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> are there any machines still running on a Z80?

A LOT of them. Zilog only announced its discontinuation in 2024.

But that also means that there are A LOT of them out there, and they are cheap and generally extremely reliable parts. So if you rely on a device with a Z80 in it and you're worried about the CPU failing you can have hundreds of these things on the shelf for ~no money.

So I would say it's of limited utility for industrial applications for now simply because scarcity is not an issue for the real thing. This might change in the future so it's good that projects like this exist.



It's sad Z80 production was discontinued. There are some niche IC manufacturers that specialize in legacy parts (eg. Rochester Electronics comes to mind). It would have been nice if Zilog had passed on manufacture of the good 'ol Z80 to a manufacturer like this. Even if it's just small production batches every couple of months/years or so.

There'll be plenty of hobbyists and/or legacy industrial / niche applications for a looong time to come.




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