I've always had an idea for creating a homebrew microcomputer kit with the intent to help teach children about how computers work at a much deeper level than, say, the Raspberry Pi. Kids could get the kit, sit down with soldering equipment (and parental guidance), and assemble the computer from parts, learning about how the computer works as they go along. The end result would be a solid understanding of the computer, the satisfaction of having something they made themselves, and have a computer that can do useful things while continuing to teach software and hardware concepts.

And good grief is the choice for microprocessors kinda shitty!

So now I'm going to explain my wish list for an ideal processor and explain the problems with the majority of the current market.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

ok on the one hand "yeah" on the other hand

_i think they made like 5 billion of them you cna probably getg one if you dneed on e _

what will texas instruments do now that they can't sell the same z80 based calculator they've been making for time immemorial for 200 dollars

good news: while the majority of the Z80 line is being killed off, which also includes a lot of peripheral ICs and all the chips in the DIP format, the ISA is not completely murdered. There is a successor called the eZ80, which is a pipelined Z80 that runs 3x as fast as the original Z80, with higher clock speeds and a wider 24-bit address bus that doesn't require multiplexing shenanigans. So it's hella fast and can handle up to 16MB of memory without bankswitching. It's only available as a microcontroller-esque SoC, but all the data and address pins are fully exposed, so it's usable as a general purpose microprocessor that just happens to have the kitchen sink on the die. My only real gripe here is that QFP-100 is a bit much to ask for a child to solder, whereas DIP has nice big pins that are easier to work with. And yes, I'm not joking about children building a microcomputer from scratch. It's the whole point of the RC2014 ecosystem!

bad news: TI has long since switched to the eZ80 for the TI-84 Plus CE, but at least it technically isn't the same calculator, since it's clocked at 48MHz and actually uses that 24-bit address bus. But if you were hoping for TI's calcs to die off as a result, welp...

(honestly I liked their 68K based calcs better)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!