Zyklus-MPS

So now that we have succesfully cloned the Zyklus with that learned a great deal on how it all works from a hardware perspective, it’s time to get deep with the code and try a new hardware platform. Obviously the Z80 is limited, which is why the code included some very handy bank switching to […]

The original Zyklus code was written in Z80 Assmebly, using a Macro assembler from 1985. Thanks to the current popularity of retro computing and the vast resources of the internet, I managed to obtain a copy of the assembler (though not the linker, although I’m fairly certain I have one from an earlier release that […]

After having new MCLZ8 boards created, this time with the components pre-populated (and thanks Paul for guiding me through the ordering process on that), I now have a working MCLZ8 emulator running. The emulator supports various modes, two of whcih are interesting for us: Mode 0, which means the emulator runs without acceleration, using external […]

I want to introduce our user PaulMC a bit. This gentleman has been responsible for a lot of the succeses we’ve had. He took the schematics and created new PCB layouts and basically nailed them in the first try. Then he surprised us with a completely redesigned modern power supply, suitable as a drop-in replacement. […]

This gentleman (https://microcorelabs.wordpress.com/) has created a Z80 Emulator, based on a Teensy 4.1 module. It is supposed to be a drop-in replacement for the cpu, with which we can use its features to easilly develop new features for the Zyklus. Using this emulator would negate the need to burn new EPROMS, as we can simply […]

I’m trying to think of ways to deal with the software. My thoughts for now are to create a hardware abstraction layer with API’s that the software can interact with. By decoupling the logic from the hardware, it should theoretically be easier to develop new functions. And to simulate these. Not sure yet how I’m […]

It’s been a while – I’ve been a bit busy. But here we go. A new Zyklus is born. Actually, quite a while ago, User PaulMc and myself managed to finsih building the first version of the mainboard. While there were one or two little bugs, it ended up working quite nicely! So with that, […]

It’s been a while, but there was a lot of progress. All the boards have now been built. The powersupply board works as should. There was an issue with the voltage regulator being not strong enough (1.5A), so it’s been replaced with a 2A variant and now it works nicely. It gets hot though. The […]

So after spending some time debugging and not getting why the new button panel board didn’t work, as it measssured exactly how it should following the schematics, and after basically replacing every TTL chip (I did find some dodgy ones), it was time to start comparing it to the original and soon enough the issue […]