I have to do an essay on "my favourite embedded system", and my lecturer seemed to include game consoles into that category, so I thought i'll do the Game Boy :smt023 I think I need to write stuff mainly on the hardware and architecture (buses and crap) and stuff, and I think I'll do stuff on how they're programmed too. I'll do the original GB mainly, just cuz it's simpler ^_^ So, any useful sites on this kind of stuff? Anyone know much about or even have any dev hardware?
Read Zilog's Z80 documentation, zophar.net has quite a nice expanse of information on the subject as well. If you need help, GBC happens to be my specialty : )
I think there's some books on the Z80 in the depths of hell in my uni's library, a.k.a. the basement (where they put all the crappy old books)... I better check that out
http://fms.komkon.org/GameBoy/Tech/Hardware.html http://fms.komkon.org/GameBoy/Tech/Software.html http://www.devrs.com/gb/ http://www.emulationzone.org/consoles/gameboy/tech/gb.htm http://www.ziegler.desaign.de/readplus.htm
Wow, that's exactly what I was looking for! Thanks! :smt023 I also got some chronically-old book on Z80 programming from the library (in the basement as I thought, just a row across from books on tackling the year 2000 "problem" :smt042 ), which may be of remote use too.
Be careful because the Gameboy doesn't actually use a Z80, it uses a functionally similar CPU (with sound hardware on board... check your PM if you haven't already).
'Eh it just has some swapped opcodes, no biggy. If you want to check out a complete list, download WLADX.
I don't think I'll need to go into that much depth - I only need to write about 8 pages. Thanks for telling me anyway - I knew it wasn't a normal Zilog Z80, but I didn't know it actually differed technically.
