Basic DMA operation and 8237 DMA Controller?

In the 8085, DMA (Direct Memory Access) is controlled with HOLD and HLDA. The HOLD signal is a request to release the bus. The HLDA signal is the 8085's acknowledgement of that request. HLDA means that the 8085 will release the bus in one half clock cycle, i.e. at the end of T3. The 8085 will remain in that hold state until HOLD is released, at which point it will take control of the buses again.

The HOLD'ing device has complete control and can access any memory or I/O. Often, the 8237 DMA controller is used to provide sequencing of the operation.

The 8237 DMA controller interfaces between up to four peripheral devices and the 8085. It provides an address register for each device so that the device does not need to do so. The device only needs to indicate that a byte of data is available, or is required, and the 8237 will take care of storing or fetching the byte.