Oral History of William David "Bill" Mensch Jr.

小威廉·戴维·“比尔”·门施口述史 在口述历史采访中，微处理器先驱比尔·门施（Bill Mensch）回顾了他从宾夕法尼亚州农村农场劳动者到半导体工程师的早年经历。在从亚利桑那大学毕业并进入摩托罗拉后，他掌握了多项工艺技术，设计了标准单元库，并负责开发关键的MC6820外围接口适配器（PIA）。面对芯片尺寸与布线限制，门施开创了获得专利的版图设计并实现了位级可编程I/O。然而，由于对摩托罗拉管理层违背承诺感到失望，加之公司计划迁往得克萨斯州奥斯汀，门施最终决定与查克·佩德尔（Chuck Peddle）联手出走，共同研发一款成本更低的新型微处理器。 门施出身于宾夕法尼亚州一个奶牛农场家庭，最初以技术员身份起步，后在亚利桑那大学攻读工程学位，并凭借扎实的技术背景顺利进入摩托罗拉的轮岗培训计划。 在摩托罗拉MOS部门工作期间，门施主导设计了MC6820外围接口适配器（PIA），开创了开创性的版图专利与位级可编程I/O架构，使该芯片在首次流片时便成功运行。 面对摩托罗拉将运营部门迁往奥斯汀的决定，加之管理层在流片对赌和工程奖金上食言，门施接受了查克·佩德尔的提议，离开摩托罗拉去研发一款全新且更经济的微处理器。

[0:06] okay it's [0:07] november 10th 2014 here at the computer [0:11] history museum [0:12] i'm steve diamond and we're doing an [0:14] oral history of bill minch [0:17] thanks bill for joining us we'll be [0:19] talking about [0:20] uh a variety of subjects and [0:25] your perceptions of of what's happened [0:28] in the past and perhaps where things are [0:29] going [0:30] in the future why don't we start out by [0:33] talking about your youth and [0:36] your education and then we'll follow [0:38] that up into [0:40] your transition into the semiconductor [0:42] world all right well thanks for inviting [0:45] me it's an honor to be here right now [0:47] and i will enjoy telling you what i know [0:51] about [0:51] my life how i got here and we'll start [0:55] then with [0:56] my growing up on a farm in pennsylvania [0:59] bucks county [1:00] about 35 miles north of philadelphia [1:04] very rural the dairy farm had like 26 [1:07] headed cattle [1:08] and i was a middle child of eight [1:11] children i grew up with [1:12] and as a result i got to explore because [1:16] it was more fun being [1:17] outside of the house rather than inside [1:19] the house [1:21] when i was probably about 10 years old [1:24] we may have gotten a tv [1:27] we had a radio like to listen to the [1:29] lone ranger [1:30] as soon as the cows milking was done for [1:33] the evening we'd run in and [1:35] try to get a good spot in front of this [1:38] tall radio and so i started out what you [1:41] would call [1:42] i call pleasant poverty so [1:45] the dairy farm to support eight children [1:48] that's the source of income 26 cattle so [1:52] my father was a small businessman [1:55] and the farm was his business he was [1:58] given that farm [1:59] by his father and so there's a lot of [2:03] history associated with that [2:05] happening i found out later in life [2:08] that my father wanted to be an engineer [2:11] and wanted to go to drexel [2:14] he wanted to be an electrical engineer [2:16] so [2:17] when you look at my past [2:20] i don't think there's many indications [2:23] that i'd be sitting here talking to you [2:26] i don't know what actually [2:30] was the path and what the guideposts [2:33] were [2:34] because it was like i was following [2:37] something but i didn't know what it was [2:40] when is the first time you thought of [2:43] yourself [2:44] as possibly an engineer [2:48] it was probably when i was about when i [2:50] was an engineer [2:52] in other words the reason why i went to [2:55] college was [2:56] because i took the academic classes in [2:58] my high school [3:00] and i really didn't know even what that [3:02] meant so therefore [3:04] i took the classes that i was interested [3:06] in i suppose [3:08] math and science but for me to [3:11] i never thought i was going to be an [3:12] engineer i thought i was going to be a [3:14] laborer [3:15] because that's what you do on a farm so [3:17] you learn how to do things that you're [3:19] told to do we need this project done we [3:21] need to plow that field [3:23] we need to cut the hay we need to bale [3:26] the hay we need to bring it into the [3:28] farm [3:28] we need to milk the cows in the morning [3:30] in the evening and all these things you [3:32] were [3:33] doing and you were expected to do so [3:35] hard work was what i knew [3:37] and i enjoyed that i enjoyed being [3:39] outdoors [3:40] so for me to think that i was going to [3:42] be in an office environment [3:44] that's nothing i ever thought i would do [3:47] so maybe [3:47] when i was 18 and the guidance counselor [3:50] said [3:51] well you've prepared yourself to go to [3:53] college i'm thinking [3:55] this is a mistake because i wanted to [3:57] get out of class [3:59] i didn't like english didn't like [4:01] history didn't like social studies [4:04] i just liked math and science and [4:06] because you could get real answers [4:08] somebody asked me what did this poem [4:10] mean [4:11] i go well she ask poet i [4:15] mean really i mean what did i get from [4:18] it that [4:19] wasn't what i remembered the question to [4:20] be so [4:22] to me going to college was not [4:25] expected none of my family ever went to [4:28] college [4:29] so you found yourself studying [4:31] engineering yes and i think i [4:33] studied engineering because my dad [4:36] had engineering magazines maybe ieee [4:39] magazine well i don't know if i triple e [4:41] was around maybe [4:42] oh it was it was around but um some of [4:45] these magazines like spectrum [4:47] started 50 years ago and this was well [4:49] maybe that was something [4:51] but what i'm getting at here is he had [4:52] some electronic magazines [4:54] and also he equipped the farm [4:58] with a generator that when the [4:59] philadelphia electric company power went [5:01] out [5:02] we need to keep the milk cold so then he [5:04] had a big [5:06] circuit breaker from a ship i think and [5:08] he installed that and [5:10] then started the tractor and started the [5:11] generator so to keep the milk [5:13] cold so that's electronics so i suppose [5:16] i got that from my dad [5:19] do you remember what classes interested [5:21] you most [5:23] in college in electronics in engineering [5:26] ah no well temple [5:29] temple was engineering technology so [5:32] it's more like [5:33] learning how to use equipment technology [5:36] not the [5:37] theory in the physics and so therefore [5:41] the classes that i took were just to get [5:43] my degree get out [5:44] get a job as a technician thinking i'd [5:47] be able to make more money [5:48] as a technician than as a laborer so i [5:52] was [5:52] rudely awakened when i'm working for [5:56] hinkles and mccoy making about 150 [5:58] dollars [5:58] a week with overtime and then [6:02] working for 85 dollars a week [6:05] it didn't make sense after i got my [6:07] degree so i needed to make some changes [6:10] and [6:12] i decided to be an