In the home computing sector the 6502 occupied the high end in the UK with the BBC Micro being the flagship. Meanwhile Z80 was popularised by Sinclair with the

In the home computing sector the 6502 occupied the high end in the UK with the BBC Micro being the flagship. Meanwhile Z80 was popularised by Sinclair with the ZX Spectrum (which built on the hugely popular ZX81). Personally as a newbie to programming (as everyone was at the time, to varying degrees), I preferred the simplicity of the 6502 because it only had three registers. Meanwhile, the extra registers on the Z80 also came with programming concepts that were beyond me at the time. I always knew the Z80 was better!!! Despite knowing the Z80 to be better it was the underdog at the time in the UK home computing sector, more accomplished but used in the cheaper Sinclair style machines with the 6502 in more expensive machines. Why were the 6502 machines more expensive? The extra chips that went with the 6502 such as the 6522 IO chip and commonly found chips like the AY-3-8910 sound chip provided useful features that were handled very well by these support chips. They cost money. Meanwhile, in Z80 land with the likes of Clive Sinclair, some ULA chip of some sort would be put together. This chip would work with the CPU to do all of these extra functions badly. On the ZX81 the CPU did everything. This included the screen. In 'fast mode' you would have no screen. With sound on the spectrum, the same story. Rather than have some neat electronics do the sound properly the CPU would stop everything it was doing to make some 'beep'. So, in 2015, which to go for? If you are not going to be making millions of these boards there is no point saving money on the support logic. Therefore the Z80 - the better CPU - with a proper set of support chips is what to go for.