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Interview with 6502 engineer Bill Mensch — Parallax Forums

Interview with 6502 engineer Bill Mensch

potatoheadpotatohead Posts: 10,261
edited 2015-11-26 19:57 in General Discussion
http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-96-bill-mensch-6502-chip

This is a pretty great interview containing a lot of history and philosophy related to the 6502. Near the end, Bill presents some interesting vision and "what if?" kinds of discussion related to 10Ghz 6502 65816 cores running on modern processes and what that might mean for embedded, real time apps in the future.

6502 forever! :)

Bill seems like an interesting guy, and is fun to listen to.

Enjoy
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Comments

  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    Anybody interested in the history of computers needs to listen to this.
  • lardomlardom Posts: 1,659
    There was a time when I thought the top genius on the planet was Steve Wozniak. I considered Steve Jobs to be 'just' a salesman.
    'Woz' would have to 'tip his hat' to Mensch. Thanks for the link.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    The Woz is a clever chap.

    But I don't see anything particularly brilliant in those early Mac over what was going on with dozens of other Micro Processor based designs at the time.

    Of course it's usual that one product grabs the public's attention and one man gets all the fame. In some circles it's pretty much accepted that Bill Gates invented the computer now a days.

    All this casts all the thousands of other clever chaps who made things possible into the shadows of obscurity.

    Had you asked me at the time, and perhaps if you ask me now, I would have said the top genius on the planet was Richard Feynman.

    Then there is John Tukey whose genius made many things we like to do with computers even possible.





  • ctwardellctwardell Posts: 1,716
    I listened last night, it's a good interview.

    That 10Ghz 6502 concept he mentions would be fun to play with.

    C.W.

  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    And don't forget, if there were no 6502 it's quite possible that Acorn and it's Atom and BBC micro-computers would not have existed and hence there would be no ARM. Progress in mobile devices would have taken longer.

    The ARM design philosophy was also influenced by that of the 6502.




  • potatoheadpotatohead Posts: 10,261
    Feynman was a genius. People can get a notch smarter just listening to him and watching him. Amazing guy. One heck of a character too!

    As for the others, they too are genius level people. There are different kinds.

    And there are some people who somehow can maximize that aspect of who they are. I call them potent.

    Woz, Feynman, Jobs, Mensch, etc... were all genius smart, but also potent. There are a lot of potent people, who aren't so smart. Think, Tony Robbins, "you can't have what you want, until you visualize precisely what it is..." selling success snake oil. And there are super smart people, who aren't all that potent, toiling away making the world go round, solving problems, etc... and nobody even knows who they are.

    Multiple axis of "personae" involved here. At least, that's my take on it all.
  • rod1963rod1963 Posts: 752
    All Woz and the Mac designers did, was take the GUI ideas developed by Xerox PARC and use them for the Mac. The guys at PARC were the real brains, they just had noidea what they had in their hands.

    What Jobs did do differently at the time was target ordinary people and schools as opposed to catering to professionals.


  • potatoheadpotatohead Posts: 10,261
    Actually, Woz didn't take much from Xerox at all. The Apple 2 took inspiration from the growing realization that home computers were going to be high value.

    It is entirely true that Jobs did incorporate what he saw into the Mac. And it's also true that Gates incorporated a lot of that, by helping develop the Lisa, into Windows too.

    We all got the benefit of that, and had it all stayed locked up at PARC, things may look very different today. I'm happy. And they all mooched from one another fair enough. No worries.

  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    rod1963,

    That's not how I remember it. Correct me if I am wrong...

    Woz was the man for the 8 bit Apple machines. There was no Xerox PARC stuff in there when Apple took off.

    Then came the Motorola 68000 based Apple Lisa, with its PARC inspired GUI. I'm not sure if The Woz had any input on that. I'd love to know.

    The Lisa was not targeted at ordinary people or schools. It cost more than my first years salary as an engineer at the time!

    The Lisa went off the market very quickly, what with being so expensive and notoriously unreliable.

    Then came the Mac. A cut down Lisa. Again not targeted at ordinary people or schools, it was still terrible expensive.

    In fact, my experience is than only rich yuppies and professionals bought Macs. Maybe it was different over in the USA.

    Which is why the IBM PC and Windows took over the world, ordinary people and schools could at least hope to afford that.

    I do agree though, Douglas Engelbart, Martin Richards and many others that made the Xerox PARC stuff possible are hardly known.











  • RDL2004RDL2004 Posts: 2,554
    Heater. wrote: »
    ...
    In fact, my experience is than only rich yuppies and professionals bought Macs.
    ...
    I do agree though, Douglas Engelbart, Martin Richards and many others that made the Xerox PARC stuff possible are hardly known.

    I have the same view of Apple in general. Seems to still be the case mostly.


    Here's a good book about Xerox PARC. Try to find a cheap, used copy if you've never read it.


    http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer/dp/0887309895



  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    There are a lot of videos to be found on You Tube about Xerox PARC and what they got up to there.

