The 8080 is often said to be the "first truly usable microprocessor".
Incorporated in early home computers like the [[Altair 8800]], the 8080 ultimately led to the machine code-compatible, but more powerful clone Zilog [[Z80Hector|Interact Home Computer]], which was of course also used in and arcade systems like the Amstrad [[CPC]https://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=629 Taito 8080] and Sinclair [[ZX Spectrum]] among othershttps://www. (Note that 8080 assembly language looks different from Z80 mnemonics; esystem16.gcom/hardware. the Z80 uses <tt>LD</tt> whereas the php?id=594 Midway 8080 has <tt>MOV</tt> and several other commands.) [[CP/M]] required an 8080 or Z80 CPU and between 1976 and about 1983, microcomputers with a Z80 that ran CP/M were the norm before the market shifted to MS-DOS.
==Technology==
NMOS became the standard microprocessor technology until the rise of CMOS in the 1980s, combining NMOS and PMOS to dramatically reduce power consumption.
==Compatibility==
The 8080 is not binary-compatible with the 8008 because almost all the instructions were shifted to different opcodes.
One important but subtle change was that the 8 register/memory codes were reordered to start with B instead of A. The motivation is that this gave registers in a 16-bit register pair (BC, DE, or HL) codes that differ only in the low bit. This makes it easier to specify a register pair with a two-bit code.
The 8080 ultimately led to the machine code-compatible, but more powerful clone Zilog [[Z80]], which was of course also used in the Amstrad [[CPC]] and Sinclair [[ZX Spectrum]] among others. (Note that 8080 assembly language looks different from Z80 mnemonics; e.g. the Z80 uses <tt>LD</tt> whereas the 8080 has <tt>MOV</tt> and several other commands.)
[[CP/M]] required an 8080 or Z80 CPU and between 1976 and about 1983, microcomputers with a Z80 that ran CP/M were the norm before the market shifted to MS-DOS.
==Links==