Z80 Explorer

If you were exploring Z80 internals, emulation, or FPGA implementation over the recent years, you probably stumbled upon Goran Devic's blog call Baltazar Studios. He investigated and reverse engineered most of the z80 circuitry on a series of blog posts that are highly recommend. Recently he created a visual tool to explore the original Z80.

Goran's Baltazar Studios blog is a good resource on how the Zilog Z80 micro chip works. He shows you a Z80 built from the ground up; the heart, the soul, and the mind. It's all there. He also implemented the A-Z80 cpu for FPGAs which instead of targeting just the implementation of a software compatible Z80 core, actually did it closely following the design of the Z80. Very interesting because undocumented behavior does not have to be specifically coded and even potentially unknown behavior would still show up in his design.

This year, following some ideas and data from visual6502, he implemented a visual tool to explore the original Z80 design. You can visualize the individual nets and transistors and simulate the device while looking at is wave forms, exposing all Z80 internals in a visual/easy manner. A fantastic and invaluable tool for Z80 lovers!

relevant link: Baltazar Studios
relevant link: Z80 Explorer

originally submitted by Edevaldo
image by Hamlet