Posted By
MMS
on 2013-08-02
16:19:17
 |  Re: Z80 GUI: SymbOS
@gerliczer
"First, I have to tell that having a Z80 connected to the plus/4 or it running GUI OSes seems to be superfluous to me. As someone's pet project it is OK, but beyond that what for?"
Some possibilities may move Plus/4 from an older hobby machine to something more up-to-date:
-Fluent Video playback (just for fun)
-Music Player for CPC formats, Tracker formats can be easily played.
MP3 playback is a questionmark.
With 24MHz Z80 CPC Trex machine it was not possible, but eZ80 is much much faster.
(see my comments below)
-Internet as possiiblity via eZ80 (to be checked, how)
-Norton like file manager
-Task Manager 
-Minesweeper  (I know we already have few)
-From HW side SD card and mouse RS232 connection ()
I remember, my PI had troubles with MP3 under Windows Millenium.
eZ80 has 80MIPS at 50MHz, could be just enough. MP3 decoding is complex, from raw power 40-50MIPs needed for that.
Interestingly, the first Cray has 160 MIPS, Intel 486DX has 54 MIPS.
Amiga500's 68000 at 8MHz has 1 MIPS.
So eZ80 at 50MHz is THAT strong (80x an Amiga500, though without special custom chips), paired with efficient and compact 8bit code.
Check this out! SymbOS in multitasking action on a 24MHz CPC TREX (FPGA based):
http://www.symbos.de/videos/trexsymbos1.zip
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