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I don't know what your problem is, since Qt 5 actually makes it easier than Qt 4! That's my experience, at least. Heck, I've been able to get Qt 5 core to run on Zilog's ZNEO. It even performs OK for a proof of concept, and that's practically a platform that runs at 10MIPS and has a 24 bit address space. I use a custom LLVM port to compile it. I need to do more work on cross-module constant propagation to get it to be where I want it to be, but it runs and is usable. And it all runs on bare metal, no OS.

Z80 is still in production, no need to "restart" it.

The Zilog Z80 User Manual is very well written, and is a complete reference for all documented Z80 instructions, and even contains a simple reference design for a Z80 based computer.

You can find it at http://www.zilog.com/products/partdetails.asp?id=Z84C00

z-80 chips are still used in electronic devices today.

http://www.zilog.com/products/businessline.asp?bl=273

they have a whole line of 8-bit 16-bit and 32-bit chips

the reason? the cost of a Z-80 is super cheap and low power nowadays, and the Z-80 powered a lot or popular computing devices, from microcomputers, to the NES console. in the embedded space the Z-80 is still great.

intel might not use it's old chip designs anymore, but the Z-80 is alive and well.

Zilog is still alive. Motorola has been renamed to Freescale and spun-off.

There are a few handy chips off the top of my head:

The various PIC chips may be worthwhile, but probably not what you really want. A classic example is the Zilog Z80 (http://www.zilog.com/products/businessline.asp?bl =273) which offers some development boards, but is probably a bit expensive for this budget. The Motorola HC11, however, is probably perfect. There are dozens of vendors who offer various educational and prototyping boards. There is also vast amounts of information about such things and ample source samples and course materials involving it(for example http://www.coe.montana.edu/ee/cady/ee361/hc11lnks. htm).

That MIPS is not dead is both true, and a good point. However, the Zilog Z80 is not dead either. But we don't get very excited about it any more. When we got our first one, it was way cool, but today most people would not even think about the fact that Zilog still sells Z80s.

An updated version of the Z80

http://www.zilog.com/products/family.asp?fam=226

The acclaim is a nice little chip. Maybe it would suit your purposes?

Touche. Those old microprocessors are still very useful; older ones like the Z80 or 6502 even more than newer x86 ones. Zilog is still very much alive and selling countless variants of the Z80 core.

The 6502 was considered too limited even when it was in most cheap desktop computers. During the short period where Apple had a big share of office computing, the applications that made the Apple II successful didn't run on the machine's 6502 processor, they ran on a Z80 add-on card.

There are a numbers of Z80-compatible processors, still sold by the company that made the original processor: http://www.zilog.com/

Actually, they are still making some pretty cool Z-80 related chips.

The development kit, which includes everything you need, can be had for under $40US. Sweet.

I have been looking at the different controllers from Zilog and Rabbit Semiconductor.

Rabbit is a spinoff from Zilog, I believe. If you take a look at the sites, they each have some interesting Microcontroller solutions.

true..

if you can run linux on a zilog, well, you can run it on anything.

What ya wanna do is subscribe to Circuit Cellar the magazine that is today what BYTE magazine was back in the z80 days. Full of articles on using modern, small processors to do "stuff". They also run some great Design Contests supported by various manufacturers that get you a development board and software (and generally extra chips!) for free.
These days, at the low end (less than 100 MHz), there is seldom a need to wire a processor up to much of any peripherals. For example, the motorola Coldfire processors are basically 200+ Mhz 68000 (e.g. 66Mhz with single-cycle instruction execution compared to the 68000's 4-10 cycle instructions) with just about any peripherals you might ever want onboard. Not really sufficient for a JRE, but not bad for just about anything else. Also, they're roughly $10 each in quantity. Many other manufacturers are making similar types of chips these days:
Hitachi processors
Rabbit Semiconductors
Zilog

One of the problems you'll have to deal with if you want to build your own systems is that Wire Wrap is simply unusable in this day and age. Not only is it impossible to find a socket for somthing like the 256-ball BGA that the coldfire comes in, or the more standard 144-pin QFP packages, the speeds make it unlikely you'll be able to use that technology successfully. I've built fine-pitch boards in my garage using photosensitive PCBs, but the best solution is something like PCBExpress or ExpressPCB and get 2 or 3 3"x3" double-sided boards for $60-$80. Even so, building high-speed systems is not for the amateur; laying out a system using PC-133 SDRAM is not something you want to do without a bit of up-to-date layout knowledge. Good luck, hope this gives you some pointers to get started with! /frank

The Z8F640x z8encore devel kit only costs $50 (check the future active page) and comes with an IDE which lets you play with both C and ASM. The CPU is of the most basic variety so don't expect running linux on the board but you will feel at home having done Z80 coursework.

