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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