Xref: utzoo comp.misc:3060 comp.arch:6027 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!elroy!peregrine!ccicpg!felix!dennisg From: dennisg@felix.UUCP (Dennis Griesser) Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.arch Subject: Re: History of PCs (also kind of long) Keywords: history, pc, workstation Message-ID: <53296@felix.UUCP> Date: 12 Aug 88 02:50:21 GMT References: <5946@venera.isi.edu> <5458@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> <1876@looking.UUCP> <1238@flatline.UUCP> Sender: daemon@felix.UUCP Reply-To: dennisg@felix.UUCP (Dennis Griesser) Organization: FileNet Corp., Costa Mesa, CA Lines: 20 In article <1238@flatline.UUCP> erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) writes: >Simple. Jobs has said that when he was looking for a chip, the 6809 >was really expensive, and the 6502 was really cheap. I remember something >about Motorola saying (in a memo) that the 6502 was something cheap >to fill in the gap between the 6809 and the bottom of the chip market. >Check old issues of Byte, etc, and compare the prices of 6809s and 6502s. You have your time line mixed up. The 6809 did not exist at the time that the Apple II was born. I can believe that Jobs found Motorola too expensive, but the contender was the 6800, not the 6809. Motorola made the 6800. After artistic differences, some Motorola engineers went to MOS Technology and built the 6502. Motorola didn't build the 6809 for some time. The first common computer to use the 6809 was the original CoCo. I remember leafing through the CoCo technical manual when it first came out. My immediate impression was that it looked like a Motorola applications note!