7 ms·

Chuck Peddle Dies at 82; His $25 Chip Helped Start the PC Age

272 points by i_am_not_elon 7y ago

dekhn 7y ago
The 6502 in my Apple IIe was a great learning experience until I fried it trying to generate an NMI. Had to spend $$$ to replace/fix it to the 65c02. I really liked that there were some many useful technical resoures. Things that bothered me then that still bother me now: the Apple's horrible hi res graphics memory mapping/color implementation, which made it really hard for an inexperienced developer to do high speed line graphics.
dang 7y ago
Also discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21847718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21847718. I feel like it's fine to have two.
emcrazyone 7y ago
If anyone is interested in the 6502 and its history, this YouTuber does a fantastic job covering the history. Some of his videos include past employees of MOS & Commodore employees. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP9y_7it3ZM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP9y_7it3ZM
- unwind 7y ago
  Just to save subscribers the click; yes it's a link to The 8-Bit Guy.
SilasX 7y ago
FYI, I think that $25 6502 chip they refer to was released in 1975, and according to this site[1], $25 then would be ~$120 today. [1] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  And $25 was an order of magnitude cheaper than the available alternatives.
  - protomyth 7y ago
    The 6800 was a $300 chip for comparison. [edit]the original Apple I was $666.66, which tells you how much the 6502 made it possible.[/edit]
- retrac 7y ago
  The price fell precipitously over just a few years, too. By 1978 it was going for about $8 ($31 today) for large quantities, and by 1981 you could purchase them for $4 ($15 today) individually and well under $3 in bulk.
retrac 7y ago
I don't wish to detract from Chuck Peddle's work, because the 6502 really is an amazingly efficient and elegant design. But I've always felt the microprocessor has been overstated in its importance in the computer revolution. Throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s, memory was usually considerably more expensive than the CPU, for all kinds of computer system. The majority cost in mainframes, minis and embedded machines alike was the core memory. Early semiconductor RAM was even more expensive than core! It was possible to design a simple CPU in the early 70s using a few dozen SSI/MSI chips, and a board with such a CPU could have been done in less than 30x30 cm. Indeed, that's basically a description of the numerous low-end MSI-based minicomputers of the 70s. The cost of such a design would have been in the same ballpark as many of the early single-chip microprocessors released in '74 and '75 before the 6502. But what use would such a processor be, whether discrete or a single-chip microprocessor, without memory? A mere 4 kilobytes of DRAM in 1973 would have cost over $1000, and a useful general-purpose computer really needs more like 8 or 16 KB to host an assembler and disk-operating system. By late 1978, the cost of 4 KB of semiconductor DRAM fell to $60. By 1983 a mere $2. In many ways, that was the true revolutionary technology. Even if no one had thought of microprocessors, and even if advances in CPU speeds had petered out, a minicomputer with 2 MB of RAM is an entirely different kind of beast from one with only 4 or 8 kilobytes.
- walrus01 7y ago
  For comparison of costs and dollar figures, $1000 was a huge amount in 1973. I recently did the inflation math on a 1978 advertisement for a $699 TRS-80 bundle (with cassette tape drive!), adjusted for today it would be equivalent to almost $2800, enough to build a really powerful gaming desktop.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  The 6502 was an enabler if there ever was one. Yes, memory was expensive. But we used only a very small fraction of what we think of as normal today. A typical system would have 2K ram; maybe 4K and if you were rich you'd splurge for the 16K upgrade (but what would you do with so much memory?). In comparision, the 6800 sold for a large multiple of the 6502, and Motorola wouldn't have slashed their prices if not for the 6502. Peddle & Co showed that a CPU did not have to be expensive and that was a game changer. A whole generation of 8 bit machines depended on it: VIC-20, CBM 64, Atari, Acorn Atom, BBC Micro, Apple I, Apple II. None of those would have happened without an affordable CPU to power them. Very few chips can claim such a distinguished legacy, and without showing the market potential for this 'personal computer' thing IBM might not have entered the game at all. Visicalc (which required 32K!) was the breakthrough moment.
