6502.org

Recently, and recently, we had a couple of requests for recommendations:
So here's a thread - thoughts, please!

(For myself, I learnt a lot from magazines back in the day, initially the UK magazine Practical Electronics, and then from the thin documentation that came with the Compukit UK101, and some from the thick book which came with Acorn's BBC Micro. I think the docs from that period, for machines like the VIC-20 and ZX Spectrum, were very good, and they are all online now, I'm sure. I did also buy Zaks' Programming the 6502 and found it very useful. As for websites, there's heaps in the reference section of this site, 6502.org, and of course in Garth's primer. I'm quite fond of easy6502 too. It's worth a read of Grant Searle's site too.)

I second BigEd's recommendation of Garth's Primer. It's very good. In fact, I used it as a basis for my SBC.

I would also recommend Lance Leventhal's 6502 Assembly Language Subroutines book. Lots of good coding examples with good descriptions. IIRC, most, is not all, are done for the Apple II.

And there's always the 6502 Bible... the Programmers Guide (David Eyes and Ron Lichty) which covers the 65816, 6502, 65C02, etc. and is an excellent reference.

I'm just starting to read this book and it looks awesome. A ton of information and the basic architectures of 6502 and 6502 alike microprocessors is very useful. Thank you!

mcs6500 family hardware manual
mcs6500 family programming manual

Straight from the horse's mouth! These are the original manuals published by MOS Technology in 1976. When I bought my KIM-1, copies of these (and the kim1 user manual ) were included.

The author isn't credited, but I remember reading somewhere that it was Chuck Peddle. Apparently Peddle had trouble getting around to the the job of writing these, and eventually he had to be more or less locked in a room and forced to work on the manuals and nothing else! The result was worth waiting for. I found these to be well written, and comprehensible even by a beginner (which I was!).

Searchable HTML versions of these and other 6502-related documents are found here: http://users.telenet.be/kim1-6502/

-- Jeff

FWIW: My introduction was the original "Big Red Book" for the Apple II (The Apple II reference manual, 1978) - which isn't exactly a 6502 teaching guide, but there are a few pages on the instruction set and 6502 architecture, however that plus the Synertek Programming manual got me going and start to understand the Apple II monitor and write a few small lines of assembler on the Apple II.

And looking at the links above, the Synertek (Aug. 1976) one appears to be a copy of the MOS one (Jan 1976) ... No author attribution though.

Slightly later I got a copy of the Rockwell R6500 Hardware manual.

-Gordon