Hi All,

I'm a newbie here and need some advice/guidance.

I have nearly 30 years worth of Z80 legacy code, in fact I have built a business around our ink jet printers (for example www.codeology.com/100.html). Everything is run by Z84C015 integrated Z80's which have been fine to date as nothing works particularly fast or requires loads of memory. The entire code is written in assembler. I have an emulator that is probably 20 years old.

I now have an opportunity to integrate a HP print head into our printer range. This is a whole new challenge. I can re-use 90% of my code as a lot of it is to do with user entry, interfacing to the outside world and formatting text ready for printing. However the head requires a more intensive use of memory, both for defining fonts in Eprom and generating bitmaps on the fly for printing. So what I think I need is a fast Z80, definitely with more memory addressing, the ability to use mode 2 interrupts, perhaps with some more fast multiplication ability and maybe some pseudo-dma or fast dma transfers to get my loads of data from RAM to the print head.

My dilemma is which processor should I go for as the upgrade path? I've spent a couple of hopurs going round the Zilog website and I am more confused than when I started.

My key criteria are:
Z80 compatible. I don't mind re-writing some code but not 30 years worth
Integrated timers, serial, GPIO, more than 64K memory map (256K probably enough)
Quad flat pack technology as a maximum, no BGA.
Some form of emulation ability (I've read a little about ZDI but do not understand what hardware I need between my own boards and the PC)
Any emulator must not cost $$$$$$
The processor must have some product life left, I do not want to design in anything obsolete.
Simple upgrade path for my simple mind!

Even a Z180 (I think) will do the job, but is that obsolete and can I emulate it? From what I have seen on the Zilog website EZ80F92 might be suitable but is there anything simpler?
Any advice would be most welcome.

"Leading Thermal Printer Company in China Designs Newest Product with ZiLOG's Groundbreaking eZ80 Acclaim! Microcontroller."
Business Wire Article Date: February 26, 2003 "

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ZiLOG, Inc. (OTCBB:ZILG), the premier provider of 8-bit microcontrollers, announced today that it will be partnering with a new customer, Weihai Beiyang Electric Group Co., Ltd., to provide the microcontrollers for a powerful and fast thermal printer. The company, which is China's leading thermal printer manufacturer, has selected ZiLOG's newly introduced eZ80 Acclaim! chips, citing excellent 50MHz speeds and large addressing as the primary features that will enable its new BTP-2002CP thermal printer.

"Although it is based on the Z80, the eZ80 Acclaim! offers a significant evolution over previous generations of chips. It meets all of the requirements of our new thermal printer design," said Cong Qianzi, General Manager at Weihai Beiyang. "We wanted to add a lot of exciting features, such as fast speed, high resolution and easy operation, to make this product appeal to the largest possible audience. The eZ80's 24-bit addressing mode and high performance processing allows us to give our users unmatched performance even though we are using an affordable eight bit microcontroller."

By leveraging the features of the Acclaim! chip, the company was able to double the data processing speed of the printer. After creating a prototype of the BTP-2002CP last spring, the company tested it with a number of its customers, including governmental agencies and financial companies, both domestically and overseas. Now, the printer is in volume production and the company is designing a second edition, which will leverage the eZ80's TCP/IP stack, which includes all of the protocols to quickly develop applications to send data over either Ethernet or Internet.

"We are pleased to be working with such an influential and creative company," said Mike Burger, President of ZiLOG. "This new printer demonstrates what our new eZ80 Acclaim! microcontrollers have to offer. We look forward to continuing to work closely with Weihai Beiyang on their next generations of thermal printers, which will further leverage the speed and features of these microcontrollers."

The eZ80 Acclaim!, which is based on ZiLOG's popular Z80 MCU, features integrated flash program memory of up to 264KB, as well as up to 16 KB of high speed re-locatable SRAM for general applications. The MCUs boasts embedded Ethernet MAC, as well as comprehensive design tools and additional peripherals, including a watchdog timer, real-time clock, and power management.

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But I believe that ZNEO (ex. Z16F2811, LQFP100 / 24 bits addr bus - 16MB) can do the work, too.

Dirceu.

Thank you for that, it sounds interesting. MY only concern is that release is from 2003, so are Zilog still actively supporting the aZ80 Acclaim?

Jim
You might take a look at the eZ80 AcclaimPlus! family. In particular, have a look at eZ80F91AZA50SG (a LQFP package).
Check out the ZNEO part that Dirceu mentioned as well. There are some cool features with ZNEO.

The OP said The entire code is written in assembler.
So, that probably excludes the ZNEO.

That would leave the eZ80 AcclaimPlus! - anything else close to release ?

How does the Z84C015, compare with eZ80 AcclaimPlus! ?

We bought the eZ80 with the plan of migrating legacy code also. I was introduced to the Z80 and Z180 through maintenance of those legacy projects.

For about 2 years I've been developing eZ80, 24-bit code using C supporting LCD controller, touchpad, I2c, and external flash. I've found the ZDSII development package to be adequate for the task.


Recently, I've started the exploration of eZ80 for running legacy Z80/Z180 code. I successfully created a small sample running a block of Z80 code within an eZ80 application which is written in C. Unfortunately, I can't build or debug the Z80 module within the eZ80 project. Hopefully, I'll find a better way to use the tools.

I tried creating a sample Z80 code piece that will initialize the eZ80 into Z80 mode and then set up the interrupts and be ready to build upon. Using the interactive debugger, I can step through the module. But, if I set a breakpoint and run to that point, the debugger gets out of sync with the processor environment.

I'm waiting to hear back about this . .
. . hasn't been too long yet

Mark