MCLZ8 - Zilog Z80 Emulator in TRS-80 Model III

Hardware
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I wanted to share my latest project, the MCLZ8, which is a Zilog Z80 emulator which can be used as a drop-in replacement for the original Z80.

My Wordpress blog can be found here: MCLZ8 Link

For now, the MCLZ8 is running as a cycle-accurate Zilog Z80; however the next (fun) step will be to start integrating stuff like the TRS-80’s RAM and ROMS and running/caching them at the full speed of the 800Mhz Teensy microcontroller to see just how fast we can make this TRS-80 Model III, and see how it compares to the the accelerators which were available back in those days!

Thanks,
-Ted

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Nice work! It will be interesting to hear about acceleration performance.

Perhaps see also this previous thread:

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Preliminary results indicate that the MCLZ8 is more than 15 times faster than the stock Z80 in the TRS-80 Model III… This is with cycle accuracy disabled and both ROM and RAM running at the microcontroller’s top speed… More testing needed, but it looks promising…

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More application testing results for the MCLZ8:
https://microcorelabs.wordpress.com/2022/05/13/mclz8-testing-various-applications/

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What about using it as a replacement for a Z80 in other Z80 machines?

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Aside from BUSREQ/BUSACK signals the MCLZ8 is drop-in compatible to any Z80 socket.

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Nice project! The Teensy 4.1 is one of the few high performance boards that only rarely goes out of stock. The manufacturer did some clever planning and took a gamble on securing enough processors that he can meet steady (if not expanded) demand.

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I posted some videos of a few games and also a quick demo of the degree of acceleration achieved with the MCLZ8.

Posted on my blog here: MCLZ8 VIDEOS – GAMES AND Z80 ACCELERATION

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Project files are now on GitHub: MCLZ8 Github​​​​​​​

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I integrated the TRS-80 Model I ROMs into my MCLZ8 Z80 emulator and mapped the UART to the TRS-80’s keyboard and video RAM and now have it running on a standalone Teensy 4.1 board!
TRS-80 MODEL I EMULATOR USES MCLZ8 IN A TEENSY

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