Zilog Z80 8-Bit CPU Turns 50

[gregmcc]

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/zilog-z80-turns-50-as-open-source-replacement-heads-for-drop-in-dip40-silicon

The Zilog Z80 has just turned 50 years old. This iconic 8-bit processor first went on sale in July 1976 and stayed in production for 48 years until Zilog, now a Littelfuse subsidiary, stopped accepting orders in June 2024. However, there's an open-source replacement closer than ever to shipping in the chip's original 40-pin DIP package thanks to community-funded fabrication...

The chip powered the ZX Spectrum, TRS-80, MSX machines, Nintendo's Game Boy, Sega's Master System, the Pac-Man arcade cabinet, and Texas Instruments' graphing calculators, then shipped in industrial controllers for decades after home computing moved on to more powerful successors. Zilog's end-of-life notice, dated April 15, 2024, told customers its wafer foundry was discontinuing support for the Z84C00 family, and last-time-buy orders closed that June.

 

[Gordon_R]

I was never into microcomputers in the 1970s, but the first one I became aware of was the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which no surprise was powered by the Z80 CPU...

 

[EmmanuelGoldstein]

I wonder how many of the kids today even know how to develop an application for this processor.

 

[B-1]

I wonder how many of the kids today even know how to develop an application for this processor.

Other than curiosity there would be no reason to. There are much better and easier ways to get better results.

 

[EmmanuelGoldstein]

Other than curiosity there would be no reason to. There are much better and easier ways to get better results.

Yep, the shiny new frameworks and exotic programming languages that make sure you use every ounce of that Core i7 CPU, with tons and tons of bloat.

 

[garyc]

Have fond memories (PTSD?) of doing assembly for the Z80 using edlin with CP/M.

 

[EmmanuelGoldstein]

In my universe there's a thing called retrocomputing and the Z80 along with the 6502 are the most popular right now.

 

[HAL 9000]

Sinclair's last Hit: The Sinclair ZX Spectrum Story - Little Car​

The history of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum up to early 1985.

 

[gregmcc]

In my universe there's a thing called retrocomputing and the Z80 along with the 6502 are the most popular right now.

Ben Eater does a brilliant series on the 6502.

I built one of these a few months ago.

 

[EmmanuelGoldstein]

Ben Eater does a brilliant series on the 6502.

I built one of these a few months ago.

Yep, and the good news is, being a geriatric myself, I can still remember how to build the periphery of these microprocessors and write code for them