engineer to pay my [6:14] mom back [6:16] so what was your first job after college [6:20] okay it was i worked for and i very [6:22] seldom tell people this but for three [6:24] months [6:24] i worked for a company called polyphase [6:27] in bridgeport which is [6:28] across the susquehanna susquehanna the [6:31] schuylkill river from [6:33] norristown and it was an old [6:36] manufacturing community and it was in an [6:39] old factory that this [6:40] polyphase was it was a depressing [6:44] situation for me that i didn't [6:48] start until it had been in the spring [6:51] of 1967 [6:55] and i first went into the army for [6:58] national guard [6:59] training and that's why i did an [7:02] interview right out of college so it was [7:04] after that that i got a recommendation [7:06] from a friend of mine that found a job [7:08] there [7:09] and he got a hundred dollars because i [7:11] took the job [7:14] so then i decided this wasn't for me [7:17] so i wanted i quit without another job [7:20] then i worked for filco ford and that's [7:22] where i was introduced to semiconductors [7:25] so tell us about that well at filco ford [7:28] now ford [7:29] bought filco and i think it was for the [7:32] electronics that going into automobiles [7:34] and then ford or i don't know if it was [7:38] ford or filco [7:40] acquired gme which was the first mos [7:44] manufacturer of semiconductor products [7:47] and in fact they had a 10 24 bit rom [7:51] back in this 60 probably 67 [7:55] something like that because there was a [7:59] jet engine controller that was built out [8:01] of these with eight [8:03] 10 24 bit roms and of course there had [8:06] been memory in there [8:07] i mean ram in there so that is where i [8:10] learned about [8:11] semiconductors and then i studied the [8:14] physical characteristics of [8:16] semiconductors for instance [8:18] you want to know the f tau of a [8:21] amplifier [8:22] and a frequency and then [8:26] the thermal coefficients of materials [8:29] so if you put a semiconductor a [8:31] regulator [8:32] solid state regulator on [8:35] a heat sink what's the thermal [8:38] coefficient from the surface [8:40] of the semiconductor to the actual [8:45] heat sink and so these kind of basic [8:47] characteristics [8:48] of semiconductors is what i worked on as [8:52] a technician [8:53] so then i i was interested in their [8:55] characteristics [8:57] i went to villanova night school took [8:59] four [9:00] different engineering classes to see if [9:03] i could [9:04] be an engineer and then i did well in [9:07] those [9:07] four courses then i wanted to transfer [9:10] my credits from temple [9:12] i had like 109 credits from temple [9:15] you need about 130 135 to be an engineer [9:19] thinking i could finish in one or two [9:22] years [9:22] they didn't accept my credits that's [9:25] when i [9:26] came to arizona because i had a [9:28] fraternity brother that came to arizona [9:31] and he went to asu and i went to the u [9:33] of a interestingly enough i didn't never [9:35] saw him again [9:36] but that's how i got into semiconductors [9:39] is through filco ford [9:41] and how did you get uh from there to [9:44] motorola well good question [9:49] at filco ford being in the radio [9:52] business [9:52] television business excuse me [9:56] motorola was a leader in those circuits [9:59] so filco ford was trying to fill figure [10:02] out or [10:03] filco was trying to figure out how [10:06] motorola was developing some of their [10:08] high voltage circuits [10:09] so the breakdown voltages and other [10:12] things the characteristics of [10:14] the circuitries in tvs and radios [10:18] is what filco was looking at so then i [10:21] knew who was the leader [10:24] because we wouldn't be trying to figure [10:26] out what [10:27] the follower was doing we're trying to [10:29] figure out what the leader's doing [10:30] so i knew then motorola was the leader [10:33] so i wanted to work for a leader [10:35] and so my whole goal was set on working [10:38] for motorola [10:39] after i got my engineering degree [10:43] so how did that happen well [10:46] that's an interesting another [10:47] interesting question it was kind of [10:49] bizarre actually [10:51] uh in my senior year so i took it took [10:54] me two years [10:55] to get my engineering degree at the [10:56] university of arizona a very good school [10:59] back in those days [11:00] the professors were writing the [11:02] textbooks [11:04] and actually i took a course and it [11:06] could have been one of his [11:08] first courses or an early course because [11:10] temple [11:11] at temple university of arizona [11:13] professor [11:14] started systems engineering i didn't [11:16] know that until recently [11:18] but i took a course from him and i did [11:19] very well in that course [11:21] so what happens was is when you have [11:25] businesses coming to interview the [11:27] students it was clearly stated [11:29] that if you're not graduating you if [11:31] you're graduating in the spring you [11:33] interview in the spring [11:34] so if you graduate in the fall you [11:37] interview in the fall [11:39] well for whatever reason i really wanted [11:41] to get interviewed at motorola so [11:44] i went to the fall interviews and found [11:47] that there was nobody signed up [11:49] and motorola was looking for someone [11:51] with over a 3.3 [11:53] grade point average and so i'm thinking [11:56] hey there's nobody signed up [11:57] i'll sign up because i have a 3.3 grade [12:02] so the head of uh [12:05] college recruiting came his name was [12:07] jerry fulton [12:08] and jury interviewed me and we had a [12:10] wonderful conversation [12:12] and as it turned out jack hennison [12:15] jack kenoshan yeah jack hennison was [12:19] a manager from filco [12:22] that went to no i'm sorry it wasn't jack [12:25] henderson it was another name right now [12:28] i can't think of his name he was at [12:30] filco ford he was like [12:32] two levels above my boss at philco ford [12:36] he was at motorola so i had something in [12:39] common [12:40] there was somebody i knew i almost had [12:43] his name [12:44] so what happened was i'm talking to [12:46] jerry fulton and jerry and i get along [12:49] really good [12:50] he says we got a job for you partner [12:52] because i had two years [12:53] experience and and so i had this [12:56] engineering technology background [12:58] and an engineering degree so he was they [13:00] were looking