Hypothetical 6502-based synthesizer calculator?

[Garth Wilson]

(02-01-2016 09:30 PM)benbradley Wrote:  I'm a bit surprised even the 8-bit processor architectures have survived with all the ARM chips being so cheap and ubiquitous. Everything the SID did and much more can be done in software on an ARM.

It can be done on a 65c02 also, now that it's plenty fast to do it without the SID. I suspect the reasons for the 8-bitters surviving is that they're simpler to program, take very little silicon real estate, and that a lot of things have no use for GHz ARM performance. I've brought a lot of products to market using 8-bit PIC microcontrollers, and 98% of their operations were 8-bit-only, and they never even did a multiply (although the last one did a divide). The 65c02 is still being produced today, to the tune of over a hundred million units a year, virtually all of the hidden at the heart of custom ICs in industrial, automotive, appliance, consumer electronics, game, toy, and even life-support products.