Beginnings...
Last updated: 20 Apr 2007 - 20:37
In the beginning was the Amstrad NC100.
At one point during the Easter holiday I had the sudden urge to get out my old Z80 based laptop, an Amstrad NC100. Fiddling with it for a little while, I decided it was under-utilising the hardware due to the very restrictive operating system. It does have BBC basic built in, allowing the user to easily write programs, however BASIC isn't a very powerful language (quick to code I'll admit, but not powerful), and the programming was slow. It also left you having to start BASIC, load a program into memory then run it every time you wanted to use one. Clearly this didn't make for an enticing environment to develop.
I then had the idea of writing a new ROM for the device. If you look at the back of an NC100 there's a little panel that comes off with just one screw, revealing a standard 2Mbit ROM. "Easy", I thought, all I need to do is replace that with a memory chip that I've programmed, and away we go. I had an 8KB Ferric RAM (a type of non-vo
Memory Tool
Last updated: 20 Apr 2007 - 16:45
Introduction In some ways a Z80 processors program storage is easier to get at than modern flash based micro-controllers. However, modern micro-controllers usually have suitable software available for modern computers.