bane 7y ago
Fun fact, you can still buy new 6502 hardware from William Mensch's company. The elegance and simplicity of the core makes it virtually embedded computing "dust" in almost everything we use. http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/ http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/
- LIV2 7y ago
  For those who want to build a new system around the 65C02 there's plenty of information to get you started here: http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/potpourri.html http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/potpourri.html A bunch of people are still building new systems with modern twists, fixing old ones and writing software. forum.6502.org has been an invaluable resource for me building my own machine
  - tpmx 7y ago
    Thank you so much for this! This guy's site is a goldmine. Going up one level on that site: http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/ http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/ I've been fiddling with a 65C02 over the past month. This is exactly the kind of information resource I've been looking for!
    - LIV2 7y ago
      Doh! That's a better link :) It's certainly rewarding and interesting to design the hardware and then write the software in Assembly, and helps understand how simple operating systems work.
      - tpmx 7y ago
        I submitted this link as a post just now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21892123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21892123
rbobby 7y ago
The 6502 changed my life by really hooking me on computers. Got my first professional gig (fixing a bug in a truck driving simulator using Commodore PET Basic) that paid in a pizza outing. An interesting feature of the 6502 was that memory between 0 and 255 was the fastest to access (literally twice as fast). Apple Basic's "GetNextToken" routine lived somewhere below 255 just for the speed advantage (might have been Commodore's Basic). Another interesting feature was that the 6502 instruction set did not include 16 bit add/subtract nor any sort of multiply/divide. Add/subtract are easy enough but efficient multiply/divide is "weird". I once interviewed for an assembly level programming job for the Z80 cpu (they were building a weird APL variant). The tech interviewer wanted to see me read some 6502 assembly from just the byte code. I was flummoxed and explained I could only do it with a disassembler. One of my earliest tech interview failures :) Thanks Chuck!
- timbit42 7y ago
  If by "Apple Basic" you mean Applesoft BASIC, it and Commodore BASIC were both based on Microsoft's 6502 BASIC so they would both likely have the same routine.
  - rbobby 7y ago
    > Applesoft BASIC Lol. A purist among us sinners :) But yes, Applesoft BASIC. I never saw an Apple ] (heheheh) only an Apple ][.
    - joezydeco 7y ago
      Purists wrote in Woz’s Integer BASIC! Microsoft’s version came on a cassette in the early Apple ][ days.
  - chillingeffect 7y ago
    Yeah I just happen to have been hacking on Microsoft BASIC over the last two weeks and stumbled on it. Here is its disassembly. Self-modifying, looks for colons and spaces: > (C:$00b7) d 73 > .C:0073 E6 7A INC $7A > .C:0075 D0 02 BNE $0079 > .C:0077 E6 7B INC $7B > .C:0079 AD 00 08 LDA $0800 > .C:007c C9 3A CMP #$3A > .C:007e B0 0A BCS $008A > .C:0080 C9 20 CMP #$20 > .C:0082 F0 EF BEQ $0073 > .C:0084 38 SEC >.C:0085 E9 30 SBC #$30 >.C:0087 38 SEC >.C:0088 E9 D0 SBC #$D0 >.C:008a 60 RTS
sys_64738 7y ago
Probably the greatest chip designer of all time.
zxcvgm 7y ago
The Amp Hour podcast had Chuck Peddle as a guest a few years back. Definitely worth listening to. https://theamphour.com/241-an-interview-with-chuck-peddle-charismatic-chipmaking-coryphaeus/ https://theamphour.com/241-an-interview-with-chuck-peddle-ch...
known 7y ago
https://www.team6502.org/ https://www.team6502.org/
cadence- 7y ago
Here is an amazing video on how to build a computer based on 6502 on a breadboard, and program it in binary to get a Hello World equivalent. I highly recommend it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LnzuMJLZRdU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LnzuMJLZRdU
russellbeattie 7y ago
I think HN definitely needs an obituaries section. I'm really not kidding.
pravda 7y ago
>Virtually all of the early, successful, mass-market personal computers were built around the 6502 Except for the TRS-80! And that's a big except. :-) Now that I think about it, the only mass-market PCs using the 6502 that I can think of were the Apple and the Commodore. And I suspect the TRS-80 outsold both of them together.

