Gone, But Far From Forgotten: Remembering the Zilog Z80 at 50

This month marks a milestone moment in personal computing: the 50th anniversary of Zilog launching its venerable Z80, an eight-bit processor originally designed with embedded workloads in mind but which would sit at the very heart of the home computing revolution.

Designed by former Intel engineer and company co-founder Federico Faggin and early employee Masatoshi Shima, Zilog's Z80 launched in July 1976 as a rival to Intel's 8080. Its creators were targeting the burgeoning market for embedded computing for control systems, but the chip's flexibility and performance-per-dollar saw it chosen to power a wide variety of home computing and gaming systems — from the Sinclair ZX81/Timex Sinclair 1000 and Tandy TRS-80 to Namco's genre-defining Pac-Man arcade cabinet.

A Zilog Z80 and a handful of other chips is enough to get you your very own computer — and that's as true today as it was 50 years ago. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)

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