Re: OS-9 vs. OS/A65 vs. UNIFlex vs. LUnix/LNG

[et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Michael Black)]

Leon Howell (puritan_2076@yahoo.com) writes:
> 
>> When the 6502 was pretty big, there was all kinds of speculation about
>> what would come next.  I remember a number of what-if articles in the
>> magazines, that talked about the author's "dream 6502" or what they
>> thought was the logical extension of the 6502.  The 6809 came along,
>> and it seemed to be what the articles had been talking about, though
>> not on the level of compatibility that the authors had forseen, and
>> of course suddenly those 6502-specific magazines had coverage of the 
>> 6809.  I suspect I bought my CoCo, and it's 6809 (and OS-9), becasue
>> of such coverage.
> 
> What!? They didn't know about the 65802? Or did it come out too late?
> That happens. Or was it just not any good? That would supprise me.
> 
We knew about the 6809 in mid-1979 for certain; there was that famous
series of articles in Byte that year.  I cannot remember if that
was the first I'd heard of it, or if I'd seen an earlier article
in another magazine specific to the 6502.

My memory says that I didn't see anything about the 65816 till late
1981, when there was an article in Byte about it.  I think the
fact that I can't remember exactly when I first heard of it is
an indication of how little impression it made on the computer world.

The CoCo was out in 1981 (or was it 1980?).  By that time, there
were already big systems, like Gimix and SWTP, using the 6809,
in some pretty fancy systems.  The Apple II 6809 cards had to
have arrived on the scene by 1981.  I suspect the original Mac,
the one based on the 6809, was already in development at that point.

The 65816 definitely came late, though I obviously can't say
exactly when.  Apple came out with the IIE and the IIC still
using the 6502, before coming out with the IIGS using the 65816
in 1986.

As I said, by that time, there were plenty of 16-bit systems around.
Indeed, almost as soon as the 6809 was around, there were 16-bit systems
to be had.

I don't think the 65816 got a chance, because it was simply too late.
But I suspect there may be something wrong with the design beyond that.
It's been too many years since I looked at it, but I thought there
was something that didn't work in it's favor compared to something like
the 68000.

  Michael