[Coco] 6309

[tim lindner]

On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 11:49 AM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at shentel.net> wrote:
> 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.

I noticed that the HD6300 (Hitachi's 6800 second source part) had
additional instructions very much like the ones they added to the
6309. In the 6300 data manual they were fully documented. Not secret
at all.

I can imagine (and have no sources to back this up) that Motorola was
not pleased with this. They still needed a second source the 6809 and
modified their contract to specifically exclude any changes from the
spec.

But Hitachi did it anyway.

-- 
--
tim lindner

"Proper User Policy apparently means Simon Says."