General

The Intel 8255A is a general purpose programmable I/O device which is designed for use with all Intel and most other microprocessors. It provides 24 I/O pins which may be individually programmed in 2 groups of 12 and used in 3 major modes of operation.

In MODE 0, each group of 12 I/O pins may be programmed in sets of 4 and 8 to be inputs or outputs. In MODE 1, each group may be programmed to have 8 lines of input or output. 3 of the remaining 4 pins are used for handshaking and interrupt control signals. MODE 2 is a strobed bi-directional bus configuration.

The 8255 is a 40 pin integrated circuit (IC), designed to perform a variety of interface functions in a computer environment. The 8255 wasn't originally designed to be connected to the Z80. It was manufactured by Intel for the 8080 microprocessor.

PIN configuration

D0 - D7 These are the data input/output lines for the device. All information read from and written to the 8255 occurs via these 8 data lines. CS (Chip Select Input). If this line is a logical 0, the microprocessor can read and write to the 8255. RD (Read Input) Whenever this input line is a logical 0 and the RD input is a logical 0, the 8255 data outputs are enabled onto the system data bus. WR (Write Input) Whenever this input line is a logical 0 and the CS input is a logical 0, data is written to the 8255 from the system data bus A0 - A1 (Address Inputs) The logical combination of these two input lines determines which internal register of the 8255 data is written to or read from. RESET The 8255 is placed into its reset state if this input line is a logical 1. All peripheral ports are set to the input mode. PA0 - PA7, PB0 - PB7, PC0 - PC7 These signal lines are used as 8-bit I/O ports. They can be connected to peripheral devices. The 8255 has three 8 bit I/O ports and each one can be connected to the physical lines of an external device. These lines are labeled PA0-PA7, PB0-PB7, and PC0-PC7. The groups of the signals are divided into three different I/O ports labeled port A (PA), port B (PB), and port C (PC).

Block diagram

Two control groups, labeled group A control and group B control define how the three I/O ports operate. There are several different operating modes for the 8255 and these modes must be defined by the CPU writing programming or control words to the device 8255.

The line group of port C consists of two 4 bit ports. One of the 4 bit group is associated with group A control and the other 4 bit group with group B control device signals. The upper 4 bits of port C are associated with group A control while the lower 4 bits are associated with group B control.

The final logic blocks are read/write control logic and data bus buffer. These blocks provide the electrical interface between the Z80 and the 8255.

The data bus buffer buffers the data I/O lines to/from the Z80 data bus. The read/write control logic routes the data to and from the correct internal registers with the right timing. The internal path being enabled depends on the type of operation performed by the Z80. The type of operation can be I/O read or I/O write.

Control Word Register

Before going to discuss the detailed description about the usage of the 8255 in the MZ-700, you should see the bit definitions of the 8255 control word register (port $E003 of the MZ-700).

If bit 7 of the control word is a logical 1 then the 8255 will be configured. See the picture of the practicable configurations:

If bit 7 of the control word is a logical 0 then each bit of the port C can be set or reset. See the picture of the practicable possibilities:

Examples:
If you want to set/reset bit 0 of port C then set D3 to D1 to 000.
Bit 1 of port C will be set/reset if you code 001 to D3 to D1.
Bit 6 of port C is set/reset if D3 to D1 is 110.

Go to page "Memory mapped I/O" to download the complex datasheet of the 8255.