Z88 Technical Information

Here I hope to bring you as much detailed information as possible on our little rubber-keyed friend. If you have any useful info (including BLINK chip details, sources of OZ or other Z88 software etc), please email them to me to be posted here.

Standard documentation

These are the standard technical documents from Cambridge Computer, now improved and updated.

• Z88 Service Manual v1.21 (online HTML format)
• Z88 Service Manual v1.21 (ZIPped file for offline browsing)
• Developers' Notes v3.27 (online HTML format - for OZ versions up to and including 4.0)
• Developers' Notes v3.27 (ZIPped file for offline browsing)
• Developers' Notes version 3.00 (ZIPped PipeDream format)

Packages documentation

The following documentation and examples tell you all you need to know to start programming with the new Packages system introduced with Installer v2.02. Documentation for forthcoming packages will also be posted here when available.

Don't forget to get the Installer Toolkit and latest z80asm assembler as well (also available with the Z88 Development Kit).

packages112.zip

General documentation for the packages system, including specific details of the calls provided by the Packages v1.12 package

examples202.zip

Programming examples for using and creating packages in assembly, including sources of a full example application and package

Technical Notes

The following documentation from Thierry Peycru details many of the inner workings of the Z88, recently discovered by him.

• General hardware description
• View of motherboard
• Optrex DMF690N datasheet
• SED 1600/1610 LCD drivers datasheets (PDF format)
• RAM filing system
• Buffer management
• Process Blocks structure
• Handle types and structure
• OZ banks usage
• Screen management
• Undocumented data

Development tools

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