'Chuck Peddle Dies at 82; His $25 Chip Helped Start the PC Age'
 

He invented the MOSTek 6502, the chip Wozniak used in the Apple 1
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/24/t...ddle-dead.html

I remember meeting the 6502. It was a 40 pin ttl thing rarely run over 1Mhz, although the expensive ones ran at 3Mhz. In it's favour, though, it did address a whole 64K (yes, K - not M or G) of memory.

Wozniak should have looked a little further, though. Out at the same time was the Z80, which did 4Mhz, and rapidly acquired a large family of support chips. It had sophisticated interrupt control, and was the heart of many CP/M systems which were used in many small businesses until PCs took over in the mid-80s.

Zilog didn't release the Z-80 to the market until July 1976, a year later than the 6502.

Oh, the 6502 was out earlier? I didn't think so.

There's also the question of development tools. I worked on a project designed in 1979 using the 6500. It was designed by a Phd University Lecturer. To program it, he patiently copied out the machine code for the instructions and basic subroutines into a card index to make an Assembler for himself. He could then program the Eprom byte by byte until he had his rather simple program assembled. The thing did one simple but vital task. It was a primitive Anti-Skid or Anti Jack knife system, and was bought by all the oil distribution companies here. It went on articulated tankers, and stopped Jack knifing. But it couldn't be exported.