for people with [13:02] experience like that so when the spring [13:06] semester came i didn't do very well in [13:08] that interview [13:09] and i found out later why but [13:12] i don't need to get into that right now [13:14] it just didn't work and i left in the [13:16] middle of the interview [13:17] thinking i already talked to the boss [13:21] and so that spring when you get your [13:24] responses back i got [13:28] an employment offer from martin marietta [13:30] in denver [13:32] i promptly put it back in the mail [13:34] thanks but no thanks [13:36] got one from ncr in [13:40] california working for a computer [13:43] company [13:44] both of them were computer i promptly [13:46] put that in the mail thanks but no [13:48] thanks [13:48] waiting for the motorola motorola gets [13:51] the letter [13:52] signed by jerry fulton said thanks for [13:54] interviewing [13:55] but sorry we don't have a position for [13:58] you [14:00] i want to jump in the mailbox to get [14:02] back those other letters [14:04] so instead i call jury and say hey jerry [14:09] this is bill at the university of [14:10] arizona he goes [14:12] right i said well i got this [14:16] turn down letter and i thought you [14:18] wanted to hire me [14:20] oh bill there's a mistake throw that [14:21] away i said jury [14:23] you signed it he said that's a mistake [14:27] throw it away there's another letter [14:28] coming that's how i got the job [14:31] so what was what was the job that you [14:33] were hired to do [14:34] at motorola well presumably what [14:37] interested them when they interviewed [14:38] well you know motorola is an awesome [14:41] company [14:42] it was an awesome company it's kind of [14:44] fractured right now [14:46] but motorola had a training program and [14:49] you spent three months in four different [14:51] areas of the company [14:52] on that training program you were [14:55] treated like royalty [14:56] everybody wanted to train any working [14:58] firm the reason why [15:00] is the training department paid your [15:02] salary so your free labor [15:04] for the department that you're working [15:06] for so i thought about [15:07] i thought well why don't i learn [15:09] motorola so my first one [15:11] first three month they called them [15:13] rotations whereas [15:15] in the applications department part of [15:18] marketing [15:19] so i worked on the modem 6860 modem [15:23] working with a consultant i think his [15:25] name was [15:27] either anderson or jacobson there was [15:28] anderson jacobson [15:30] was the name of the modem manufacturer [15:32] at the time well they [15:33] they wanted to do an integrated circuit [15:35] low speed 300 baud [15:37] and so i got to flowchart that and [15:40] look at some of the circuits that were [15:42] needed to make the modem [15:44] what it needed to be so then the next [15:47] three months i spent in the design group [15:50] designing [15:51] what i specified in the first one then i [15:54] wanted to get into [15:56] mos processing because i wanted mos [15:58] because i knew [16:00] mos was the future and how how did you [16:02] know that [16:03] again it was about some basic [16:06] characteristics that i learned at the [16:08] university of arizona [16:09] and saw at filco ford that the bipolar [16:13] process was slower switching if you [16:17] go to the uh the highest the highest [16:20] performing circuits were going to be [16:22] voltage control which is the fet and so [16:25] therefore the analog [16:28] or the bipolar was current controlled so [16:32] it's slower but at the time it was the [16:35] fastest but you knew in the future it [16:36] was going to switch from [16:38] bipolar to mos field effect transistors [16:41] so what happens is i know that i want to [16:44] be in mls [16:45] i knew that was the future i was working [16:48] for a leader in the business [16:49] i wanted to be in process design next so [16:52] then i would manufacture [16:53] what i designed so to speak not really [16:55] but that's the idea [16:57] and so that wasn't available to me there [17:00] wasn't a [17:00] mos spot available as a trainee [17:04] so i worked for a bipolar part [17:07] of the motorola that was doing emitter [17:11] coupled logic which was the fastest [17:13] switching circuits in the world at the [17:15] time [17:16] and so that ecl motorola called a mekel [17:19] motorola eco and so i designed a triple [17:22] diffused [17:23] we called it mecklen which was the end [17:25] of the line so to speak [17:27] and that was i was diffusing into a [17:31] a bulk background the collector the next [17:35] was the base and then the emitter [17:37] and that was really hard to do nobody [17:39] had done it before [17:40] so i decided i'm going to i'm going to [17:42] create [17:43] a program model so i could change the [17:45] times and temperatures [17:47] and then i would be able to see the [17:49] diffusion of the ions into the [17:51] background and [17:52] into the collector by the base and then [17:54] the emitter into the base [17:56] so if if you punch through the emitter [17:59] through the base you don't [18:00] you've got a diode or you've got a short [18:02] really [18:03] because they're same type of material so [18:05] that's what i did [18:06] and so then i could get all the design [18:08] characteristics with five different [18:10] programs [18:11] that i wrote and there was a guy named [18:13] jim dunkley [18:15] that had a cookbook for bipolar [18:17] processing [18:18] so what i did was automated his book [18:20] cookbook [18:21] so when i got the next rotation was [18:24] marketing so then i wanted to see how [18:26] you sell these things [18:28] and so i worked on data sheets and then [18:30] there was a quote needed for [18:32] ibm for various size memories and [18:36] various volumes of memories so it's a [18:38] learning curve [18:39] over like a seven year period like [18:42] seven different oh i remember seven [18:44] seven sevens like seven different [18:47] uh volumes seven different years [18:50] and uh seven different densities and so [18:53] it was like seven pages of numbers [18:55] so i didn't think the secretary would [18:58] type up the numbers very accurately [19:00] so i decided i would write a 4k program [19:03] and all i did it was a spreadsheet [19:04] without [19:05] you know so you plug in the numbers then [19:07] you print it out it was a fortran [19:08] program [19:09] on a silent 700 which is a terminal at [19:12] the time [19:13] and then i copied on it yeah [19:16] so it was i i copied it on regular paper [19:19] so [19:19] because that that rolled thermal paper [19:22] wasn't [19:22] fun to handle so then i did that within [19:25] a couple of days and [19:27] then on to the next project but [19:29] marketing is how [19:31] i was forced by the marketing people [19:33] into [19:34] the logic group because there wasn't an [19:37] opening for me [19:38] in the microprocessor group which i [19:40] wanted to be in [19:42] well so why why did you want to be in [19:44] the microprocessor group [19:46] you got to motorola you worked on uh [19:50] designing the the modem chip you worked [19:53] on [19:53] the processing uh from the bipolar chips [19:57] how did you decide that microprocessors [19:59] were where you wanted to be [20:01] it wasn't really microprocessors at the [20:03] time i was focusing on [20:06] the fact that i loved the design [20:08] characteristics of mls [20:10] but as it turns out i [20:14] got four offers in every department that [20:17] i worked in [20:17] they gave me an offer the fourth one [20:21] the fifth one actually i'm sorry would [20:23] be got five offers [20:25] the fifth one came from the high voltage [20:28] bipolar [20:30] organization that had had the [20:33] tv circuits they wanted me because i [20:36] could model [20:37] the junctions and so we could figure out [20:39] what the breakdown voltages were [20:42] which was very important characteristic [20:44] the reason why i didn't take the job [20:46] is because when i was told by jury hey [20:50] bill you you need to get off your an [20:51] extra month on this and we need to [20:54] you need to pick and so i needed to pick [20:56] well i wanted to work for the bipolar [20:58] group [21:00] i sent them a letter never got a [21:02] response this was when you have [21:04] inter-office memos sent around we didn't [21:06] have email [21:07] and so what happens is i never got a [21:10] response and so then [21:12] the marketing group the mos marketing [21:14] group said [21:15] we haven't really gotten circuits to [21:17] work out of that mos logic group [21:20] so we want you to work there so they're [21:22] the ones that said [21:23] you need to take bill well meanwhile [21:26] i never got a response from the bipolar [21:29] group so [21:30] then after i'm working for a week i get [21:33] this call from the the head of the [21:34] bipolar group that wanted me to [21:36] work there he says bill where are you i [21:38] said in the logic group [21:40] oh he says well we want you to work here [21:43] we told you that [21:44] i said yeah but you didn't respond to my [21:46] my letter [21:47] email my letter my memo and i thought [21:50] because you didn't respond [21:51] you didn't want me so that's why i'm in [21:54] the logic group now i made a commitment [21:55] i'm [21:56] here he said bill did you see the tv the [21:59] you know last week or the week before [22:01] when that tornado sit down in north [22:03] scottsdale [22:04] well maybe he said that was my house [22:08] i was putting my house back together [22:10] that's why i didn't respond to you [22:13] and i'm thinking a tornado changed my [22:16] path [22:19] so what did you do i worked in the logic [22:22] group and [22:23] and then what i did there was something [22:25] that another one of these opportunities [22:28] there was nobody wanted to design just [22:31] logic gates [22:34] there's a motorola had a local [22:37] logic i called it loco logic [22:40] in boston for some of the computer [22:43] companies and so [22:44] you could design your own custom circuit [22:47] with standard cell library [22:49] so it was my job to take that i took [22:52] over from somebody else that [22:53] probably didn't really want to do it [22:54] because it wasn't that much fun but you [22:56] had to put in the capacitances [22:58] on the inputs and the outputs you have [23:00] to have the drive [23:02] capability and the performance it was in [23:04] a if you remember the old logic [23:06] libraries that had their [23:07] various characteristics that you had to [23:09] have in the [23:10] in a sheet that described the [23:13] performance of the various logic gates [23:15] so i designed the local logic library [23:19] for pmos metalgate pmos silicon gate [23:23] cmos metal gate cmos silicon gate nmos [23:26] metal gate and moss silicon gate [23:28] so i learned all the processes so it was [23:31] kind of like [23:32] wow this is now i know how it all works [23:35] so then because i did that then they [23:38] wanted me to design the process control [23:40] monitor [23:41] that monitored all of the well the [23:44] wafers for the memory products and for [23:46] the microprocessor products that ran on [23:48] the [23:49] nmos enhancement load process [23:52] that we designed our chips on so then i [23:55] designed the process control monitor [23:57] that was stepped into [23:59] the wafer in like five different [24:00] locations then you probe that [24:03] to get to know whether the process was [24:05] in spec or not [24:07] so then i designed that then i was [24:10] asked to join the microprocessor design [24:12] group and that's why [24:14] you know i worked on that but then all [24:17] the engineers were working on that [24:19] and then they needed somebody to do the [24:21] peripheral interface adapter [24:23] so i was pulled off the microprocessor [24:25] to design the peripheral interface [24:27] adapter [24:28] which connected the microprocessing [24:30] element the memory elements [24:32] to the real world driving solenoids [24:35] driving just external switch or [24:39] reading external switches and the pia [24:42] was used also for a keyboard interface [24:46] so that you could drive some of the with [24:49] some of the pins you drive the rows and [24:51] then you sense which key is depressed [24:53] so i got a wonderful introduction to the [24:56] whole system by doing that [24:57] peripheral interface adapter so on the [25:00] pia what [25:01] what what did you do how did that [25:03] project start and [25:05] what were your contributions to it and [25:07] take us through the [25:08] okay so at motorola they had a like that [25:12] applications department they specify [25:14] things so marketing [25:15] specified what they thought the industry [25:18] wanted [25:19] and so as a result then you would take [25:22] that spec that was created [25:24] in combination with the