as per the original model Spectrum).  I’ve adapted my own Spectrum Emulator config to suit and despite the fact it’s nowhere near a cycle-perfect emulator,  it works quite well - there’s no longer any need for the manual speed tuning keys anyway :)

I’ve also been tinkering about with a new project.  Zilog kindly sent me some free samples of their 50MHz EZ80L92  and I’ve started a project based around one of those (and a Spartan3 FPGA etc).  It’s still at an early stage at present, so I’ll post more details when it’s more complete..

V6Z80P+

I now have the parts to build some more V6Z80P boards, well it’ll be the “V6Z80P+” from now on as I’ve made a few small changes to the PCB (EG: The video out socket is now a standard VGA connector – this means I only have to make TV SCART adapter cables (if required) instead of those *and* VGA adapters.) I changed a few of the connections to the FPGA too, so it does use slightly modified config files from the original V6, but as far as software goes – everything made for the V6Z80P runs exactly the same. (I’ll continue to support both versions of the board too). If you’re interested in buying one, see this page for details.

V6Z80P Demo at Breakpoint 2010!

Daniel and Slawomir (Insane/Altair & Malfunction/Altair) made a fantastic demo (called Loopback) for the V6Z80P at the recent Breakpoint party in Germany.  Great work guys!