Firing up #PolyPascal on my 40 year old #Enterprise64 for the first time in probably 35 years. Actually, I'm not sure if I ever go PolyPascal running on it, or it was just the previous version, Compas Pascal. Glad to see an old #Dnaisg friend from the #CPM era again though. It's been too long.
Move over, AMD vs. Intel: there's a classic rivalry in the computing world that arguably laid the groundwork for modern personal computing and gaming. Zilog #Z80 vs. MOS #6502 !
A new #article inspired by the fact that even most modern 8-bits are either Z80 or 6502. #retrofunpl
EmuStudio is an excellent emulator and Assembly IDE for a number of 8-bit CPUs and historical microcomputers such as the Z80, 8080, 8008, and Altair 8800.
I finally got a chance to try the latest release and it's greatly improved. For example, the ADM-3A terminal emulator features a slick replica of the original font as in this screenshot of emuStudio under Crostini Linux on my Chromebox.
So, now that #Zilog is throwing in the towel on the #DIP40 version of the #Z80 CPU, what are we going to do when our #microcomputer processor fries itself? Is there a compatible plug-in alternative, or perhaps something as simple as an adapter for another form factor?
Asking for a friend who has accumulated way too many Z80 based machines. Ahemn.. ;-)
Some 40 years ago, my dad took a leap and decided to import and resell the #Enterprise64 microcomputer from the United Kingdom. This was indeed the era of the "micro", and lots of options were available like the #Spectrum, #Amstrad, #NewBrain, #Lynx and numerous others. Unfortunately competition was hard, and the Enterprise was delayed for almost a year. Eventually they went bankrupt and all stock was exported to Eastern Europe where it got a second life among some very hard core enthusiasts. Very few were actually sold in Denmark - I would assume less then a hundred - and today I managed to get my hands on the third one in my collection. Inherited from his dad, the seller had no idea what to use this for. It's very much a special item, and very far from the mainstream like the Commodore 64. It is nevertheless a fascinating machine, sporting a #Zilog#Z80 with support for up to 2MB RAM. The operating system also contained IS-BASIC, and was a bliss to work with.
Nascom 2 still working after 42 years. Apps include Bill Gates' personally written BASIC interpreter. Notice the Veroboard add-on daugherboard with 4k (4096 bytes) memory I designed and built all those years ago.
Oh now this I like. Using just the #ZXSpectrum attribute bytes crossed with a 4x8 grid to display a medium-res screen that scrolls at very high-speed is pretty cool. I've seen similar ideas before but never quite this slick.
Felt just a bit sad about this news. The #Z80 was the second microprocessor that I ever coded #assembly on after the Intel x86. I remember burning an EPROM with a Z80 program that controlled the brightness level of an LED in one of my early practical microprocessor exercises in college.
I see that the #z80 is at end of life. What we all need is a z80 that runs at (checks notes) 10GHz!! Even if we need to use forbidden codes to mark Pipelineable sections...
@otheorange_tag I have a sudden desire to see an ECL #Z80. No weird ordering or speculative execution, just raw 10GHz clock speed. Giant power supply and heatsinks are retro too!