design group but [25:27] mostly [25:28] dominated by the marketing group so [25:31] in some cases that's a good thing some [25:33] cases a bad thing the 6800 [25:35] microprocessor [25:37] was thrown together by a lot of [25:40] contributors so therefore the design [25:42] group didn't really have much to say [25:44] about what went into it [25:45] and if a sales guy came back and said [25:48] hey we need this instruction so they [25:49] added another instruction whether [25:51] whatever so it was kind of a random [25:53] thing but it was built on the [25:55] specification of the pdp-8 [25:57] the 6800 the 6502 came later [26:00] was pdp-11 better architecture [26:04] and now going back to my contribution on [26:06] the pia [26:07] i was somebody picked the numbers i [26:10] didn't pick the numbers they said it was [26:11] supposed to be 135 mills [26:14] by 135 mills [26:17] so that was my challenge so then [26:20] i think and what was the feature size [26:23] it was 0.8 micron 800 nanometers [26:29] so it was 0.8 mi that means 4 10 of a [26:31] micro i mean [26:32] 0.4 mils [26:36] 0.4 mil uh i got the number system right [26:40] the line with metal line width was 0.4 [26:43] the spacing was 0.4 [26:45] so it was 0.8 mil centers [26:48] so that was large compared to the future [26:51] where we are now [26:53] so we knew what those characteristics [26:55] are [26:56] and so how they came up with 135 by 135 [26:59] i don't know maybe that was the cavity [27:02] or well [27:02] something i think sales said we needed [27:04] that to make money [27:06] and so no it wasn't the cavity because [27:09] the same [27:09] package accepted to 217 [27:13] by 210 mil 6800. [27:16] so you got the you got the outline of [27:18] the die the size of the [27:19] size of the die and then basically [27:23] did they give you a pin out i don't know [27:26] if i was given a pin out or i chose the [27:28] pin out right now [27:29] but when you design a chip you know on [27:32] one side is the data bus [27:34] because you're going to latch into [27:35] information from the microprocessor [27:37] then you're going to have io so across [27:40] the chip you have a data path [27:42] that data path kind of tells you where [27:44] you want to put things [27:46] so i don't know if i actually defined [27:47] the pin out i could have [27:49] because i knew i wanted the flexibility [27:52] to [27:53] define where things were actually maybe [27:56] i did do the pin out because i got a [27:58] patent on it [27:59] it was the first patent for the layout [28:02] of an ic [28:03] and other lawyers have called me from [28:05] time to time not recently [28:07] but they say how did you get that patent [28:09] well my patent lawyer [28:11] charlie hoffman he put that together but [28:14] he thought it was worthy of a patent [28:16] and so i got a patent the patent is that [28:18] i placed things [28:20] that if you changed it it would be a [28:22] bigger chip i convinced the patent [28:24] office [28:24] that it was unique and if anybody copied [28:27] it they were violating our patent [28:29] so you know a patent is [28:33] was created patent office was created in [28:37] uh in 1800 while 1800 is when thomas [28:40] jefferson was president [28:41] he was the first head of the patent [28:44] office [28:45] and i do have a patent the very first [28:47] patent is on potash [28:49] but in my office charlie gave me that [28:51] you know copy [28:52] but he made it look real so going back [28:56] to that [28:57] is what a patent is about it's about [29:00] teaching someone what you know [29:04] and what you've invented so you get the [29:07] monopoly that's the word that's on the [29:09] patent you get a monopoly if you're [29:11] willing to teach someone [29:13] so i was teaching them how to do a [29:15] peripheral interface adapter and [29:17] so i got a patent on it so so that [29:20] device [29:21] i chose every transistor on there i [29:24] taught the mass designer [29:25] how to design integrated circuits [29:28] and when he said he couldn't do this one [29:32] part [29:33] i stayed up after a party i stayed up on [29:36] a friday night and finished the chip [29:38] and so but he had an un he didn't have [29:41] the advantage of knowing [29:43] what he could do with the actual [29:45] transistors and the resistors and [29:47] to make it work so i figured it out and [29:50] i took it in on monday and [29:51] say i think we're done with the chip now [29:53] we just need to check it [29:55] so what tools did you use to design this [29:59] okay so back in those days there was no [30:02] lvs no layout versus schematic [30:04] so you had to check those things and it [30:07] was with ruby lift [30:08] so you actually had a flat bed with a [30:11] knife on it [30:12] and cut it out and then somebody had to [30:13] peel off the [30:16] the ruby lift from the places where you [30:17] wanted light to shine through [30:19] so those patterns were driven by a kalma [30:23] was the original camel one system could [30:26] drive a plotter [30:28] or it could drive a ruby lift cutter [30:31] on a flatbed so the simulation of it i [30:35] was [30:36] one that liked computers so i was given [30:40] by a friend of my aunt back when i was [30:42] at temple [30:43] he was an ibm supervisor and when my [30:46] aunt my father had passed away [30:48] and so my aunt said maybe this friend of [30:51] mine [30:52] george rogers was his name maybe he [30:55] knows what you could do after you [30:56] graduate from temple [30:58] and his one comment that i don't [31:00] remember anything else i don't remember [31:02] a hello or goodbye or anything [31:04] get into computers so that's why [31:07] every chance i got i used a computer [31:10] because [31:10] i had one piece of advice get into [31:13] computers [31:14] so that's what i did so that means that [31:16] when i'm designing an integrated circuit [31:18] i want to use simulation because i knew [31:20] the computer could help me figure out [31:21] whether it was going to work or not [31:23] so i had to prove out that the [31:26] the pc control or the wafer the process [31:29] control monitor matched up with the [31:32] actual characteristics in the simulation [31:34] program [31:35] so i knew whether that was accurate or [31:37] not we had to make some changes to the [31:39] model because of things i found [31:41] and i found that narrow transistors had [31:44] a higher voltage [31:45] threshold than a short one and these