Zilog Z80 bites the dust

dougw 11 months ago

I just noticed this extinction event.

Littelfuse who own the Zilog Z80 IP announced the Z80 would cease production in June 2024. (Semiconductor fab lines are not interested in running a 4 micron process)

Fortunately the eZ80 system-on-a-chip is still in production if you want to pursue this technology.

At one time I was ultra keen to obtain or build a Z80 microcomputer, but never managed to scrounge enough money until recently when I made a low cost emulator on an ESP32....

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0 shabaz 11 months ago

Incidentally there's a book that might be of interest to people.

I can't say it's written like a bestseller, but the guy isn't a journalist or author, he created the Z80!. So I take back even the slightest criticism in that previous sentence : ) Plus, it's a first-hand account, so that's also a significant positive.
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0 michaelkellett 11 months ago in reply to shabaz

I bought the book and have read it now. Very interesting stuff about the early development of logic chips. I hadn't realised just how manual the process on the first 8080 and Z80 was.

The book is somewhat spoiled by the random AI/philosophical stuff, of which there is far too much - you did warn us !

MK
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0 shabaz 11 months ago in reply to michaelkellett

I felt the same! Also I'm constantly surprised top science and tech journalists have missed out for decades on writing about these subjects for the general reader. Even a kind of 'Bill Bryson' level style for some of the flagship semiconductor stories would be interesting to read, at least anyone could get into that level of explanation, not too deep.

I liked the book Computer Architecture A Quantitative Approach although the price is crazy nowadays. A bit too much in-depth, it's not a light read, but that is offset slightly with real-world example chapters, where the author discusses how the theory applied to (say) Pentium, MIPS, etc.

Bob Johnstone is a New Scientist journalist, who writes extremely well, at a popular science level but for engineering topics, I've read several of his books. He seems to consistently do decent research for his books, going out and interviewing the people involved.
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0 dougw 11 months ago in reply to shabaz

Have you read "The Soul Of A New Machine" by Tracy Kidder? it won a Pulitzer....
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0 dougw 11 months ago in reply to shabaz

Have you read "The Soul Of A New Machine" by Tracy Kidder? it won a Pulitzer....
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0 shabaz 11 months ago in reply to dougw

Hi! Yes, great book : ) I only read it a few years ago. Those are the kinds of stories that are missing as books these days it seems.

Although not real, I thought the TV series Halt and Catch Fire was very good. Many episodes of that seemed fairly realistic : ) I thought the success of that would have inspired others to write about the real stories.
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