3 ms·
> FPGA Eww. I wish they stuck to using a real Z80 chip. (Otherwise they might as well just have emulated everything using an ARM SBC. With a gigabyte of RAM to
by Koshkin 6y ago
> FPGA
Eww. I wish they stuck to using a real Z80 chip. (Otherwise they might as well just have emulated everything using an ARM SBC. With a gigabyte of RAM to boot. For 20 bucks.)
- flohofwoe 6y agoThe Z80 implementation in the ZX Next has a couple of useful extended instructions not found in the original Z80, and some of the instructions are tailored to the ZX Next hardware (e.g. to efficiently compute video memory addresses). So at least there's a justification for not using real Z80 chips...
- codezero 6y agoMy understanding is that they needed to to do this because one of the main chips, the video chip, is no longer available, and since they were using FPGA for that, I assume at that point the cost is driven down by just implementing Z80 in there too, with little loss of quality.
- tomcam 6y agoThat 20 bucks turns into about 100 added to retail with normal manufacturing price models. Source: Have consulted with several factories, and in several as well.