An article published in 2008 by Nikkei Trendy states that Ricoh licensed from Rockwell, an authorised chip manufacturer.A document explicitly stating that MOS licensed the 6502 to Ricoh is yet to be found.Both Ricoh’s and MOS’s version feature the same layout, but Ricoh’s one contain severed buses (disabling certain functions).One would expect MOS to have licensed the chip design to Ricoh, but there are many contradictions to this: How Ricoh managed to clone the 6502 isn’t clear to this day. Ricoh, their CPU supplier, successfully produced a 6502-compatible CPU. While incompatible with the rest, the new chip was much much less expensive to produce and it was only a matter of time before the most famous computer makers (Commodore, Apple, Atari, Acorn and so forth) chose the 6502 to power their machines.īack in Japan, Nintendo needed something inexpensive but familiar to develop for, so they selected the 6502. Many do-it-yourself computer kits, synthesisers and all-in-one computers included the 6800.Īs if these options weren’t enough, another company named MOS appeared on the market and offered a redesigned version of the 6800: the 6502. The Motorola 6800: another 8-bit CPU designed by Motorola, it contains a completely different instruction set.Amstrad and Sinclair (among others) chose this CPU. It was sold at a cheaper price and could still execute 8080 programs. The Zilog Z80: an ‘unofficial’ version of the 8080 enhanced with more instructions, registers and internal components.It has an 8-bit data bus and a 16-bit address bus. The Intel 8080: a popular CPU featured in the Altair, the first ‘personal’ computer.If a company wanted to build an affordable microcomputer, the following options were available: The CPU market in the late 70s and early 80s was quite diverse. The NES’s CPU is a Ricoh 2A03, which is based on the popular 8-bit MOS Technology 6502 and runs at 1.79 MHz (or 1.66 MHz in PAL systems). īecause the author grew up with the ‘NES’ name, I’ll default to using that term to refer to the console in general, but I will switch to the ‘Famicom’ name when referring to unique capabilities only found in the Japanese variant. To top it off, the bottom of the case seals an ‘expansion port’ that was left unused, along with extra cartridge pins that communicate to that port. On the technical side, the controllers are now detachable (and microphone-lacking) and the video out has been improved with extra NTSC/PAL composite RCA connectors, although the audio expansion has been replaced with an anti-piracy subsystem. The Nintendo Entertainment System (known as NES) was the redesigned edition for western audiences living in North America, Europe and Oceania with a look that matches the typical set-top box.This toy-looking design features two non-removable controllers (from which the second controller bundles an internal microphone), a front socket for the light gun (called Zapper), RF video out (using NTSC-J signal) and extra pins in the cartridge slot to expand the audio capabilities. The Family Computer (known as Famicom) was the first incarnation, but was only released in Japan.So, to keep it simple for this article, I’ll focus on the two most popular revisions: Nintendo ended up shipping lots of different variants of the same console across the world and even though they all share the same architecture, many look dramatically different and some may include built-in accessories. Motherboard with important parts labelled Diagram Main architecture diagramĪt first glance, the NES appears to be just another 6502 computer, with a sophisticated case and a controller.Īnd while this is technically true, let me show you why the CPU is not the central part of this system. The profits contribute towards the improvement of current articles and the development of future ones.įor more information, please take a look at here. You can find the eBook at Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo and other stores. Furthermore, it's updated at the same pace as the website. The new edition is DRM-free and can be read whilst offline. This article is also published on many digital book stores for the benefit of eBook readers.
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