    All good stuff.
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    I recall reading somewhere that the only one of Woz's innovations which made it to the first generation Mac was the innovatively simple floppy disc controller he invented for the Apple ][.
  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,185
    Yes as a matter of fact.

    Oddly enough I got my start in programming on the Apple 2. Then moved to the PC. Now we've got the Parallax gang and the Pi.....
    ----
    Erco, what's your wandering robot doing in Chicago watching the river?
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    rod1963 wrote: »
    All Woz and the Mac designers did, was take the GUI ideas developed by Xerox PARC and use them for the Mac. The guys at PARC were the real brains, they just had noidea what they had in their hands.

    What Jobs did do differently at the time was target ordinary people and schools as opposed to catering to professionals.


    Agree 100%. Could not believe that Apple would have the nerve to try patenting the ideas Xerox PARC came up with years later. That attempt certainly changed my opinion of Apple.
  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    Interesting interview. Listening to Mr. Mensch reminds me of someone near and dear to us.

    The Mensch Computer from the Western Design Center website sounds like a familiar goal many of us appreciate:
    The Mensch Computer is a reference design using WDC chips. We provide a FREE, digital form of the W65C265 Develop Board in our PCB Design Kits. For the individual who loves the legacy of the 65xx technology line of products this system displays some of the numerous possibilities of the technology. To program this marvel means to program without limitations. There is no operating system but instead firmware allows quick access to memory and registers, and internal working reference libraries show how to program the hardware. Call the internal functions, or program your own. Use the ROM monitor to jump to your applications or use a timer to create a multitasking operating system. With the Mensch Computer, you′re the boss.
  • MikeDYurMikeDYur Posts: 2,176
    I have owned both the Atari 880XL and the Commador PET, will something like this be enough to satisfy the nostalgiac cravings?

    http://www.cnet.com/products/commodore-pet/
  • MikeDYurMikeDYur Posts: 2,176
    My first real home computer.

    PET Computer.jpg
    961 x 671 - 72K
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    Man you were a rich kid!

    I once got the chance to use a PET in technical school. We made a lunar lander game!



  • MikeDYurMikeDYur Posts: 2,176
    Heater. wrote: »
    Man you were a rich kid!

    I once got the chance to use a PET in technical school. We made a lunar lander game!



    My father helped quite a bit, he didn't understand it, I guess he thought there are worse things I could be doing.

    I had a lunar lander game, great game. Could it be that one?
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    Yep, give the kids a computer and they soon forget to go out chasing girls, getting drunk with their mates and taking drugs.

    Thing was, I had already graduated from uni. The first company I worked for decided to send us grads to a technical school to learn something about real production engineering. One part of that was a very basic computing course (Excuse the pun). We were very bored so we made a lander game on the PET.

    Pretty sure that is not the one you had, unless one of my mates took it further....


  • MikeDYurMikeDYur Posts: 2,176
    I remember having a subscription to a sort of magazine on cassette, it had four or five games and apps in each addition. I also remember the magazine didn't fulfill their commitment, two or thee issues.
  • MikeDYurMikeDYur Posts: 2,176
    I had one of the first machines that had a problem writing to cassette, getting support was really slow, it was the lower memory model, cost around $800.00 + tax, I remember some other option bumping that up. The keyboard was hard to get used to, after typing in a couple of games from magazines, the later models with a full size keyboard were nice. How many models did they have? Looking on the right of the stickers on my example and the other two below.

    I remember having one of these in black, what a deal hundred dollars plus tax.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_ZX80
    Screenshot_2015-12-01-17-13-09.png
    1280 x 720 - 267K
    Screenshot_2015-12-01-17-14-05.png
    1280 x 720 - 382K
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    Yeah, round about that time 800 dollars was about what I had to live off as a student for a year (besides rent). It's about 30% of my first years salary as a graduate trainee engineer. We could only dream of PETs and later things like Intertec SuperBrains.

    As a result the first computer I ever owned was a 6809 board with 2K RAM and a K or so of EPROM built from a kit. Programmed in hex. We built our own circuit to connect to a regular audio cassette recorder for storage. Ahh...those were the days :)



  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    Heater. wrote: »
    Yeah, round about that time 800 dollars was about what I had to live off as a student for a year (besides rent). It's about 30% of my first years salary as a graduate trainee engineer. We could only dream of PETs and later things like Intertec SuperBrains.

    As a result the first computer I ever owned was a 6809 board with 2K RAM and a K or so of EPROM built from a kit. Programmed in hex. We built our own circuit to connect to a regular audio cassette recorder for storage. Ahh...those were the days :)


    Do you still have the 6809 board? I'd love to find a retro kit that uses the 6809.

  • MikeDYurMikeDYur Posts: 2,176
    Heater. wrote: »
    Yeah, round about that time 800 dollars was about what I had to live off as a student for a year (besides rent). It's about 30% of my first years salary as a graduate trainee engineer. We could only dream of PETs and later things like Intertec SuperBrains.

