Motorola 6809

Motorola 6809
General information
Launched	1978; 43 years ago
Common manufacturer(s)	Motorola;
Performance
Data width	8
Address width	16
Architecture and classification
Instruction set	6809
Instructions	59
Physical specifications
Transistors	9,000;
Package(s)	40-pin DIP;

The Motorola 6809 ("sixty-eight-oh-nine") is an 8-bit microprocessor CPU with some 16-bit features from Motorola. It was designed by Terry Ritter and Joel Boney and introduced in 1978. A major advance over both its predecessor, the Motorola 6800 and the related MOS Technology 6502, it found use in the TRS-80 Color Computer, Dragon 32/64, and Thomson MO/TO home computers, the Vectrex game system, and early 1980s arcade machines including Star Wars, Defender, Robotron: 2084, Joust, and Gyruss. Series II of the Fairlight CMI digital audio workstation and Konami's Time Pilot '84 arcade game each use dual 6809 processors.^[1] Unlike other 8-bit processors, the 6809 allows fully position-independent code and reentrant code in a straightforward way. It was one of the first^[vague] microprocessors with a hardware multiplication instruction, and it includes full 16-bit arithmetic and a fast interrupt system.

Description

6809 programming model, showing the processor registers

The 6809 uses two 8-bit accumulators (A and B) which can be combined into a single 16-bit register (D), two 16-bit index registers (X and Y), and two 16-bit stack pointers. The index and stack registers allow advanced addressing modes. Program counter relative addressing allows position-independent code, while a user stack pointer (U) facilitates reentrant code.

The 6809 is assembler source-compatible with the 6800, though the 6800 has 78 instructions to the 6809's 59. Some instructions were replaced by more general ones which the assembler translates into equivalent operations, and some were even replaced by addressing modes. The instruction set and register complement are highly orthogonal, making the 6809 easier to program than contemporaries. Like the 6800, the 6809 includes an undocumented address bus test instruction which came to be nicknamed Halt and Catch Fire (HCF).^[2]

The 6809's internal design is closer to simpler, non-microcoded CPU designs. Like most 8-bit microprocessors, the 6809 implementation is a register-transfer level machine, using a central PLA to implement much of the instruction decoding as well as parts of the sequencing.

The 6809 uses a two-phase clock to gate the latches. This two phase clock cycle is used as a full machine cycle in these processors. Simple instructions can execute in as little as two or three such cycles.

As a comparison, the higher resolution state machine the Zilog Z80 allows clock frequencies 3–5 times as high with the same speed memory chips, which was often the limiting factor. This is because the Z80 combines two full (but short) clock cycles into a relatively long memory access period compared to the clock, while the more asynchronous 6809 instead has relatively short memory access times. Depending on version and speed grade, approximately 40–60% of a single clock cycle is typically available for memory access in a 6800, 6502, or 6809.

The 6809 has an internal two-phase clock generator (needing only an external crystal) whereas the 6809E needs an external clock generator. There are variants such as the 68A09(E) and 68B09(E); the internal letter indicates the processor's rated clock speed.

History

Die of Motorola 6809

A key aspect of the 6809 design is allowing position-independent code. The design team believed that future system integrators would look to off-the-shelf code in ROMs to handle common tasks. Libraries of common routines like floating point arithmetic, graphics primitives, Lempel-Ziv compression, and so forth would be available to license, combine together along with custom code, and burn to ROM.^[a] A larger example is found in Motorola's 6809 programming manual,^[3] which contains the full listing of assist09, a so-called monitor, a miniature operating system intended to be burned in ROM.

In this sort of "pick and place" programming environment, there was no way to predict where the code would end up in the ROM. Any instructions that referred to other locations in memory would normally have to be changed to reflect these changes in layout. In contrast, the 6809 allows code to be placed anywhere in memory without modification. The 6809 design also focused on supporting reentrant code, code that can be called from various different programs concurrently without concern for coordination between them, or that can recursively call itself.

The market for pre-rolled ROM modules never materialized: Motorola's only released example was the MC6839 floating-point ROM. The industry as a whole solved the problem of integrating code modules from separate sources by using automatic relocating linkers and loaders–which is still the solution used today. However, the decisions made by the design team enabled multi-user, multitasking operating systems like OS-9 and UniFlex.

