In a fascinating experiment, Dmitry Grinberg has successfully run Linux on a 1971 Intel 4004 chip, the first commercially produced microprocessor. While the achievement is impressive, the computer’s glacial speed makes it purely an artistic endeavor. The system takes 4.76 days to boot and even a simple ‘ls’ command takes 16 hours to process.
After 48 years on the market, Zilog has announced the discontinuation of its line of standalone Z80 CPUs in June 2024. The 8-bit architecture, introduced in 1976, played a significant role in the microcomputer revolution and powered iconic devices such as the Game Boy, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and TRS-80. Despite being superseded by more advanced chip architectures, Z80 chips remained popular for decades in products that did not require extra processing power. Zilog will continue manufacturing the eZ80 microcontroller family, a faster version of the Z80 series in different physical package configurations.
