Sharp MZ

Hi all,

For the last few weeks I've been working on putting together an emulator for the Sharp MZ-80K, using a Raspberry Pico and the Pimoroni VGA demo base. It's now at the stage where it is functionally complete and I'm testing it. I'm also in the process of documenting it from a user and a (pico) programmer's perspective.

I'm hoping to have something ready for general use by the end of this month. If you're interested, you can follow my progress here:

https://z80.timholyoake.uk/retrochallenge-2024-10/

I know the world probably doesn't need another Sharp emulator, but it's keeping me amused!

Tim.

I've let a beta version escape into the wild today. It's likely to be replaced fairly quickly by a proper v1 release, but just in case someone would like to try it in the next few days you can find it (plus documentation) here:

https://github.com/psychotimmy/picomz-80k-beta

Tim.

... and release v1.0.0 has now escaped.

https://z80.timholyoake.uk/retrochallen ... flections/

I hope that the documentation and code comments are useful to others who may try something similar in future.

Tim.

Release 2.0.0 also has a first attempt at MZ-80A emulation.

https://z80.timholyoake.uk/pico-mz-80a-first-release/


A question - was the BASIC provided with the 80A more efficient than that of the 80K? On my emulator, an identical BASIC program to calculate prime numbers runs approximately 9% faster. I don't have a real 80A to check my results unfortunately.

Tim.

... it would seem that the answer is yes, the BASIC on the MZ-80A is faster than that of the MZ-80K when run with my prime number test programme.

(Thanks mz-80a for confirming!)

Tim.

It is indeed I've always thought the MZ-80K was mysteriously slow when compared with the 80A.