Versions

The Motorola 6809 was originally produced in 1 MHz, 1.5 MHz (68A09) and 2 MHz (68B09) speed ratings. Faster versions were produced later by Hitachi. With little to improve, the 6809 marks the end of the evolution of Motorola's 8-bit processors; Motorola intended that future 8-bit products would be based on an 8-bit data bus version of the 68000 (the 68008). A micro-controller version with a slightly modified instruction set, the 6811, was discontinued as late as the second decade of the 21st century.

The Hitachi 6309 is an enhanced version of the 6809 with extra registers and additional instructions, including block move, additional multiply instructions, and division.

Use

SuperPET SP9000

Vectrex home video game console

TRS-80 Color Computer

The 6809 is used in Commodore's dual-CPU SuperPET computer, and, in its 68A09 incarnation, in the unique vector graphics based Vectrex home video game console with built-in screen display, and in the Milton Bradley Expansion (MBX) system (an arcade console for use with the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A home computer). The 6809E is the CPU in the TRS-80 Color Computer, the Acorn System 2, 3 and 4 computers (as an optional alternative to their standard 6502), the Fujitsu FM-7, the Canon CX-1, the Welsh-made Dragon 32/64 home computers, and the SWTPC, Gimix, Smoke Signal Broadcasting, etc. SS-50 bus bus systems, in addition to several of Motorola's own EXORmacs and EXORset development systems. In France, Thomson micro-informatique produced a series of micro-computers based on the 6809E (TO7, TO7/70, TO8, TO8D, TO9, TO9Plus, MO5, MO6, MO5E and MO5NR).

In addition to home computers and game consoles, the 6809 is also found in a number of arcade games released during the early to mid-1980s. Williams Electronics was a prolific user of the processor, which was deployed in Defender, Stargate, Joust, Robotron: 2084, Sinistar, and other games. The 6809 CPU forms the core of the successful Williams Pinball Controller. The KONAMI-1 is a modified 6809 used by Konami in Roc'n Rope, Gyruss, and The Simpsons.^[4]

The 6809 CPU was also used in traffic signal controllers made in the 1980s by several different manufacturers.^[5]

Software development company Microware developed the original OS-9 operating system (not to be confused with the more recent Mac OS 9) for the 6809, later porting it to the 68000 and i386 series of microprocessors. Some years later, enthusiasts developed the NitrOS9 operating system based upon the original Microware OS9.

Series II of the Fairlight CMI (computer musical instrument) used dual 6809 CPUs and OS9, and also used one 6809 CPU per voice card. The 6809 was often employed in music synthesizers from other manufacturers such as Oberheim (Xpander, Matrix 6/12/1000), PPG (Wave 2/2.2/2.3, Waveterm A), and Ensoniq (Mirage sampler, SDP-1, ESQ1, SQ80). The latter used the 6809E as their main CPU. The (E) version was used in order to synchronize the microprocessor's clock to the sound chip (Ensoniq 5503 DOC) in those machines; in the ESQ1 and SQ80 the 68B09E was used, requiring a dedicated arbiter logic in order to ensure 1 MHz bus timing when accessing the DOC chip.

Hitachi produced its own 6809-based machines, the MB6890 and later the S1. These were primarily for the Japanese market, but some were exported to and sold in Australia. There the MB6890 was dubbed the "Peach", probably in ironic reference to the popularity of the Apple II. The S1 was notable in that it contained paging hardware extending the 6809's native 64 kilobyte (64×2¹⁰ byte) addressing range to a full 1 mebibyte (1×2²⁰ byte) in 4 KB pages. It was similar in this to machines produced by SWTPC, Gimix, and several other suppliers. TSC produced a Unix-like operating system uniFlex which ran only on such machines. OS-9 Level II, also took advantage of such memory management facilities. Most other computers of the time with more than 64 KB of memory addressing were limited to bank switching where much if not all the 64 KB was simply swapped for another section of memory, although in the case of the 6809, Motorola offered their own MC6829 MMU design mapping 2 mebibytes (2×2²⁰ byte) in 2 KB pages.^[6]

The very first Macintosh prototype, wire-wrapped by Burrell Smith, contained a 6809.^[7]

The 6809 was used in the mid-1980s through the early 2000s in Motorola SMARTNET and SMARTZONE Trunked Central Controllers (so dubbed the "6809 Controller"). These controllers were used as the central processors in many of Motorola's trunked two-way radio communications systems.^{[citation needed]}

Legacy

Motorola spun off its microprocessor division in 2004. The division changed its name to Freescale and has subsequently been acquired by NXP.

