Taking part in Retro Challenge 2024

It’s the 20th anniversary of the Retro Challenge, and also the 10th anniversary of the RC2014 Z80 computer.

So to celebrate, I’m planning on taking part this year, and undertaking a project with my own RC2014 computer. The idea is to complete a project using a retro computer in a month. The RC2014 itself was an entry in 2014.

As I will only have a month to try to complete a project, I’m looking for something achievable.

My plan at the moment is to look at adding rotary encoders to my RC2014, and to be able to read them using Z80 machine code. A rotary encoder is a sensor that measures the rotational position and speed of an object by converting the motion into an electrical signal. An example would be the scroll wheel on a computer mouse.

I have ordered a couple of rotary encoders ahead of the start date so they should be here in time for the start of the project. I have used a rotary encoder on an Arduino a few years ago, but that had a library to simplify the process. This time I will have to write from scratch, and it will give me a good opportunity to write some real Z80 assembly.

I will also need to design a circuit board, and for this I plan to use EasyEDA. This is an area I really need to learn more about, so the challenge gives me a good excuse to get stuck in with it. I will need to start on this early as ordering a PCB can take a few weeks to arrive, so I won’t have time for multiple revisions if I make a mistake.

Let’s see if I can produce something by the end of the project!