[sdiy] IN your mind, what is ....

[Rainer Buchty]

> (Intel's emerging CPU family has a new architecture, the HP
> collaboration thing...)

You're talking about their coffin nail Itanium? Interestingly, Intel
starts to lose faith with that latest architectural offspring and recently
licensed AMD's x86-64 technology to be used in future Pentium/Xeon
families.

> If we are naming favorite vintage computer chips, I have got to mention the
> 6502. As the brain of the Apple ][, it helped to start the personal computer
> industry. Commodore and Atari also sold countless 6502-based machines. Also,
> as the brain of many arcade games, the 6502 helped me waste untold hours of
> my youth playing Asteroids and Tempest and Defender and on and on. I think
> those games were all powered by the sixty-five-oh-two.
>
> Admittedly, the 6502 was the first girl I ever kissed -- umm, I mean the
> first CPU that I programmed in machine language! -- so I've got a soft spot
> for it. Though it was no sophisticate, the '02 was hardworking and friendly,
> and we had many good times together. :-)

The thing which I still like most about the 6502 is that you can build
2-CPU systems from it so easily. Just clock them off 180° phase different
clocks and they will happily share the same system resources. The same
works for Motorola's 6800/9; that kind of multiprocessing was IIRC used in
the Fairlight CMI series I and II (to bring this somewhat on-topic again :)

Rainer