[Coco] 6309

[Zippster]

Interesting.  And I sure am glad that Hitachi used their own tools
instead of getting masks from Motorola.

It’s been said that the 6809 is the best of the 8-bit CPUs.

And that would probably be true.

If it weren’t for the even better 6309…     :)


- Ed



> On Mar 27, 2017, at 1:49 PM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at shentel.net> wrote:
> 
> I even called them on the phone and talked to an app engineer, Art.
> 
> 100% Sgt. Schultz, I know nothing.
> 
> He did say that they did not get any masks, only permission to do a cmos 
> version clone, so their version was microcoded using their own layout 
> tools. They created a clone of the 6809 per the license, but the opcode 
> map, using their layout tools had some empty slots left. And that was as 
> close as he ever came to saying they "filled in the blanks".  So like 
> everybody else has assumed, the license prevented publicly admitting to 
> an "improved" version.
> 
> To put the difference in a more easily understood scale, I built rzsz3.36 
> in both versions.  Tested against an amiga at the time, the 6809 version 
> could make 430 CPS thru put over a null modem cable.  The fully 
> converted code for the 6309, made 725 CPS over the sanme cable.
> 
> So yes, if you take full advantage of the extra codes in the 6309, its 
> quite a bit faster.  And most amazing, if paired with cmos D-ram DIMM's 
> on Tony D's 2 meg kit, the only real heat in the whole coco3 is the 
> gime. The 6309 runs at room temp, and the cmos memory about 2F warmer.
> 
> Cheers, Gene Heskett