Issue 139 February 2002
eZ Embedded Web

Turn Up the Volume

As I write this, Zilog is running eZ80 web server seminars around the country in conjunction with the chip rollout. Although I wasn’t able to attend in person, I did get a copy of the presentation materials and an eZ80 Webserver Developer’s Kit for some hands-on evaluation.

If you’re interested, keep an eye out for a seminar in your neck of the woods. Besides helping you get up to speed quickly, attendance at the $99 seminar qualifies you for a whopping $400 discount on the kit, effectively cutting the price in half from $799 to $399.

Those of you saying $799 or even $399 is a bit steep for dabbling are preaching to the choir. I think the price is fair, however, if you’re seriously considering embedded Internet options.

The board is no toy, outfitted with 1 MB of flash memory, 1 MB of SRAM, dual RS-232 ports, a real-time clock, and an Ethernet interface. But, the kit comes with much more, notably a full-fledged Z-PAK emulator, industrial-strength C compiler (courtesy of Associated Compiler Experts, a.k.a. ACE), and complete TCP/IP stack and RTOS from Metro Link. All of this runs under the fancy ZDS graphical IDE from Zilog.

Before exploring how you get there, let’s consider where you might end up with an eZ80-based solution. First, a dedicated design is going to have about half the chips of the developer’s board. The CPU, a couple of memory chips, and your ’Net connection of choice (RS-232 or Ethernet) should just about do it. Check out the eZ80-based unit from the German outfit Webolution (see Photo 2) as an example of a typical target design.

Photo 2—A typical eZ80-based embedded web design, such as the unit shown here from Webolution, requires merely a few chips.

Small-quantity deals are well and good, but what about production? I’d say you’re looking at less than $20 worth of chips in volume (the eZ80 alone is about $10 for 1000). What about royalties on the TCP/IP stack and RTOS? Good question, with an even better answer: there aren’t any! The software is a freebie as part of the XINU project operating system developed by Douglas Comer of Purdue University. [1, 2]