are [31:48] things that the memory product [31:50] guys didn't use and so they had to [31:52] change their design because of what i [31:54] found on the process control monitor i [31:56] put very large narrow transistors very [31:59] wide transistors very large transistors [32:01] and very short transition [32:02] so i knew the characteristics and what [32:04] the actual sizing might have an effect [32:07] on [32:08] so i did that then i matched it up so [32:10] then i simulated everything so i [32:12] simulated everything [32:13] i knew it was going to work what [32:15] software did you use to do this [32:16] simulation [32:17] motorola there was an engineer there his [32:20] name was frank jenkins [32:22] he i think graduated from stanford [32:26] but i'm not sure if it's stanford or [32:27] berkeley one of those two [32:30] and so frank wrote a program called [32:33] time t-i-m-e stood for transient [32:37] something integrated whatever [32:39] microelectronics or something like that [32:41] circuit analysis so when he went to [32:43] motorola from [32:44] stanford or berkeley he wrote m [32:47] time so he just put the m in front of it [32:50] and so that [32:50] m time frank and i became friends i was [32:53] taking the data in the lab [32:55] he was writing the software then i tell [32:57] him when the model had to change we only [32:59] had like [33:00] less than 10 character characteristics [33:03] that we plugged into that model [33:05] it was very empirical so i got to know [33:08] everything about [33:09] the transistors and what worked what [33:11] didn't work [33:13] how complex was this chip how many [33:16] transistors [33:17] or gates was in that i'd say a thousand [33:19] to 1500 not that many [33:22] it's we still supply it by the way we're [33:25] still getting orders [33:26] for compatible version with the original [33:29] design and how many i o [33:33] lines did okay it had 20 i o lines it [33:36] had [33:36] eight individually programmable [33:40] bits of ports on one right so when you [33:44] write with an 8-bit processor you store [33:47] your accumulator into a register you [33:50] we had bi-directional controls so we had [33:53] a data direction register [33:54] and a data register and that's intel [33:58] i don't think ever had that so we [34:00] actually were selling [34:01] pias with 80 80 80 80 processors from [34:04] intel [34:05] because no they never they had eight [34:07] bits out eight bits in but not [34:09] individually selectable so that really [34:11] benefits if you only have [34:13] a couple of bits but you have more [34:15] outputs or inputs or whatever [34:17] so you can mix and match ncr [34:20] bought i don't know they were a big [34:23] purchaser of pias [34:26] motorola would force them to buy a 6800 [34:28] they were buying intel processors [34:30] but buying my pa pias so intel marketing [34:34] thought hey for every 10 pias you got to [34:37] buy one microprocessor so i don't know [34:38] what they did with the microprocessor [34:40] the 6800s but [34:41] i think they tried to find a home for [34:43] them sell them or something [34:44] but they used my pa with the intel [34:47] processor [34:48] so the other two so there's two [34:50] handshake pins [34:51] on a port so the handshake [34:54] on two different ports so now we have [34:56] two 8-bit ports that would be 16 pins [34:59] then two handshake pins per port so when [35:02] you wrote [35:02] to the output let's say when you wrote [35:05] to the output [35:06] you wanted to tell the rest of the world [35:08] i wrote to the app [35:09] to the output buffer now you it's your [35:11] turn to take it so it's handshaking [35:13] and so then when that peripheral took [35:16] the value of the pins [35:18] it would tell you that it read the pin [35:20] so then you can go back and forth [35:22] it's an interrupt ribbon or polling you [35:25] could see [35:26] that this transfer had occurred [35:29] so that's basically a pia the other side [35:31] of it is the interface to the [35:32] microprocessor [35:34] eight data pins and register addressing [35:38] and then you have read write and phase [35:40] two and [35:41] power supply that's that's the 40 pin [35:43] part [35:44] what other chips did you do at motorola [35:49] well my patents i designed the buffers [35:51] that were used on all of the parts [35:53] so [35:56] i o buffers i o buffers they're you know [35:59] clock generators i i designed all the [36:01] clock generators [36:03] and so uh the individual circuits [36:06] because of my work with the standard [36:08] cell library i knew how to pick the [36:10] transistor sizing [36:12] because you look at the loading that [36:14] you're going to have on a data path or a [36:16] wire [36:17] you know what the calcul you can [36:18] calculate the capacitive loading if [36:20] there's resistance in it you could put [36:22] that in the model [36:23] simulating it so all of that i knew and [36:25] that's what i [36:26] so all of all of the chips at motorola [36:29] used [36:29] some of my circuits so you were kind of [36:32] the analog guy in the digital [36:34] group and you understood the [36:37] dynamic uh issues with the yes [36:40] yeah in fact that you know later much [36:43] later when i start after i started my [36:45] company [36:46] to survive i taught xerox how to design [36:50] microprocessors and that was a big part [36:52] of what they [36:53] were missing they didn't know how to [36:55] really put a [36:56] microprocessor together i showed them [36:58] how to do that because you have to use [37:00] some basic [37:01] physics you just what capacitive loading [37:04] do you have on it [37:06] and if you don't know what the [37:06] capacitive loading is you don't know [37:08] what transistor sizes will [37:10] be required to switch in a certain time [37:12] frame [37:14] so yeah i knew i knew that the [37:16] characteristics of the transistors [37:18] so after the pia what did you do next [37:22] well my next chip was to design a [37:25] peripheral [37:26] i mean a programmable timer unit but it [37:28] was in the middle of that [37:30] that chuck came a calling and say bill [37:34] do you really want to go to austin texas [37:37] no i don't really want to go to texas [37:41] uh so he says hey how about if we [37:44] we get a group together and we design [37:46] the microprocessor we really want to do [37:48] and you know that the 6800 isn't the [37:52] right one [37:52] it's too big right