272 points by i_am_not_elon 7y ago

The 6502 in my Apple IIe was a great learning experience until I fried it trying to generate an NMI. Had to spend $$$ to replace/fix it to the 65c02. I really liked that there were some many useful technical resoures. Things that bothered me then that still bother me now: the Apple's horrible hi res graphics memory mapping/color implementation, which made it really hard for an inexperienced developer to do high speed line graphics.

dang 7y ago

Also discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21847718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21847718. I feel like it's fine to have two.

emcrazyone 7y ago

If anyone is interested in the 6502 and its history, this YouTuber does a fantastic job covering the history. Some of his videos include past employees of MOS & Commodore employees. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP9y_7it3ZM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP9y_7it3ZM

unwind 7y ago
Just to save subscribers the click; yes it's a link to The 8-Bit Guy.

SilasX 7y ago

FYI, I think that $25 6502 chip they refer to was released in 1975, and according to this site[1], $25 then would be ~$120 today. [1] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

newnewpdro 7y ago
And $25 was an order of magnitude cheaper than the available alternatives.
- protomyth 7y ago
  The 6800 was a $300 chip for comparison. [edit]the original Apple I was $666.66, which tells you how much the 6502 made it possible.[/edit]
retrac 7y ago
The price fell precipitously over just a few years, too. By 1978 it was going for about $8 ($31 today) for large quantities, and by 1981 you could purchase them for $4 ($15 today) individually and well under $3 in bulk.

retrac 7y ago

I don't wish to detract from Chuck Peddle's work, because the 6502 really is an amazingly efficient and elegant design. But I've always felt the microprocessor has been overstated in its importance in the computer revolution. Throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s, memory was usually considerably more expensive than the CPU, for all kinds of computer system. The majority cost in mainframes, minis and embedded machines alike was the core memory. Early semiconductor RAM was even more expensive than core! It was possible to design a simple CPU in the early 70s using a few dozen SSI/MSI chips, and a board with such a CPU could have been done in less than 30x30 cm. Indeed, that's basically a description of the numerous low-end MSI-based minicomputers of the 70s. The cost of such a design would have been in the same ballpark as many of the early single-chip microprocessors released in '74 and '75 before the 6502. But what use would such a processor be, whether discrete or a single-chip microprocessor, without memory? A mere 4 kilobytes of DRAM in 1973 would have cost over $1000, and a useful general-purpose computer really needs more like 8 or 16 KB to host an assembler and disk-operating system. By late 1978, the cost of 4 KB of semiconductor DRAM fell to $60. By 1983 a mere $2. In many ways, that was the true revolutionary technology. Even if no one had thought of microprocessors, and even if advances in CPU speeds had petered out, a minicomputer with 2 MB of RAM is an entirely different kind of beast from one with only 4 or 8 kilobytes.

walrus01 7y ago
For comparison of costs and dollar figures, $1000 was a huge amount in 1973. I recently did the inflation math on a 1978 advertisement for a $699 TRS-80 bundle (with cassette tape drive!), adjusted for today it would be equivalent to almost $2800, enough to build a really powerful gaming desktop.
jacquesm 7y ago
The 6502 was an enabler if there ever was one. Yes, memory was expensive. But we used only a very small fraction of what we think of as normal today. A typical system would have 2K ram; maybe 4K and if you were rich you'd splurge for the 16K upgrade (but what would you do with so much memory?). In comparision, the 6800 sold for a large multiple of the 6502, and Motorola wouldn't have slashed their prices if not for the 6502. Peddle & Co showed that a CPU did not have to be expensive and that was a game changer. A whole generation of 8 bit machines depended on it: VIC-20, CBM 64, Atari, Acorn Atom, BBC Micro, Apple I, Apple II. None of those would have happened without an affordable CPU to power them. Very few chips can claim such a distinguished legacy, and without showing the market potential for this 'personal computer' thing IBM might not have entered the game at all. Visicalc (which required 32K!) was the breakthrough moment.

bane 7y ago

Fun fact, you can still buy new 6502 hardware from William Mensch's company. The elegance and simplicity of the core makes it virtually embedded computing "dust" in almost everything we use. http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/ http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/

