20 Apr
2024
20 Apr
'24
4:05 p.m.
On 4/20/24 01:37, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote:
There's this thing called "inflation",
which does tend to become somewhat
significant after four decades.
In the mid-80s, a pint of beer cost about 70 pence. I've escaped that
benighted island, but according to friends who were not so lucky it is now
now seven quid in London these days. That's enough to drive you to drink,
except, well...
Absent the price of a pint at the local pub, the sub-$1.00 price for a
Z-80 was remarkable for the time. Well within the range of the price
range of MSI or even DRAM chips.
I note that at the time, Zilog was being run as a subsidiary of Exxon,
the oil giant. Other acquisitions of the time, (Qyx, Qwip and Vydec in
the Office Systems, Ray Point uranium ore processing) fared as badly
from mismanagement as did Zilog. After the relative flop of the Z8000,
it seems that the Z80 remained the bread-and-butter part of the whole
venture. The other acquisitions appear to be consigned to the dustbin
of history. Zilog was fortunately saved from that fate by a buy-back by
employees and management in 1989. Still, the succeeding years were
pretty rocky, including a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
That Zilog survives today is remarkable.
--Chuck