Z80 BASED RASPBERRY PI LOOK-ALIKE

Homebrew computers are the ‘in thing’ these days and the Zilog Z80 is the most popular choice for making one on your own. We have seen some pretty amazing builds but [Martin K]’s Z-berry is the smallest on record yet. As the name suggests, the retrocomputer conforms to the Raspberry Pi form aspect which includes the GPIO header.

The Z-berry is created with a Z80 CPU running at 10 MHz (20 MHz possible) and comes with 32 kB ROM
and 512 kB RAM. In addition to the serial interface, the computer boasts an I2C bus, an SPI bus, and a PS/2 keyboard connector to boot. [Martin K] has a video where the finished system is enclosed in a Raspberry Pi case and has an I2C OLED display attached and working.

[Martin K] has posted a lot of details on how to make your own Z-berry which includes the BOM, schematic and preliminary information. We reached out to him to find out a lot more about the software which is stable and available on request along with PCBs and sample code. Additionally, this project promises to draw much less current than the Raspberry Pi and must verify beneficial for any individual seeking to create a retro option to a modern problem.

It is interesting to see projects that combine modern techniques with retro technologies. one of the best Z80 projects we have seen is the FAP80 and there are some amazing homebrew computer projects on Hackaday.io for you to take a look and get inspiration.

[Thanks for the idea Matej]