Sprites mods – CP/M on an AVR

September 5, 2011 | electronics, Hacking, Hardware | By: Mark VandeWettering

I’ve always been fascinated by emulation and virtual machines, as well as retro-computing: resurrecting the old machines of my past. I never owned an old CP/M machine, but there are still some neat projects where people construct there own, and simulators like SIMH and YAZE-AG are good software simulators. But what I always wondered was whether a small microcontroller like an Atmel AVR could simulate an 8080 or Z80 fast enough to simulate these older machines.

And of course, today I found a link to someone who did just that. With a remarkably simple chunk of hardware. One AVR, a dynamic RAM, and an SD card to serve as a mass storage device. The combination is good enough to run Zork. I’m suitably impressed. The design and code are all GPL.

Sprites mods – CP/M on an AVR – Intro.