    As a result the first computer I ever owned was a 6809 board with 2K RAM and a K or so of EPROM built from a kit. Programmed in hex. We built our own circuit to connect to a regular audio cassette recorder for storage. Ahh...those were the days :)




    I worked in a tv repair shop for a year and a half, and then a steelworker for four years, setting up a paper tape numerical control, twin vertical to horizontal milling machines. They were called Dual N/C Skid Machine's, what it was is cutting the tread design in tire mold blanks, Akron, Ohio it's what you do.
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    potatohead wrote:
    ... Near the end, Bill presents some interesting vision and "what if?" kinds of discussion related to 10Ghz 6502 65816 cores running on modern processes and what that might mean for embedded, real time apps in the future.
    Such musings are largely academic, as the costs of those leading edge mask sets, are not compatible with the vast majority of 8 bit MCU embedded, real time apps.
    I know Intel still use the 8051 internally, so whilst there likely are some very fast 8 bit MCUs running code, they are just buried in the corner of some larger chipset.
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    David Betz wrote: »
    Heater. wrote: »
    Yeah, round about that time 800 dollars was about what I had to live off as a student for a year (besides rent). It's about 30% of my first years salary as a graduate trainee engineer. We could only dream of PETs and later things like Intertec SuperBrains.

    As a result the first computer I ever owned was a 6809 board with 2K RAM and a K or so of EPROM built from a kit. Programmed in hex. We built our own circuit to connect to a regular audio cassette recorder for storage. Ahh...those were the days :)


    Do you still have the 6809 board? I'd love to find a retro kit that uses the 6809.

    How about a COCO2 or 3:

    http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=Tandy+color+computer&_sop=16&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR7.TRC2.A0.H0.XTandy+color+computer+2.TRS1&_nkw=Tandy+color+computer+2&_sacat=0

    I have the disk based assembler for that machine that I have been wanting to see if it still reads.

    I also have the 6809 based Heathkit trainer:

    http://www.vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=553

    It's hard to find the 6809 variant. It started life as a 6800.


  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    Publison wrote: »
    David Betz wrote: »
    Heater. wrote: »
    Yeah, round about that time 800 dollars was about what I had to live off as a student for a year (besides rent). It's about 30% of my first years salary as a graduate trainee engineer. We could only dream of PETs and later things like Intertec SuperBrains.

    As a result the first computer I ever owned was a 6809 board with 2K RAM and a K or so of EPROM built from a kit. Programmed in hex. We built our own circuit to connect to a regular audio cassette recorder for storage. Ahh...those were the days :)


    Do you still have the 6809 board? I'd love to find a retro kit that uses the 6809.

    How about a COCO2 or 3:

    http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=Tandy+color+computer&_sop=16&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR7.TRC2.A0.H0.XTandy+color+computer+2.TRS1&_nkw=Tandy+color+computer+2&_sacat=0

    I have the disk based assembler for that machine that I have been wanting to see if it still reads.

    I also have the 6809 based Heathkit trainer:

    http://www.vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=553

    It's hard to find the 6809 variant. It started life as a 6800.

    The Coco3 would be okay since it has a composite output. The Coco2 does not and I don't think it's that easy to add. I have the Heathkit 6800 trainer. Is it possible to upgrade it to a 6809? They aren't pin compatible are they?

  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    David Betz wrote: »
    Publison wrote: »
    David Betz wrote: »
    Heater. wrote: »
    Yeah, round about that time 800 dollars was about what I had to live off as a student for a year (besides rent). It's about 30% of my first years salary as a graduate trainee engineer. We could only dream of PETs and later things like Intertec SuperBrains.

    As a result the first computer I ever owned was a 6809 board with 2K RAM and a K or so of EPROM built from a kit. Programmed in hex. We built our own circuit to connect to a regular audio cassette recorder for storage. Ahh...those were the days :)


    Do you still have the 6809 board? I'd love to find a retro kit that uses the 6809.

    How about a COCO2 or 3:

    http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=Tandy+color+computer&_sop=16&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR7.TRC2.A0.H0.XTandy+color+computer+2.TRS1&_nkw=Tandy+color+computer+2&_sacat=0

    I have the disk based assembler for that machine that I have been wanting to see if it still reads.

    I also have the 6809 based Heathkit trainer:

    http://www.vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=553

    It's hard to find the 6809 variant. It started life as a 6800.

    The Coco3 would be okay since it has a composite output. The Coco2 does not and I don't think it's that easy to add. I have the Heathkit 6800 trainer. Is it possible to upgrade it to a 6809? They aren't pin compatible are they?

    The 6809 was on a board that took the place of the 6800/6802. I'll take a picture of it tomorrow.

    There was a guy on ebay that had a handful of them about 4 years ago, but I think they are dried up now.



  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    But keeping on topic, I still have my Sym-1, still working. :)

    http://www.oldcomputers.net/sym-1.html

    Along with two Motorola http://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/6800D2.html



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