Z80 Testing The 80s Way

According to [MTSI], if you used a Z80 chip back in the 1980s, it almost certainly passed through the sole Fairchild Sentry 610 system that gave it the seal of approval. The Sentry was big iron for…

Strange English Teaching Computer Might Have Been Big In Japan

[Ctrl-Alt-Rees] bought something strange on an auction site: a Japanese Cefucom-21 from 1983. No? Didn’t ring a bell for us either. The legend on the front boldly proclaims: “CCI Multip…

DIY Core Rope Memory Z80 Demonstrator Generating A Fibonacci Sequence

We’ve seen a few retro products using core rope memory, such as telephone autodiallers. Obviously, we’ve covered the Apollo program computers, but we don’t think we’ve seen …

No Z80? No Problem!

Earlier this year Zilog stopped production of the classic 40-pin DIP Z80 microprocessor, a move that brought a tear to the eye of retro computing enthusiasts everywhere. This chip had a huge influe…

Happy Birthday To Dad, Retrocomputer Style

For those of us who lived through the early 8-bit computing revolution — the tail end, in our case — it’s hard to believe that there’s a second wave of retrocomputing nostal…

Internet Appliance To Portable Terminal

Few processors have found themselves in so many different devices as the venerable Z80. While it isn’t powerful by modern standards, you can still use devices like this Cidco MailStation as a…

Baldur’s Gate III Comes To The TRS-80 Model 100

To say that Tandy’s TRS-80 Model 100 was an influential piece of computer hardware would be something of an understatement. While there’s some debate over which computer can historicall…

CP/M On An Eight Line Display

How many lines do you need on a CP/M terminal? More is usually better, of course, but the MicroOffice RoadRunner managed with an 8-row, 80-column LCD screen. That may sound anemic, but in 1983, it …

Protoboard Z80 Computer Teaches The Basics

As curious people, we’re all incredibly fortunate to live in an age where information can so easily be obtained. If you want to learn how something works, from a cotton gin to an RBMK reactor…

Z80s From The ’80s Had Futuristic Design

Ever heard of a Dutch company called Holborn (literally, born in Holland)? We hadn’t either, but [Bryan Lunduke] showed us these computers from the early 1980s, and we wondered if they might …

The Z80 Is Dead. Long Live The Free Z80!

It’s with a tinge of sadness that we and many others reported on the recent move by Zilog to end-of-life the original Z80 8-bit microprocessor. This was the part that gave so many engineers a…

End-Of-Life For Z80 CPU And Peripherals Announced

In a Product Change Notification (PCN) published on April 15, Zilog (now owned by Littelfuse) announced the End of Life for a range of Z80 products, specifically virtually all of the Z84C00 range. …

Vintage Particle Counter Is A Treasure Trove Of Classic Parts

If you need a demonstration of just how far technology has come in the last 40 years, just take a look at this teardown of a 1987 laser particle counter. Granted, the laser-powered instrument that …

A Nine-Year-Old’s Z80 Drawing Program

Full disclosure: [Óscar] isn’t nine now, but he was in 1988 when he wrote LOCS, a drawing program in Z80 assembly modeled after Logo. You can see a demo of the system in the video below. You …

Revisiting A Z80 Game From 1990

Back in the days of 8-bit computers, like no doubt many readers of similar age, we wrote little games. First in BASIC, then augmented with little machine code speed-ups. We didn’t come close …

Z80 I/O Madness

While the 8080 started the personal computer revolution, the Z80 was quickly a winner because it was easier to use and had more capabilities. [Noel] found out though that the Z80 OUT instruction is…

Brand-New PCB Makes Replica TRS-80 Possible

If like us, you missed out on the TRS-80 Model I back when it first came out, relax .With this brand-new PCB that’s a trace-for-trace replica of the original and a bunch of vintage parts, you…

Is Microsoft BASIC Hidden In This Educational Child’s Toy?

The VTech PreComputer 1000 is a rather ancient toy computer that was available in the distant misty past of 1988. It featured a keyboard and a variety of simple learning games, but does it also fea…

How To Chase The Beam With A Z80

The more accomplished 8-bit microcomputers of the late 1970s and early 1980s had a dedicated display chip, a CRT controller. This took care of all the jobs associated with driving a CRT display, ge…

Hackaday Links: September 17, 2023

OK, it’s official — everyone hates San Francisco’s self-driving taxi fleet. Or at least so it seems, if this video of someone vandalizing a Cruise robotaxi is an accurate reflecti…