top | item 38076407

(no title)

cameroncooper | 2 years ago

Fun fact, the Apple 1 could also use a Motorola 6800 CPU

discuss

order

PopePompus|2 years ago

I thought litigation or the threat of litigation resulted in the 6502 not being pin compatible with the 6800. How did the Apple 1 get around that?

cameroncooper|2 years ago

The 6501 was pin compatible with the 6800, but had its own instruction set. After the lawsuit, the pins changed and we got the 6502. This meant that if you enabled 6800 support on the Apple 1 you could drop in a 6501 and use it with software made for the 6502. If you were really ambitious you could use a 6800 but then you'd have to write a new monitor ROM. There's no evidence that this was done at the time, but about 10 years ago someone did it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag6pWUhps7U

duskwuff|2 years ago

The 6800 wasn't a drop-in replacement on the Apple 1. Installing one required some hardware modifications to the board. (It's unclear if anyone who owned one ever did this.)

gumby|2 years ago

In this case that fact really is fun!