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Cheap 8-bit processors and stuff? — Parallax Forums

Cheap 8-bit processors and stuff?

GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
edited 2004-08-19 08:17 in General Discussion
Does anyone know of a 8-bit processor still in production, and which happens to be cheap? (Preferable around the $1 mark )

And cheap memory that can go with it?
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Comments

  • Jon WilliamsJon Williams Posts: 6,491
    edited 2004-08-08 18:03
    How many·tens of thousands are you looking to purchase? I don't ever remember seeing an 8-bit part that cheap. 4-bits ... all day long, but the development with them is a headache (I used to work in the sprinkler industry and we used 4-bit micros in sprikler timers).

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    Jon Williams
    Applications Engineer, Parallax
    Dallas Office
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2004-08-08 18:26
    I was thinking of maybe 100 or so...
    It's a corny idea I had for a computer system...

    Microcontrollers won't do as I need them to have the full 64KB address range 'outside' the CPU.
    (RAMs can be bigger, though...)

    I've worked with 6502,Z80 and 6303 processors, but won't mind tackling another one...

    I've seen some Z80's sold for about $1 on surplus sites, but never in large enough quantities, and definitely not the same specs for all.
    (There are some clones with powersaving and different pinouts...)
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2004-08-18 16:34
    Foothill College near Stanford University, Palo Alto, California has had an electronics swap meet during the summer months for years and years. If there is any place to find 100 z-80s of same specification in tubes, it would be there.

    I have not gone for 15 years, but it would be hard to believe it has stopped.

    I used to go religously to it at 5am on Saturdays (I think it is the 1st Saturday of the month, but you can call Foothill College to confirm).

    This is truly the greatest of the electronic swap meets as it is fed by all the junk from Silicon Valley and you rub shoulder with some of the best and brightest just browsing around. I have gotten business cards from NASA, HP, Intel, and many more while just chatting about junk.

    I used to buy broken HP terminals for $5, repair them and ship them back east for $250 a piece. They used z-80s, but HP would never tell you so.

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    G. Herzog in Taiwan
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2004-08-19 07:25
    Sounds like my kind of places....
    If it wasn't across the Atlantic, that is...

    smile.gif
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2004-08-19 07:58
    Nuts and Volts takes 'Misc. Electronics Wanted ads' in their Classified Ad section.

    It was Foothill College where I first got the publication.

    So, if you place an ad with them -- you may find someone sitting on an inventory.

    Anyway, the swapmeet will end in September. You would have to get to the last one for this year or wait until spring.

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    G. Herzog in Taiwan
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2004-08-19 08:17
    I would prefer to use a current 8bit CPU, just in case I would want to expand it later, or someone else is batty enough to build another.
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