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ziloo
April 9th, 2009, 12:15 PM
You fellas might have heard about this book: "Build your own
Z80 Computer" by Steve Ciarcia, the man and mind behind
the Circuit Cellar magazine. Although I have not read the book
myself, but I have read so much about it! It is an oldie that was
published around 1981, but it still grabs good money for a used
one by used-book sellers.

Apparently by the author/with his permission, the book has been
scanned and placed online for download:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13388965/Build-Your-Own-Z80-Computer

Get it while it lasts...

ziloo

cosam
April 9th, 2009, 01:26 PM
That's a great book. I remember borrowing it from a library years ago and thoroughly enjoying reading it. It only took me about ten years (on and off - mostly off) to actually do what the title says! Shame those hexadecimal 7-segment displays are a bit harder to come by these days.

TandyMan100
April 9th, 2009, 01:51 PM
I don't have an account, could someone E-Mail it to JBickhard@GMail.com, please? Or upload it somewhere where I don't have to have an account with anything to download it.

Chuck(G)
April 9th, 2009, 05:58 PM
I don't have an account, could someone E-Mail it to JBickhard@GMail.com, please? Or upload it somewhere where I don't have to have an account with anything to download it.

Scribd accounts are free. All you need is an email address.

Ole Juul
April 9th, 2009, 08:57 PM
I tried to look at it a number of times but it crashed my browser every time. I've never had anything do that before. Freeze yes, but not crash bang gone! My partner's machine here is running a slightly more recent version of the same OS and doesn't have a problem though.

Chuck(G)
April 9th, 2009, 09:00 PM
I'm using FF3 (Windows) and downloaded the PDF with no problems.

TandyMan100
April 10th, 2009, 07:31 AM
I'm a slave to Bill Gates using IEEEEEEEE!!! 7 on windows xp home, I could view it just fine.

Dr_Acula
April 10th, 2009, 07:31 AM
LOL I'm surrounded by a deskful of homebuilt Z80 computers. Great link - thanks!

Re "Shame those hexadecimal 7-segment displays are a bit harder to come by these days. "

Check out http://www.futurlec.com/LEDDisp.shtml scroll down a bit - even better than hex 7 seg displays are alphanumeric 14 segment displays. $1.50 for 1 or even better, $1.30 for a dual one. I'm tempted to get some to replace the small LCD displays - red led displays have that great "old skool" look.

Re "I tried to look at it a number of times but it crashed my browser every time. ", every browser is different (my bank can't handle Opera for instance), but this one came up no problems using Firefox.

cosam
April 10th, 2009, 08:00 AM
Check out http://www.futurlec.com/LEDDisp.shtml scroll down a bit - even better than hex 7 seg displays are alphanumeric 14 segment displays.
Nice, but they're all just a bunch of LEDs in a particular pattern. The cool thing about the ones used in the book is that they have build in decoders, so you can hook them to four lines on a bus and they display that nibble in hex.

Dr_Acula
April 10th, 2009, 08:19 AM
Yes, it makes for interesting reading. I'm wading through the CRT section at the moment.

ziloo
April 16th, 2009, 11:49 AM
I admit, I had not RTFM when I made the post, and don't you
know it, in the second page it says:

"Please note: ... Thanks to Andrew Lynch and Bill Bradford for
their work in creating the PDF and getting permission from
copyright holder Steve Ciarcia to release it..."

I should have known that AJ is behind it all :happy3:
...very sneaky AJ :king: ...Thank you again for making it all happen!!!

ziloo

Terry Yager
April 16th, 2009, 12:52 PM
Damn, where do you find the time, AJ? Thanx for the great resource! (I guess I won't be selling any more hard copies for >$50).
If I send you my (Burskey) S-100 Handbook, can you do the same trick?

--T

docred
April 16th, 2009, 08:25 PM
I've got a copy of the book on the shelf, but a huge thanks for the people involved in making this happen - its a great resource and a course all on its own in basic electronics skills, is nice to have it easily available in electronic format :)