Computer History Museum
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2016–2021
2:39:39 · 12K views · Jun 12, 2015
A Computer History Museum oral history with Bill Mensch, designer of the 6502 and 65816, covering his path from a Pennsylvania farm through Motorola and later work.
Cited as a firsthand account of 6502 origins and of how engineers were treated at Motorola and Commodore.
3 comments from Hacker News
Most of what I know about that comes from Brian Bagnall's books (e.g. Commodore: A company on the edge). It's covered in the first chapter. I don't know of any preserved documents - if they exist they'd belong to Motorola, and I'd expect the leavers would have preferred to ditch any such documents (though part of the reason for the settlement with Motorola was that one of the engineers stupidly taking 6800 documentation with him). This [1] summarizes it. Here [2] is an interview by Computer History Museum of Chuck Peddle. It matches up with the first chapters in Bagnalls book very closely. From about 50 minutes in he talks about his meetings w/Motorola customers that told him the 6800 was too expensive. From about 58m in they talk about basically setting a size metric for the chip to meet a low enough price point. So the starting point was what they could fit in small enough space. You might also like the Computer History Museum interview w/Bill Mensch [3] [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK] [3] this video
Tramiel had a habit of firing good engineers 3 months after product release. Either directly, or by screwing them by moving to useless positions or taking bonuses away until people 'got the message'. Those who didnt get what was going on or didnt care about money/dignity were the ones who stayed as long term employees. Jack had an eye for suckers and people putting passion before common sense and self respect. Whole C64 design team was effed out of promised bonuses and fired/left. People like Bruce Crockett (manufacturing), Al Charpentier (VIC) and Robert Yannes (SID) went to start Ensoniq (later sold to Creative), Chuck Peddle went to Apple, Bill Mensch hung around for two years of abuse. Same with Amiga team (Jay,RJ,Needle). Those two videos touch on the Commodore culture of curb stomping until only the weak and dumb survive: Oral History of Chuck Peddle [LINK] Oral History of William David "Bill" Mensch Jr. this video
Reminds me of Bill Mensch (PIA,6502,65816) life story: this video he also was very passionate which led to getting screwed by Motorola management, some pointless fake consulting firm, and grand daddy of scammers Jack Tramiel. He worked his whole life for other peoples success :(.