LIV2 7y ago
For those who want to build a new system around the 65C02 there's plenty of information to get you started here: http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/potpourri.html http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/potpourri.html A bunch of people are still building new systems with modern twists, fixing old ones and writing software. forum.6502.org has been an invaluable resource for me building my own machine
- tpmx 7y ago
  Thank you so much for this! This guy's site is a goldmine. Going up one level on that site: http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/ http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/ I've been fiddling with a 65C02 over the past month. This is exactly the kind of information resource I've been looking for!
  - LIV2 7y ago
    Doh! That's a better link :) It's certainly rewarding and interesting to design the hardware and then write the software in Assembly, and helps understand how simple operating systems work.
    - tpmx 7y ago
      I submitted this link as a post just now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21892123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21892123

rbobby 7y ago

The 6502 changed my life by really hooking me on computers. Got my first professional gig (fixing a bug in a truck driving simulator using Commodore PET Basic) that paid in a pizza outing. An interesting feature of the 6502 was that memory between 0 and 255 was the fastest to access (literally twice as fast). Apple Basic's "GetNextToken" routine lived somewhere below 255 just for the speed advantage (might have been Commodore's Basic). Another interesting feature was that the 6502 instruction set did not include 16 bit add/subtract nor any sort of multiply/divide. Add/subtract are easy enough but efficient multiply/divide is "weird". I once interviewed for an assembly level programming job for the Z80 cpu (they were building a weird APL variant). The tech interviewer wanted to see me read some 6502 assembly from just the byte code. I was flummoxed and explained I could only do it with a disassembler. One of my earliest tech interview failures :) Thanks Chuck!

timbit42 7y ago
If by "Apple Basic" you mean Applesoft BASIC, it and Commodore BASIC were both based on Microsoft's 6502 BASIC so they would both likely have the same routine.
- rbobby 7y ago
  > Applesoft BASIC Lol. A purist among us sinners :) But yes, Applesoft BASIC. I never saw an Apple ] (heheheh) only an Apple ][.
  - joezydeco 7y ago
    Purists wrote in Woz’s Integer BASIC! Microsoft’s version came on a cassette in the early Apple ][ days.
- chillingeffect 7y ago
  Yeah I just happen to have been hacking on Microsoft BASIC over the last two weeks and stumbled on it. Here is its disassembly. Self-modifying, looks for colons and spaces: > (C:$00b7) d 73 > .C:0073 E6 7A INC $7A > .C:0075 D0 02 BNE $0079 > .C:0077 E6 7B INC $7B > .C:0079 AD 00 08 LDA $0800 > .C:007c C9 3A CMP #$3A > .C:007e B0 0A BCS $008A > .C:0080 C9 20 CMP #$20 > .C:0082 F0 EF BEQ $0073 > .C:0084 38 SEC >.C:0085 E9 30 SBC #$30 >.C:0087 38 SEC >.C:0088 E9 D0 SBC #$D0 >.C:008a 60 RTS

sys_64738 7y ago

Probably the greatest chip designer of all time.

zxcvgm 7y ago

The Amp Hour podcast had Chuck Peddle as a guest a few years back. Definitely worth listening to. https://theamphour.com/241-an-interview-with-chuck-peddle-charismatic-chipmaking-coryphaeus/ https://theamphour.com/241-an-interview-with-chuck-peddle-ch...

known 7y ago

https://www.team6502.org/ https://www.team6502.org/

cadence- 7y ago

Here is an amazing video on how to build a computer based on 6502 on a breadboard, and program it in binary to get a Hello World equivalent. I highly recommend it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LnzuMJLZRdU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LnzuMJLZRdU

russellbeattie 7y ago

I think HN definitely needs an obituaries section. I'm really not kidding.

pravda 7y ago

>Virtually all of the early, successful, mass-market personal computers were built around the 6502 Except for the TRS-80! And that's a big except. :-) Now that I think about it, the only mass-market PCs using the 6502 that I can think of were the Apple and the Commodore. And I suspect the TRS-80 outsold both of them together.