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Nick

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Joined: 09/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 512

Posted: 06:49pm 28 Nov 2011

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djuqa said
WHY?

Yes the MicroBee was a great computer (30 years Ago) and the Zilog Z-80 is Legendary
but Why release this Revamped MicroBee?

Nostalgia I guess.

But you have to be pretty serious about your Microbee. That's a lot of circuitry for something that could have been done with a single PIC32 such as the Maximite.

It does have a linux option though so with Microbee and Linux options combined, the range of software for this would be WAY more that what the Maximite has or will ever have.

I'm disappointed it doesn't support standard VGA with color. What's this monochrome composite and TTL stuff?!

I've always hated the Microbee's amateur/cheap looking case design. They should have at least went for the later Microbee Teleterm case.

Can't help thinking it could have been more.

Anyone up for putting a Maximite into an old Microbee case and porting a Microbee emulator to it (such as what's been done with the TRS-80 emulator)? :)

djuqa

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Joined: 23/11/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 447

Posted: 08:33pm 28 Nov 2011

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Nick said

Anyone up for putting a Maximite into an old Microbee case and porting a Microbee emulator to it (such as what's been done with the TRS-80 emulator)? :)

Exactly my point.

VK4MU MicroController Units

graynomad

Senior Member

Joined: 21/07/2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 122

Posted: 01:20am 29 Nov 2011

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I used to love Microbees and was a Z80 freak for years. I even occasionally get nostalgic and think about knocking up a Z80 board full of DARTS, SIOs, PIOs, CTCs etc.

But the bottom line is, why bother?

______
Rob

Rob Gray, AKA the Graynomad, www.robgray.com

CircuitGizmos

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Joined: 08/09/2011
Location: United States
Posts: 1425

Posted: 01:23am 29 Nov 2011

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graynomad said I even occasionally get nostalgic and think about knocking up a Z80 board full of DARTS, SIOs, PIOs, CTCs etc.

I'm the same. I still have all of these chips somewhere in my collection of stuff.

Micromites and Maximites! - Beginning Maximite

graynomad

Senior Member

Joined: 21/07/2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 122

Posted: 01:27am 29 Nov 2011

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You can still buy all those chips, I went looking recently. And believe it or not they still produce the Microprofessor development kit, supposedly for education.

http://www.flite.co.uk/microprofessor-mpf-1b-z80-training-sy stem.htm

Man I'm templed to buy one just for old time's sake

______
Rob

Rob Gray, AKA the Graynomad, www.robgray.com

djuqa

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Joined: 23/11/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 447

Posted: 01:27am 29 Nov 2011

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graynomad said I used to love Microbees and was a Z80 freak for years. I even occasionally get nostalgic and think about knocking up a Z80 board full of DARTS, SIOs, PIOs, CTCs etc.

But the bottom line is, why bother?

______
Rob

Exactly! My microbee has not seen the light of day in 16yearsEdited by djuqa 2011-11-30

VK4MU MicroController Units

graynomad

Senior Member

Joined: 21/07/2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 122

Posted: 01:40am 29 Nov 2011

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On the Arduino forum recently a bloke was going to make a Z80 "emulator" (for want of a better word). He planned to clock the Z80 with an IO pin and supply data to the data bus from a ROM image as though the Arduino was an EPROM.

Once again I can't really see the point but never the less I find the idea really interesting.

______
Rob

Rob Gray, AKA the Graynomad, www.robgray.com

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