On Wednesday 24 March 2010 05:24:39 pm Michael Dillon wrote:
For comparison look at the z-80 CPU which powered the early desktop computers. When the IBM PC came out, people thought that the Intel 8086 would make the Z-80 obsolete. But it didn't. The Z-80 just disappeared into all sorts of electronic devices where it serves as a controller for some function, perhaps the video display or the disk drive servos. And you can still buy them.
Lots of DVD drives use embedded Z80's as controllers, including the dual-layer drive in my laptop. Never thought that my teenage years spent hacking Z80 machine code on a TRS-80 could produce a currently marketable skill.... Quick, Z80 joke coming.... Addr: 0000:21 00 00 01 FF FF 11 01 00 ED B0.......Will it finish? Same is true of MIPS and PowerPC, though. There are far more MIPS chips in routers than ever saw desktop use in SGI workstations; and while it might take a little while for Cisco's PowerPC driven routers' CPU's to outnumber all the PowerMacs our there, one day it will happen. And then all those PowerMac assembly language gurus might prove useful in the router side of the house.....