Does anyone know where to get hold of some Rockwell 64 pin R6501Q microcontroller with Forth Kernel?

Although unfortunately I can't answer your question, I would be interested in what's in that Rockwell Forth kernal, if you have or are able to get that info. Since I discovered Forth, I rarely use anything else. A good Forth kernal gives the fastest and easiest way to develop bug-free code. Do you know who Rockwell's customers were for this microcontroller?

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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?

No but there is a Kernel chip(ROM) which is R65FK2P or R65FK3P, but it might be easier just to go to New Micros inc ( who ex- Rockwell people anyway) and buy one of their kits

I don't believe there' any source for them. I've searched the internet for them several times. I've got several controller boards that use the R6501Q.

The 64 pin device that has the FORTH kernal is the R65F12Q. There was also a 40 pin device, the R65F11P. They both have all the Runtime FORTH in on chip ROM. It is based on the fig-FORTH. They have 192 bytes of RAM. They only differ in I/O 16 / 40. There is an external developement ROM, R65FR1P. There are other development ROM's ( R65FR2P) for expanded memory (16K, with R65FR1P only 8K ). Using the R6501Q & external FORTH kernal ROM (R65FK3 & development ROM R65FR3 there is 48K user memory avaiable. The FORTH was called RSC-FORTH. It also had support for a floppy interface. I've got a development sytem I purchased for project that didn't turn out. It has the R65F11P on the board. It also has the floppy interface on the board. It also came with daughter boards to allow using the R65F12Q or R6501Q. I haven't messed with it in about 15 yrs. I've got 1 each of the processors & ROM's. I've also got the Rockwell data book & the user's manual for the RSC-FORTH.

Ted Melton

re:r65f12 chips

i used these in a number of projects, they were great! i also have the listing for the source code for the parts, and was talking to the people at wdc (western design center) about the possibity of porting it into one of their 6502 combo chips. this source was also used to develop the kernal for the motorola 68hc11 that is still used by the people at new micros.

i think i still have a few of the 'f12 chips. someone contacted me a while back looking for the 40 pin 'f11 chips for some old product they still were supporting. was ofering up to $200 a piece for them, but alas couldn't use the 'f12......

bob engle

I just remembered there was probably some info on the 65F11 & 65F12 in my old Rockwell data book, so I looked them up. It says the RSC-Forth is based on FIG-Forth, for which I have the source code here from the Forth Interest Group. Partly from the listing of Forth words in the Rockwell book, it looks like a rather small Forth; but one nice thing about Forth is of course that the user can extend it any way he wants. From a quick look, it appears that the internal Forth ROM is 4K of headerless code, but that for development, you would normally use an 8K external ROM which not only has the headers, but some file-operation words and things that often are of no value once the embedded system development is done. Was this correct? Is there any way to re-write NEXT ? If so, you could implement prioritized interrupt service in high-level Forth with zero overhead. I have this running on my 6502 workbench computer.

_________________
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?