Has anyone on the Sprinter team considered using the new eZ80 (Z80190) processor from ZiLOG to make a new super fast Sprinter? This processor is four times faster than a Z80 at the same clock speed and can go up to 50MHz. It can run in Z80 compatibility mode or in its new 24 bit linear addressing mode (that's 16mb of non-banked memory).

I know such a project could be feasable, as I have already converted the Spectrum 48K ROM to work with it (in compatibility mode) and it is 57 times faster than the Spectrum! Can you imagine the graphics speed such a processor could offer the Sprinter architecture? Much like the processor the Sprinter uses now, the eZ80 has many built in peripheral deices like 2 DMA channels, 2 UARTs (16550 mimics), 2 I2C ports, 6 counter/timers, 4 8 bit I/O ports with bitwise interrupt ability, and most importantly (for 3D graphics) a 16x16 multiply accumulator engine. This CPU rocks.

Even if all the Sprinter team did was run it at 21MHz like they do the processor they have now, it would be four times faster. Now imagine it running at 50MHz!

It would certainly be a Sprinter product I would most certainly pay money for.

I have ZiLOG's eZ80 development kit and it is a wonderful place to start developing such a machine on. Heck, if all the Sprinter team did was to offer an upgrade board for the evaluation board with display, floppy, IDE, ISA etc. interfaces on it, then I'd be glad to pay for it myself.

Anyway, that's my wish. Maybe call it the Mega-Sprinter or the "Sprintinator". :-)

If anyone in the Sprinter team is even remotely interested, then I may be able to assist with supplying the development materials myself.

Is anyone else interested in seeing a Sprinter based on this processor as well?

Sparky

Yes, we have an information about eZ80. Probably it is a perspective CPU for the next mainboard of Sprinter. But ZiLOG's eZ80 development kit is interesting for us today too.

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PETERS PLUS LTD

And Z380 ? hehe is compatible and very fast... more than eZ80... NO?

i prefer the names:

- Sprinter II

- Sprinter SG

- Sprinter +

- Sprinter +2

- Sprinter HQ

...

also zx sprinter :)))))))

It is a great idea I think. And it seems that only Sprinter team is able to make the idea alive. To put it into work. We (me and Yarek Adamski) were thinking about Speccy based on ez80, but Sprinter Team has possibilities to make it work.

It is a great idea I think. And it seems that only Sprinter team is able to make the idea alive. To put it into work. We (me and Yarek Adamski) were thinking about Speccy based on ez80, but Sprinter Team has possibilities to make it work.
YERZMYEY/H-PRG

Actually, the eZ80 is the fastest of the series, even though the Z380 is 16 bit data and 32 bit address. What makes the eZ80 so fast is its advanced parallel pipeline and faster clock capability. Here's a chart indicating the different speeds of the ZiLOG processors (I got it straight from them but converted to ASCII):

_______________________ Z80_____Z180____eZ80____Z380
MAX SPEED (MHz)-----------10-------33-------50-------20
Cycles per fetch (min)--------4--------3--------1--------2
Relative performance to Z80--1-------4.4-------20-------8
Data bus width-------------8-bit-----8-bit-----8-bit----16-bit
Address Space-------------64KB------1MB-----16MB----4GB
Expanded memory method--Linear-----MMU-----Linear---Linear
ZiLOG Debug Interface-------NO-------NO------YES------NO

Hopefully this font shows this chart ok. What is shows is that the eZ80 is extremely fast even though it's still using a 8 bit data bus. The eZ80 also has a prefetching pipeline which is part of what makes it so fast.

There is one more issue the Z380 cannot compete with. The Z380 has two modes of operation. One is a compatible Z80 mode and the other is the advanced Z380 specific mode. Once the mode is set, it cannot be changed again until the device is reset. This means legacy code is not too useful in the Z380 if you want to access more memory. Z80 "legacy" code only runs in the first 64K of RAM and that's it.

The eZ80 is multi-modal. It can run in Z80 compatibility mode in any portion of memory or any one of the 256 64K "pages". You can also run exclusively in the enhanced register and memory modes, or you can interleave the advanced commands with the legacy commands without a problem. Like the Z380, the eZ80 has 24 bit versions of the BC, DE, HL, IX, and IY registers along with two stacks and a 24 bit program counter. Advanced mode commands have direct access to the 16mb linear address space.