Neither Motorola nor Hitachi produce 6809 processors or derivatives anymore. 6809 cores are available in VHDL and can be programmed into an FPGA and used as an embedded processor with speed ratings up to 40 MHz.^{[citation needed]} Some 6809 opcodes also live on in the Freescale embedded processors. In 2015, Freescale authorized Rochester Electronics to start manufacturing the MC6809 once again as a drop-in replacement and copy of the original NMOS device. Freescale supplied Rochester the original GDSII physical design database. At the end of 2016, Rochester's MC6809 (including the MC68A09, and MC68B09) is fully qualified and available in production.

Australian developer John Kent has synthesized the Motorola 6809 CPU in hardware description language (HDL).^[8] This has made possible the use of the 6809 core at much higher clock speeds than were available with the original 6809. Gary Becker's CoCo3FPGA runs the Kent 6809 core at 25 MHz.^[9] Roger Taylor's Matchbox CoCo runs at 7.16 MHz. Dave Philipsen's CoCoDEV runs at 25 MHz.^[10]

Notes

^ Other examples are matrix arithmetic, Huffman encoding/decoding, statistical functions, string searching (e.g. by the Boyer-Moore algorithm) and tree structure management.

References

^ "Konami Dual 6809 Based Hardware". System 16.
^ John Bayko. "Great Microprocessors of the Present and the Past". Archived from the original on 2013-07-01. Retrieved 2013-07-01.
^ https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_motorola68_13419254
^ Nicola Salmoria and the MAME Team. "konami: Portable Konami cpu emulator". Archived from the original on 2012-10-04. Retrieved 2012-10-21.
^ Robert J. Simpson; Raveendran Paramesran (1998). Advanced 8-bit Microprocessor, MC6809: Its Software, Hardware, Architecture & Interfacing Techniques. Springer. ISBN 978-981-3083-09-7.
^ "1981 Motorola Microprocessors Data Manual". archive.org. 1981. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
^ Hertzfeld, Andy (October 1980). "Good Earth". Folklore.org. Retrieved 2009-12-29.
^ "John Kent's Home Web Page".
^ http://www.davebiz.com/wiki/CoCo3FPGA
^ http://www.davebiz.com/wiki/CoCoDEV

External links

Simulators / Emulators

6809 Emulation Page – collection of 6809 instructions, emulators, tools, debuggers, disassemblers, assemblers
6809 Emulator based on the SWTPC 6809 system

Boards

FPGA

System09 6809 CPU core - VHDL source code - OpenCores - project website

[3] Other examples are matrix arithmetic, Huffman encoding/decoding, statistical functions, string searching (e.g. by the Boyer-Moore algorithm) and tree structure management.

[1] "Konami Dual 6809 Based Hardware". System 16.

[2] John Bayko. "Great Microprocessors of the Present and the Past". Archived from the original on 2013-07-01. Retrieved 2013-07-01.

[4] ttps://archive.org/details/bitsavers_motorola68_13419254

[5] Nicola Salmoria and the MAME Team. "konami: Portable Konami cpu emulator". Archived from the original on 2012-10-04. Retrieved 2012-10-21.

[6] Robert J. Simpson; Raveendran Paramesran (1998). Advanced 8-bit Microprocessor, MC6809: Its Software, Hardware, Architecture & Interfacing Techniques. Springer. ISBN 978-981-3083-09-7.

[7] "1981 Motorola Microprocessors Data Manual". archive.org. 1981. Retrieved 2 April 2018.

[8] Hertzfeld, Andy (October 1980). "Good Earth". Folklore.org. Retrieved 2009-12-29.

[9] "John Kent's Home Web Page".

[10] ttp://www.davebiz.com/wiki/CoCo3FPGA

[11] ttp://www.davebiz.com/wiki/CoCoDEV

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