steveh@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (Steven Howell) (05/12/91)
Excellent. Glad to see so many responses concerning the 6502. Its obvious this chip is alive and well. Ok. Well, I have a slight problem that needs a little attention. We have been currently designing Computers and other equipment around our good ol 6502. Because we got into apples at an early date, my programmer soon mastered the apples 6502 as a tool for developing firmware for computers we build. However, the power of the equipment we build is now peaking out. We need more CPU processing power. We either have the option of going 68000, or employing a faster 6502. Better yet, get into the GS65C816. Getting into the 65816, was an option my programmer prefered. It would mean we could set up ourselves a GS system, and use it to develop firmware for our systems, and use the GS to experiment with new routines or procedures. I thought this would be the best option. But in Australia, the 65c816 is not readily available. What i am asking is information on the chip itself, like who, supplies it, how can i get it here, and how much does one cost. I would also like some feed back on our idea of employing the GS as a development tool. To date, most of our competitors have been 68000 oriented and i would need be assured that the 65c816 would be suitable replacement Anyway, if all goes well, we will set up a GS system,which will be used to write link Assemble and complie code, which will then be down loaded via a serial port to a ROM emulator, which would then reset and execute the code in our system. But the info i need,is basically on the 65c816, price, avalability, Package type and development software. thanks In Advance Steve h
ericmcg@pnet91.cts.com (Eric Mcgillicuddy) (05/13/91)
You can get a mac and MPWIIGS Asm and do development that way, but you would still need a real GS to test the stuff. Downloading to a 65816 protoboard could be possible, but why not just do it directly on a GS? ORCA/M is a very good Assembler and it has the ability to track opcode timing which might be neccessary for any real time work you do. The Macro library is quite good, but you will likely create your own macros anyhow. A big advantage of the 65816 is backwards compatibility with the 6502, this will make you marketting people happy since you can offer old versions in new hardware that still function identically (if somewhat faster). This also saves your programmer from rewriting everything, you can have both 6502 and 65816 code segements active in your applications (it is common for GS games to use prodos8 to boot 16 bit programs for instance). You might want to contact Allan ball in Australia (he does SSG's GS ports), he could be of more help as far as programming goes. The 65816 is second sourced to GTE by WDC (Western Design Centre) and I'm sure there are others (at least one Japanese since Nintendos are using it in Japan). Availability is good up to 7MHz, poor above that. Pricing fluctuates too much, but I've seen 4MHz for $12US (about a year ago). There is a company working on a clone, the ASIC '816. Theoretically it will run at 17MHz, but it is not shipping in quantity and testing is not completed yet, so..... Depending on what you ar edoing and what you want to do, the '816 makes for a very base and the GS (primarily a home computer) makes an adequate development platform. (mainly because of the slots which are identical to the IIe slots) Hope this convinces you. :) UUCP: bkj386!pnet91!ericmcg INET: ericmcg@pnet91.cts.com