[Coco] Re: Any reason to put a 6309 in a Coco2?

[Theodore Evans (Alex)]

On Dec 31, 2003, at 6:42 PM, jdaggett at gate.net wrote:

> Hitachi in my opinon would not put circuitry on a die unless they 
> intended to use it.
> Believe me real estate on a die is precisous and expensive. No one in 
> the industry
> puts circuits on a die to just put them on. If my memory serves me 
> correct I think
> that the number 8 in the orient is not one of the lucky numbers. I 
> vaguely remember
> that the number 4 is real unlucky.

I am just passing on some of what was in the original posts about the 
H6309 on the coco list.  My understanding from it is that the H6309 is 
a microcode implementation of the 6809 in CMOS.  The implementation 
left some free space, and the additional instructions were added by the 
engineers either 1) without Hitachi's knowledge, or 2) with Hitachi's 
knowledge, but that they remained undocumented because such an upgrade 
was in violation of Hitachi's license from Motorola.  As a Chinese 
linguist I can tell you that eight is only less than lucky because it 
is a multiple of four.   Four is unlucky because it sounds like death.