History of MOS 6502 [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: History of MOS 6502 [video]

#21

Post by jonjacky » Tue, Nov 25, 2014, 10:57 PM UTC

jonjacky wrote: post #19

kjs3 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely wrong, and it's obvious the author is the one who is "cringeworthy". I most certainly "coded your code straight into a computer" back in those days. The Commodore PET and Apple 6502 computers had built in BASIC, in ROM, and assembler environments were easy to find if you had a floppy. The Apple at least had any number of other languages like Pascal and Forth. And the idea that the 68000 was easier…

No, he's right. The PET and Apple were second generation 6502 machines - intended to be personal computers. The first 6502 products were evaluation kits like the KIM-1, which only had a keypad and seven segment LEDs for entering and viewing code in hex. Even this was quite an advance over the previous generation like the Altair where you had to enter code by flipping switches. This page has a picture, explains the pr…

I see that the original Apple I (not II) provided something similar, except with a full keyboard and video instead of keypad and LEDs. See the screenshot on this page:

http://apple2history.org/history/ah02/

Re: History of MOS 6502 [video]

#22

Post by kjs3 » Wed, Nov 26, 2014, 12:29 AM UTC

jonjacky wrote: post #19

kjs3 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely wrong, and it's obvious the author is the one who is "cringeworthy". I most certainly "coded your code straight into a computer" back in those days. The Commodore PET and Apple 6502 computers had built in BASIC, in ROM, and assembler environments were easy to find if you had a floppy. The Apple at least had any number of other languages like Pascal and Forth. And the idea that the 68000 was easier…

No, he's right. The PET and Apple were second generation 6502 machines - intended to be personal computers. The first 6502 products were evaluation kits like the KIM-1, which only had a keypad and seven segment LEDs for entering and viewing code in hex. Even this was quite an advance over the previous generation like the Altair where you had to enter code by flipping switches. This page has a picture, explains the pr…

That's fair, although I had a pretty early AIM-65 (roughly contemporary to the KIM-1) that had FORTH in ROM. So yes, there was a time in the 6502 history where ASM was pretty much the only option, but lots of other options came along quickly.

P.S. - The Altair had a floppy option pretty much from introduction ('76 or '77, at least) as well as a cassette tape setup, so while you often bootstrapped with the front panel (unless you added a bootstrap ROM someplace; many did), you didn't have to load all your software that way. I had friends who even had paper tape readers on their Altairs, which were pretty cool.

Re: History of MOS 6502 [video]

#23

Post by kjs3 » Wed, Nov 26, 2014, 12:36 AM UTC

Theodores wrote: post #20

kjs3 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely wrong, and it's obvious the author is the one who is "cringeworthy". I most certainly "coded your code straight into a computer" back in those days. The Commodore PET and Apple 6502 computers had built in BASIC, in ROM, and assembler environments were easy to find if you had a floppy. The Apple at least had any number of other languages like Pascal and Forth. And the idea that the 68000 was easier…

Commodore PET and Apple machines were for people who had rich daddies and lived in America. For those of us in the Rest of The World getting access to a computer was not as simple as that. We had to wait for things like the VIC-20 to come along, the PET was unseen outside of a magazine cover. There was no sea of surplus computers, particularly ones with floppy disks. Pen and paper was how things got done. You, not kn…

As for your quip about 68000 not being easier if you knew 6502, do you just arrogantly dismiss everything out of hand? No evidence given?

Well, 8-bit, accumulator-based, limited addressing modes, numerous quirky features required for good performance (e.g. zero page) vs. 32-bit, register-based, numerous, generally orthogonal addressing modes, privilege separation, etc. So other than 'programmed in assembly', not much similar between the two. I know when I jumped from processors like the 6502 to the 68000, I had to forget more about the 6502 to really get the 68000 than I kept. Maybe you could take your own advice and describe the architectural similarities of one processor that made you so much more prepared to understand the other? You know, give some evidence.

As to the rest of your snotty, self-indulgent, anti-American rant...it's a real shame you didn't get to play with the cool toys that existed at the time. That doesn't mean they didn't exist and we didn't use them. We'll get right on that pity party for you.

Re: History of MOS 6502 [video]

#24

Post by vidarh » Wed, Nov 26, 2014, 7:12 PM UTC

Zardoz84 wrote: post #17

vidarh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were several other models. Some of the Amiga models have a 6502 compatible SoC with an embedded PROM and small bit of RAM on chip for example. (Then of course there's the Western Design Centre 6502 descendants, which include 16-bit extensions etc.)

Wut ? Amiga's runs over 680X0 cpus.

The CPU, yes. But the Amiga 500 and 2000 at least had 650x cores on the keyboard, that implemented the keyboard end of the serial protocol sending keystrokes to the motherboard, as well as managing the leds etc.. Commodore had a long tradition for "smart" peripherals and for favouring using their own chips wherever possible.

Some searches led me to this [1]. The 6570-036 is the 6502-based SOC.

[1] http://deskthority.net/wiki/File:Amiga_2000_Mitsumi_controll...

Re: History of MOS 6502 [video]

#25

Post by vidarh » Wed, Nov 26, 2014, 9:13 PM UTC

jonjacky wrote: post #19

kjs3 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely wrong, and it's obvious the author is the one who is "cringeworthy". I most certainly "coded your code straight into a computer" back in those days. The Commodore PET and Apple 6502 computers had built in BASIC, in ROM, and assembler environments were easy to find if you had a floppy. The Apple at least had any number of other languages like Pascal and Forth. And the idea that the 68000 was easier…

No, he's right. The PET and Apple were second generation 6502 machines - intended to be personal computers. The first 6502 products were evaluation kits like the KIM-1, which only had a keypad and seven segment LEDs for entering and viewing code in hex. Even this was quite an advance over the previous generation like the Altair where you had to enter code by flipping switches. This page has a picture, explains the pr…

That may be true, but the timeline was short: The 6502 was introduced in 1975. The KIM-1 arrived in 1976, and the PET in 1977. There was really only a year where the 6502 was a realistic options without there being "proper" computers based on it.

That said, while I never wrote assembly opcodes by hand, I did know the hex values for most of the 6502 opcodes at some point. And I did later debug M68k assembler by annotating dot matrix printouts until '92 or '93 or so - I used to bring them to school with me so I could work on my compiler projects during recess.

The things you do when you don't have portable computers or network access.