[Coco] Re: 68B09P - Datasheet?

[Andrew]

All,

I recently went to my favorite used/surplus electronics/mechanical parts 
supplier here in Phoenix (Apache Reclamation) - and out in their yard I 
discovered a whole mess of old slot machines and parts. Some of these 
parts were logic motherboards, which had on them various 74LSxx parts, 
some EPROMs, and - a 68B09P processor...

I am in the process of designing and building a robotic device, and a 
portion of it I was originally planning to control with a 16F84 PIC - 
but seeing these 6809 processors lit my eyes up.

I was wondering if these would be worthwhile to investigate (as I could 
likely get the boards really cheap), or if I should just stick with PICs 
- or if the processors might be good for something else?

I can't find a datasheet, though, to determine this. Unfortunately, I 
don't know the manufacturer of this particular instance of the chip, either.

All I have been able to google tells me that this is a 40 pin chip 
(duh), with a 2MHz internal clock. No mention of any on-board memory or 
such...

I realize that there probably isn't an EEPROM or FLASH on board this 
chip - but how difficult is it to interface such things to it (providing 
I have datasheets)? Would it be worth the trouble for robotics use, or 
would I be better served sticking with PICs?

Something tells me "stick with PICs" - because I fear I would be 
spending too much time on the interface needs of the 6809 (ie, 
essentially building a PIC) - but I wanted to get the group's opinion 
and ideas on the matter, in case someone has some relevant knowledge in 
the matter.

Even with using a PIC, this is going to be an "uphill" struggle for me, 
as I am going to still have to build a simple programmer, learn PIC 
assembler (or somehow beg/borrow a PIC BASIC compiler), then learn how 
to use it in a circuit, etc - to control my robot. But, fortunately, 
there are tons of examples on this on the Net, so though it might be 
rough, it is doable.

All I would have using a 6809 would be this forum, any datasheet I could 
scrounge up, my back stock of old Rainbows, plus the little 
informational books I have on such old processors (mainly textbooks on 
interface designs for microprocessors and control use).

Andrew Ayers
Glendale, Arizona