On the beeb we had our own set of tricks specific to the memory layout and ROM of our beloved beige and black machines.
In that case, probably Dirty Tricks 6510 Programmers Use would be even better.
In this case, the real C64 specific tricks are not 6510 specific, but depending on the specific initialization done by the C64 ROM and calling C64 ROM routines.
This is clever. So basically rather than getting bogged down reviewing submissions you just pick a winner and then validate post-hoc! (because when you win the hash of your code has to match the one you submitted)
(I'm not sure if this particular competition did that)
EDIT: That’s not a dig against the 6502. I still fondly remember leaning BASIC in my C64 and wish now I had ventured into Assembly with it. By today’s standards it seems to have a simpler and more approachable instruction set so I’m wondering if there aren’t products I could hack on to learn Assembly with it. Or maybe I should just break out my old Commie.
From the wdc65xx link:
> The W65C02S is a low power 8–bit microprocessor utilized in a vast array of products for the Automotive, Consumer, Industrial, and Medical markets. This chip features a full external data (8–bit) and address (16–bit) bus for easy integration with 8–bit peripherals and memory.
Digging in the about page:
> Through the last 30+ years as one of the most popular microprocessor architectures of all time the 65xx brand is estimated to have over six billion embedded 65xx processors shipped and is growing by hundreds of millions of units per year, provided by WDC and its licensees. The following is a partial list of high volume applications that have been successful in using 65xx processors:
> ...
> · Toys
> · Automobile dashboard
> · Appliance controllers
> · Industrial controllers
> · Embedded heart defibrillator’s
> · Pacemakers
[1] https://8bitworkshop.com/v3.4.0/?=&file=examples%2Fbrickgame...
The 65C816 is still being made, so someone must use it for something.
(No SSL/TLS, unfortunately).
Lots of people build homebrew computers out of these things, there are a few open source OS and build chains available, etc.
So outside of retro computing you won't see a 6502 IC in the wild. But they likely are buried deep in nondescript IC's
https://hackaday.com/2013/05/24/tamagotchi-rom-dump-and-reve...
6502 is still my favorite architecture, even though I've done assembly language programming (professionally!) on many platforms in the past 35 years.
6502 was first. It is simple. And that makes it a lot of fun.
6809 is beautiful. I think it is the most powerful and elegant of the 8 bit CPUs. But that spoils a person too.
6502 is like whittling computing down to some useful nubs. There are enough subtleties to make it interesting too.
I have some 1986-dated 6502 assembly code of mine in hard copy (on dot matrix paper with the "holes" intact). I'm going to scan it one day and post.
When I first got zero page, I thought it looked like up to 128 address registers, with only a couple cycle penalty.
But, like you, a lot of code self modified the easier a solute indexed address mode instructions.
And it was right there, easy to see.
https://hackaday.com/2018/12/05/apple-ii-megademo-is-countin...
Apple II, but in the comments are links to a C64 demo, a IIGS demo, and a ZX spectrum demo (which is Z80, not 6502, but same era).
So assembly programmers may go for the more kludgy looking code as the execution far outpaces the optimized byte count version. Ive heard of such things in video timing and game loops.
