Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!steinmetz!nuke!oconnor
From: oconnor@nuke.steinmetz (Dennis M. O'Connor)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: History of PCs (also kind of long)
Summary: with thanks to Tim Olson ( he knows why )
Message-ID: <11707@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 2 Aug 88 17:41:40 GMT
Sender: news@steinmetz.ge.com
Reply-To: oconnor%sungod@steinmetz.UUCP
Organization: GE Corporate R&D Center
Lines: 34

An article by erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) says:
] > The 6502 is probably in more computers than any other processor, even
] > today, and though nobody knows why, Apple is still selling lots of
] > machines with essentially the 6502 in them.   The 6502's children never
] > really made it big, but the impression of the chip itself is firm.

Except, of course, the 6510. Which made it into, what is it,
6 million Commodore-64s ? That sounds big to me.

] Simple.  Jobs has said that when he was looking for a chip, the 6809
] was really expensive, and the 6502 was really cheap.  I remember something
] about Motorola saying (in a memo) that the 6502 was something cheap
] to fill in the gap between the 6809 and the bottom of the chip market.

Motorola would say that. IT'S NOT THEIR CHIP ! Has everyone forgotten ?
The 6500, progenitor of the 6502, was created by MOS Technologies, by
some of the designers of the 6800 who had left Motorola. It was supposed
to be a superior replacement : it was even pin-compatable with the 6800 !
Naturally, Motorola sued them, so they re-did the pinouts and created
the 6502. Then, this other company, Commodore, bought MOS Technologies
to get some in-house silicon capability for its exciting new personal
computer, the VIC-20 !! The VIC-20 ( their's lots of them, or were )
had a 6502. Then later the C64 came out, with an improved version
of the 6502 ( on-chip parallel port is all I remember ) : the 6510.

] J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict

And is it my fault, if MOSTEK and MOS Technologies get confused ?
--
 Dennis O'Connor   oconnor%sungod@steinmetz.UUCP  ARPA: OCONNORDM@ge-crd.arpa
    "Never confuse USENET with something that matters, like PIZZA."
--
 Dennis O'Connor   oconnor%sungod@steinmetz.UUCP  ARPA: OCONNORDM@ge-crd.arpa
    "Never confuse USENET with something that matters, like PIZZA."