Is anyone interested with the Z80?

The Z80 is still manufactured today and I was wondering whether there is any interest for a community or discussion group.

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Workshopshed over 9 years ago in reply to COMPACT +9

Here's some of the books I learnt about Z80 from, I donated them to the Cambridge computer history museum last year.
Former Member over 9 years ago +6

This is the circuit I made boards for sometime back to get people playing with them:
gdstew over 8 years ago in reply to COMPACT +6

I worked at Mostek maintaining the Fairchild Sentry testers used to test the Z80s when they first began to manufacturer them. The second computer I every built (parts, pcb, solder) was the SDB-80 which…

Workshopshed over 9 years ago

I did learn on the Z80 but rarely venture into assembly now so would have little to contribute but I'd probably follow along with interest.
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COMPACT over 9 years ago in reply to Workshopshed

Thanks Andy!
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Workshopshed over 9 years ago in reply to COMPACT

Here's some of the books I learnt about Z80 from, I donated them to the Cambridge computer history museum last year.
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michaelkellett over 9 years ago

What sort of things would you discuss - Z80 has such poor performance compared with modern processors that surely no one would use one in a new project ?

MK
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COMPACT over 9 years ago in reply to Workshopshed

That was a nice collection Andy and it's good to know it when to a good home.
In Australia we had much larger numbers of the Microbee than the Sinclair machines.
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COMPACT over 9 years ago in reply to michaelkellett

Would you believe the Z80 is still in production today?
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michaelkellett over 9 years ago in reply to COMPACT

I know it's still being made but so are spares for Ford Model T !

My question was about using one in a new project, is there any reason why one would ?

MK
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COMPACT over 9 years ago in reply to michaelkellett

Ah but from the original company?

Yes, as a teaching device. The Z80 only consists of about 10,000 transistors hand laid without CAD.
But if these could be made using today's transistors (say 14nm) should yoctoscopic and draw next to no power!
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Workshopshed over 9 years ago in reply to COMPACT

That also raises the question, of can it be totally modelled in software and hence all cases proved out.
Am thinking of safety applications
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michaelkellett over 9 years ago in reply to COMPACT

For teaching you are better off with the 6502, much nicer design (IMO), far fewer transistors, full VHDL/Verilog models available.

@Andy, probably far easier to "prove" a modern design like Cortex M0. In the dim and distant past "proveably correct " micros have been designed but they flopped totally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIPER_microprocessor

MK
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