Monday 9 February 2015

Day 115, chip chat



Not the back of magazine comedy piece from defunct computer mag PCW.  But a picture of some 6502 (six five oh two to you and me) CPU chips along with a couple of support chips (BCD to Decimal Decoders).



These 2MHz CPUs were stalwarts in the 1970s/80s home computer revolution, alongside the slightly faster clock speed Z80 CPU.

Apple ][, BBC, and Atari all used the 6502 alongside a host of other machines.

The first computer I used had one of these in.  The machine was a Kim 1.  Our physics teacher revealed this mighty calculating colossus in a lesson one day.  It was in a hand made wooden box (someone was a dab hand at cabinet making) and the top was covered in a sheet of perspex with a square hole cut out to allow access to the hexadecimal keypad.  The display was less useful to a human than an ordinary pocket calculator as it consisted of six 7 segment LED modules which showed the hex output.

Anyway, it was fascinating.

I might build one later.

















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