Mastodawn

The Retro Timer 💾Apr 19, 2024

Zilog Z80, 1976 – 2024.

https://www.mouser.com/PCN/Littelfuse_PCN_Z84C00.pdf

Over its 48 year life, the Z80 found its way into inumerable devices.

It's perhaps most famous for being the CPU used in the ZX Spectrum, but could also be found as a sound co-processor in the Sega Mega Drive and SNK's Neo Geo arcade boards, among others.

I remember finding one inside my first HP inkjet printer back in the late 90's, and my parent's Sony Trinitron CRT, handling the on-screen menus (and teletext).

R.I.P. 💀

#z80 #retrocomputing

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Paul L

@carlosefr
It was the processor used for teaching about CPUs, buses, instruction sets and such on my early 90s University course since it was a sensible starting point compared with the 386/486.

Also because it required so few supporting components on breadboard and (the CMOS version) allowed clock speeds down to 0MHz so you could step through instruction decoding and physically watch various pin levels on a scope.