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Thread: Finally! The 6502 reveals its secrets once again!

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    Default Finally! The 6502 reveals its secrets once again!

    http://research.swtch.com/2011/01/mo...-in-world.html

    This is wonderful news... its been decades since anyone knew exactly how the 6502 worked its magic as the tech specs were lost. This will be a giant leap forward for NES clones.

    "A team of three people—Greg James, Barry Silverman, and Brian Silverman—accumulated a bunch of 6502 chips, applied sulfuric acid to them to strip the casing and expose the actual chips, used a high-resolution photomicroscope to scan the chips, applied computer graphics techniques to build a vector representation of the chip, and finally derived from the vector form what amounts to the circuit diagram of the chip: a list of all 3,510 transistors with inputs, outputs, and what they're connected to."

    I'm still amazed by the fact that the designer of the 6502 nailed it in one shot. That is unheard of.

    Bil Herd summarizes the situation. “No chip worked the first time,” he states emphatically. “No chip. It took seven or nine revs [revisions], or if someone was real good they would get it in five or six.”

    Normally, a large number of flaws originate from the layout design. After all, there are six layers (and six masks) that have to align with each other perfectly. Imagine designing a town with every conceivable layer of infrastructure placed one on top of another. Plumbing is the lowest layer, followed by the subway system, underground walkways, buildings, overhead walkways, and finally telephone wires. These different layers have to connect with each other perfectly; otherwise, the town will not function. The massive complexity of such a system makes it likely that human errors will creep into the design.

    After fabricating a run of chips and probing them, the layout engineers usually have to make changes to their original design and the process repeats from the Rubylith down. “Each run is a couple of hundred thousand [dollars],” says Herd.

    Implausibly, the engineers detected no errors in [Bill] Mensch's layout. “He built seven different chips without ever having an error,” says Peddle with disbelief in his voice. “Almost all done by hand. When I tell people that, they don't believe me, but it's true. This guy is a unique person. He is the best layout guy in the world.”
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    Wait, if the tech specs were lost, then how come people kept making 6502 chips?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kitsune Sniper View Post
    Wait, if the tech specs were lost, then how come people kept making 6502 chips?
    Probably a clone 6502?

    If they were clones, now they can create "real" chips, which should mean better compatibility, specially in sound.
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    I think they mean that the layout was lost. Specs like how many registers, how big each register was, etc etc. are all well known from datasheets. However, the exact layout of the chip is probably what was lost. I doubt you'll see any improved quality in clones, nor do I think you'll see any new production, except perhaps as a novelty for nerds.

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    I'd buy a poster of an internal rendering of a 6502..
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    This is cool, but I don't see any viable commercial use for this. Maybe retrozone would make use of it or something, like their GB player for the NES. Accurate new NES hardware adapter for the Wii, DS...

    Interesting.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Loremaster View Post
    I think they mean that the layout was lost. Specs like how many registers, how big each register was, etc etc. are all well known from datasheets. However, the exact layout of the chip is probably what was lost. I doubt you'll see any improved quality in clones, nor do I think you'll see any new production, except perhaps as a novelty for nerds.
    Again, if it's been decades since anyone knew things like the exact layout of the chip, just how was it even manufactured?

    The NES has only been out of production for a bit over 15 years, the Famicom about 8 years, the Apple II since 1993, etc. If they didn't even know how the chip was exactly laid out for decades, just how was it produced for these devices in fairly recent years?

    Quote Originally Posted by buzz_n64 View Post
    This is cool, but I don't see any viable commercial use for this. Maybe retrozone would make use of it or something, like their GB player for the NES. Accurate new NES hardware adapter for the Wii, DS...

    Interesting.
    How can someone that visits a forum like this be unaware of the flood of NES clones in recent years?
    Last edited by Leo_A; 01-12-2011 at 07:00 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Leo_A View Post

    How can someone that visits a forum like this be unaware of the flood of NES clones in recent years?
    I know all about famiclones, I have over a dozen varieties, however, I did say "Accurate new NES hardware" Meaning the same sound quality, compatibility and quality. Yes, I know some clones now play Castlevania III and so on, but to cost effectively reproduce identical chips would be another story, although very possible. Initially not as cheap, but will be down the road with mass production.

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    You realize the NES didn't use a 6502, right? It used a derivative with extra features (and other stuff missing) called Ricoh 2A03?

    This really doesn't help Famiclone manufacturers that much.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kitsune Sniper View Post
    You realize the NES didn't use a 6502, right? It used a derivative with extra features (and other stuff missing) called Ricoh 2A03?

    This really doesn't help Famiclone manufacturers that much.
    Thanks, I guess I was partially misinformed, thanks for the info.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6502
    The 6502 used in the NES was a second source version by Ricoh, a partial system-on-a-chip, that lacked the binary-coded decimal mode but added 22 memory-mapped registers (and on-die hardware) for sound generation, joypad reading, and sprite list DMA. Called 2A03 in NTSC consoles and 2A07 in PAL consoles (the difference being the memory divider ratio and a lookup table for audio sample rates), this processor was produced exclusively for Nintendo.

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    I saw this before and thought it was cool, but this has nothing to do with gaming or emulation - really. It's more for EE nerds and such that are into digital level designs. That and now you can exactly replicate the chip (but again, that's not really adding anything to emulation 'scene' or such - hardware or software).
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    Will this mean anything for those who make Famiclones? I know the processors were slightly different, but I wonder if NOACs will be improved thanks to this?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Satoshi_Matrix View Post
    Will this mean anything for those who make Famiclones? I know the processors were slightly different, but I wonder if NOACs will be improved thanks to this?
    Not if their current designs are cheaper to manuf. than the old one.
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    Quote Originally Posted by buzz_n64 View Post
    This is cool, but I don't see any viable commercial use for this.
    6502 clones are still produced and used in various applications; cars, medical equipment, industrial systems, and even handheld games.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Renaak View Post
    6502 clones are still produced and used in various applications; cars, medical equipment, industrial systems, and even handheld games.
    I doubt those would be the original 6502 models, still being used today. More like the 65C02, which has a number of additions/upgrades/instructions and has the fix for the infamous jump indirect bug of the original 6502.
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    What a cool project - thanks for the links!
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