RC2014 Community Newsletter
Issue 52
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In This Issue
 
  • Z80 End Of Life
  • Mini II Proto
  • EMF Camp 2024
  • TMS Image Generator
  • Easter Egg Roundup
  • LCD Module
  • OSHCamp
  • May/June Shipping
  • Community support
  • Feedback

Social Stuff
Z80 Kits Shop Z80 Kits Shop
Website Website
Mastodon Mastodon
GitHub GitHub
You are receiving this email because you signed up to the RC2014 Community Newsletter or have bought an RC2014 homebrew computer, and I think you'll enjoy reading this - However, I fully understand that nobody likes spam.  That is why here at RC2014 Towers we are fully GDPR compliant and you can change your preferences at any time with the link at the bottom

Z80 End Of Life / Last Chance To Buy

This newsletter starts with the sad news that Zilog has decided to cease production of the Z80 CPU, along with the Z180 and all the associated peripheral chips like the SIO/2. The last chance to place orders will be June 14th with the final chips rolling off the production line some months after that.
This is quite a blow for the retro community and potentially devastating news for z80kits.com and anybody else that makes their living from supplies of this little CPU. Luckily  the outlook for RC2014 in the short-medium term is pretty good. Longer term will depend on how many chips are made in the final run and the availibility of them after that.
You can read more on my take of the situation on rc2014.co.uk

Mini II Proto Board


Continuing with the new product every month, April saw the launch of the Mini II Proto Board. This handy prototyping board fits the original Mini or Mini II, with or without the CP/M Upgrade Kit. In addition to the 926 pads of protyping area, there are breakouts for LED, switch, serial and also expansion slots.

EMF Camp 2024

As mentioned in the last newsletter, Electromagnetic Field is fast approaching. RC2014 will be well represented with a stall at the night market and two workshop sessions, and will also feature in some other talks and demonstrations. There will, of course, be special RC2014 EMF stickers, so track me down to say to get one!

Image Creation For TMS9918A

Earlier this month Shiela from Peacock Media wrote this handy blog about the tools needed to create and display images for the TMS9918A or the TMSEMU graphic modules on the RC2014. So if you have a TMS9918A or TMSEMU then this is worth a read.

Easter Egg Hunt Roundup

Thank you to those of you that played along with the Easter Egg Hunt from the last newsletter. For those that want to check how they did, then clues gave you 5A38304B4954533135. Splitting these in to pairs of hex digits gives you the ASCII for Z80KITS15 which was the code needed. Well done to everybody that got it right!

Coming Soon - LCD Module

Later this month the new LCD Driver Module will be released.  This can support 2x8 and 2x16 character displays on the module itself, or remotely run up to a 4x20 character - Ideal if your RC2014 is mounted in an enclosure. The final PCBs are due in a few days and the module will be for sale later this week.

OSH Camp 2024

Another date for your diary is OSH Camp on August 31st and September 1st, which is part of the wider Wuthering Bytes Festival starting on August 23rd.  RC2014 has always supported this event in Hebden Bridge. Although not specifically RC2014 related, yours truly will be giving a talk and running a workshop this year.

May / June Shipping Times

With so much going on at the moment, particularly around public holidays and EMF Camp, not to mention work on RC2014 Towers, z80kits will not be shipping order from z80kits from May 28th until June 7th. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience

Community Support
Got a question about the RC2014? A project you want to share with other RC2014 users?  Need to find some software that runs on your RC2014?  Or just want to see what other RC2014 owners are up to?

Google Groups and GitHub are starting to become vibrant parts of the RC2014 infrastructure.  Why not join up today?  No Google account needed!

For fresh content follow RC2014 on Mastodon for RC2014 news accompanied by other retro computing or cool electronics stuff. Some content is still posted on @ZXSpectROM on Twitter  but note that it is checked infrequently these days.

Feedback

We'd love to hear feedback about your RC2014, this newsletter or anything else.  Please use the email or Google Group links at the top of this email to get in touch. And if you're working on anything cool with an RC2014, I'd love to know.
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