Date   : Tue, 04 Apr 1989 16:54:29 GMT
From   : uw-entropy!quick!amc!sigma!bill@june.cs.washington.edu (William Swan)
Subject: New processor rumour

In article <240@ericom.ericsson.se> etxbrfa@kk32.ericsson.se (Bj|rn Fahller
TT/MLG) writes:
>I've heard some rumours that Zilog recently has released a NEW version of the
>Z80 processor. The new version should (according to the rumours) have
a largely
>expanded instruction set, with multiplication, division, SIO routines, etc...
>
>Is this actually the case? I thought Z80 was out years ago.


I just took a look at Zilog's January 1989 Z80 Family Data Book and saw:

Z8400 (a.k.a Z80?):    ("Advanced Information")
       At a quick glance this looks like a CMOS Z80, up to 10MHz. Nothing
       else jumps out as being different, other than packaging options.

Z80180 (a.k.a Z180?):  ("Product Specification")
       "Code compatible", with 8-bit multiply (16 bit result) and several
       other new instructions (test and block operations, mainly). Up to
       10 MHz, on-chip MMU addressing 512k or 1Mbyte, two UARTS, two 16-bit
       timers, on-chip oscillator, etc.

Z280:  ("Preliminary Product Specification")
       20 MHz CMOS pipelined Z80 superset with MMU addressing up to 16
       Mbytes, 3 16-bit counter-timers, 4 DMA channels, full-duplex UART,
       on-chip 256-byte instruction and data associative cache, co- and
       multi-processor support, etc. No mention of multiply/divide...


Interesting stuff (a 20 MHz Z80!!!), but working from Zilog's track record 
on the Z800 (I got a spec sheet in '81 - when was it that it actually came
out?), I won't believe it until I actually see it...

[Note:  I set Followups: to comp.os.cpm only as I don't believe anyone else
 would be interested in a 20 MHz Z80! :-)]


-- 
William Swan   ..!grace.apl.washington.edu!sigma!bill
       Innocent but in prison in Washington State for 13.5 years:
       Debbie Runyan: incarcerated 01/1989, scheduled release 07/2002.
                      In now:  0 years,  2 months,  2 weeks,  1 day.