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More on the new 6502.......................Bob Sander-Cederlof

I talked for about 15 minutes this morning (Dec 16th) with Bill Mensch.  Bill used to work at Motorola, and was involved in the design of the original 6800 family there.  Chuck Peddle joined the group, and noticed opportunities others were overlooking.  Chuck and Bill decided to move to Pennsylvania, and with a few friends founded MOS Technology.  They designed and built the 6501 microprocessor, but someone said it looked too much like the 6800 for comfort.  Then came the 6502, leading to multiple millions of video games and personal computers.  Bill is now at his own design company (Western Design Systems).

Bill told me he designed all the various CMOS versions of the 6502.  Now he has designed the 65802 and 65816, CMOS versions with 16-bit registers and 16-megabyte address space.  And he is currently working on a 32-bit version!

You probably read about these new versions on page 64 of the December Softalk, or in recent issues of Infoworld or Electronic Design.  Elsewhere in Softalk you might also have noticed a box summarizing comments by Woz about plans for a new enhanced Apple //e with 16-megabyte capability.  There are probably still other manufacturers out there with boxes and sockets just waiting on the first of Bill's new chips!

I just wish I could convey on paper how excited I am about this new chip!  To me, it is as revolutionary as the original microprocessors were in their day.  I predict that the 65816 and its successors will prove to be more powerful than the 68008:  you will be able to write more compact code that runs faster, and build boards for less money that use less electricity.

With Bill's permission I am re-printing parts of his data sheet.  You can get the complete package by calling (602) 962-4545 or writing to Western Design Center, 2166 E. Brown Rd, Mesa, Arizona 85203.
