this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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The clone market is going to get a little boost I guess. It may not be the latest or in everything but for many things it's enough to do the job and do it well.
Who even buys these in 2024 I wonder. Besides hobbiests. As a computer engineering hobbiest, the z80 isn't a bad choice for an 8 bit computer or any beginner system but damn does that 64kb of addressable memory thing suck ass. I spent like a year figuring out fpgas on my own just so I could escape simplistic cpus with only 16 bits of address space. My current project has 32 bits of linear address space because fuck memory limitations.
The ez80 can address 16mb of memory and runs really fast. Sounds like a no brainer except it's less versatile than the z80 because all versions of the ez80 except for a really rare model number that you can't buy anywhere, doesn't have an external wait state insertion pin. This significantly reduces the variety of peripherals and expansion cards that can be used with a ez80 computer to the point you're actually going to be better off with a z80.
The z180 seems to be a decent choice though. It can address 512kb of memory which doesn't sound like much but it should make things a hell of a lot easier if you want to do complicated stuff with it. Actually, upon further inspection this is a better beginner cpu than the z80 anyway. It's basically just a z80 with more address space.
It was used as a sound chip too, great for retro machines. Yes to the hobbyist thing, but I bet there are dozens of us 🤣
It ran the OG Game Boy too