new Z180 based SBC beta testing

Alexandre Souza - Listas pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com ________________________________ Are you building a "MSX on a card" ? :oD -----REPLY----- Hi, I am not sure what you mean by your comment but I'll assume it is a serious question I'll take a try at answering it. The intent of the N8 is to be a unique all in one home brew computer with the major functionality built in such as CPU, memory, video, audio, basic IO, and disk storage. Unlike the N8VEM SBC V2 most builders will probably not want to expand it using the ECB backplane although that is retained as an option. The N8 is a little like a combination of a high performance Z180 system like a SB-180, YASBEC, or P112 and an MSX computer. You can plug the N8 into an ECB backplane although it is much larger than the usual Eurocard 160x100mm format board. It has the Z8S180 CPU and a lot of integrated peripherals like the SB-180, YASBEC, and P112 although all DIP/PLCC plated through hole PCB construction for easy hobbyist assembly. Only a couple optional SMT parts are used. In theory the CPU is capable of 33 MHz operation although since the CPU clock is also used for serial baud rate calculations 29.4912 MHz or 24.576 MHz are probably realistic. The N8 has some MSX hardware compatibility and can run many MSX games particularly at BIOS level compatibility. However hardware compatibility is not 100% so it is not an MSX clone computer. There are several major differences such as the use of PS/2 keyboard and some IO peripherals are at differing locations. There are a lot of builder photos and videos present on the N8VEM wiki in the N8 folder so feel free to review them. Also the schematics, PCB layout, and parts list are also posted although not the most current version. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch