Fork notice. This repository is an independent fork and continued development of the original MNT ZZ9000 ARM SDK. It is maintained by Dimitris Panokostas / BlitterStudio and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by MNT Research GmbH. The ZZ9000 hardware itself is designed and manufactured by MNT Research GmbH - hardware questions belong with them; SDK issues and fork-specific discussion belong here. The SDK v2 service-runtime implementation lives under include/zz9k/, host/include/zz9k/, amiga/, tools/, examples/, and docs/.

Upstream (pre-fork): https://source.mnt.re/amiga/zz9000-sdk

The ZZ9000 is a graphics and ARM coprocessor card for Amiga computers equipped with Zorro slots. It is based on a Xilinx ZYNQ Z-7020 chip that combines 7-series FPGA fabric with dual ARM Cortex-A9 CPUs clocked at 666 MHz. The current hardware has 1 GB of DDR3 RAM and no soldered eMMC.

This repository is focused on SDK v2: a firmware-integrated mailbox/service ABI exposed to AmigaOS through zz9k.library, with public helper headers under include/zz9k/ and Amiga examples under examples/amiga-*. The obsolete fixed-address ARM launcher, standalone ARM examples, and their bare-metal support libraries have been removed from this branch.

What Changed Since the Original MNT SDK

The original MNT SDK mainly demonstrated how software could launch code on the ZZ9000's ARM processor. This independent BlitterStudio fork turns that idea into a reusable AmigaOS service platform with applications that ordinary users can install and run. The biggest additions are:

Improvement	What it delivers
ZZPlay	A Workbench media player that sends MPEG-1 video and MP3/MP2 audio to the ZZ9000's ARM cores for decoding. It supports a resizable hardware video window and a dedicated-screen presentation, while the Amiga remains responsible for the familiar user interface.
Faster image handling	Card-assisted JPEG/PNG decoding and scaling powers image-viewing tools and an optional `zz9k-picture.datatype`, allowing DataTypes-aware Amiga applications to benefit without each application learning a private hardware protocol.
AmiSSL acceleration for existing software	A drop-in AmiSSL build uses the ZZ9000 for supported TLS key exchange, signature verification and encrypted data. Compatible browsers and network tools benefit without being rewritten; anything unsupported falls back to the Amiga CPU.
Audio and archive offload	`mpega.library`, streaming audio helpers and LHA/LZH decompression services move useful work away from the classic Amiga CPU. The archive tools include verification and safe software fallback paths.
Useful user and diagnostic tools	The package includes service inspection, release checks, benchmarks, image viewers, media and audio diagnostics, palette-aware display tools, cryptography checks, and archive utilities rather than only developer examples.
A real application API	`zz9k.library` and SDK v2 provide one versioned, asynchronous interface for shared memory, images, surfaces, video, audio, compression and cryptography. Applications no longer need to start a private ARM program at a fixed address and hope no other client is using the card.
Support beyond Zorro III	Matched 2 MB and 4 MB Zorro II releases can use compact image, archive, audio and AmiSSL services safely. The 4 MB profile also allows one bounded ZZPlay PIP source; the smaller profile deliberately omits it.
Reproducible packages and compatibility tests	Docker builds, a checksum manifest, host-side tests, ABI drift checks and a hardware smoke guide make the SDK a releasable product rather than a collection of experiments.

End users normally receive these SDK components through the ZZ9000 Drivers installer, so they do not need to compile this repository. Developers should start with docs/zz9k-library.md; the service catalogue is in docs/zz9k-modules.md, and the exact Zorro II limits are in the Zorro II service matrix.

The accelerated AmiSSL design, supported algorithms and measured roadmap are documented in docs/zz9k-amissl-provider.md and docs/zz9k-crypto-acceleration.md. Third-party or loadable services in the 0x8000+ range are covered by docs/zz9k-vendor-services.md.

Quick Start

Build the AmigaOS 3 SDK tools and package with Docker:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\build-m68k-amigaos.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\package-m68k-amigaos.ps1

or from a POSIX shell:

./scripts/build-m68k-amigaos.sh
./scripts/package-m68k-amigaos.sh

The package is written to build/package/amigaos3. It contains:

Libs/zz9k.library
Libs/mpega.library as the runtime drop-in candidate, plus Libs/mpega.library.zz9k for side-by-side diagnostics
CLI tools such as zz9k-info, zz9k-services, zz9k-bench, zz9k-surfaceops, zz9k-mp3, zz9k-mpega-smoke, zz9k-jpeg, zz9k-png, zz9k-view, zzplay, zz9k-hash, zz9k-chacha, zz9k-aead, and archive/decompression tools including zz9k-archive
Classes/DataTypes/zz9k-picture.datatype plus JPEG/PNG descriptors packaged inactive under Storage/DataTypes for explicit opt-in activation
developer headers under Developer/Include
public docs under Docs
examples under Examples
MANIFEST.sha256 with SHA-256 checksums for every packaged file

SDK v2 requires matching ZZ9000 SDK-service firmware. Firmware v2.2.0 is the older baseline for the service ABI, but current matched firmware, SDK payloads, and drivers are expected for acknowledged Zorro 2 aperture layouts and host-window clients, 4 MB Zorro 2 PIP allocation, ZZ9000.CFG query support, and the newest service capability flags. The shipped Zorro 2 profiles both provide one shared 64 KiB host heap; this is not a per-process allocation, so concurrent image, archive, audio, and TLS clients can contend. After installing the SDK package and booting that firmware, run this hardware smoke check:

zz9k-services --check-release

The command should end with release check ok. For a broader package-level runtime pass, follow docs/zz9k-release-smoke.md.

For most application-side helper code, include zz9k/sdk.h; it pulls in the stable SDK v2 ABI, host/request/reply types, and helper headers. Include proto/zz9k.h as well when calling zz9k.library from AmigaOS.

Useful public helper headers for narrow includes:

zz9k/sdk.h: application-facing umbrella header
zz9k/caps.h: capability and service-flag checks plus stable bit names
zz9k/surface.h: surface layout, colors, fill/copy descriptors
zz9k/image_geometry.h: scale and clipped-scale descriptors
zz9k/image.h: one-shot and streaming image decode descriptors
zz9k/shared.h: bounds-checked shared-buffer byte access
zz9k/audio.h: MP3 decode and streaming audio descriptors
zz9k/compression.h: decompression and streaming decompression descriptors
zz9k/crypto.h: hash, HMAC, Poly1305, ChaCha20, and AEAD descriptors
zz9k/text.h: stable status text for user-facing tools

Requirements

For AmigaOS 3 tools, the supported local path is Docker with the sacredbanana/amiga-compiler:m68k-amigaos image, driven by the scripts above.

Third-Party Code

The SDK carries third-party code where current SDK v2 tools need it:

LHa for UNIX decoder subset (tools/lha-unix), from jca02266/lha 1.14i-ac20220213, retaining the original LHa for UNIX redistribution terms

License / Copyright

SDK v2, including the firmware-integrated service ABI, zz9k.library, AmigaOS service tools, public SDK v2 headers, docs, examples, and packaging work in this fork, is:

Older pre-fork material from the original MNT ZZ9000 ARM SDK has been removed from this branch unless retained in individual files with their own notices.

Unless a file carries a narrower notice or a third-party license, this repository is distributed under:

SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-or-later https://spdx.org/licenses/GPL-3.0-or-later.html