24 Sep
2007
24 Sep
'07
6:25 p.m.
Subject: Re: Unknows S-100 System
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:43:29 -0700
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
On 23 Sep 2007 at 9:12, Allison wrote:
Never said there weren't Z80 apps, there wer lots of them some very good.
It was more suprizing that the core stuff stayed with the 8080 model.
It was the early adoptors that had and use dmuch of the 8080 stuff and
where the z80 stuff was used they were alrady looking for 16bit cpus
as they'd grown out of it. So like I said the 8085 was "enough" to run
CP/M allow porting stuff to 8086 and keeping 8085 or even z80 stuff
running as at best an interum thing as teh goal was to get off 8bit
totally.
> What I wrote something similar I used the
word "most" as I knew
there was
some CP/M software that required z80. However
from a business user
perspective most of the deireable and likely used software like word
preocessors, spreadsheets and databases 8080 was just fine save for
speed and the 8085 solved that. Also the 8085 was more of a bridge
than the ultimate application cpu.
We ran into a few vertical apps that required Z80--and I think one of
the better word processors (maybe a late Spellbinder?) required a
Z80. BASIC dialects were different enough back then (and today) that
an application written with a specific Z80 BASIC in mind would get
you into trouble with an 8085. It wasn't enough to make us consider developing a
Z80 card, since we
were marketing our own OS and applications anyway. But I'm certain
that the lack of a Z80 cost a few sales.
No kidding. One thing was certain while the 8085 was ok cpu the market
had decided that anything less than Z80 was not going to fly on the 8bit
CPU alone.
Allison