> > > But surely, if you link up a different keyboard (good idea as the Zx81
> > > keyboard is unusable IMHO), and then use an LCD display then there's not
> > > much of the original ZX81 left.
> > Sure there is. If you change the keyboard and monitor on a PC it's still a
> > PC -- same for the ZX81. In most cases we're just adding peripheral i/o
> My point is that there are only 4 chips in the ZX81. The CPU, 1K RAM,
> BASIC ROM, and the ULA. The ULA is mostly concerned with video output and
> address deconding.
> And the ZX81 BASIC is so unpleasant (single-key entry -- YUK!)
Hey, I liked it!
> Therefore it's probably as easy to start with a bare CPU chip...
Maybe, but then you have to make a board, and at least a ZX
compatible edge connector for all the great perhipherals ...
So after all, using a ZX81 is just a cheap way to get exactly
this.
> [1] People who used ZX81s for robotics normally added a 6116 CMOS RAM (at
> least) onto the expansion connector and removed (or at least disabled)
> the power-hungry interal RAM.
Wasn't the ZX81 board already prepared to use a 6116 instead ?
At least all the kit boards I ever had (I bought ZX81s only as
kits) did go well with it.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
Received on Mon Mar 18 2002 - 04:27:24 GMT