Re: Past Blast - "Wonder Woman 1984" - Corp Guy Using PET

On 4/5/25 8:53 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 06/04/2025 01:14, Robert Riches wrote:

On 2025-04-05, c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:

...
>
    I still see debate over whether the 6502 was 'better'
    than the 6809. The 6502 was envisioned as the 'improved'
    6809 by the Motorola defectors - and in some ways was.
    However they also left out some registers that were
    convenient to compiler writers. So, no verdict.

>
I don't have chapter and verse to quote, but back in the day I
was told that the original design of the 6502 _WAS_ superior to
the 6809, but Motorola sued on a basis of IP theft or similar,
and the 6502 was dumbed down by removing registers and/or
crippling the indexing modes.  One of the first things that
struck me about the 6502's indexing and other addressing modes
was that it looked/smelled crippled.
>
Around 1980 or so, I had a short assembly program for 6502.  It
may have been a college assignment.  Just for fun, I rewrote it
for 6800 and then for 6809.  Then, I counted the number of
instructions in all three versions.  The 6800 version used 2/3
the number of instructions as the 6502 version.  The 6809 version
used half of the instructions of the 6502 version.
>

...but the 6502 ran faster

   But the 6809 ran *easier*   :-)
   Six/half-dozen .........
   Then the wonderful 68000s ... but they could never
   make enough, fast enough, cheap enough ......
   SOMEWHERE Mighty Mo just LOST it. Wasn't the hardware
   people ... but, so typical, "management".
   68xxx compatibles ARE still made and used - look
   on Mouser or DigiKey. Not under the Motorola name
   anymore of course. Still very useful for some
   'devices', esp printers.