From: utzoo!utcsrgv!newman Newsgroups: net.micro,net.micro.appl,net.micro.atar Title: Re: "new" CPU with 128 stacks, 16-bit registers Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.1112 Posted: Fri Feb 25 17:06:40 1983 Received: Fri Feb 25 17:17:16 1983 References: watarts.1703 syteka.287 It's not immediately obvious to me that there are "more 8080/Z80's than 6502's in this world". Consider Apple II + Apple III + PET/CBM + Atari + VIC-20 + VIC-64 + OSI + KIM/SYM/AIM versus the CP/M market + TRS-80. I like the 6502 but I do tend to agree that there must be some reason why there are so few big software packages like compilers, data base systems, spell systems, that use or produce native 6502 code. I think the reason there is no standard 6502 OS is that there is no standard 6502 hardware configuration (i.e. disk format, memory map, I/O ports) as there is sort of for CP/M; this is likely due to the fact that 6502 I/O is memory-mapped, and all the above systems have memory in different places and amounts, and they all refuse to give any assistance in the area of compatibility, dictating that you MUST buy their peripherals and their damn copy-protected software etc. I have some experience in trying to port supposedly incompatible software, and if it is well written there is not as much incompatibility as is claimed. There are some C compilers for example for the 6502, but not very much else. Once a standard or minimal hardware configuration is proposed, some progress might result. I wonder if the lack of compilers is due to people saying, "Well, it doesn't have any 16-bit registers, I'm not even going to TRY and write a compiler for that thing" or whether they've actually tried and abandoned it because of poor performance after giving it a good shot?