05 Apr 2026
The machine is contained on a single PCB containing hardware to support a full-featured CP/M machine with every peripheral support device I could think of.
MP/M was intended as a way for many people to share one computer; Digital Research was surprised to see instead use by a single user, to do multiple things on the same computer. fZ80 is designed for this latter "off label" use. To this end fZ80 has a build-in window manager; you can switch between and resize windows ("consoles") at any time with keystrokes.
SD card technology replaces floppy disks and hard disks both. Much of CP/M's "work flow" is built around the concept of removable media; a removable SD card "floppy" is 8 megabytes, and multiple built-in hard disks reside on one high-performance micro-SD card inside the machine. MP/M gets its own, additional, 32-megabyte disk drive. File interchange with modern machines is designed in.
Required but not included: a modern keyboard with USB interface; compact "60 percent" keyboards are fine. A display, likely modern LCD, capable of 1024 x 768 resolution, with a VGA interface, or an HDMI to VGA adapter, not provided. You must provide a USB power supply capable of 500 mA (nearly any).
The host MCU is a Teensy 4.1, a 600 MHz ARM CPU, from PJRC emulating an NMOS Zilog Z80 and peripheral components (disk interface, serial and parallel ports, etc). However, 100% of the fZ80 software is 8080/Z80 assembly language and BDS C 1.6, written on the machine itself using CP/M and MP/M programs and tools. This provides a close to idealized "1980" experience using the machine.
There exists USB support. At the moment only a keyboard is supported, but it works with a hub and more devices are possible.
The innards of the machine are now documented in the Operator's Manual (see the Docs page at the top.)
I have to bundle them up and make a web page. I intend to put everything here. If you bug me it may happen sooner.