I had a similar time-frame with my 2d graphic projects and experiments using a homebrew 8080 powered character and graphics framebuffer with another 8080 or Z80 main processor. I also wrote a few drawing programs for the Atart ST using modula-2 using Bézier curves as the image construction main element. Most of the former software routines are hard-coded into modern graphics engines that are much faster than any possible software solution on generic hardware.

My old graphics display board.
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/...gnals-from-scratch.130859/page-3#post-1080081

Hi,

Oh the Z80 was one of my favorite processors of old. The TRS-80 i have is based on that CPU too.
I really liked the extensive instruction set, i think that was the main thing i liked about it because the Intel chips didnt have a lot of instructions yet.

 

Hi,

Wow that was back when too

I like the phrase "IBM grew a mouse".
My first 'real' computer didnt even have a mouse. I had to use keyboard based 'menus'.
I had to do significant graphics on the printer because the display didnt have good graphics yet.

The mouse on the IBM PC came out later after the PC debuted. We were using digitizing tablets such as Summagraphics BitPad. I saw the first mouse in operation when I attended a presentation given by Adele Goldberg from Xerox Palo Alto PARC, demonstrating SmallTalk on a Xerox Star system. This was the forerunner of Apple Lisa which became the Apple Macintosh.

From this single presentation I was able to take away and incorporate many concepts into my own CAD system, the use of a mouse, cross-hairs and pointers, selectable icons and objects, click and drag, and of course, non-destructive erase using XOR bit operations.

This system was a couple of years ahead of the Apple Macintosh. Concurrently, I was developing a system similar to the Mac but based on a Motorola MC6809. Then the Mac appear and I canned further development on my 6809 system.

I began to port my CAD program over to the Mac. Though it was mostly completed, there was no MacWriter Laser printer available at the time which would have made the system complete.

 

Hi,

Oh the Z80 was one of my favorite processors of old. The TRS-80 i have is based on that CPU too.
I really liked the extensive instruction set, i think that was the main thing i liked about it because the Intel chips didnt have a lot of instructions yet.

It was a great processor for the times. I resurrected one of my old Z80 boards here:
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/memio-emulator-for-z80.117003/

 

Hi,

That looks interesting too, i guess you still like playing around with those processors.
I sort of gave them up as the new stuff rolled in, especially the microcontrollers that do what i wanted to use the Z80 for anyway for the most part.

I dont know if you ever looked at it but there was an operating system for the Z80 (well one of several) that hosted the Sinclair Basic so everything after that was programmable in Basic
It also displayed directly to the TV set, and could use a cassette tape backup. Kind of old style now though.

 

Hi,

That looks interesting too, i guess you still like playing around with those processors.
I sort of gave them up as the new stuff rolled in, especially the microcontrollers that do what i wanted to use the Z80 for anyway for the most part.

People might be shocked by how many of the Z80 era processors in processing tools are still making modern microcontrollers and processors today.

 

People might be shocked by how many of the Z80 era processors in processing tools are still making modern microcontrollers and processors today.

Hi,

Not sure what you are saying here. Are you sayng that Z80's are used for making more modern chips like PIC chips and Intel and AMD processors for desktops for example?

One of the amazing properties of the older CPU's was their deterministic nature. Theoretically if we had two 8080's on two different boards and run from the same clock and we could synchronize the reset so they started running at exactly the same time (subject to some insignificant tolerance) then each and every single bit in the entire system we look at would have the same value (1 or 0) at any time we looked at it, for the entire run time.
I guess more modern systems are subject to not only routines that are based partly on probabilities but also have a lot of external input that changes the timing.

 

how these processor make images

 

how these processor make images

Hello there,

You really need to make your questions more clear about what it is you want to know. A short one line question is not a very good way to get people to understand what you want to know.

 

Hello there,

You really need to make your questions more clear about what it is you want to know. A short one line question is not a very good way to get people to understand what you want to know.

Yeah.. I don't think that is going to happen with this member.
Closed.