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When Exxon Wanted To Be a Personal Computing Revolutionary
An anonymous reader writes with this story about Exxon's early involvement with consumer computers. "This weekend is the anniversary of the release of the Apple IIc, the company's fourth personal computer iteration and its first attempt at creating a portable computer. In 1981, Apple's leading competitor in the world of consumer ('novice') computer users was IBM, but the market was about to experience a deluge of also-rans and other silent partners in PC history, including the multinational descendant of Standard Oil, Exxon. The oil giant had been quietly cultivating a position in the microprocessor industry since the mid-1970s via the rogue Intel engineer usually credited with developing the very first commercial microprocessor, Federico Faggin, and his startup Zilog. Faggin had ditched Intel in 1974, after developing the 4004 four-bit CPU and its eight-bit successor, the 8008. As recounted in Datapoint: The Lost Story of the Texans Who Invented the Personal Computer, Faggin was upset about Intel's new requirement that employees had to arrive by eight in the morning, while he usually worked nights. Soon after leaving Intel and forming Zilog, Faggin was approached by Exxon Enterprises, the investment arm of Exxon, which began funding Zilog in 1975."
I remember learning Z80 assembly on the "Thrash 80". Great microprocessor. It had two register banks, so context switches, and interrupts, were really fast. There were also some undocumented instructions, and if you knew those you had a lot of street cred with the other teenage nerds. Fun times.
Z80s are still being manufactured and still in use all over the place, just not so's you'd see them.
The electronics industry isn't a natural process, it's part of human artifice, so I would say that it's proof that the market doesn't select for excellence, and that's explored well in such things as "The Century of Self" and the reason why marketing departments, even if staffed by idiots, are well funded: people buy what they are told about, more than what has the best functionality for developers. Even if the target market is developers... ARM is less well known than Intel despite leading by volume for decades, all due to the marketing thrust of Intel. Similar with Intel vs. AMD... AMD innovates but Intel copies and promotes. None of this is natural or evolution, it is all intentional and artificial and could easily go another way once you comprehend the platform or medium of the market.
But, I liked your joke, thanks :)
Z-8000, 1979, true 16 bit, not an extended Z80 but also not code compatible.
The Z800 was also 16 bit, compatible with the Z80, but it only appeared in 1985.
The Z280 appeared even later and was a Z800 with some improvements.
I never actually worked with any of these, but I've seen a LOT of Z80's (and clones by NEC, among others) pass over my workbench.
They were very popular with manufacturers of big (arcade) video games back then, I remember esp. Sega.
Wonderboy for example was a Z80 based board, although it used a 'copy protected' version, a Z80 embedded in a module along with some external electronics to scramble the instruction set. It was pin compatible with a real Z80, but when the M1 pin of the real Z80 inside indicated that an instruction opcode was being read, the data bus was routed though a ROM that translated the bits so the code from the program ROM couldn't run on a 'naked' Z80.
For later games such as Enduro, Hang-On and OutRun they used a similar system with an 68000 inside, but stuck to a Z-80 as audio controller (controlling one or more synth chips).