I last developed on Z80 in like 1980, then later that decade the Zilog Z8002 on the F16. Amazing anyone cares about these any more.

The TI 73 through 86 models of graphing calculator all use z80 CPUs, and the 83+ was probably the dominant school calculator well into the 2000s. That was my introduction to the CPU (hobbyist programming, e.g. through websites like ticalc.org).

On US school system and similar countries that impose specific brands on school kids.

On my days it was all about Casio and HP, with TI on third place.

I had a TI-85, which was my introduction back in the mid 90's. Still love the Z80.

There's also the Gameboy, which still has an active homebrew scene

Yes, although the GBZ80 is distinct from the regular Z80 in several ways -- among other differences, it has no IX or IY registers, and no alternate register bank.

It really shouldn't be called the GBZ80, it's a Sharp SM83

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I posted about writing a text-based adventure-game in Z80 assembly language, to run on a single-board CP/M system:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26946130

Some of my fondness memories are typing in programs from 101 Basic Computer games on a ZX81. That and Beagle Bros ads and their mysterious peeks and pokes.

My dad and I built our computer from a kit ... which of course failed. Turns out 1/3rd of them did so and we received a prebuilt one.

I just recently grabbed a Z81 and Timex 1000 from eBay.Always wanted to own and write some games on it. My current setup more complex. I grew up learning to code on C64 good times.

Have you considered targeting the GameBoy?

The GBZ80 is much more restrictive, right? I think it's missing the IX and IY registers, as well as the alternate register bank.

[0]: https://gbdev.gg8.se/wiki/articles/CPU_Comparision_with_Z80

I moved from Sinclair/Amstrad CPC games development onto the Gameboy. Initially the lack of EXX and IX/IY proved to be a bit of a pain. It's also missing the LDI(R)/LDD(R) opcodes. However, I dimly remember using its LD A, (FF00+...) instructions to access a block of RAM at the top of the memory map above the I/O registers to store variables, in much the same way that I'd use zero page on a 6502. So not quite as restrictive as it looks.

How is "sjamplus" a better compiler than sdcc? I haven't found the source link yet (or even figured out what language it compiles.)

It is "sjasmplus" not "sjamplus". It is a Z80 assembler and can be found at https://github.com/z00m128/sjasmplus