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Zilog To File For Chapter 11
Frédéric writes: "The venerable company ZiLOG who was founded in 1974, and who brought us the famous Z80 CPU (used in the Timex/Sinclair ZX80/ZX81, and the Amstrad CPC/PCW computers), is filling for Chapter 11 ... I didn't find the today's news on the web, but found this article at Silicon Strategy and this one at Electronics times, which was written a few days ago to announce it."
Z80 also powered the sound chip in the Sega Genesis and a modified chip was used in the Gameboy.
ZiLOG intends to launch an exchange offer in which all holders of its notes will be offered the opportunity to exchange their notes for shares of ZiLOG common stock, plus a pro rata share of the $30 million non-recourse note. The exchange offer, which for tax and other legal reasons the company intends to complete through a prepackaged Chapter 11 filing, is not expected to have any adverse affect on its day-to-day operations or on its ability to provide a full range of products and services to its customers or pay its suppliers on normal terms.
I dont think we have much to worry about here.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
Remember, this is not an involuntary bankruptcy (at least not completely). Zilog is filing a "pre-pack" which means that they've gotten together in advance with all of their creditors and gotten them to exchange their debt for equity. Zilog will not disappear - in fact, this really only stands to make them financially healthier.
Only the ti-86 and lower have z80 chips. The ti-89, ti-92, and the ti-92 plus all have motorola 68k processors. If you've seen em in action, they graph a lot faster than the z80. Of course, the z80 calculators are just fine for most graphing.
In the UK, Sinclair computers and their derivtives were huge - much more well known than the US Timex TRS-XX machines (though geeks here seem to remember them fondly:
IIRC, all these machines had some Z-80 derivative:
ZX80 1K RAM (actually named after the year it came out)
ZX81 1K or 16K RAM
Spectrum (development codename ZX82) 16K or 48K RAM [+]
Spectrum + (larger, "better" keyboard)
Spectrum 128 (a vast 128K of RAM)
Spectrum 128 +2 (built in cassette deck!)
Spectrum 128 +3 (build in 3" *not 3.25"* 2 sided (by ejecting it and turning it over) floppy disk)
There were a couple of others.
Then also things like the
MGT Sam Coupe - which was compatible
I, my family or my firends owned every single one of these fine Z80 powered machines at one time or another. Hell, I learned to program in Sinclair basic. If Zilog have gone under (Chapter 11 doesn't mean its necessarily over) this is a sad day.
[+] actually this was a marketing lie. It had 32K RAM and 16K ROM with a unified address space. I think the 16K version had the same ROM, so it would be fairer to call that a 32K, if you want to include the total...
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
A little bigger on the inside than out
And a instantly-networkable Z-80 will definitely fill some needs, if only for the plentifulness of implementing distributed systems via TCP/IP.
Yes, even Commodore used a Z80. Specifically in the C-128, which could boot into a CP/M mode running on the Z80, or into regular C-128 mode on the 8502, or into C-64 emulation mode (also on the 8502). I don't think there was any way to run both CPUs at the same time.
I don't know how many people actually used this feature (probably not many, given how well the C-128 did in the marketplace), but it was kind of neat at the time.
The smiley indicates that you were probably joking. But... there's probably enough brainwashed budding engineers out there who will take it for granted that they need a Pentium class microprocessor to power the next programmable Mr. Coffee. They probably want to use Windows CE, too. Just you wait. Laziness will result in your ``smart'' kitchen appliances requiring muffin fans to keep the processors cooled.
(Damn but I'm cynical today...)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Pop quiz, hot shot. Tell me what this Z80 code does...
LD BC,0FFFFH
LOOP: DEC BC
JP NZ,LOOP
Go ahead, tell me I am trolling, but how on earth did a company with an ancient, 8-bit architecture manage to get idiots to throw $280M at it?
By creating an architecture that is still used today in everything from calculators to embedded industrial control applications. Not every application needs ghz class CPUs, 512MB of RAM, and pipelined parallel processing.
