Clocking a 6502 simulator to 15GHz

#1

Post by scarybeast » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 8:33 PM UTC

Clocking a 6502 simulator to 15GHz
scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.com

Re: Clocking a 6502 simulator to 15GHz

#2

Post by segfaultbuserr » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:01 PM UTC

It's an interesting article, but...

Better title: Clocking a 6502 Simulator to 15 GHz. There are multiple efforts to recreate the physical 6502 CPU on modern hardware, this is not one of them and should not be confused with that.

Re: Clocking a 6502 simulator to 15GHz

#3

Post by kabdib » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

I was told by Leonard Tramiel (who was my manager at Atari for a while) that the world record for a production 6502 was 25Mhz. This was demonstrated one Friday evening, some time after the beer fridge had been opened in one of the labs.

I don't know if they applied any kind of external cooling, or what the benchmark was. Probably it was "keep cranking up the clock until pins stop wiggling or smoke comes out." Not very scientific, but quite entertaining.

Re: Clocking a 6502 simulator to 15GHz

#4

Post by fortran77 » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

I'm not 100% sure where the 15 GHz equivalent speed calculation comes from.

Re: Clocking a 6502 simulator to 15GHz

#5

Post by zentiggr » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

GeOS would have been much more responsive...

Re: Clocking a 6502 simulator to 15GHz

#6

Post by segfaultbuserr » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #4

I'm not 100% sure where the 15 GHz equivalent speed calculation comes from.

The author showed it at the end of the article. It's the "effective speed" reported by some benchmark programs (including calling subroutines, running for loops, iterating on a string, etc). These are simple and trivial programs and can be highly optimized in a simulator on modern x86_64. Real-world programs, like games, is slower, as acknowledged in the article.

Re: Clocking a 6502 simulator to 15GHz

#7

Post by JshWright » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

I realize I'm late to the party, but I've really been enjoying Ben Eater's series on building a simple computer with a 6502.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypFbtuVMUVXN...

Re: Clocking a 6502 simulator to 15GHz

#8

Post by louwrentius » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #7

I realize I'm late to the party, but I've really been enjoying Ben Eater's series on building a simple computer with a 6502. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypFbtuVMUVXN...

Yes, it's awesome.

Re: Clocking a 6502 simulator to 15GHz

#9

Post by 4444 » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

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Re: Clocking a 6502 simulator to 15GHz

#10

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

[deleted]