When the text-to-speech extension was created for the HomeLAB computer, a married couple working at KFKI, András Arató and Teréz Vaspöri, created a voice synthesizer and used it to extend the HomeLAB IV and create a talking computer that would turn any text, wether it was a BASIC program or Hungarian text, into speech, with all the correct stressing of sentences implemented. This computer was known as the Brailab, or the HomeLAB-4 Braille. The specific HomeLAB-4 has a little cane symbol under its logo, to signify the inclusion of the voice synthesizer.

In the spring of 1982 József Lukács and his younger brother Endre Lukács decided to create a computer that was accassible to the Hungarian youth. They designed a computer, the Homelab II, whiich was manufactured under the name Aircomp 16. The computer was pdoduced by a small company called Personal GT. The later models of the Homelab computers were produced by the Color Industrial Co-operative in Dombóvár.

The Aircomp 16 was expensive to produce and the brothers ran out of funding. Ultimately when Homelab III was produced, the brothers released the documentation and basic units like the PCBs so users could purchase the computer as a kit, and assemble their own at home. The Homelab computers were built in large numbers by amateurs at home, based on the circuit diagrams published in the Mikroszp Magazin.

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.

Originally the Z80 was intended for use in embedded systems, just as the 8080 CPU. But the combination of compatibility, superior performance to other CPUs of the era, and the affordability led to a widespread use in arcade video game systems, and later in home computers such as the Osborne 1, TRS-80, ColecoVision, ZX Spectrum, MSX, Sega's Master System and many more. The Z-80 ran the original Pac-Man arcade cabinet. The Z-80 was used even in the Game Gear (1990s), and the TI-81 and succeeding graphic calculators.

The Z-80 remained in production until June of 2024, 48 years after its original release. Zilog replaced the processor with its successor the eZ80, an 8-bit microprocessor that features expanded memory addressing up to 16 megabytes, and running up to 50MHz, comparable to a Z80 clocked at 150MHz.