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Snippet from Wikipedia: Motorola 6800

The 6800 ("sixty-eight hundred") is an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System (latter dubbed 68xx) that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips. A significant design feature was that the M6800 family of ICs required only a single five-volt power supply at a time when most other microprocessors required three voltages. The M6800 Microcomputer System was announced in March 1974 and was in full production by the end of that year.

The 6800 has a 16-bit address bus that can directly access 64 KB of memory and an 8-bit bi-directional data bus. It has 72 instructions with seven addressing modes for a total of 197 opcodes. The original MC6800 could have a clock frequency of up to 1 MHz. Later versions had a maximum clock frequency of 2 MHz.

In addition to the ICs, Motorola also provided a complete assembly language development system. The customer could use the software on a remote timeshare computer or on an in-house minicomputer system. The Motorola EXORciser was a desktop computer built with the M6800 ICs that could be used for prototyping and debugging new designs. An expansive documentation package included datasheets on all ICs, two assembly language programming manuals, and a 700-page application manual that showed how to design a point-of-sale terminal (a computerized cash register) around the 6800.

The 6800 was popular in computer peripherals, test equipment applications and point-of-sale terminals. It also found use in arcade games and pinball machines. The MC6802, introduced in 1977, included 128 bytes of RAM and an internal clock oscillator on chip. The MC6801 and MC6805 included RAM, ROM and I/O on a single chip and were popular in automotive applications. Some MC6805 models integrated a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI). The Motorola 6809 was an updated compatible design.

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Snippet from Wikipedia: Motorola

Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded in 1928 as Galvin Manufacturing Corporation by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin. The company changed its name to Motorola in 1947. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, Motorola was split into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions, on January 4, 2011. The reorganization was structured with Motorola Solutions legally succeeding Motorola, Inc., and Motorola Mobility being spun off.

Motorola designed and sold wireless network equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers. Motorola's home and broadcast network products included set-top boxes, digital video recorders, and network equipment used to enable video broadcasting, computer telephony, and high-definition television. Its business and government customers consisted mainly of wireless voice and broadband systems (used to build private networks), and public safety communications systems like Astro and Dimetra. These businesses, except for set-top boxes and cable modems, became part of Motorola Solutions.

Motorola's wireless telephone handset division was a pioneer in cellular telephones. Also known as the Personal Communication Sector (PCS) prior to 2004, it pioneered the "mobile phone" with the first truly mobile "brick phone" DynaTAC, "flip phone" with the MicroTAC as well as the "clam phone" with the StarTAC in the mid-1990s. It had staged a resurgence by the mid-2000s with the RAZR, but lost market share in the second half of that decade. Later it focused on smartphones using Google's open-source Android mobile operating system. The first phone to use Android 2.0 "Eclair", the Motorola Droid, was released in 2009 (the GSM version launched a month later, in Europe, as the Motorola Milestone). The handset division, along with the cable set-top box and modem businesses, were later spun off into Motorola Mobility.

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Snippet from Wikipedia: Retrocomputing

Retrocomputing is the current use of older computer hardware and software. Retrocomputing is usually classed as a hobby and recreation rather than a practical application of technology; enthusiasts often collect rare and valuable hardware and software for sentimental reasons.

Occasionally, however, an obsolete computer system has to be "resurrected" to run software specific to that system, to access data stored on obsolete media, or to use a peripheral that requires that system.

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