Re: Intel is lucky they have Apple

[Eric Smith <eric@brouhaha.com>]

David Empson wrote:
> From memory, the cost difference was in the order of $25 for a 65C02
> vs $300 for a 6800.

Michael J. Mahon wrote:
> Exactly (although sometimes Woz recalls the 6502 price as $20).

Early on (late 1975), the 6502 chip by itself sold for $20.  For $25 you
got the chip and the two manuals.  At the time the Motorola 6800 and
Intel 8080 cost around $180, though the increasing competition brought
them down quickly.

The 65C02 wasn't introduced until about five years later; by that time
all of the 8-bit microprocessors had become quite inexpensive.
Obviously the reason Apple chose the 65C02 family for the upgraded IIe
and the IIc rather than a Motorola, Intel, or Zilog processor was
compatibility, not cost.