There are 2 kits for the ez80acclaim (eZ80F91 and eZ80F92) which both come with ethernet sockets. They cost 199 and 399 each. Again, these are microcontroller boards so they might not be suited for your needs.

All things considered, a $50 investment is not bad for a devel board + software, especially if you want to experiment with embedded applications. You might also want to add one of these for added fun (talk to your microcontroller board over USB 1.1).

On the other hand, if you want to use linux/uclinux on a devel board, embedded cpus like arm, xscale (intel) and coldfire (motorola) come to mind, but an off the shelf devel board will cost you a lot more. In any case, check here.

The Z8F640x z8encore devel kit only costs $50 (check the future active page) and comes with an IDE which lets you play with both C and ASM. The CPU is of the most basic variety so don't expect running linux on the board but you will feel at home having done Z80 coursework.

There are 2 kits for the ez80acclaim (eZ80F91 and eZ80F92) which both come with ethernet sockets. They cost 199 and 399 each. Again, these are microcontroller boards so they might not be suited for your needs.

All things considered, a $50 investment is not bad for a devel board + software, especially if you want to experiment with embedded applications. You might also want to add one of these for added fun (talk to your microcontroller board over USB 1.1).

On the other hand, if you want to use linux/uclinux on a devel board, embedded cpus like arm, xscale (intel) and coldfire (motorola) come to mind, but an off the shelf devel board will cost you a lot more. In any case, check here.

The Z8F640x z8encore devel kit only costs $50 (check the future active page) and comes with an IDE which lets you play with both C and ASM. The CPU is of the most basic variety so don't expect running linux on the board but you will feel at home having done Z80 coursework.

There are 2 kits for the ez80acclaim (eZ80F91 and eZ80F92) which both come with ethernet sockets. They cost 199 and 399 each. Again, these are microcontroller boards so they might not be suited for your needs.

All things considered, a $50 investment is not bad for a devel board + software, especially if you want to experiment with embedded applications. You might also want to add one of these for added fun (talk to your microcontroller board over USB 1.1).

On the other hand, if you want to use linux/uclinux on a devel board, embedded cpus like arm, xscale (intel) and coldfire (motorola) come to mind, but an off the shelf devel board will cost you a lot more. In any case, check here.

The Z8F640x z8encore devel kit only costs $50 (check the future active page) and comes with an IDE which lets you play with both C and ASM. The CPU is of the most basic variety so don't expect running linux on the board but you will feel at home having done Z80 coursework.

There are 2 kits for the ez80acclaim (eZ80F91 and eZ80F92) which both come with ethernet sockets. They cost 199 and 399 each. Again, these are microcontroller boards so they might not be suited for your needs.

All things considered, a $50 investment is not bad for a devel board + software, especially if you want to experiment with embedded applications. You might also want to add one of these for added fun (talk to your microcontroller board over USB 1.1).

On the other hand, if you want to use linux/uclinux on a devel board, embedded cpus like arm, xscale (intel) and coldfire (motorola) come to mind, but an off the shelf devel board will cost you a lot more. In any case, check here.

The Z8F640x z8encore devel kit only costs $50 (check the future active page) and comes with an IDE which lets you play with both C and ASM. The CPU is of the most basic variety so don't expect running linux on the board but you will feel at home having done Z80 coursework.

There are 2 kits for the ez80acclaim (eZ80F91 and eZ80F92) which both come with ethernet sockets. They cost 199 and 399 each. Again, these are microcontroller boards so they might not be suited for your needs.

All things considered, a $50 investment is not bad for a devel board + software, especially if you want to experiment with embedded applications. You might also want to add one of these for added fun (talk to your microcontroller board over USB 1.1).

On the other hand, if you want to use linux/uclinux on a devel board, embedded cpus like arm, xscale (intel) and coldfire (motorola) come to mind, but an off the shelf devel board will cost you a lot more. In any case, check here.

You know, the Z80 is still in production, and your experience helps explain why. It's a useful, accessible CPU. I mean, why are you doing this? Fun, self-edification? If so, the Z80 suits your purpose as well as it every did.

i think the z80 still can be used. modern doesn't mean too much on that scale. for more complex things Zilog makes a pretty big line of various processors for different uses.

But will they be competitive with this?

Alternatively, one could try a reply based on business models. Intel is an R&D-driven company. They don't want to be the next Zilog. If they don't continually introduce new products, that's what they will become, and it's really hard work competing in a low-margin commodity business.

Zilog has had the eZ80 Webserver-i E-NET Module for a while now

Are [ZiLOG] still around?

Yes. ZiLOG makes the eZ80 Internet server appliance platform based on a 50 MHz pipelined Z80 processor, which is 25 times faster than the non-pipelined 8 MHz Z80-clone processor in the Game Boy Color system.

