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Comment by musicale | Hacker News Reader

> The best way to learn how to hack around the limitations of a tiny machine is to completely ignore them and become a seasoned software engineer

Learning to hack around the limitations of a tiny machine is a good step toward becoming a seasoned software (and possibly hardware) engineer!

The advantage of tiny systems is that you can understand them completely, from silicon to OS to software.

The 6809 is simpler than the 68K, and more powerful and orthogonal than the 6502, but there isn't the same software base for it. I think Motorola was onto something with the 6809 and 68K instruction sets and programmer-facing architecture. IIRC PDP-11/VAX and NS32K are similarly orthogonal.

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The 6809 is the Chrysler Cordoba of 8 bit microprocessors, the personal sized luxury processor with styling in timeless good taste, rich Corinthian leather, and an efficient sophisticated multiply instruction.

https://youtu.be/tfKHBB4vt4c?t=9

I learned assembly on a 6809 (TRS-80 CoCo) platform. It was only later that I really appreciated how cool of a CPU it really was.

It’s a shame that Tandy missed the boat on including coprocessors for game support in their computers, especially that one. If they’d just included decent audio and maybe something for sprite management it would’ve been highly competitive.

Apple II had primitive graphics and sound, but was incredibly successful.

Atari 800 featured powerful video processing with display lists and sprites, 4-channel audio, etc., but was much less successful.

As I understand it, Radio Shack did not encourage third-party software and support for its systems, not realizing that it was the key to success.

OS-9, originally a 6809 OS, seems to have survived for quite some time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS-9

Yeah, once OS-9 came out we got some decent game ports too. That’s where I discovered Epyx Rogue! It was very late in the lifespan of the system though.

C64/128 was what I was thinking of more than anything re 8-bit competition, keeping in mind I’m talking mid-late 80s by this point. I do also remember Atari 800 (and later) doing considerably better than you imply. But you’re right, Apple captured the early-mid 80s gaming market nicely.

Totally! I wrote an assembler once for the 6809, it was a lovely architecture.

I love the 6809 and friends, but knowing 6502 just seems so much more relevant and easier to get real hardware as well.

Came here to say that. If you must start learning with 8-bit, the 6809 is the processor of choice.

(Unless you want to really dive into "how can I work around limitations", and then you pick an F8 and pull your hair as much as you like)

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