Post by thread:Re [EE] Freescale quickstart.

>> Bring back the 6809 !!!! >> 'Nicest' processor ever built :-) >> And, as a bonus, no programming issues whatsoever. > to which, offlist, Ken Mardle said: I bought the 1st MC6809 ever sold in NZ and probably one of the 1st sold anywhere for use in my Master's Thesis project. It didn't arrive in time so I ended up using an MC6801 (or was in an MC6808) and the MC6809 went unused. Regrettably I seem to have lost it (that's not the same thing as saying I no longer have it :-). I have a copy of the data sheet that came with it - it is such an early revision that about half of the text is written on a typewriter with hand-annotated corrections and hand-drawn diagrams. The instruction set table is entirely hand-written. The chip itself was as I recall also hand-labelled. I agree with your sentiments re the instruction set - certainly one of the nicest and easiest to program in assembler and should have been very efficient for compiled high-level languages. Regards, Ken Mardle

I did many projects for MIT with the 68B09. I agree the instructions set was superb for an 8 bit engine. I still have MANY boards with the 09 on them left over. Russell McMahon wrote: >>>Bring back the 6809 !!!! >>>'Nicest' processor ever built :-) >>> >>> >>>And, as a bonus, no programming issues whatsoever. >>> Well.... yea, but... {Quote hidden}>>to which, offlist, Ken Mardle said: >> >> > >I bought the 1st MC6809 ever sold in NZ and probably one of the 1st >sold anywhere for use in my Master's Thesis project. It didn't arrive in >time so I ended up using an MC6801 (or was in an MC6808) and the MC6809 went >unused. > >Regrettably I seem to have lost it (that's not the same thing as >saying I no longer have it :-). > >I have a copy of the data sheet that came with it - it is such an >early revision that about half of the text is written on a typewriter with >hand-annotated corrections and hand-drawn diagrams. The instruction >set table is entirely hand-written. The chip itself was as I recall also >hand-labelled. > >I agree with your sentiments re the instruction set - certainly one >of the nicest and easiest to program in assembler and should have been very >efficient for compiled high-level languages. > >Regards, > >Ken Mardle > > Tom -- * | __O Thomas C. Sefranek spam_OUTWA1RHPTakeThisOuTARRL.net |_-\<,_ Amateur Radio Operator: WA1RHP (*)/ (*) Bicycle mobile on 145.41, 448.625 MHz hamradio.cmcorp.com/inventory/Inventory.html http://www.harvardrepeater.org

Much less impressive perhaps is that my microprocessors class, in 2005, still taught the 68HC11. -- Martin K Russell McMahon wrote: {Quote hidden}>>>Bring back the 6809 !!!! >>>'Nicest' processor ever built :-) >>> >>> > > > >>>And, as a bonus, no programming issues whatsoever. >>> >>> > > > >>to which, offlist, Ken Mardle said: >> >> > >I bought the 1st MC6809 ever sold in NZ and probably one of the 1st >sold >anywhere for use in my Master's Thesis project. It didn't arrive in >time so >I ended up using an MC6801 (or was in an MC6808) and the MC6809 went >unused. > >Regrettably I seem to have lost it (that's not the same thing as >saying I no >longer have it :-). > >I have a copy of the data sheet that came with it - it is such an >early >revision that about half of the text is written on a typewriter with >hand-annotated corrections and hand-drawn diagrams. The instruction >set >table is entirely hand-written. The chip itself was as I recall also >hand-labelled. > >I agree with your sentiments re the instruction set - certainly one >of the >nicest and easiest to program in assembler and should have been very >efficient for compiled high-level languages. > >Regards, > >Ken Mardle > > > -- Martin Klingensmith http://wwia.org/ http://nnytech.net/

