What Tiny Tapeout is doing is amazing. Who would have thought that makers and students could have their own chip design made real for so little money?

The tools look amazing as well. You'll won't design the next Intel CPU on that 130nm process but to think that the Z80 will fit on 0.064 mm2 is just amazing.

It's great that there will still be an alternative to the official chip now that it won't be manufactured any more.

Now I want that gorgeous mauve ceramic package with a gold-plated cover over the chip...

https://twitter.com/l_vanek/status/1783557817133039738/photo...

https://tinytapeout.com/

For those wondering, the 6502 and various derivatives are still being manufactured, by one of its original creators [0] - so I'd guess an equivalent development in the world of the Z80's nemesis is unlikely anytime soon.

[0] https://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/chips.php

Z80 was the CPU of the ZX Spectrum. Oh the memories...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum

I think the real joy of these old 8-bit CPU's is the simplicity and how a single person can wire up a computer by hand.

In uni we built an 8088 board in microprocessor class and it was the best class I ever took; it demystified drivers and hardware for me. I attempted a redesign using KiCAD which added an IO expansion port and better layout with an LCD port for a 2x16 character LCD. I had a prototype made by Futurlec but made a massive mistake in footprint assignment that required an interposer. Furthest I got was soldering in the 8284 and the IC sockets then got distracted by life and its sitting in a box still.

Microcontrollers are great, everything in one package but there's something enormously satisfying about being able to design and build a computer by hand. FPGAs sort of bring this back but the tooling is byzantine dog shit.

Wow. Just looked it up; the Z80 is now _50 years old_.