On 03/29/2019 08:30 PM, Dave Collier-Brown via talk wrote:
Zylog still builds z80s, albeit in India --dave
On 2019-03-29 3:51 p.m., Stewart Russell via talk wrote:
On Fri., Mar. 29, 2019, 11:28 Kevin Cozens via talk, <talk@gtalug.org <mailto:talk@gtalug.org>> wrote:
It was just something I noticed. I was partly surprised that ghidra included some older processors in their list of ones for which they can decompile code.
Z80 will still show up in industrial control things. It seems very hard to kill.
At least we might have seen the end of 1802s in real applications. It is still popular for some hobbyists, though.
When designers design custom chips, they rely on logic libraries, which provide common functions, including CPUs. So the designer would choose a CPU, add memory and I/O and "compile" the new chip. The libraries contain many historic CPUs, as they provide all the function and performance needed. If the job can be done with a 4 bit CPU, such as a 4040, there's no need for a 64 bit CPU. One factor that's critical with chip design, is "real estate". The smaller you can make it, the cheaper it will be and provide higher yield. Several years ago, I used to repair point of sale terminals that had a custom chip built around a Z80 core.