Part 30
Reference section

Subjects covered...

	Hardware

The +3 is designed around the Z80A microprocessor, which runs at a
speed of 3.5469MHz (about three and half million cycles per second).

The +3's memory is divided into 64K ROM and 128K RAM, arranged in 16K
pages. The four ROM pages (0-3) can be mapped into the bottom 16K
(0000h-3FFFh) of the memory map.The eight RAM pages (0-7) are usually
mapped into the top 16K (C000h-FFFFh) of the memory map. RAM page 5 is
also mapped into the range 4000h-7FFFh, and RAM page 2 is mapped into
the range 8000h-BFFFh.There are also several RAM page combinations
that occupy the full 64K address range. These were given in part 35 of
this chapter, under the heading 'Memory management'.

Physically speaking, the ROMs are two 32K devices (similar to the
27256), which are both treated by the system as two 16K chips. The RAM
is composed of four 16K x 4 bit chips (41464), some of which (RAM
banks 4-7) are time-shared between the circuitry that produces the
screen display, and the Z80A. The others (RAM banks 0-3) are for the
exclusive use of the Z80A, as in the ROM.

For the contended RAM (which shares time between the video circuitry
and the processor), during 128 out of every 228 CPU T states (1 TV
line), and during 192 out of every 311 TV lines (1 frame) the CPU is
allowed only 1 access to contended RAM in every 8 T states. The CPU is
controlled by introducing wait states.

Executing NOP instructions in contended RAM will have an effective
average clock frequency of 2.66MHz (a reduction of about 25%).

The Uncommitted Logic Array (ULA) handles most of the I/O such as
keyboard, tape interface, part of the printer interface and screen
handling. It converts bytes in memory into patterns and colours on the
screen, and allows the Z80A to scan the keyboard and read and write
data to tape.

The three-channel sound is produced by the AY-3-8912 - a very popular
sound chip, and this device also controls the RS232/MIDI and AUX
ports.

The two serial ports can be driven only by software. The +3 has no
software support for the AUX port - this is left to the user's
discretion. The RS232/MIDI port is fully supported from +3 BASIC.

The way in which the AY-3-8912 works is quite complex, and the
would-be experimenter is advised to get the manufacturer's data sheet.
The following information should be enough to get things underway,
however.

The sound chip contains sixteen registers which are selected by
writing first to the address write port FFFDh (65533) with the
register number, and then reading the register value (same address),
or writing to the data register write address BFFDh (49149). Once a
register has been selected, any number of data read/writes can be
made; the address write port need only be re-written if a different
register needs to be addressed.

The basic clock frequency of the circuit is 1.7734MHz (to 0.01%).

The registers do the following:

     R0 - Fine tone control channel A
     R1 - Coarse tone control channel A
     R2 - Fine tone control channel B
     R3 - Coarse tone control channel B
     R4 - Fine tone control channel C
     R5 - Coarse tone control channel C

The tone of a channel is a 12 bit value taken from the sum of D3-D0 of
the coarse register, and D7-D0 of the fine register. The basic unit of
tone is the clock frequency divided by 16 (ie 110.83KHz), and with a
12 bit counter range, frequencies from 27Hz to 11KHz can generated.

     R6 - Noise generator control, D4-D0

The period of the noise source is taken by counting down the lower 5
bits of the noise register every sound clock period divided by 16.

     R7 - Mixer and I/O control

     D7 - Not used
     D6 - 1 means input port
        - 0 means output port
     D5 - Channel C noise
     D4 - Channel B noise
     D3 - Channel C noise
     D2 - Channel C tone
     D1 - Channel B tone
     D0 - Channel A tone

This register controls both the mixing of noise and tone values for
each channel, and the direction of the 8 bit I/O port. A zero in a mix
bit indicates that the function is enabled.

     R8 - Amplitude control channel A
     R9 - Amplitude control channel B
     RA - Amplitude control channel C

     D4 - 1 means use envelope generator
        - 0 means use value of D3-D0 for amplitude
     D3-D0 - Amplitude

These three registers control the amplitude of each channel and
whether or not it is modulated by the envelope registers.

     RB - Envelope coarse period control
     RC - Envelope fine period control

The eight bit values in RB+RC are summed to produce a 16 bit number
which is counted down in units of 256 multiplied by the sound clock.
Envelope frequencies can be between 0.1Hz and 6KHz.

     RD - Envelope control

     D3 - Continue
     D2 - Attack
     D1 - Alternate
     D0 - Hold

The diagram of envelope shapes (in part 19 of this chapter) gives a
graphical illustration of the possible settings for this register.

The disk drive is controlled by the uPD765A floppy disk controller
chip. As described in part 23 of this chapter, the data register for
this device is at address 3FFDh (16381) and the status register is at
2FFDh (12285). This is a very complex device and it would be unwise to
attempt to use it without full details of its operation (see the
manufacturer's data sheet).

The Centronics parallel printer port is basically just an 8 bit data
latch (74273) whose address is 0FFDh (4093). The STROBE signal for the
printer is produced by the ULA and is accessed using the bit 4 of
address 1FFDh (8189). The state of the BUSY line from the printer is
read from bit 0 of address 0FFDh (4093).