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- Z80H
-
- The Z80H by Zilog is a high speed Z80 family, pin compatible
- processor. It can be used in place of the Z80,A ,B series with which
- it is identical as to function. It can provide at minimum a 10% in-
- crease in throughput on most CP/M based motherboards. The chip was
- designed to run at 8 to 10 Mhz, with selected and verified chips able
- to run at 11 to 14 Mhz (the higher speeds at some degradation to
- reliability). The Z80H is a drop in part for all applications that use
- the Z80 family In use the Z80H can just replace your processor, but
- for the best results you can switch the clock crystal on the board for
- one of a higher speed. It is advisable not to go to the highest speed
- at once for the support TTL chips may not be rated for the highest
- speed at which the Z80H will run. A good idea would to remove the
- clock crystal and install a a socket so that you could change the
- crystal as you check the reliability at the higher speed. Remember to
- check the clock divisor and get crystal's that are correct (If your
- board is running at 4 Meg and the clock divisor is four your crystal
- is a 16 Mhz a good replacement would be a 24 Mhz crystal which works
- out to 6 Meg, a 32 Mhz for 8 Meg, etc. If you have problems with
- dropout and lost bits you probably will have to change the TTL chips
- on the board for the H versions, such as 74HS14 etc. You may have to
- do quite a bit of work and you may still not get a reliable board. One
- of the other problems that may occur is that the traces on your board
- are too long (large size motherboards) even though electricity travels
- at 186,000 mps at the higher clock speeds its a little hairy, and you
- also run the risk of higher RF interference. Try one of the Z80H's
- without a crystal first, you WILL see a difference without having to
- go to the Z280 or HD64180 boards.
-