I have a question. I have a bunch of old 386 (might be some 486s in there also) chips lying around. How compatible are they with the z80 in calcs? I have a calc that is a little crazy. I have the hardware lying around to make a CPU switch also. I doubt this is plausible, but I couldn't keep my mind off of it at work today.
What makes you think that the processor's the problem, though?
the only thing I plan on replacing it the machine is why.
I'd say roughly zero. You *might* get *some* of the pin definitions matched up, but for one thing, you'd have a lot of unmatched pins on both sides, for another thing, the 386 is a 32-bit processor whereas the z80 is an 8-bit processor with emulated 16-bit capabilities, and finally, the instruction sets are completely different. So no, it wouldn't work.
I thought 386 was 16bit, but maybe I am wrong. Didn't think it would, but would be cool if it did (talk about an overclocked calculator)
Lol, our good ol' Z80 doesn't even have non-carried 16-bit subtraction. Its 16-bit functions don't even like most of the flags.
Rivereye, I doublechecked the wikipedia page before I posted that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80386
But, but, but, Wikipedia is ALWAYS wrong!
I'm kidding, and who would modify a page on a processor?
Who cares if it is 16-bit instead of 32-bit anyway? Its not, but the entire point is moot. Different pin outs, different number of pins, and completely different instruction sets.
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