I read it, I have a subscription to WSJ. Bobby On Saturday, January 4, 2020, 12:18:07 PM EST, Adam Michlin via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: This video "History of MOS 6502" gets into some of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOJj-IdYZxI&t=12s In the video, the numbers used are a previous 70% failure rate with Motorola to a 30% failure rate with MOS. If you believe these numbers, it would seem to be almost entirely manufacturing improvements that made the 6502 so successful from a business point of view at first. The high volume low cost that followed would have well served to amplify that success, of course. On 1/4/2020 9:33 AM, David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
I was searching a little for why the 6502 was so much cheaper. From this it appears the die size and transistor count was similar to other processors of the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_count#Microprocessors
Their is some discussion of they had better mask repair and got better yields. How much was they though the buisness model was high volume low cost so they priced it that way vs technical details of the chip or manufacturing?