Forty-eight years after arriving on the market, the Zilog Z80 has exhausted its commercial life. Designed by Federico Faggin and Masatoshi Shima, it was the processor that powered the arcade version of Pac-Manas well as the first processor produced by Zilog, which was incredibly successful, so much so that it survives to this day.
Of course the Zilog Z80 has been used in a myriad of products, including many gaming-related hardware such as other coin-ops, the ColecoVision, the ZX Spectrum, the MSX, the Amstrad CPC and the SAM Coupé.
When it became unsuitable for video games, because it was no longer performing enough, it began to be used as a microcontroller for embeddable systems. The last order of the Zilog Z80 will be closed in June this year.
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