This is an odd question that just popped into my head.

Say I'm designing a circuit that uses a 6502 (or some variant). Say I have a choice of using either a REAL 6502 or implementing it in an FPGA.

Which would be cheaper? I imagine you would get a bulk discount for the real deal but would you also get that for the IP version as well?

Also, isn't there a reversed engineered version on the open cores site? If so, why not use it instead of the licensed version?

I'm not planning on releasing any kind of mass-produced project but I was curious on how it would apply to hobbyist projects.

Thanks!

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Cat; the other white meat.

I don't suppose anyone who knows the prices will be able to comment... but we can speculate.

All the HDL cores are free of charge, and could be used in ASICs or in FPGAs. (They're not reverse-engineered, they are designed afresh.) A licensed core from WDC will presumably buy some level of support from WDC, which has some value. There might also be a higher level of confidence with WDC's product. The charge is probably minimal - one or two cents at most probably, and maybe a one off charge too. The chance to use WDC's compiler might be important to some customers. Maybe WDC even do some integration work to fit the core to the customer's needs. But FPGAs are a great deal more expensive than ASICs, once you're in volume, so no-one with a price-sensitive product is going to ship with an FPGA.

For a hobbyist, choosing between a 6502 chip and an FPGA is a matter of taste more than anything: what itch you're trying to scratch. A hobbyist isn't going to be making an ASIC, and is very unlikely to buy an IP core from WDC - there are plenty of zero-cost cores, and even if they have one or two bugs we might not notice.

Cool. Thanks for clearing that up.

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Cat; the other white meat.

I seem to recall (but am not sure) that in the recent video interviews with either Bill Mensch or David Cramer, they said there's an up-front charge of thousands of dollars to buy an IP license, and they give you everything they know, then after that there's a very tiny per-piece charge for every one you sell.

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

Thanks for the extra info!

That depends really on how fast of a 6502 you need, and if you actually need the 6502 and its outside address/data lines. If you are doing some canned project that is under 8MHz with simple RAM and ROM and some I/O lines, you are better off emulating the 6502 with something like a AVR or PIC.