3 ms·
Yup. Chuck Peddle (one of the guys largely responsible for the design of the 6502) did an oral history interview with the CHM (Computer History Museum in Mount
by dingosity 3y ago
Yup. Chuck Peddle (one of the guys largely responsible for the design of the 6502) did an oral history interview with the CHM (Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.) In it he discussed their design process. They thought the market for the 6502 was as a controller (cars, HVAC, instrumentation, etc.), not the CPU of a microcomputer. But then Tiny BASIC came along at exactly the right time and hid the messier 6502 design decisions (zero page, weird addressing modes, 256 byte stack, etc.) from a whole bunch of users.
So yes... BASIC is absolutely a contender for small systems. But so are MicroLisp and FORTH. Personally, I prefer Lisp, but completely agree Lisp's learning curve is waaay steeper than BASIC's. Same for FORTH.
Here's the video, btw: https://youtu.be/enHF9lMseP8?si=atmDesKCxN9eH_6R https://youtu.be/enHF9lMseP8?si=atmDesKCxN9eH_6R