I have converted a version of the Spectrum OS to run on ZiLOG's development kit and at 40MHz it will run the following code in 3.5 seconds:

10 FOR a=0 TO 65535: NEXT a

This will give you the idea of the speed of this sucker. In other words, a 21MHz eZ80 is 4 to 5 times faster than the processor Sprinter has now.

The fact the eZ80 is so fast and is easy to iimplement by a slight modification to existing designs is why ZiLOG is pushing this chip so hard. There are even TCP/IP stacks available for it in assembly and C source, depending on who you license it from. ZiLOG ships its developers kits with a C compiler and assembler utilizing the option of using XINU as the operating system. That's a subset of UNIX with full multitasking etc. The Z380 is an older design that is being phased out as a part of ZiLOG's company restructuring. The eZ80 is the "flagship".

"Did you ever feel everone else are tuxedos and you were just a pair of brown shoes?"

great!! but are you sure that it is _FULL_ compatible with Z80 assembler?
So is it possible to use ALL software written for Z80 machine code?

Also you can ask to SpeccyBob author. I think that he can assemble new speccy clone with this powerful cpu.

Z380 don't support undocumented Z80 commands
Many spectrum programs use its.
So, to choices: 1 - drop compartibility, 2 - get speed from another source (Altera chip, for example)

Here are the software differences:

Interrupts are now strictly peripheral indexed, much like IM 2. Each peripheral has its own interrupt priority and vector. There is no "INT" pin any more. Each of the 32 GPIO pins can be programmed for an interrupt, or each of the built in peripheral devices can generate an interrupt as well. The interrupt vector tree determines where the interrupt is vectored to.

All undocumented Z80 commands (where they are different than the documented ones) still operate. The enhanced commands use different op-code prefixes.

It's timing behavior (instruction cycle) is very different and any software timing loops will complete considerably faster.

Those are the differences. Here are some more advantages:

You can have up to 256 virtual Z80 machines running in memory (this is theoretical, but an OS managing them would probably take up memory for one or two of them). You can also use instructions that can see all of the 16mb of memory without any sort of paging.

It's fast enough to handle ethernet packets via an ethernet interface (which their eval board has).

It has two UARTs built in for RS232 or anything else serial. These UARTS have 16 byte FIFO's for high reliability (I have tested them for speeds up to 230400 bps). There are two I2C ports, two UZI ports for interprocessor communications should you want more than one CPU. Four bit programmable parallel I/O ports. 6 programmable timers with auto-reload capability and zero value interrupt triggers. A watch-dog timer for crash sensitivity. Finally, a genuine hardware based 256x16 multiplay accumulator engine with 40 bit multiply accumulator. This simply means fast DSP ability.

I know it works because I have already converted a version of Andrew Owen's SE BASIC (debugged Spectrum OS) to work with it. Check out my web site:

http://members.cox.net/rjkelsch

Rich

The eZ80 is NOT a Z380. The Z380 is an older and out-dated 16 bit version of the Z80. The eZ80 is the newest from ZiLOG. The Z380 is being phased out.

Great!
Are you skilled to project a schematic of a Sprinter (or compatible!) pc with this cpu using altera chip?
Do you think that could be much difference with actual hardware of Sprinter and a new Sprinter model based on eZ80? in other words... I think that must modify some hardware architecture.... and could be present some incompatibility. Am I in wrong?

Because the eZ80 can act like a Z80, the design modification would not be difficult. In fact the system would gain a few more internal peripherals and timers. Heck, even though the system is capable of 16MB of memory that is directly accessible without bank selection, you would not have to use all of the address lines with the Sprinter bus. It can work just fine as a Z80 plug in replacement. The only system modification would have to be the interrupt structure. The rest should work just fine with only no or litttle modification.

If the desire was to use the full 16mb, then of course the system design would have to change to accomodate the extra memory map.

You can go to ZiLOG's web site to readh about the eZ80. It's actually easily feasable to make an advanced system and yet maintain old software compatibility.

Rich

"Did you ever feel everone else are tuxedos and you were just a pair of brown shoes?"

and a small board or upgrade the actual Sprinter ?

could be factible...

and a small board for upgrade the actual Sprinter ?

could be factible...

has a expansion port ?

or a socket in the z80 port an adapt it...

Well, can you lay out some specs and features of a new board? Could there be a 16 bit ISA or even PCI? Or at least 800 x 600 8bit graphics? Ethernet + TCP/IP? On top of existing Sprinter's features? And could taht actually be an affordable alternative to a Wintel PC, virus free, easy to program etc.?