chuck i know it's too [37:55] big [37:56] so chuck said who do we need to be [37:58] successful [38:00] who who can we take out a motorola [38:03] to be successful i'm going to look for [38:05] some place that we can land [38:07] and we'll design the microprocessor and [38:10] that's what started my thinking motorola [38:14] isn't going to be the place i'm going to [38:15] retire at but [38:17] another thing happened at motorola [38:21] i made a bet with the operations manager [38:25] of the mos group otis [38:28] wilkins otis ended up at gte [38:32] heading up their semiconductor [38:33] operations later but otis [38:36] said was it otis maybe have the wrong [38:40] guy [38:40] but anyhow he's at we had a party for [38:44] releasing the [38:45] microprocessor and the pia at the same [38:47] time [38:48] and so to manufacturing get the samples [38:52] first and so what i said [38:56] i'll bet now this is after a glass of [38:57] wine or two or three at a favorite [39:00] restaurant [39:02] everybody's celebrating i'm saying my [39:04] chip will work the first time [39:07] and he says that's an easy bet [39:10] no chip has ever worked the first time [39:13] so what's the bet i said [39:15] how about dinner what do you think you [39:19] and your wife [39:20] me and my wife dinner he said okay [39:23] where i said well for me the wharf in [39:26] san francisco [39:28] we're in phoenix he says well i know a [39:32] restaurant in scottsdale [39:34] with a hundred dollar bottle of wine i [39:36] go okay [39:38] you're on my chip came out worked well [39:42] why did it work [39:43] we didn't have lvs what i did was i [39:46] checked it [39:46] five times you make a bet you better [39:49] back it up [39:50] i wasn't wanting to buy him a bottle 100 [39:53] bottle of wine anyway well he never paid [39:55] off [39:56] so when somebody doesn't pay off then [39:58] you go is this the right place for me [40:00] and then another thing was said to me [40:04] in a meeting with ami which was our [40:06] second source [40:07] they said if bill's chip works the first [40:09] time [40:10] we're going to give him the first [40:13] engineering [40:14] bonus whoa [40:17] and john buganon he's passed away now [40:20] john like what what about me he was the [40:23] guy [40:24] that was in charge of the project leader [40:26] of the 6800 in this meeting [40:28] so he wasn't happy with that because he [40:30] thought probably that he deserves a [40:32] bonus just because he [40:33] held the team together to get the chop [40:35] project done [40:37] chip came out worked the first time [40:40] never paid off on the opponent so at [40:43] that point you were [40:44] skeptical about how successful the 6800 [40:48] was going to be [40:48] no no i thought that would be successful [40:51] no it was it was the fact that i needed [40:53] to leave [40:54] because not one but two promises were [40:57] broken [40:59] that was powerful okay so who do you [41:01] think i meet in the hall at 52nd street [41:04] jerry fulton bill i thought i heard [41:06] you're leaving [41:07] i said yeah jerry [41:12] i've got to go [41:15] so then what happened went to mos [41:18] technology [41:19] so now i'm [41:22] fueled by we need to make this [41:24] successful [41:26] so what was mos technology like when you [41:29] showed up oh my god that's a good [41:32] question [41:35] it was run by calculator people out of [41:37] texas instruments [41:38] and so the operations guy i forget what [41:41] his name was but he was [41:43] a very successful texas instruments [41:47] production manager so he was like vice [41:49] president of production [41:52] and the people that were designing the [41:53] calculator chips they were pmos [41:56] metal gate that's what i think ti had at [41:59] the time and so [42:01] they were very successful in the [42:03] calculator business and in fact the [42:05] oh almost had his name his first name [42:08] was don [42:09] but he came up with a thing called spot [42:12] knocking the masks [42:14] so they had perfect math but nobody else [42:16] had perfect math [42:18] so they had a great manufacturing team [42:23] from a ti background and [42:27] had a great logic team designing [42:29] calculators that were really significant [42:31] they're scientific and everything so [42:33] they knew what they were doing [42:34] so don mclaughlin was the vice president [42:37] of engineering he was one of the [42:38] founders [42:39] so what happened when we got there they [42:41] didn't want us there [42:43] they're saying what how could john paven [42:46] and the [42:47] founding president how could he hire [42:49] this group out of the west [42:50] they don't know what they're doing and [42:52] we know what we can do why [42:54] why aren't we doing it so they weren't [42:56] happy that [42:57] john paven brought in a team to do [43:01] a microprocessor now the actual 65 [43:04] where'd that come from i guess [43:06] it's lower number than 68. [43:09] i don't know where the 65 came from uh [43:12] and then of course you start at zero [43:14] zero and then zero one zero two like [43:16] that but [43:17] zero zero isn't too interesting so the [43:19] first microprocessor is 6501 [43:22] and how big was the team that that came [43:24] over with you [43:25] eight of us and then we hired one [43:30] i think we hired one back there so we [43:32] had two mass designers [43:36] we hired one mass designer so we had [43:38] three mass designers on the project [43:40] uh harry bockham and and uh [43:45] mike james j-a-n-e-s i think [43:49] uh and then terry holt was the [43:50] operations guy and then we had chuck [43:52] petals the marketing [43:54] and he was the ring leader he was the [43:57] he was the business guy he was the guy [43:58] that said if we do this [44:00] we can we can create a good business [44:03] opportunity [44:04] uh so chuck was the marketing guy and he [44:07] kind of controlled [44:08] the opportunity so to speak he put [44:11] together the [44:12] the package for mos to the contract [44:17] and so then there's myself ray hurt [44:20] uh and then how how many do i have there [44:25] sid hope was one that we hired that was [44:27] back there so there's a picture in [44:29] e times of the group that designed the [44:32] microprocessor in the product so did [44:35] they have an nmos process when you [44:37] when you joined no so we had to bring up [44:40] an nmos process [44:41] which going back to motorola days which [44:44] was