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Spectradata SD70 - Eric's Interest

A project log for Z80 Reverse-Engineering And Hacking Adventures

What else can I say?

eric-hertzEric Hertz 06/15/2022 at 06:420 Comments

I'm no Z80 expert, in fact my first (known) experience with a Z80 was decades after their heyday in home computing, in working on #OMNI 4 - a Kaypro 2x Logic Analyzer.

As I gather, though, this piece of lab equipment, that no one seems to want nor even know exists, is most of a full Z80 computer with a custom front-panel UI... So, personally, I'm intrigued about potential hackery.

I got a lot of low-level Z80 hardware ideas in our adventures with #Vintage Z80 palmtop compy hackery (TI-86)... I'd love to try some out, one of these days, and here I've a nearly complete system, with a ton of empty space, to try them on!

I'm a bit concerned about hacking-up something of this vintage, even if it seems to be unloved (maybe even moreso because) so I think as far as physical modifications go, I'll stick to things that can be undone. Aside, maybe, from adding a chip socket or header where they were previously unpopulated. I *might* go so far as cutting a trace, here or there... then adding a jumper so it can easily be returned to original functionality. We'll see.

Every Chip is in a machine-pin socket!

...

Update 6-17-22:

Oh no... My Youtube history might just show a little more about me in some areas than I know about myself...

Which is to say that I just saw an Applied Science vid which made use of a spectrometer... and, well, sheesh. 

Reminded me that the fact is there have been numerous times I thought having one would be useful. And, here, I have an essential component!

I need to stop myself, here, I think. Because I've already spent some time thinking about the necessary hardware (and Calibration!), from the standpoint of someone who did poorly in chemistry and well in physics, twenty years ago. 

And, well, if I have to come up with a sensor of my own, and figure out, and assemble, diffraction-grating, or prisms, and a system to select a wavelength, and calibrate those instruments with some ideal white lightsource I'll never have.... Oh, sheesh... AND somehow calibrate the wavelength-selection itself!

Well, seriously... Very Unlikely.

I had, actually thought about it in the past, with similar conclusions, despite havinh a much simpler (at least mechanically) system in mind.

I think, if I went the route of actually building my own spectrometer, it'd be far easier for me to use a linear CCD, like found in flatbed scanners or fax machines, than to build the mechanisms necessary to precisely position a sensor relative to a prism.

Now, I guess the irony might be that some mechanical engineer is out there, having acquired that precision hardware, and might be thinking how hard it would be for him/her to try to program its steppers. Hah!

... Programming a linear-CCD is actually something I've wanted to try my hand at... And, such a system would be *tiny* in comparison to just the controller, here, alone. Even portable. Nevermind the UI on this thing is not at all intuitive. Meanwile, again, I have definitely been wanting to try out various Z80 hackery ideas that really *couldn't* be implemented in much less space... Is it wrong of me to completely repurpose something like this?

Right, my mod-planning has been keeping removal in mind. OK. It has machine-pin sockets for [nearly] Every chip!

(BTW, the big discovery today was to use a fiber-optic cable to feed into the prism/grating. In fact it makes complete sense, the light source doesn't have to come from this source. Heck, we might be curious about the spectrum of sunrise vs sunset,aint no man made light source gonna help that! My brain sometimes.

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