MCS80

MCS80, also known as the 8080, is an 8-bit microprocessor developed by Intel in 1974. It was the first microprocessor to be widely adopted in personal computers and embedded systems. The MCS80 architecture features a 16-bit address bus, allowing it to address up to 64 KB of memory, and an 8-bit data bus for data transfer. The processor includes a set of 76 instructions, which are executed in a two- or three-byte format. The MCS80 operates at a clock speed of 2 MHz, with a cycle time of 500 nanoseconds. It has a simple instruction set, with instructions typically taking one to three machine cycles to execute. The MCS80 was succeeded by the 8085, which added features such as a built-in clock generator and a serial I/O interface. The MCS80 remains an important historical figure in the development of microprocessors and continues to be studied and used in educational and retrocomputing contexts.