[Coco] Kicking the Z-80 butts...

Gene Heskett gheskett at wdtv.com
Tue Apr 28 16:25:24 EDT 2015


On Tuesday 28 April 2015 16:12:48 Dave Philipsen wrote:
> Yes, the ability to write position independent code is very nice. The
> 6809 can use PC counter relative addressing and branches as well as
> long branches which are also relative.  This is something that is
> practically impossible to do with the 6502 and other 8-bitters.  I
> learned assembler on my 4K CoCo 1.  When I had to write code for Z-80,
> 6502 and even 68HC11 (6801) later it was like trying to walk with one
> leg!
>
> Dave Philipsen

I went the more conventional way, starting with the RCA 1802, then the 
Z-80, saw how crippled it was at the end of the day, looked at the Z8000 
and ran like hell.  Toyed with the TI-9900, weird but quite capable 
achitecture but way too costly considering at the time it was north of 
$800 to put a single floppy drive on it.  Then I found the coco's, and 
there is one (of about 8) in the basement I could fire up right now.  It 
had a cpu that actually made sense.  For its time, absolutely amazing.  
Still is for the little machine that can git-r-done.

> On 4/28/2015 2:05 PM, Joe Grubbs wrote:
> > 6809 really is amazing. I learned on Sunday night from Kip and
> > William that the 6809 was originally designed with multiprocessing
> > in mind, hence another use for the external clock pin of the E
> > version. Kip has the schematics for a multi processor 6809 computer
> > in fact
> >
> >
> > --- Original Message ---
> >
> > From: "Gustavo Ranaur Schoenaker" <ranaur at ranaur.net>
> > Sent: April 28, 2015 2:29 PM
> > To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> > Subject: Re: [Coco] Kicking the Z-80 butts...
> >
> > Really amazing.
> >
> > The more I know the 6809 the more I think the problem with the chip
> > was no t the processos, but the 6847. Maybe it was the reason Tandy
> > made the GIME chip on CoCo 3. Video is really the upper limit of the
> > plataform. At those times the video chip make a huge difference.
> >
> > Nice job Luis!
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> 
wrote:
> >> On Tuesday 28 April 2015 09:35:20 Mathieu Chouinard wrote:
> >>> speaking of wordstar
> >>> I found this last night:
> >>> http://wordtsar.ca/
> >>
> >> Interesting, for wordstar fans.  I've never used it, dynastar yes.
> >>
> >>> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 9:24 AM, CoCo Demus
> >>> <retrocanada76 at gmail.com>
> >>
> >> wrote:
> >>>> That's why MC6809 is the king of 8-bit processors:
> >>>>
> >>>> https://youtu.be/Ysn7Na60ZGA
> >>
> >> Thats plumb amazing.
> >> [...]
> >> Cheers, Gene Heskett
> >> --
> >> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
> >>   soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> >> -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
> >> Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Coco mailing list
> >> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> >> https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> >
> > --
> > Coco mailing list
> > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>


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