Campbell, CA (December 4, 2001)ZiLOG,® Inc., the Extreme Connectivity(TM) Company, today announced ....

I suspect Zilog and their bond holders were expecting their IPO to bail them out, but they withdrew it September 2000 when the IPO market went down the tubes.

Interestingly, the just shipped a new eZ80 webserver three days ago.

Would this have any use in an embedded system?
[...]

Interestingly, Zilog just released a new eZ80 microprocessor specifically designed to be embedded in Internet-connected devices. Apparently it is code-compatible with the Z80, so porting CP/M should be a breeze.

A quote from the site: "The eZ80 executes Z80 code four times faster than traditional Z80s at the same clock speed, and can operate at speeds up to 50 MHz. Unlike most 8-bit microprocessors, which can only address 64 KB, the eZ80 can address 16 MB without a Memory Management Unit."

Might also be interesting for hobbyists wishing to build a super-CP/M machine, or maybe revive the MSX, that other CP/M derivative of Microsoft, a Z80-based home computer standard which never really made it to the US but became quite popular in Japan and Europe... but that is a whole 'nother story of its own.

In fact, here's Zilog's page on the Z80 still in production after 25 years! How many other computer technologies do you know that are still available after 25 years? Pretty remarkable.

Talk about a company milking something for all its worth! :)

a recent story about that

very interesting indeed.

Oddly enough ZiLOG is still around (though the've done weird things to the capitalization), and they still sell Z80 and Z8 CPUs (though they prefer to call them "microcontrolers"). Much to my suprise, they even sell the Z8000, the first microprocessor to run a serious port of Unix. (These early low-end systems from Onyx and Zilog itself are long gone, of course.) And of course, Zilog is no longer owned by Exxon, which once thought the Energy Crisis was God's way of telling them to go into a new line of business.

The Zilog Z80 and EZ80 with embedded TCP/IP stack and web server. Kick-ass little chip. My first programming was done in Z80 assembly in the very early 80s.

Why not use something older? Something like the Z80 family of processors? They've been making those for AGES! The Z380 even has 32-bit addressing.

Why not use something older? Something like the Z80 family of processors? They've been making those for AGES! The Z380 even has 32-bit addressing.

First, there is a Zilog Z80 variant that is marketed as a web server on a chip. Of course, the ez80190 runs at 50MHz and can address up to 16MB of memory, a far cry from the old Z80-A or 8080. (the chip itself only appears to have 8KB of SRAM, however, which is pretty similar to a TRS-80 or yore)

Second, the storage capacity of audio cassette tapes should not be underestimated. We can reasonably espect that the maximum storage density of an audio cassette is similar to the maximum bandwidth of vioce telephone lines (audio cassettes probably have a higher storage density, in fact, because the vioce telephone line bandwith is artificially limited in order to filter out varous kinds of noise). If we could record at 32Kbaud we would be able to store 10MB (that's Mega BYTES) on one side of a 90 minute tape.

Looked at another way, a cassette tape can store about the same amount of information as your average CD (they store about the same amount of music, and cassette tapes are actually better fidelity that audio CDs, they just degrade faster and don't reproduce well on consumer grade equipment), which means that we could actually expect to get something more like 600MB-800MB if we had really good recording and playback equipment. Not too shaby.

Of course, with a normal tape player we would have an average seek time of over 20 minutes, but you have to make some compromises for this level of geekiness. I can think of a few ways to decrease the seek time, but we are still talking about something on the order of minutes rather than a reasonable value in the range of seconds.

Don't take this entirely serious or entirely sarcastically. I aim to amuse, but I'm also partially serious. Find your foundation and go from there!

This is so easy to check, why not take 30 seconds to get it right.

IBM did NOT open up their specs. COMPAQ had to reverse engineer the BIOS.

See this article at Zilog for some documentation.

Big deal/ If they don't make money, they go the way of the z80.

You sure you want to use that analogy?! We should all be so lucky yourself to have a product that "way of the Z80"! The Z80 is/was a fantastically pervasive and successful product. It's still a cash cow for Zilog after 25 years. There are gazillions of them in use. It has tons of unforseen applications and spin-offs. Just ask any kid over the last 12 years including today that plays a Nintendo Game Boy (color or otherwise).

Here are a bunch of Z80s and dev tools you can buy .
An interesting offering from Zilog themself: an embedded Z80 web server.
And if you need 32-bit address space for your app, there's a Z80 object-code compatible Z380 in the family.

Okay, end of Z80 rant! ;-) I used to code Z80 assembly for Sega GameGears and Nintendo Game Boys and I'll admit it was a bit scarring. (C and other language compilers for Z80 abound.) But it's bread and butter stuff. And still serious profit for all involved. Don't be slaggin' the Z80!

