Aquaman Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 On some sites I read that most of the time the Mattel Aquarius was not equipped with an official Zilog Z80 CPU but a clone named the NEC D780C. Can anybody confirm this and if yes does it make any difference? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Yes, my spare Aquarius board has a D780C processor, and I'm almost positive I've seen other Aquarius systems with Sharp LH0080 processors. I'm not aware of any important differences between these chips and a genuine Zilog Z80, but others more familiar with them might know better. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquaman Posted January 27, 2014 Author Share Posted January 27, 2014 Thanks Jay, for the insight! So also the Sharp processors were used, making the Aquarius even closer to the MZ series, then we already thought! I also doubt that there are importants differences, but who knows? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 These are probably licensed versions of the Z80 so they should be 100% compatible. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Second-sourcing for Z80 and 6502 was/is very common. In fact I don't know if Atari ever bought a 6502 from MOS for it's computer or console line. That said though, almost all full-capability 6502s used by Atari were the 6502C Sally variant which was a slightly enhanced version with the HALT function that was used in most of the computers and 5200/7800 consoles. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mvdsteenoven Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 I have an Aquarius with Zilog Z80, another with NEC and a third with Sharp. Looks like they just used whatever was available. Regs, Martin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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