Zilog Z800 - Reason For The Failure

Reason For The Failure

The Z800 was, in most ways, a mini computer inspired "super Z80" that would run existing, and larger, programs at considerably higher speeds. However the address and data buses were multiplexed and the chip was, also in other respects, somewhat complicated to program and interface to. Calculation of exact execution times was also very much harder to do than for the Z80. Moreover, the plain Z80 were good enough for most applications at the time so the extra computing power was, in many cases, not worth the added complexity. Bad marketing seems to have hurt the product as well. Hitachi developed the HD64180, which is a less ambitious Z80 derivative that has had great success, probably because it is almost as simple to program and interface to as the original Z80. A slightly different variant of the same design, the Z180, has been sold by Zilog for over twenty years, still maintained and developed.

Read more about this topic:  Zilog Z800

Famous quotes containing the words reason for, reason and/or failure:

    A tragic irony of life is that we so often achieve success or financial independence after the chief reason for which we sought it has passed away.
    Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)

    When a Man is in a serious Mood, and ponders upon his own Make, with a Retrospect to the Actions of his Life, and the many fatal Miscarriages in it, which he owes to ungoverned Passions, he is then apt to say to himself, That Experience has guarded him against such Errors for the future: But Nature often recurs in Spite of his best Resolutions, and it is to the very End of our Days a Struggle between our Reason and our Temper, which shall have the Empire over us.
    Richard Steele (1672–1729)

    Dear George: Remember no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings! Love, Clarence
    Frances Goodrich (1891–1984)