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Z80
The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog that played an important role in the evolution of early personal computing. Launched in 1976, it was designed to be software-compatible with the Intel 8080, offering a compelling alternative due to its better integration and increased performance. Along with the 8080's seven registers and flags register, the Z80 introduced an alternate register set, two 16-bit index registers, and additional instructions, including bit manipulation and block copy/search. Originally intended for use in embedded systems like the 8080, the Z80's combination of compatibility, affordability, and superior performance led to widespread adoption in video game systems and home computers throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, helping to fuel the personal computing revolution. The Z80 was used in iconic products such as the Osborne 1, Radio Shack TRS-80, ColecoVision, ZX Spectrum, Sega's Master System and the ''Pac-Man'' arcade cabinet. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zilog
Zilog, Inc. is an American manufacturer of microprocessors, microcontrollers, and application-specific embedded System on a chip, system-on-chip (SoC) products. The company was founded in 1974 by Federico Faggin and Ralph Ungermann, who were soon joined by Masatoshi Shima. All three had left Intel after working on the Intel 4004, 4004 and Intel 8080, 8080 microprocessors. The company's most famous product is the Zilog Z80, Z80 microprocessor, which played an important role in the evolution of early computing. Backward compatible, Software-compatible with the Intel 8080, it offered a compelling alternative due to its lower cost and increased performance, propelling it to widespread adoption in video game systems and home computers during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The name, pronounced with a long "i" (), is an acronym of ''Z integrated logic'', also thought of as "Z for the last word of Integrated Logic". History Zilog was started in California in 1974 by Federico Faggin and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zilog EZ80
The Zilog eZ80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog as an updated version of the company's first product, the highly-successful Zilog Z80. The eZ80 is binary compatible with the Z80, but it operates almost three times faster at the same clock frequency. Design The eZ80 has a three-stage pipeline: fetch, decode, and execute. When an instruction changes the program counter, it flushes the instructions that the CPU is currently processing. Available at up to 50 MHz (2004), the performance is comparable to a Z80 clocked at 150 MHz if fast memory is used (i.e. no wait states for opcode fetches, for data, or for I/O) or even higher in some applications (a 16-bit addition is 11 times as fast as in the original). The original Z80-compatible 16-bit register configuration is supported. The eZ80 also supports direct continuous addressing of 16 MB of memory without a memory management unit, by extending most registers (HL, BC, DE, IX, IY, SP, and PC) from 16 to 24 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zilog Z180
The Zilog Z180 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog as a successor to the Z80. It is compatible with the large base of software written for the Z80. The Z180 family adds higher performance and integrated peripheral functions like clock generator, 16-bit counters/timers, interrupt controller, wait-state generators, serial ports and a DMA controller. It uses separate read and write strobes, sharing similar timings with the Z80 and Intel processors. The on-chip memory management unit (MMU) has the capability of addressing up to 1 MB of memory. It is possible to configure the Z180 to operate as the Hitachi HD64180. Variants Z80182 The Zilog Z80182, introduced in 1997, is an enhanced, faster version of the older Z80 and is part of the Z180 microprocessor family. It is nicknamed the ''Zilog Intelligent Peripheral Controller'' (ZIP). It is also fully static (the clock can be halted and no data in the registers will be lost) and has a low EMI option that reduces the slew ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federico Faggin
Federico Faggin (, ; born 1 December 1941) is an Italian-American physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group during the first five years of Intel's microprocessor effort. Faggin also created, while working at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968, the self-aligned MOS ( metal–oxide–semiconductor) silicon-gate technology (SGT), which made possible MOS semiconductor memory chips, CCD image sensors, and the microprocessor. After the 4004, he led development of the Intel 8008 and 8080, using his SGT methodology for random logic chip design, which was essential to the creation of early Intel microprocessors. He was co-founder (with Ralph Ungermann) and CEO of Zilog, the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors, and led the development of the Zilog Z80 and Z8 processors. He was later the co-founder and CEO of Cygnet Technologies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TRS-80
The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer developed by American company Tandy Corporation and sold through their Radio Shack stores. Launched in 1977, it is one of the earliest mass-produced and mass-marketed retail home computers. The name is an abbreviation of ''Tandy Radio Shack, Z80 [microprocessor]'', referring to its Zilog Z80 8-bit microprocessor. The TRS-80 has a full-stroke QWERTY keyboard, 4 kilobyte, KB dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) standard memory, small size and desk area, floating-point Level I BASIC language Interpreter (computing), interpreter in read-only memory (ROM), 64-character-per-line computer monitor, video monitor, and had a starting price of US$600 (equivalent to US$ in ). A cassette tape drive for program storage was included in the original package. While the software environment was stable, the cassette load/save process combined with keyboard bounce issues ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masatoshi Shima
