# RIP Zilog Z80 (1976-2024) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 20, 2024, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-zilog-z80-1976-2024/1000528 "2024-04-20T00:46:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-zilog-z80-1976-2024/1000528/1 "2024-04-20T00:46:50Z")
It had a good life. (Sob!) > **[The legendary Zilog Z80 CPU is being discontinued after nearly 50 years](https://www.techspot.com/news/102684-zilog-discontinuing-z80-microprocessor-after-almost-50-years.html)** > > The iconic IC device, developed by Federico Faggin, will soon be phased out, and interested parties only have a few months left to place their orders before... ---
**Author:** ![Hatchie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hatchie/32/3983_2.png) [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-zilog-z80-1976-2024/1000528/2 "2024-04-20T01:51:24Z")
I liked New Coke. Why won’t they sell it to me? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-zilog-z80-1976-2024/1000528/3 "2024-04-20T03:24:16Z")
Aren’t there compatible clones still available? In the past year, two young people have asked me about those things, one aged 30 and one aged 20, one of whom managed to get his hands on some TI-82 graphing calculators and the other wondering where to get a Z80, so evidently people are still interested. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-zilog-z80-1976-2024/1000528/4 "2024-04-20T03:40:00Z")
Give me back my Product 19! ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-zilog-z80-1976-2024/1000528/5 "2024-04-20T14:44:36Z")
I was surprised to learn that Zilog still exists in any form! I’d thought that after failing to make significant inroads into the 16 and 32 bit market with the Z8000 and Z80000 they had faded into the sunset… I’d expect that clone Z80s may still be available from other manufacturers, as DPRK suggests? ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-zilog-z80-1976-2024/1000528/6 "2024-04-20T18:00:05Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > It had a good life. (Sob!) It was a short magical time in the 8 bit era when a single good engineer could fully understand both hardware and software aspects of a complete computer. What fun it was! Hardware necessarily evolved to provide more processing power, memory, and data transfer speed of course, and the complexity meant that you needed a team to deal with it. Software… well? I recall that it was possible to fit a quite full-featured C compiler into 64K of memory once. Now, 8GB is barely enough to run anything. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-zilog-z80-1976-2024/1000528/7 "2024-04-20T18:03:23Z")
I should have a Z80 in my collection. Would have been an early version rated a 2.5MHz. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-zilog-z80-1976-2024/1000528/8 "2024-04-20T18:05:58Z")
I think I have one, too. I have a number of old CPUs pulled from scrap motherboards (including a Pentium Pro). ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-zilog-z80-1976-2024/1000528/9 "2024-04-20T23:33:41Z")
I have 6 of them, never used but a few years old. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2024, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-zilog-z80-1976-2024/1000528/10 "2024-04-26T15:15:47Z")
Weren’t the Z80’s used in other applications like equipment control boards and 1990’s cars? A lot of obsolete chips were used in AVR’s (voltage regulator) and other control circuits. They were potted to protect the components. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2024, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-zilog-z80-1976-2024/1000528/11 "2024-04-26T16:12:36Z")
I designed a commercial lighting control system using a Rabbit Semiconductor BL1800, which is basically a souped-up Z80. > **[Rabbit 2000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_2000)** > > The Rabbit 2000 is a high-performance 8-bit microcontroller designed by Rabbit Semiconductor for embedded system applications. Rabbit Semiconductor has been bought by Digi International, which is since selling the Rabbit microcontrollers and hardware based on them. The instruction set is based on the original Z80 microprocessor, but with some additions of new instructions as well as deletions of some instructions. Among the Z80 instructions missing in the Rabbit, cpir is particularly notable, s... The system is still in production, and we still use the BL1800, but we are transitioning from it to a Pi Compute module, and then to ESP32. I will not miss the Jackrabbit, or the incredibly crappy IDE used to develop on it (Dynamic C). ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2024, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-zilog-z80-1976-2024/1000528/12 "2024-04-26T16:15:34Z")
They are or were used in washing machines, pocket calculators, home computers, game consoles, telephone switches, space satellites, you name it… Not sure why they are discontinuing orders _now,_ but they are not the cheapest microcontroller available, if you have to come up with a brand new design.