Zilog Z80 discontinued after nearly 50 years

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(06-01-2024 01:42 PM)robve Wrote:  It is the best 8-bit CPU

At the time I guess most of us who were already around did not care too much what CPU was inside their computers. We simply bought what we were able to afford. In my case it was initially a Sinclair ZX81, which I could only afford as solder-yourself kit. It could be produced cheaply because Clive Sinclair replaced the expensive peripherial chips of the Z80 processor with a gate array developed in house.

After that I had yet another Z80 based computer from the UK, an Amstad CPC 464 (sold in Germany as "Schneider CPC 464"). I preferred it over the more poupular C64 because it was sold as complete package with monitor and mass memory and, more importantly, was able to display 80 characters per line natively. With the optional floppy disk came included a CP/M module which turned it into a "professional" word processor rather than the C64 that was mostly used as a game console. I wrote all my study papers on that computer. I think CP/M distinguished Z80 based computers from everything else because it was an industry standard before MS-DOS came along.

Regards
Max