Zilog Z80: The Chip That Shaped Personal Computing Marks 50 Years

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Zilog discontinued production of the Z80 processor in June 2024, though the chip lives on through manufacturers like Sharp and NEC under different product labels. Introduced as a simpler alternative to the Intel 8080, the Z80 required only a single 5V power supply and one clock line, making it far easier to work with. Its versatile register architecture and broad compatibility fueled rapid adoption across countless home computers and embedded systems. The Z80 became the foundation for CP/M, the operating system developed by Gary Kildall that predated MS-DOS, as well as numerous versions of Microsoft BASIC and the MSX standard. Over five decades, the Z80 proved to be a cornerstone of personal computing history, shaping operating systems, programming languages, and hardware platforms worldwide.

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

Understanding the Three Most Common Boolean Attributes in HTML

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