VEB Kombinat Robotron was the largest East German electronics manufacturer. It was headquartered in Dresden and employed 68,000 people in 1989. Its products included personal computers, SM EVM minicomputers, the ESER mainframe computers, various computer peripherals as well as microcomputers, radios, television sets and other items including cookie press Kleingebäckpresse Typ 102.
VEB Robotron
Final assembly at VEB Robotron Elektronik Dresden, 1981
Quality conformance testing at VEB Robotron Elektronik Dresden, 1984
A worker at an assembly plant producing the ES 2655 mainframe in 1985
The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975, before going on sale in July 1976. The processor is a software-compatible with the Intel 8080 but with several enhancements and at a lower price. Like the 8080, the Z80 was mainly aimed at embedded systems, but it became one of the most widely used CPUs in home computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Zilog Z80 was also common in military applications, musical equipment, and coin-operated arcade games of the era, including Pac-Man.
A Z80 manufactured in June 1976 according to the date stamp
A May 1976 advertisement for the Z80 outlines its major advantages over the 8080.
Photo of the original Zilog Z80 microprocessor design in depletion-load nMOS. Total die size is 3545×3350 μm. The blue squares around the outside are the pads that connect to the external pins. This chip was manufactured in 1990.
PIO Z84C2008