ZX Interface Z

Interface Z - an expansion card for the ZX Spectrum which supports

• VGA Output
• USB devices such as joysticks, flash drives and keyboards
• Networking and Wifi
• Micro SD Card
• YM2149 audio

Project status: Currently under development and only suitable for people that want to help out with development and testing.

Current version is ALPHA1.

See FEATURES for more details on the ZX Interface Z features. (click here for PDF document)

Overview

Block diagram of Interface Z diagram

Models supported

The following models are supported:

• ZX Spectrum 16K
• ZX Spectrum 48K
• ZX Spectrum 128K (gray)
• ZX Spectrum 128K (toastrack)
• ZX Spectrum +2A
• ZX Spectrum +3

Hardware

This section refers to the schematics and printed circuit board design of the Interface Z. The digital design on the FPGA is described in the [FPGA design] section.

Licensing

Schematics and PCB are released under CC-BY-SA 2.0. This applies to all versions of the schematics and PCBs.

Version

Current hardware version is 2.4. This is a pre-production version, not intented for general public availability.

FPGA design

The FPGA design is written primarly in VHDL, targeting an Altera/Intel Cyclone IV device (EP4CE6E22C8N). There is no flash to store bitfile contents - the FPGA bitfile is loaded by the ESP32 MCU and stored inside the ESP32 flash.

Licensing

Unless otherwise stated in each HDL or design support file, the FPGA design files are released under BSD 3-Clause License.

Firmware

This section applies to the firmware running on the ESP32 MCU.

Licensing

Unless otherwise stated in each source support file, the firmware source files are released under GPL version 3 license.

Software

This section applies to the software intended to run on a separate computer (such as a PC, Mac or other).

Licensing

Unless otherwise stated in each source support file, the software source files are released under GPL version 3 license.

Developing

See DEVELOPING for development information regarding ZX Interface Z (click here for PDF document)

See USER GUIDE for build instructions.

More information

• Follow the project on Facebook - ZX Interface Z
• Watch a Demo of "Interface Z" for ZX Spectrum on YouTube