course · new for 2026

Z80 Assembly for the Tatung Einstein

Gavin Watson

The Tatung Einstein is a British computer built around the Zilog Z80 processor, the same chip as the ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad CPC. This course teaches you to write games for it entirely in Z80 assembly language, starting from a single word on the screen and building up, section by section, to a complete playable game.

You do not need to own a real Einstein. Everything in this course runs on an emulator on your own computer.

By the end you will be able to write programs in Z80 assembly, put characters and graphics on the screen and move them around, read the keyboard and respond to what the player does, build game logic such as collisions and scoring, and assemble, package and run your own programs on an emulated or real Einstein.

Course Modules

What you're going to build

Your first program

Changing what happens next

Jumping without saying where

Loops that stop

Doing the same job from several places

Reading the keyboard

Reading a whole line

Numbers bigger than a byte

Text of your own

Arrays and lookup tables

Tables of addresses

How the screen actually works

Writing to video memory

A screen of your own

Taking the controls

Bringing it to life

When things touch

Every key at once

Giving the game a voice

A clock of your own

Splitting a project into files

Appendix I - Character codes

Appendix II - Assemblers are not all the same

Appendix III - What you are actually talking to

Appendix IV - The memory map

Appendix V - The keyboard matrix

Appendix VI - Drawing a line

Appendix VII - The disc format

Appendix VIII - Running your game on a real Einstein

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