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I started as a teenager coding 6502 assembly on a Vic20. The three letter opcodes definitely made my code look beautiful. Z80 assembly a few years later was a

I started as a teenager coding 6502 assembly on a Vic20. The three letter opcodes definitely made my code look beautiful. Z80 assembly a few years later was a real disappointment. No doubt the instruction set was more powerful. But the code always looked ugly to me. I've never forgotten my love for 6502 assembly. My mobile number ends with the 4 digits '6502'. <3

kbmunchkin 5y ago
That's a cool mobile number! Was it intentional?
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  Almost as cool is the P.O. Box that Mitch Bradley coincidentally obtained for his Forth company: Mitch Bradley Bradley Forthware P.O. Box 4444 Mountain View, CA 94040 https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.forth/c/cAFn_jDDu50/m/qeWZhkmnfpsJ https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.forth/c/cAFn_jDDu50/m/... >Mitch swears the PO box number was totally coincidental!
  - andi999 5y ago
    Does he have problems with Asian customers? (4 is the unlucky number)
- stevesimmons 5y ago
  Yep! I was buying a special mobile number for my partner, and spotted the 6502 one. What makes my number extra special (to me) is it is "06 <year of birth> 6502".
DonHopkins 5y ago
Exactly! Z80 code always looked "rough" to me, like its opcodes generated more friction while sliding through the CPU. I don't have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I just think of it as Obsessive Compulsive Order. Even though all its opcodes weren't 3 characters, the PowerPC really appeals to me as a clean, powerful, orthogonal, crystalline clear instruction set. I always visualized the PowerPC as Superman's Fortress of Solitude, the ice crystal palace with all the crisp 90 degree angles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_of_Solitude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_of_Solitude
vidarh 5y ago
I started with the C64, and moved to an Amiga, and it felt effortless to move from the 6502 to a 68k. When I years later for the first time sat down with x86 asm it immediately motivated me to stop programming assembler. Despite being incredibly dissimilar, the relative regularity of the 6502 and 68k felt familiar - a small set of rules and patterns flowed naturally into implementing quite complex code in a way it didn't on the x86. It's remarkable how much those things matters.

kbmunchkin 5y ago

That's a cool mobile number! Was it intentional?

DonHopkins 5y ago
Almost as cool is the P.O. Box that Mitch Bradley coincidentally obtained for his Forth company: Mitch Bradley Bradley Forthware P.O. Box 4444 Mountain View, CA 94040 https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.forth/c/cAFn_jDDu50/m/qeWZhkmnfpsJ https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.forth/c/cAFn_jDDu50/m/... >Mitch swears the PO box number was totally coincidental!
- andi999 5y ago
  Does he have problems with Asian customers? (4 is the unlucky number)
stevesimmons 5y ago
Yep! I was buying a special mobile number for my partner, and spotted the 6502 one. What makes my number extra special (to me) is it is "06 <year of birth> 6502".

DonHopkins 5y ago

Exactly! Z80 code always looked "rough" to me, like its opcodes generated more friction while sliding through the CPU. I don't have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I just think of it as Obsessive Compulsive Order. Even though all its opcodes weren't 3 characters, the PowerPC really appeals to me as a clean, powerful, orthogonal, crystalline clear instruction set. I always visualized the PowerPC as Superman's Fortress of Solitude, the ice crystal palace with all the crisp 90 degree angles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_of_Solitude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_of_Solitude

vidarh 5y ago

I started with the C64, and moved to an Amiga, and it felt effortless to move from the 6502 to a 68k. When I years later for the first time sat down with x86 asm it immediately motivated me to stop programming assembler. Despite being incredibly dissimilar, the relative regularity of the 6502 and 68k felt familiar - a small set of rules and patterns flowed naturally into implementing quite complex code in a way it didn't on the x86. It's remarkable how much those things matters.