The Ace Place

Over Christmas, I've been writing the software for the PS/2 interface, this will run on an stm8s003f3  from Mouser, they are an eyewatering £0.67 in the TSSOP package and £0.325 QFN but as I cannot solder QFN by hand it will by the TSSOP. They run at 16MHz which is faster than the base Z80 but the same as final Z80 version based on the Z84C1516FSG. The Z84C15 is a Z80 at 16 Mhz with the support chips of the KIO (SIO, PIO & CTC) it is still in production. The stm8 and the Z80 will communicate via the serial link at up to 460800 baud, the Z80 side will likely limit it to less than this. If I get around to an eZ80 version that will communicate using I²C freeing up the UART. The software I'm currently working will drive 2 ports one for keyboard and one for a mouse. The devices I'm using to test are USB via a PS/2 adapter, the genuine PS/2 parts seem to be a bit problematic, it may need a pull-up or pull-down resistor. The source can be found on GitHub in the STM8 subdi

12/12/2019 Sockets are on as are the 2 SOJ chips. The SOJs are not as bad to solder as I expected. The trick seems to be to get them firmly held in place either with some kind of clamp or by a blob of solder on the corners. Using ThermalGlue is not a good idea as it melts far too easily during the process.

The test PCBs for ACE3NOKB from JLCPCB are here also the test pieces for EDGEBOARD Physically the edge connectors are fine and original ace addons do fit, how ever, there is an electrical fault which I have already updated here . Now all I have to do is work out how to solder SOJ chips and get the rest of the components, then write the software mods to handle the interrupt architecture. I managed to get a ZilogInside logo on this Top Bottom