The sharp X1 Twin was released in 1982 by the Sharp Corporation. The X1 Twin is really two computers in one: An X1 and a PC-Engine.

The computer comes with two CPU's: The Zilog Z80, running at 3.58MHz for the X1 mode, and the Hudson HuC6280A for the PC-Engine mode. It was an attempt by Sharp to resurrect their market share that they had lost to competitors, mainly the PC8801 from NEC.

The X1 Twin has decent specifications, with 80x25 text mode, and a high resulution of 640x200 in 8 colors. It also has the AY-3-8910 Programmable Sound Generator, capable of 3 channels and white noise, that had become standard in many computers. The X1 Twin came with 64KByte of RAM and 4-48KByte of Video RAM. It had built in Floppy Disk drive, a PC-Engine card slot, and a tape connector

The Z80 quickly became popular in the personal computer market, with many early personal computers, such as the TRS-80 and Sinclair ZX80, using the Z80 as their central processing unit (CPU). It was also widely used in home computers, such as the MSX range, SORD, and the Amstrad CPC, as well as in many arcade games. Additionally, it was also used in other applications such as industrial control systems, and embedded systems. The Z80 was widely used until the mid-1980s, when it was gradually replaced by newer microprocessors such as the Intel 80286 and the Motorola 68000.

The Z80 microprocessor was developed by Zilog, a company founded by Federico Faggin in 1974. The Z80 was released in July 1976, as a successor to the Intel 8080. It was designed to be fully compatible with the 8080, but also included new features such as an improved instruction set, more powerful interrupts, and a more sophisticated memory management system.

The Z80 quickly became popular in the personal computer market, with many early personal computers, such as the TRS-80 and Sinclair ZX80, using the Z80 as their central processing unit (CPU). It was also widely used in home computers, such as the MSX range, SORD, and the Amstrad CPC, as well as in many arcade games. Additionally, it was also used in other applications such as industrial control systems, and embedded systems. The Z80 was widely used until the mid-1980s, when it was gradually replaced by newer microprocessors such as the Intel 80286 and the Motorola 68000. The design was licensed to Synertek and Mostek as well as the European SGS.

The Z80s instruction set is binary compatible with the Intel 8080, so that 8080 code such as the CP/M Operating System and Intel's PL/M compiler for the 8080 can run unmodified on the Z80. The Z80 had many enhancements over the 8080 such as 16-bit data movement instructions, block copy and block I/O instructions, single bit addressing of all registers, IX/IY offset registers, better interrupt system and a complete duplicate register file for context switching during an interrupt.