Blink interrupts

Two external interrupts drive the Z80. The maskable /INT signal is used to drive the common hardware events such as the realtime clock, the keyboard, the serial port and battery low condition. The /NMI (non-maskable interrupt) is used for critical events such as power failure or insertion/removal of memory cards in the external slots or the bus-connector (typically sealed of - was never used).

The /INT signal (the actual pin on the Z80 CPU) is seen as a state (enabled or disabled) between the Blink and the Z80 CPU, which is set active (low) when fired and until being acknowledged. The /NMI is regarded as a pulse that is fired for a hardware-related event. /NMI has not to be acknowledged.

The OZ operating system is using Z80 interrupt mode 1 for maskable interrupts, received through the RST 38H vector. The NMI interrupt is received through the RST 66H vector.

The INT ($B1) register controls which interrupts are enabled, forming a multiple logical AND filter to the /INT pin of the Z80 CPU. Any enabled bit of the STA register defines a logical OR to the /INT pin of the Z80 CPU. Once a interrupt is signaled in the STA register, it must be acknowledged via the ACK register to be put low again.

When all STA interrupts have been acknowledged, AND-masked with the INT register, if the logical result is 0, then the /INT pin is disabled by the Blink - no more maskable interrupts available for the Z80 CPU.

The INT ($B1) register controls which interrupts are enabled:

BIT         NAME        Function
7           KWAIT       If set, reading the keyboard will Snooze
6           A19         If set, an active high on A19 will exit Coma
5           FLAP        If set, flap interrupts are enabled
4           UART        If set, UART interrupts are enabled
3           BTL         If set, battery low interrupts are enabled
2           KEY         If set, keyboard interrupts (Snooze or Coma) are enabl.
1           TIME        If set, RTC interrupts are enabled
0           GINT        If clear, no interrupts get out of blink

The ACK ($B6) register is used to acknowledge and thus clear an interrupt (to ultimately reset the /INT pin on the Z80 CPU):

BIT         NAME        Function
7           -           -
6           A19         Acknowledge A19 interrupt
5           FLAP        Acknowledge FLAP interrupt
4           -           -
3           BTL         Acknowledge battery low interrupt
2           KEY         Acknowledge keyboard interrupt
1           -           -
0           -           -

The STA ($B1) register provides information about which interrupt has actually occurred:

BIT         NAME        Function
7           FLAPOPEN    If set, flap open else flap closed
6           A19         If set, high level on A19 occurred during coma
5           FLAP        If set, positive edge has occurred on FLAPOPEN
4           UART        If set, an enabled UART interrupt is active
3           BTL         If set, battery low pin is active
2           KEY         If set, a column has gone low in snooze (or coma)
1           -           -
0           TIME        If set, an enabled TIME interrupt is active

UART is the result of TDRE, RDRF, DCDI and CTSI interrupt masked with UMK.

TIME is the result of TICK, SEC and MIN interrupt masked with TMK.

The logic is detailed below :

INT.UART = STA.UART = (UIT.TDRE & UMK.TDRE) | (UIT.RDRF & UMK.RDRF) | (UIT.DCDI & UMK.DCD) | (UIT.CTSI & UMK.CTS)

INT.TIME = STA.TIME = (TSTA.TICK & TMK.TICK) | (TSTA.SEC & TMK.SEC) | (TSTA.MIN & TMK.MIN)

The following diagram shows the how the registers combined defines the /INT signal (simplified):