!pr1
An Interesting Bit of Trivia........................Bill Parker

Some time ago I asked Bob S-C if he knew the origin of the term "6502".  Why was this particular number chosen?  Bob didn't know, but referred me to Bill Mensch at Western Design Center.

Bill worked at Motorola and was on the design team that created the 6800, which later led to the development of the 68000.  He left Motorola with a few others and formed MOS Technology (now absorbed into Commodore), where they developed a new micro- processor which was supposed to be an improved version of the 6800.  Hence the decision was made to use a number in the 6000 series.  As for the hundreds digit, Commodore already had chips that used just about every digit, except "5".  Thus, the "6500" series of chips was born.

As history tells us, the first chip in the series, the 6501, was too close to Motorola's design, and had to be revised.  The result was the 6502.
