A Birthday Cake For A Retrocomputer Designer

When making a birthday cake a bit more personal, one can create a novelty themed confection appropriate for the lucky recipient. In the case of [Spencer Owen], who you may know as the creator of th…

No Z80? No Problem!

Earlier this year Zilog stopped production of the classic 40-pin DIP Z80 microprocessor, a move that brought a tear to the eye of retro computing enthusiasts everywhere. This chip had a huge influe…

Addressable LEDs From A Z80

If you buy WS2812s under the Adafruit NeoPixel brand, you’ll receive the advice that “An 8 MHz processor” is required to drive them. “Challenge Accepted!”, says [Shiel…

The Coleman Z80 Is A Modern Take On A 1970s Computer

[Joshua Coleman] likes to design his own computers. Sometimes, that means drawing up bus architectures,  memory maps and I/O port pinouts. Other times, he can focus his efforts more on the general …

Retro Serial Terminal Uses Modern Chips To Get CP/M Machine Talking

The hobbyists of the early days of the home computer era worked wonders with the comparatively primitive chips of the day, and what couldn’t be accomplished with a Z80 or a 6502 was often rel…