More thoughts on building a Z-80 (64bit!!!)

From: Marvin <marvin_at_rain.org>
Date: Thu Oct 22 20:48:28 1998

Arfon Gryffydd wrote:
>
> >You do realise that to get anything like the clock rates you want (or
> >even a tenth of them) you have to treat the tracks as striplines. This
> >means the width of the PCB track is critical. Toner transfer may not be
> >good enough.
>
> I know that Track get very touchy at 900Mcyc speeds but, I also knew that
> it was near impossible for me to find something like what I wanted at those
> speeds.... Plus, Half the fun of building stuff is learning what will and
> will not work and then MAKING IT WORK!!! (Pass the hammer please)

BTW, I used to prototype boards used in the gigahertz region, and at least
for the stuff I made, glass/teflon material was used. I don't know the
current price, but a few years ago, it was running upwards of $100 per
square foot. Then comes the processing. Yes, you can learn how to make
such circuit boards but you would most likely spend upwards of $1000 just
for chemistry to get started (and that amount would be considered impossible
by some people.) Then controlling the process to maintain trace widths to
.0001" or so *of the desired trace width* gets to be fun. Or just spend the
$1000 or so plus the hundred dollars or so to get the film made. BTW, did I
forget to say it costs a fair amount of money to deal with *just* the
circuit boards :)?
Received on Thu Oct 22 1998 - 20:48:28 BST