z88dk forums

Yes, these things are unbelievably cheaply made. Especially the "newer" models. But if you get your hands on the 1000/2000/400x models, you will get full Z80 DIP goodness ;-) The keyboards are pretty similar across all models. Actually, the cheapness is exactly what inspired me to hack the...

@munchausen There is a little bit of information on my (pretty neglected) project page at http://projects.spr.at During my "adventures" I have created some plans for the Cartridge PCB in KiCAD and I am happy to share them! I am TERRIBLE at PCB design, that's why someone else should finish ...

You're welcome! I am currently doin some more hardware/historical research. For example, I just now found out that V-Tech was branded "YENO" in Germany and France during the early 80s. For example: The "PreComputer 1000" was branded "YENO Mister X" and the famous "...

It's all working now: keyboard input, terminal output and sound. I even compiled and played around with the "eliza" example without modifications. At the moment, I only have the start up files for the model 4000/4004QL, but models 1000 and 2000 are soon to follow. Should I create a pull re...

That's it. Moving the data origin up solved it. *siiiiiiiiiiigh*
Sorry for the false alarm!

Now that I think about it, it may be some error in my memory layout, which, accidentally, leaves stdout working, but corrupts stdin and local variables. I think I need to sleep over that (it's close to 3am now) ;-)

Thank you, alvin. I have re-written my input driver from scratch (for the 3rd time now), based on the cpm_01_input_kbd_dcio. When I was done, I did a diff and was actually byte-identical to my previous attempts. I also quadrouple-checked that my FDSTRUCT points to "console_01_input_terminal_fdr...

Update: I am making progress! :-D Thanks to your info, I was able to implement a working terminal output driver, including setting the cursor and scrolling. The number of "dirty boot instructions" is shrinking at a fast pace, finding their new home in dedicated drivers. I even found more i...

stdio in newlib is object oriented. It generates a small set of messages that are delivered to the driver. Your driver can implement those messages directly or you can subclass from a library driver that does some of the work. I have a proof-of-concept CHARACTER driver working! It is hackisch, but ...

Update: I have forked the project to https://github.com/hotkeymuc/z88dk and I am busy incorporating all the steps alvin told me. The new platform has been created and +vgl already compiles, resulting in somewhat valid ROM binaries. Today I started implementing the I/O drivers. So far, it compiles, b...

Yay, it compiles! I called the platform "vgl" (as in "V-Tech Genius Leader"), since just "gl" might collide with future Z80 OpenGL implementations ;-) The new lib is perfect for all the different start up signatures I have identified for this platform. There are standar...

Ah! Found it! crt_config.inc is the file I was desparately searching for.
The newlib way of doing things is really THAT much neater -- totally loving it!

Thank you again, alvin!

Thank you, alvin!! This is what I call extensive :-) I will give it a shot! And for your question about community: * No, there is no community around these machines (that I know of), but there is absolutely no reason not to start one. These machines get thrown out of households, because children gro...

Hello everyone, during the last year I have been reverse-engineering several learning notebooks by V-Tech. They are called "Pre Computer" in the US and "Genius Leader" in Germany. Those laptops were manufactured during the 80s and 90s and are dirt cheap on eBay. They usually offe...