knudsen (02/17/83)
Would anyone care to speculate why the 6502 never gave birth to a 16 or 32-bit offspring with lotsa registers, etc? Consider: 8080-->Z80, 8086 Z80-->Z8000 6800-->6809 (last & best of 8-bitters), 68000 6502-->zip!!!! (the 6510 in the C64 is as an 8085 to an 8080, no real gain). Was the 6502 so successful it achieved immortality and didn't need to evolve & reproduce to survive? If I can't have a 65000, how about at least a 6509 (that's a 6809 with non-ethic-joke instruction cycle times). mike k
matt@ucla-security.arpa (02/20/83)
From: Matthew Weinstein <matt@ucla-security.arpa> Perhaps one should examine the PDP-11, which is the older brother of the 6502, and seems to be the machine from whence the 6502 came. It appears that a VAX chip would roughly be a 65000. Comments? - Matt
bentson (02/21/83)
If the PDP-11 is the older brother of the 6502, then the younger sibling is an unfortunate mutation. There's some family resemblance I'll admit, but the non-orthogonality of the 6502 makes it a poor relation. Randy Bentson Colo State U - Comp Sci
edwards (02/22/83)
I share the feelings of disappointment that there was never a 16-bit 6502 descendant. The 6502 programming manual I have shows the "planned" extensions to the hardware to 16 bits, and MOSTEK did at one time plan to build a 6516 along those lines. My understanding is that it would have been very similar to the 6502 in instruction set, but with 16-bit architecture. My recollection of second-hand information and rumors is that they actually got started on the project but gave it up at some point. I don't recall the reasons. Dave Edwards ...!sdcvax!bmcg!edwards
bstempleton (02/24/83)
There were plans made several times to make a later generation 6502. Most notably, when atari was designing the 800, the commissioned a 6509 but it was not ready in time so the project was scrapped. Apple went the seperate hardware route with the apple three, and Commodore (which owns MOS which made the original 6502, although Chuck Peddle, the guy who drew up the original chip how has is own company Sirius Microsystems that makes the Victor) have a few chips that can address more memory and that is it. I don't know if a new one will ever really come about.
newman (02/26/83)
Regarding the short-lived 6516 processor, I recall seeing an article in Byte some time ago comparing it to some other processor (forget which), and even going as far as giving timing comparisons! Evidently they must have been pretty far down the road before they gave up. Anybody know why?