Big deal/ If they don't make money, they go the way of the z80.

You sure you want to use that analogy?! We should all be so lucky yourself to have a product that "way of the Z80"! The Z80 is/was a fantastically pervasive and successful product. It's still a cash cow for Zilog after 25 years. There are gazillions of them in use. It has tons of unforseen applications and spin-offs. Just ask any kid over the last 12 years including today that plays a Nintendo Game Boy (color or otherwise).

Here are a bunch of Z80s and dev tools you can buy .
An interesting offering from Zilog themself: an embedded Z80 web server.
And if you need 32-bit address space for your app, there's a Z80 object-code compatible Z380 in the family.

Okay, end of Z80 rant! ;-) I used to code Z80 assembly for Sega GameGears and Nintendo Game Boys and I'll admit it was a bit scarring. (C and other language compilers for Z80 abound.) But it's bread and butter stuff. And still serious profit for all involved. Don't be slaggin' the Z80!

Big deal/ If they don't make money, they go the way of the z80.

You sure you want to use that analogy?! We should all be so lucky yourself to have a product that "way of the Z80"! The Z80 is/was a fantastically pervasive and successful product. It's still a cash cow for Zilog after 25 years. There are gazillions of them in use. It has tons of unforseen applications and spin-offs. Just ask any kid over the last 12 years including today that plays a Nintendo Game Boy (color or otherwise).

Here are a bunch of Z80s and dev tools you can buy .
An interesting offering from Zilog themself: an embedded Z80 web server.
And if you need 32-bit address space for your app, there's a Z80 object-code compatible Z380 in the family.

Okay, end of Z80 rant! ;-) I used to code Z80 assembly for Sega GameGears and Nintendo Game Boys and I'll admit it was a bit scarring. (C and other language compilers for Z80 abound.) But it's bread and butter stuff. And still serious profit for all involved. Don't be slaggin' the Z80!

Big deal/ If they don't make money, they go the way of the z80.

You sure you want to use that analogy?! We should all be so lucky yourself to have a product that "way of the Z80"! The Z80 is/was a fantastically pervasive and successful product. It's still a cash cow for Zilog after 25 years. There are gazillions of them in use. It has tons of unforseen applications and spin-offs. Just ask any kid over the last 12 years including today that plays a Nintendo Game Boy (color or otherwise).

Here are a bunch of Z80s and dev tools you can buy .
An interesting offering from Zilog themself: an embedded Z80 web server.
And if you need 32-bit address space for your app, there's a Z80 object-code compatible Z380 in the family.

Okay, end of Z80 rant! ;-) I used to code Z80 assembly for Sega GameGears and Nintendo Game Boys and I'll admit it was a bit scarring. (C and other language compilers for Z80 abound.) But it's bread and butter stuff. And still serious profit for all involved. Don't be slaggin' the Z80!

I think the breakthrough is that new doors have opened. Maybe people who previously wouldn't have been able to write code for embedded systems now can.

Don't underestimate the usefulness of an old 80-something. What do you think is operating in, say your microwave? A 386? Or in any little old object that you use without thinking. Hey, the graphing calculators that you see so often in highschool and college don't run on superfast processors. In fact, the TI85 that I have runs on a Z80 from Zilog (actually, some ran on Z80 clones) which, I believe is just an 8080, though I'm likely wrong.

Besides, not everyone has to or wants to sit around on the latest tech. Using old technology to it's maximum is, IMO, much more impressive than pulling billions of triangles out of today's machines. No, I tell a lie, they are both very cool. Using anything to it's full potential (and beyond) is very cool (IMO).

There are so many better micro controlers out there these days, why would anyone fool with one of these old things? The Basic Stamp is an older example that can run for hours off a 9V battery (SWAG time, this is a low estimate bassed on personal experiance, poster is too lazy to check out real power consumption). It comes with an easy DOS bases programer that uses your PC as a display and it's ports to talk to it. Stand alone displays are available. Hell, if you are in love with Z80's go get a new eZ80.

This chip is a definite classic. Has any instruction set been in use as long? Indeed, before IBM jumped into the microcomputer market, Z80-based systems were the standard for desktop business computing. And probably the most popular config was an Apple ][ with a Z80 coprocessor board. (I once nearly bought the Microsoft version of this one!) If Apple had known how to exploit its dominance in this market, history would be very different.

I just went to the Zilog web site to see what they were up to, and found the latest Z80 product: an embedded web server!

__________

I wouldn't exactly say that (: remember ZiLog? They're still going despite the "loss" on the PC market in the early 80s.

Some people value different things. It all depends on what area of the market you want.

Thank you.
//Frisco
--
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." -Goethe