Zworld makes a bunch of neat Z180 (Z80 + MMU & timers) boards. They are
laden with i/o and features. One of them is extra tiny. They have a PC/104
based board that I successfully got working with a PC/104-based VGA card.
Their dev tools are weird and overpriced but easy to work with.
http://www.zworld.com
People still use what are basically Z80s for various things including I
think Nintendo Gameboy and the Starfix/Motorola REX PIM (PDA).
There's also Zilog and Hitachi, who make the Z180 with eval boards and such
http://www.zilog.com
Z80, 8051 and other 8-bit cores are pretty accessible in Verilog if you
contact the right companies and can throw a good sales pitch.
<Dislaimer- crazy idea>
Doing a virtual Trs-80 could be pretty fun on a modern Z180 board would be a
lot of fun since you could make it basically fit in your hand and connect to
either an LCD or a VGA monitor.
<End of Disclaimer>
The Z80 consists of very few gates, suck little power and is perfect for
those mass-market low-cost devices that Americans refuse to make. It's a
good "high-performance processor" for integrating into an ASIC which makes it
perfect for lots small, hand-held devices.
Thomas
Received on Fri Oct 23 1998 - 19:21:26 BST