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I think one of the values 6502 provides is that it has so many retro platforms. Apple ][, NES, Atari 2600, BBC, C64, they all use 6502. If you want to do someth
by markus_zhang 2y ago
I think one of the values 6502 provides is that it has so many retro platforms. Apple ][, NES, Atari 2600, BBC, C64, they all use 6502. If you want to do something cool retro stuffs that a lot of people today still enjoy, that's the best bet.
But again Z80 looks like a very good option too because it has GB/GBC plus ZX Spectrum. The same goes to 68K -- Mac 68K, Sega Genesis and Neogeo are popular hits.
When I was writing my reply to another question (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42891200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42891200), I was thinking about a new software engineering education system which starts from a retro platform and goes up from there. Maybe all three can fit the bill. I'm very much against the "elegant/pure" way of teaching.
BTW totally agree 6502 essentially has 3 registers. You don't get to touch the others.
- Keyframe 2y agoIf you want to do something cool retro stuffs that a lot of people today still enjoy, that's the best bet. This shouldn't be discounted, since it has great pedagogical value in itself. On the other hand, personal opinion here, is that not many things are transferable to modern ISAs. Even back in the 90's, we were shown to work on MIPS instead. 68k is very nice to read and write, almost feels like higher language, but overall ROI for newer stuff is maybe just jump into Neon, x86_64, or as someone said RV directly. It's not _THAT_ hard. It gets complex as programs grow though.
- markus_zhang 2y agoYeah maybe jumping directly into x86-64 is not a bad idea. e.g. for Windows just have to understand the calling conventions and syscalls and such, to push some windows. I need to look into my SDL2/C++ game's assembly code and see how it is done.