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Comment by spicyjpeg

The 8008, F8 and SC/MP, while arguably important from a historical standpoint, never gained widespread commercial adoption in the way the 6502, Z80 or 8080 derivatives (including the Z80 itself) did. The 6800 got some popularity in embedded applications, but was quickly superseded by the 6809 which managed to stay relevant all the way up to the late 90s.

A glaring omission in this list is the Intel MCS-51 architecture, which - despite being horrible to program for in this day and age - still powers billions of devices worldwide, with 8051 derivatives often being embedded as a housekeeping core into all sorts of specialized ASICs and 8051-compatible microcontrollers being the staple of cheap electronics. It was never meant to compete with general purpose processors such as the Z80, and its awkwardly limited instruction set reflects that, but it still managed to become the de facto CPU architecture for monitors, power tools, RGB lighting, SD cards and whatnot.

parent spicyjpeg 2 years ago

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