Motorola used to have some actual TUTORIAL documents on some of their microcontrollers, for example this one on the (now obsolete) 68HC05: <http://www.freescale.com/files/microcontrollers/doc/ train_ref_material/MCUPDFNOTESTUT.pdf?srch=1> (alas, the online HTML version seems to have fallen apart) I *think* this is the same as the very nice binder of info I received with one of the $68.05 demo board kits a long time ago; IIRC, it seemed pretty good. I can't find anything similar for the 68hc08. Wasn't the HC12 line supposed to be the microcontroller version of the 6809? Or was that the hc16? The coldfire (32bit) chips are the logical followons to the 68000 series, which also had quite an elegant architecture. If I had to make a snap judgment, I'd say that Mot/freescale makes really good chips, but doesn't quite "get" the small processor embedded market. They'll "introduce" a line of chips with a matrix of neat features, some of which are unobtainium, and discontinue the chips that didn't get major design wins (pissing off the people who happened to pick those chips.) Microchip doesn't make chips nearly as elegant, but they DO "get" the market... (all that said, I seem to recall that the 6811 and 6809s had quite a successful run in "personal computer" and "educational" markets. The 6809 appeared in Tandy's Color Computer, and the 6811 in several robotics oriented boards from MIT. And the earlier 6800 processors had their part in the early days of "home" microcomputers. I wonder how they managed to screw up SO badly in between then and now...) BillW

Huh? Olin, Even considering it's YOU, can this be an attempt at humor? Olin Lathrop wrote: {Quote hidden}>Russell McMahon wrote: > > >>... and probably one of the 1st sold >>anywhere for use in my Master's Thesis project. >> >> > >So how many 6809s did your masters project use and in how many places >worldwide were they bought for that purpose? > > > Tom -- * | __O Thomas C. Sefranek WA1RHPKILLspamARRL.net |_-\<,_ Amateur Radio Operator: WA1RHP (*)/ (*) Bicycle mobile on 145.41, 448.625 MHz hamradio.cmcorp.com/inventory/Inventory.html http://www.harvardrepeater.org

Tom Sefranek wrote: >>> ... and probably one of the 1st sold >>> anywhere for use in my Master's Thesis project. >> >> So how many 6809s did your masters project use and in how many places >> worldwide were they bought for that purpose? > > Huh? > > Olin, Even considering it's YOU, can this be an attempt at humor? I was just jabbing Russell a bit for his uncharacteristically sloppy use of english. Obviously he meant to say that the 6809 he bought for his masters thesis was one of the first sold anywhere. What he instead actually said was that this one 6809 was the first (of presumably many) bought from all the places (of presumably many) that 6809s were bought for his masters project. ****************************************************************** Embed Inc, Littleton Massachusetts, (978) 742-9014. #1 PIC consultant in 2004 program year. http://www.embedinc.com/products

Olin Lathrop wrote: {Quote hidden}> >>Huh? >> >>Olin, Even considering it's YOU, can this be an attempt at humor? >> >> > >I was just jabbing Russell a bit for his uncharacteristically sloppy use of >english. Obviously he meant to say that the 6809 he bought for his masters >thesis was one of the first sold anywhere. What he instead actually said >was that this one 6809 was the first (of presumably many) bought from all >the places (of presumably many) that 6809s were bought for his masters >project. > > >04 program year. http://www.embedinc.com/products > > Except that it wasn't Russell's use of English, but rather an off-list comment from his friend Ken Mardle (whoever that is) that Russell sent to the list. Aaron

