[Coco] 6309

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 27 March 2017 13:24:55 Arthur Flexser wrote:

> Well, I think the discovery that some illegal opcodes led to a crash
> with the 6309 (instead of being ignored as with the 6809), by itself,
> probably wouldn't have led to much.  The big breakthrough came with
> the release, in a Japanese publication, of a large amount of
> information about the 6309, its registers and new opcodes.
>
> I've always suspected that Hitachi leaked all this information as a
> way of getting around some licensing agreement they had with Motorola
> that allowed them only to release a 6809 clone, not an improved
> version of the 6809.  If new features aren't "officially" documented,
> I guess legally it can be argued that they don't exist.
>
> Art
>

I even called them on the phone and talked to an app engineer, Art.

100% Sgt. Schultz, I know nothing.

He did say that they did not get any masks, only permission to do a cmos 
version clone, so their version was microcoded using their own layout 
tools. They created a clone of the 6809 per the license, but the opcode 
map, using their layout tools had some empty slots left. And that was as 
close as he ever came to saying they "filled in the blanks".  So like 
everybody else has assumed, the license prevented publicly admitting to 
an "improved" version.

To put the difference in a more easily understood scale, I built rzsz3.36 
in both versions.  Tested against an amiga at the time, the 6809 version 
could make 430 CPS thru put over a null modem cable.  The fully 
converted code for the 6309, made 725 CPS over the sanme cable.

So yes, if you take full advantage of the extra codes in the 6309, its 
quite a bit faster.  And most amazing, if paired with cmos D-ram DIMM's 
on Tony D's 2 meg kit, the only real heat in the whole coco3 is the 
gime. The 6309 runs at room temp, and the cmos memory about 2F warmer.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>