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 and/or failure:
“That the discovery of this great truth, which lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason of so very few, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men, who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them, that they seem as it were blinded with excess of light.”
—George Berkeley (16851753)
“Evil is simply
a grammatical error:
a failure to leap
the precipice
between he
and I.”
—Linda Pastan (b. 1932)