ZiLOG Z8671 BASIC/Debug chip

Tiny BASIC History
Before the BASIC stamp, there was Tiny BASIC. Tiny BASIC was a created in the mid-1970's as a derivative of the original Dartmouth BASIC. Originally targeted for low end microprocessors, it was quickly ported to many of the popular micros, and it subsequently customized and enhanced for the personal computers of that day, including the TRS-80, Apple II, Commodore VIC-20 & C64, and Atari 400/800. One of the earlier ports was done on the first 'personal' microcomputer, the M.I.T.S. Altair, by philanthropist Bill Gates.

In the early 1980's, Zilog introduced the Z8671 microcontroller, with a built-in Tiny BASIC  interpreter masked into the first 2k of ROM. This allowed electrical designers to create embedded products in a reasonably simple, familiar language - instead of having to delve into assembler. After a long, successful run, ZiLOG finally discontinued this chip around 1998. There is still considerable interest in the replacement market, as manufacturers scramble to redesign their products to deal with the obsolescence of this IC.

Replacement Options
As an expert Z8 designer and programmer, I offer a range of support services - from a plug-in replacement board through product upgrades and redesigns using  more readily available parts. Currently offered as a stock product is a replacement CPU assembly that emulates the Z8671 in real time and plugs right into the target socket - or solders directly to a host board where the Z8671 would've been.

Dimensions are 2.1 long x 1.1 wide x .600" tall. Plugs into original 40 pin DIP socket.   Contact me today!

Z8671 Replacement Board 2006

Plugs into original 40 pin DIP socket!
Available now (Sep 2008) - in stock

Z8671 Replacement Board circa 2001

Every application is different. There may be mechanical or electrical constraints that require slight modifications.Contact me now for a consultation, or to try out this PCB. 

Reference Material
As this part has been out of production for many years, the Technical Reference Manual is hard to come by. I have provided a scanned in version (RAW) and a reduced size Optical Character Recogniton (OCR) version below.

The OCR version is probably good enough and has been quickly proofed for errors. All marginal recognitions are left in bitmap form. If you have a high speed connection, go ahead and download the raw file.

download .pdf file: Z8671 Reference Manual (RAW SCAN 2,893 kB) Z8671raw.pdf

download .pdf file: Z8671 Reference Manual (1srt pass OCR 409 kB) Z8671ocr.pdf

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