Xref: utzoo comp.misc:2924 comp.arch:5819
Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.arch
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: History of PCs (also kind of long)
Message-ID: <1988Aug2.153943.16111@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <5946@venera.isi.edu> <5458@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> <1876@looking.UUCP> <1238@flatline.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 88 15:39:43 GMT

In article <1238@flatline.UUCP> erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) writes:
>> The 6502 is probably in more computers than any other processor...
>... Jobs has said that when he was looking for a chip, the 6809
>was really expensive, and the 6502 was really cheap...

Correction:  6800, not 6809.  The 6809 did not exist when Jobs was looking
for a chip.  The 6809 almost got a foot in the door later:  it was the
original processor for what eventually became the Macintosh.

As Don Lancaster has pointed out, the 6502 is an awful chip but MOS
Technology did everything else right:  they wrote a readable manual, had
a cheap and fairly easy-to-use evaluation board (the KIM-1) available,
and above all they'd sell you a 6502 over the counter for $20 at a time
when Intel and Motorola might graciously condescend to put you on the
waiting list to buy one of their chips for $400.  One would have hoped
that Intel, Motorola, et al, would have *learned* something from this...
-- 
MSDOS is not dead, it just     |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
smells that way.               | uunet!mnetor!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu