[TUHS] UNIX 6502 General (was: Any good 6502 assembly references?)

[segaloco via TUHS]

Quoteless reply to just spur some UNIXx6502 discussion.  I've inquired about UNIX history re: 6502 here before and the general vibe I got was that there just wasn't as much UNIX stuff going on in the 6502 ecosystem vs Z80.  Neither have the full set of features to really support UNIX as originally designed on the PDP-11.  Indeed in BTL, the Intel 8080, Z80, and MAC-8 were the most common 8-bits.  I don't recall seeing any 6502 stuff in BTL literature I've read, but I think some labs tinkered with its ancestor the M6800.  [1] is a fantastic resource on what microprocessor use at BTL looked like in the thick of the BTL UNIX period.  BSTJ is also littered with articles describing various inventions based on microprocessors (both internal BellMAC stuff and well known CPUs).

Now, fast forwarding to the present day, the LUnix (yes that is spelled right) project has been ported to, among others, the NES, a (roughly) 6502-based platform.  There are many SDKs, but among them, the cc65 suite in particular is quite UNIX-y, featuring separate compilation, assembly, and linking utilities with semantics comparable to UNIX.  However, word of warning: cc65 is uncanny valley, there are a lot of similarities to, say, GNU binutils, but subtle differences like ".export" rather than ".globl", some label differences in linker scripting, and cheap local labels that are positional rather than numerical (hard to explain briefly, see relevant documentation if really curious).  I have personally been focused on developing tools and techniques based in canonical UNIX practices concerning both 6502 development and disassembly/reverse engineering.  If you're looking to talk more 6502 general, I'm happy to carry on personally (or I also recommend the sister COFF mailing list).

But yeah joining the chorus that there isn't anything particularly UNIX-history-ish with general 6502 simulation so probably not the right venue.  Shoot me a reply personally though if you're trying to talk 6502.

- Matt G.

[1] - https://bitsavers.org/pdf/westernElectric/BTL_WE_Microcomputer_Symposium_Dec76.pdf