Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!nsc!pyramid!athertn!paul
From: paul@athertn.Atherton.COM (Paul Sander)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: 6502 support chips
Message-ID: <3695@athertn.Atherton.COM>
Date: 20 May 89 23:29:10 GMT
References: <8905131137.AA16031@crash.cts.com> <615@greens.UUCP> <7994@mtune.ATT.COM>
Organization: Atherton Technology, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 30

In article <7994@mtune.ATT.COM>, rkh@mtune.ATT.COM (Robert Halloran) writes:
> In article <5754@microsoft.UUCP> brianw@microsoft.UUCP (Brian Willoughby) writes:
> >I'd like to know if Commodore actually designed and manufactured those
> >65xx chips. I made the above assumptions because I haven't seen the
> >chips anywhere else.
> > [stuff omitted]
> 
> As I recall, the 6502 was designed at MOS Technology (anyone out there
> still remember the venerable KIM-1?

You mean MOS' single-board computer with a calculator keypad and LEDs for
a display?  Oh yeah!  How the SYM-1, which Synertek made?

>                                      Thought not :-)).  They were bought
> out by Commodore, and I believe most of the chips like the VIA, etc., were
> designed after that point.

The old 6501 was designed to be plug-in compatible with the 6800, except that
it has the new instruction set.  I appears to have been quickly abandoned,
because I never saw them available, even in 1978 when the 6502 was common.

During that time, Synertek had a technology exchange agreement with MOS
(which was owned by Commodore) and the nifty chips were apparently designed
during the lifetime of this agreement.  These nifty chips included the 6522
VIA, the 6545 CRTC, and 6551 ACIA, and a number of RAM/ROM/Timer/everything-
under-the-sun chips.
-- 
Paul Sander        (408) 734-9822       | Do YOU get nervous when a
paul@Atherton.COM                       | sys{op,adm,prg,engr} says
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