What was that mystic Commodore 6509 computer?

From: Gunther Schadow <gunther_at_aurora.regenstrief.org>
Date: Sun Jun 2 02:45:28 2002

Tony Duell wrote:

>>There was this computer Commodore was going to make and then pulled
>>out of the market. It was based on the 6509 CPU, I guess right before
>>
>
> I believe there were several... One of them was the P500, aka the PET-II.
> It's got a 6509 CPU, VIC-II video chip (I think), and uses the parallel
> IEEE-488 bus for peripherals. A sort of cross between a C64 and a PET.
>
> They are not _that_ rare in the UK, at least not compared with some other
> 'never sold' machines.
>
> The 6509 is a 6502 core with address extension registers (I think one
> used for direct addresses, another for indirect addresses) allowing the
> chip to access 1Mbyte of memory.


Hmm, why would the 6509 have more address space than a 6510? Or is
that "extension registers" the same as the "port" zero-page address
that is used in the C=64 to change the memory ROM/RAM layout? I
suppose if you used those 8 bits (or was it just 6 bit?) ports and
hook 'em to address lines, you could get a 24 bit address bus, which
gets you to 16 MB, or, if it's just a 6-bit port, it gets you to
4 MB. Not bad. Almost like the 8088, however you can't have a
stack segment different from a data and text segment. That 256 byte
stack is one big limitation in the 6502 family.

cheers,
-Gunther



-- 
Gunther Schadow, M.D., Ph.D.                    gschadow_at_regenstrief.org
Medical Information Scientist      Regenstrief Institute for Health Care
Adjunct Assistant Professor        Indiana University School of Medicine
tel:1(317)630-7960                         http://aurora.regenstrief.org
Received on Sun Jun 02 2002 - 02:45:28 BST

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