6502 CPU schematics

[Roy J. Tellason]

On Saturday 08 March 2008 11:36, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> > Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:07:55 -0500
> > From: "Roy J. Tellason"
> >
> > Which reminds me,  does anybody else remember those machines that had
> > multiple CPUs in them?  Or the option of plugging different ones in?
> > Seems to me real early on there were some mfrs trying to find as much
> > compatibility as they could with pursuing options like that.  I remember
> > one Taiwanese-made clone of an Apple II that had a Z80 on the main board,
> > and of course the c128 has that similar setup (though the way the
> > hardware was structured the z80 effectively ran at something like
> > 2.5MHz).  I remember some other system where you could literally plug in
> > different processors for different uses,  but the brand name isn't coming
> > to mind at the moment.
>
> Extremely common in the S-100 world (think Godbout/Compupro,
> Cromemco, etc.).  Bill Godbout may have offered the widest range of
> processor boards from a single manufacturer.  Early on, there were
> 6502 S-100 boards, but not very popular.
>
> There were other non S-100 vendors of optional CPU configurations.
> Didn't The Digital Group offer a choice in their boxes?

S-100 wasn't really what I was thinking of,  though they did tend toward 
heavier-duty chips when they became available a little later on.  Digital 
Group was one name that was in the back of my mind when I posted that. I 
think Ohio Scientific also offered a number of choices for CPU,  though I 
never got to know their equipment well enough to be able to say if one system 
could handle multiple choices.  They also stand out in my mind as being the 
first company I remember seeing advertise a hard drive for personal 
computers,  a whopping 74MB if I'm remembering right.  A place I was working 
at considered them for a bit but on being asked if they could provide 
references in terms of folks that had bought one,  they didn't come through 
with that info.

There was one other company,  though,  and I still can't recall the name,  
that tried unsuccessfully to market some system that would let you plug in 
different CPU boards to run different software.  I'm vaguely thinking of toy 
company names,  but somehow that doesn't quite seem right.  Time frame 
would've been a little later than a bunch of this other stuff,  maybe early 
1980s or so?

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