It's guys like you that keep guys like me employed. Every problem presented to you is solved with a PC in some form factor or another. Computerized home thermostat? Mini PC on a board. Web server for monitoring temperature and pressure? PC in a rack mount case with an A/D board. Telephone voice mail system? PC in a funny looking case. Then when your product is hopelessly over the price target and behind schedule, guys like me get calls, choose an appropriate architecture, be it a PIC, Z80, AVR, or something else, and get the project back in line with reality.
Go ahead and mod this down as flamebait or troll if you want. I've got 50 Karma points as I post this so I'll live with 47 if need be.
Zilog not only made processors but also a rich array of peripheral chips including SCSI chips used in earlier Sun and Macintosh workstations. Unfortunately, Zilog got too big for its britches and forgot who brung them to the dance: small independent software developers. In recent years, unless they thought you were going to place an order for one million chips, their attitude became "go away, son, you bother me."
Can't say that I'll cry any tears for Zilog.
Chapter 11 - Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code is frequently referred to as "reorganization." Although an individual may file under Chapter 11, generally it is used to reorganize a business. Individuals with large federal or state tax obligations may use Chapter 11 because an extended period of time may be obtained for the repayment of the taxes. Chapter 11 generally allows the debtor to continue its business operations as it proceeds to the desired goal of a confirmed Plan of Reorganization, which must meet certain statutory criteria. A major rationale for business reorganizations is that the value of a business as an ongoing concern is greater than it would be if its assets were liquidated and sold. Generally, it is more economically efficient in the long run to reorganize than to liquidate, because doing so preserves jobs and assets. Cooperation among the various interests, however, is crucial to a successful reorganization.
Chapter 7 is liquidation where basically everything is gone. Chapter 11 doesn't necessarily mean death for a company. Hell, look at Chrysler.
Man, lots of fond reminiscing here about the Z80 (and clones). Quite rightly, too... the Z80 was a fun little beast.
... rr14). The Z8001 and Z8003 were "segmented", but they used a reasonable segmentation model to achieve 8M memory...
Zilog, however, made lots of other stuff. Some were moderately successful (Z8530 SCC), some not so (Z8000 MPU).
The Z8000 actually was fairly popular in military applications until COTS took over. I seem to recall many avionics systems used it. When it came out, it was comparable to the 68K.
It had 16 16bit registers (r0-r15), each of which could be addressed as 2 8-bit registers (rhN, rlN). R15 was the stack pointer. Nice orthagonal instruction set, with logical block moves (similar to the Z80 LDIR instruction), as compared to the intel REP instructions...
The registers could be doubled up into 32-bit registers (rr0, rr2,
The low 16 bits were the offset in the segment, and the high 7 bits were the segment number. So, you essentially had 23 bit addressing. Of course, the way you generated segmented addresses was a tad odd... I believe bits 30:24 were the segement number in a 32-bit address.
Only problem was, they never got the Z8070 FPU working. Bummer.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
... was the dual register set. It was used to good advantage in embedded systems where the executive would use one set and the app would use the other. If you remember the chess program Sargon, it used one set for white's state and one for black's. It was a pretty neat machine. But like many of the 8-bit stuff out there, it didn't make the jump to 16 bits gracefully. The Z8000 was pretty dismal...
That is all.
not true. the Empire State Building has gone bankrupt dozens and dozens - literally - of times in its life.
the interplay of debt and equity offer the capability to create investments with non-differentiatable payout patterns. Sometimes these make sense. Bankruptcy means that the current equity holders's stake has gone to zero, so their rights dissolve and the debt holders become the new equity holders. All of the assets continue to exist, simply their ownership changes.
6809 RULES!
Ahem. I had a 6809 machine once, and it was a pleasure to program in assembly. 6809 also had OS/9, a multi-user multi-tasking OS which was better than any other OS for a system of the period.
And you can't dislike a processor with the opcodes BRA and SEX!
(BRanch Always, and Sign EXtend, as if you didn't know.)
"Information wants to be paid"