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Commodore PET and Apple machines were for people who had rich daddies and lived in America. For those of us in the Rest of The World getting access to a computer was not as simple as that. We had to wait for things like the VIC-20 to come along, the PET was unseen outside of a magazine cover. There was no sea of surplus computers, particularly ones with floppy disks. Pen and paper was how things got done. You, not knowing that, shows how little you know. True, you could program in almost any language you wanted on almost any platform. However Forth was a novelty and of the few people I knew that had Pascal, none of them actually used it - the box sat there, on the shelf. Much like today you could choose to program in Forth if you really wanted to (or Cobol) but you didn't, simple as. The 'killer apps' of the time - games - were generally written in assembler as in assembler you could do things not possible with one of your 'other languages'. As for your quip about 68000 not being easier if you knew 6502, do you just arrogantly dismiss everything out of hand? No evidence given? Shortly after the hey-day of things being done in assembler, I was the only person in a very large university class to get 100% for some 68000 based assembly assignment. This was my first go at 68000 and I completed my work in less than one hour. Sure 'introductory 68000' might be easy, complete 'hello world' stuff for a genius like you, however none of the hundred or so that were on that course could churn out the assignment like I could, straight off the bat. They struggled for weeks on it and most of the class cribbed answers from each other, they were that bad. The difference I had was solid 6502 experience, I took to 68000 like a duck to water, everyone else was still struggling to get their heads around what to me was a simple task. Sure my reminiscences from aeons ago are totally anecdotal but I went on to do lots of stuff in 68000 and, without that first bit of 6502 experience, I would have struggled. |
Well, 8-bit, accumulator-based, limited addressing modes, numerous quirky features required for good performance (e.g. zero page) vs. 32-bit, register-based, numerous, generally orthogonal addressing modes, privilege separation, etc. So other than 'programmed in assembly', not much similar between the two. I know when I jumped from processors like the 6502 to the 68000, I had to forget more about the 6502 to really get the 68000 than I kept. Maybe you could take your own advice and describe the architectural similarities of one processor that made you so much more prepared to understand the other? You know, give some evidence.
As to the rest of your snotty, self-indulgent, anti-American rant...it's a real shame you didn't get to play with the cool toys that existed at the time. That doesn't mean they didn't exist and we didn't use them. We'll get right on that pity party for you.