is a Japanese electronics engineer. He was one of the architects of the world's first microprocessor, the Intel 4004. In 1968, Shima worked for Busicom in Japan, and did the logic design for a specialized CPU to be translated into three-chip custom chips. In 1969, he worked with Intel's Ted Hoff and Stanley Mazor to reduce the three-chip Busicom proposal into a one-chip architecture. In 1970, that architecture was transformed into a silicon chip, the Intel 4004, by Federico Faggin, with Shima's assistance in logic design. He later joined Intel in 1972. There, he worked with Faggin to develop the Intel 8080, released in 1974. Shima then developed several Intel peripheral chips, some used in the IBM PC, such as the 8259 interrupt controller, 8255 programmable peripheral interface chip, 8253 timer chip, 8257 direct memory access (DMA) chip and 8251 serial communication USART chip. He then joined Zilog, where he worked with Faggin to develop the Zilog Z80 (1976) and Z8000 ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mostek
Mostek Corporation was a semiconductor integrated circuit manufacturer, founded in 1969 by L. J. Sevin, Louay E. Sharif, Richard L. Petritz and other ex-employees of Texas Instruments. At its peak in the late 1970s, Mostek held an 85% market share of the dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) memory chip market worldwide, until being eclipsed by lower-priced Japanese DRAM manufacturers who were accused of Dumping (pricing policy), dumping memory on the market. In 1979, soon after its market peak, Mostek was purchased by United Technologies Corporation for . In 1985, after several years of red ink and declining market share, UTC closed Mostek completely and sold it for to the French electronics firm Thomson-CSF, which later spun it off into STMicroelectronics. Early Products Mostek's first contract was from Burroughs Corporation, Burroughs, a $400 contract for circuit design. Initially Mostek products were manufactured in Worcester, Massachusetts in cooperation with Sprague Elect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
8-bit Computing
In computer architecture, 8-bit integers or other data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers or data buses of that size. Memory addresses (and thus address buses) for 8-bit CPUs are generally larger than 8-bit, usually 16-bit. 8-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 8-bit microprocessors. The term '8-bit' is also applied to the character sets that could be used on computers with 8-bit bytes, the best known being various forms of extended ASCII, including the ISO/IEC 8859 series of national character sets especially Latin 1 for English and Western European languages. The IBM System/360 introduced byte-addressable memory with 8-bit bytes, as opposed to bit-addressable or decimal digit-addressable or word-addressable memory, although its general-purpose registers were 32 bits wide, and addresses were contained in the lower 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intel 8080
The Intel 8080 is Intel's second 8-bit computing, 8-bit microprocessor. Introduced in April 1974, the 8080 was an enhanced successor to the earlier Intel 8008 microprocessor, although without binary compatibility.'' Electronic News'' was a weekly trade newspaper. The same advertisement appeared in the :File:Intel 8080 Advertisement May 1974.jpg, May 2, 1974, issue of ''Electronics'' magazine. Originally intended for use in Embedded system, embedded systems such as calculators, cash registers, computer terminals, and industrial robots, its robust performance soon led to adoption in a broader range of systems, ultimately helping to launch the microcomputer industry. Several key design choices contributed to the 8080’s success. Its 40‑pin package simplified interfacing compared to the 8008’s 18‑pin design, enabling a more efficient data bus. The transition to NMOS logic, NMOS technology provided faster transistor speeds than the 8008's PMOS logic, PMOS while also simplifyin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Home Computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single, non-technical user. These computers were a distinct market segment that typically cost much less than business, scientific, or engineering-oriented computers of the time, such as those running CP/M or the IBM PC, and were generally less powerful in terms of computer memory, memory and expandability. However, a home computer often had better video display controller, graphics and sound than contemporary business computers. Their most common uses were word processing, playing video games, and computer programming, programming. Home computers were usually sold already manufactured in stylish metal or plastic enclosures. However, some home computers also came as commercial electronic kits, like the ZX80, Sinclair ZX80, which were both h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zilog Z280
The Zilog Z280 is a 16-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog as an enhancement of the Zilog Z80 architecture and integrating improvements from the abandoned Zilog Z800 project. First introduced in July 1987, the Z280 is considered to be a commercial failure. The Z280 was fabricated in CMOS, added a memory management unit (MMU) to expand the addressing range to 16 MB, features for multitasking and multiprocessor and coprocessor configurations, and 256 bytes of on-chip static RAM, configurable as either a cache for instructions and/or data, or as part of the ordinary address space. It has a huge number of new instructions and addressing modes giving a total of over 2000 combinations. It offers Supervisor and User operating modes, and optionally separate address spaces for instructions and data in both modes (four total possible address spaces). Its crystal or external clock signal is divided by half to drive the CPU. The CPU clock can be further divided by 1, 2, or 4 tim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osborne 1
The Osborne 1 is the first commercially successful portable computer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighs , cost US$1,795, and runs the CP/M 2.2 operating system. It is powered from a wall socket, as it has no on-board battery, but it is still classed as a portable device since it can be hand-carried when the keyboard is closed. The computer shipped with a large bundle of software that was almost equivalent in value to the machine itself, a practice adopted by other CP/M computer vendors. Competitors quickly appeared, such as the Kaypro II. History The Osborne 1 was developed by Adam Osborne and designed by Lee Felsenstein, first announced in early 1981. Osborne, an author of computer books decided that he wanted to break the price of computers. The computer's design was based largely on the Xerox NoteTaker, a prototype developed at Xerox PARC in 1976 by Alan Kay. It was designed to be portable, with a rugged ABS plastic case and a handle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