> Russell McMahon wrote: ... that Ken Mardle had written ... >> ... and probably one of the 1st sold >> anywhere for use in my Master's Thesis project. > So how many 6809s did your masters project use None. My Masters project used MC6802's A few of. > and in how many places > worldwide were they bought for that purpose? About 3 I'd guess, presuming that some parts of the distribution chain was owned by people other than those who own the fab. Bought from fab / maker. Bought from wholesaler. Bought from retailer. It may have been more complex than that. That was what you wanted to know, wasn't it ? :-) The 6800 / 6802 was nowhere as nice a processor as the 6809. The 6809 was quite clearly designed by people who had used the earlier processors extensively and who added facilities appropriately. It was a great shame to see it go and it puzzled me why they did not add some of the better capabilities into their subsequent processors. I used the 6809 only very little so the memory of just what the superior features all were has grown dim. Conversely, I can still write a certain amount of 6800 machine code (as opposed to assembler) 'out of my head'. (6800 used dual phase clock with a wickedly finnicky overlap tolerance. 6802 fixed that by using an internal clock generator and external single phase clock - a la PIC and most everything ever since.). We had no local cross assembler available locally. The best offered was a locally written language slightly above assembler but far more intractable (insisted on stacking and unstacking ALL parameters on a virtual stack when making subroutine calls etc)(written by a mainframe guru who had no conception of how slow a 4 MHz 6800 was) and was run in batch mode on a Burroughs ?B6700? with a one day turnaround. Input on punch cards AFAIR. Output hand transcribed from printouts. Forget it! We did. So ALL programming was in raw machine language with pen and paper - ie write assembler and self compile then hex keypad key in result using 'MIKBUG'. No great effort - just cumbersome. Relative jump calculation became almost automatic. Jump tables at the top of code helped immensely. I could hex key in a moving message program including message data 'out of my head' from a cold start. Impressive to the uninitiated. Prior to this my first system was homebuilt from scratch using a SC/MP with binary switch input for address and data and 8 LED's for data output. AFAIR it had 128 bytes of combined data and program memory (as more was far too costly). It's truly amazing what you can do with 128 bytes of memory. Bare foot to school, uphill both ways, in the snow, in a cardboard box at the bottom of a lake, ... I think that's how it goes. Nobody mentioned the ice on the surface. RM

Russell McMahon wrote: > certain amount of 6800 machine code (as opposed to assembler) 'out of > my head'. ... > So ALL programming was > in raw machine language with pen and paper - ie write assembler and > self compile then hex keypad key in result using 'MIKBUG'. No great > effort - just cumbersome. Relative jump calculation became almost > automatic. Yes yes! One of the great things about that instruction set was that it was so *easy* to assemble in your head. Lots of 4-bit operands aligned on nibble boundaries as I recall. It did feel quite arcane to be able to type the hex codes straight in for a new bit. > Bare foot to school, uphill both ways, in the snow, in a cardboard box > at the bottom of a lake, ... *You* had a cardboard box?! Luxury! -- Timothy J. Weber http://timothyweber.org

William Chops Westfield wrote: > (all that said, I seem to recall that the 6811 and 6809s had > quite a successful run in "personal computer" and "educational" > markets. The 6809 appeared in Tandy's Color Computer, and the > 6811 in several robotics oriented boards from MIT. And the > earlier 6800 processors had their part in the early days of > "home" microcomputers. I wonder how they managed to screw > up SO badly in between then and now...) Yes, the 6809E was in all three versions of the Tandy Color Computer. That machine would run Microware OS/9 which is an RTOS that's still around today -- proving that good design DOES work, long-term. Nate

The 6809 was designed by Terry Ritter. Between 1978-1980 Terry was a busy boy you will find his imprint on 68K, 6845 (video display chip) and in his copious amounts of spare time he was active in a bunch of software projects basic09 a pascal like for the '09. http://home.netcom.com/~tlindner/Download/Byte_6809_Articles.pdf w.. Nate Duehr wrote: {Quote hidden}> William Chops Westfield wrote: > > > (all that said, I seem to recall that the 6811 and 6809s had > > quite a successful run in "personal computer" and "educational" > > markets. The 6809 appeared in Tandy's Color Computer, and the > > 6811 in several robotics oriented boards from MIT. And the > > earlier 6800 processors had their part in the early days of > > "home" microcomputers. I wonder how they managed to screw > > up SO badly in between then and now...) > > Yes, the 6809E was in all three versions of the Tandy Color Computer. > > That machine would run Microware OS/9 which is an RTOS that's still > around today -- proving that good design DOES work, long-term. > > Nate > -