another reason why [44:46] i left motorola is when you want to make [44:50] a difference [44:51] and somebody stands in your way for no [44:54] apparent reason [44:56] you kind of say what's going on here [44:58] it's confusing [44:59] so what happened was because i had to [45:01] process control model [45:03] monitor responsibility i decided [45:07] that i would have aligned with the same [45:10] lattice structure and everything if you [45:12] know a little bit about the physics of [45:13] the lattice [45:14] the mobility can change depending on [45:16] which way it's oriented [45:17] subtly and so i had depletion load [45:21] process and enhancement load process [45:24] on the same process control monitor so [45:27] all you had to do is [45:29] use the depletion mask so that you could [45:31] implant [45:32] for the depletion thresholds for the [45:34] load devices [45:35] it was much faster process much easier [45:38] process [45:39] less transistors it was the way to go [45:42] well chuck saw what i was doing so when [45:45] we went to mos technology [45:47] we specified what we wanted it's what i [45:49] wanted at motorola [45:50] which motorola didn't want to do how [45:52] many masks was was that process oh [45:55] it wasn't very many seven or eight [45:57] something like that wasn't very many and [45:59] what was the [46:00] wafer size at that point [46:03] well the first wafers that i worked on [46:04] at motorola they were like [46:06] two and a half inch wafers but i think [46:08] we probably were three [46:10] i don't know if they had three and a [46:11] half but i don't think they were four [46:13] inch wafers [46:14] but what ed armstrong the process guy [46:18] that was the head of process at motorola [46:20] for the nmos process at motorola [46:22] he grew a long beard waiting for 10 [46:26] good die per wafer and we were getting [46:29] like 100 could die [46:30] per way from the 65.2 we had at least 10 [46:33] times the yield per wafer so we had [46:36] and it was because of their spot [46:37] knocking and [46:39] what is the spot knocking well when you [46:42] build a [46:43] mask you have flaws sometimes in the [46:46] material that's used [46:47] are these contact masks at this point [46:49] well no that's another thing [46:51] the contact mask means that you would [46:53] wear out your mask [46:54] after used a few times so these were [46:57] projection [46:58] okay or proximity so is proximity if i [47:01] got it right [47:02] and that means it didn't touch the [47:04] weight so if you got a good [47:05] mass you had a good mass that you could [47:08] use for hundreds of wafers as long [47:10] as you didn't damage them so [47:13] the spot knocking meant that if you [47:15] compared two you're not going to have a [47:16] hole [47:18] in the same place on both mats so then [47:21] if you went in and [47:22] put a little ink or something that [47:24] covered the hole up [47:25] you could create a perfect mask that's [47:28] what we had [47:29] so you retouched the mask yeah yeah [47:31] motorola wasn't doing that [47:33] so we had advantages in manufacturing so [47:36] when we sold [47:37] a 20 6501 [47:40] and a 25 6502 [47:44] we were making money so your [47:47] your team went to mos to build a [47:50] microprocessor [47:51] who came up with the architecture of the [47:54] processor [47:55] well it would be chuck i would say [47:59] i'm a semiconductor engineer so [48:03] i'm building what chuck once built [48:08] when i did step in and started [48:12] defining things is when i realized [48:15] there were some basic things here that [48:17] could make a big difference [48:19] motorola 6800 had a clock generator [48:24] that they sold for 69 on top of a 375.6 [48:29] microprocessor so if you add the two [48:31] together [48:32] you got over 400 dollars and so but [48:35] without any i o [48:36] even right so then [48:39] the idea here is that if you design the [48:43] clock generator and it's run [48:44] on one wafer and the microprocessor's on [48:48] a different wafer [48:49] than the characteristics between the [48:51] clock generator wafer and the [48:53] microprocessor wafer one could be fast [48:55] and one could be slow [48:56] so if you have a slow clock and a fast [48:58] microprocessor [49:00] it could have some race conditions that [49:02] would cause it to fail [49:04] so while chuck's off on a marketing [49:08] you know visit someplace [49:12] i'm talking to rod and i say hey ron [49:15] why don't we just build a clock [49:17] generator right into the 6501 [49:21] well why why do you want to do that i [49:24] said because [49:24] then you don't need a clock generator [49:26] chip just put a resistor and a capacitor [49:28] on it or a crystal and a [49:30] resistor on it and you're you're good to [49:31] go you don't have to worry about it [49:34] and so brad's saying well whatever [49:37] and so then chuck comes back i tell [49:40] chuck [49:40] hey this isn't going to cost you [49:42] anything he says well as long as it [49:43] doesn't cost anything [49:44] and you can put it in there i said it's [49:46] a metal option [49:48] if you want it you have it it's the same [49:50] chip 6501 6502 is exactly the same [49:53] except the metal layer you just connect [49:56] up the clock generator [49:58] the way it's designed so [50:01] rod has and i have a bet well rod [50:03] doesn't think the clock generator is [50:05] necessarily a good idea [50:07] because it differentiates it from the [50:09] pin out of the 6800 [50:11] so you go rod rod says [50:15] we're going to sell a ton more 6501s in [50:17] 6502 so we make a little friendly bet [50:20] while we're waiting for the die to come [50:21] out [50:22] and 6501 had the same pin out as the [50:25] 6800 yes [50:26] 6502 is different different and so you [50:29] you made a bet [50:30] as to the relative volume of the yeah [50:32] yeah i'm saying [50:34] i think technology wins over marketing [50:36] rod says [50:37] marketing wins over technology okay well [50:40] when [50:41] motorola sued us and then they required [50:43] as part of the settlement [50:46] to drop the 6501 i won the bet that day [50:51] well rod was probably not happy with me [50:55] whatever so we're friends always tell us [50:58] about that [50:59] suit what how when did you hear about [51:02] that [51:03] what what was your thinking what did you [51:05] decide to do how did you make the [51:07] decisions [51:08] well i never thought about being sued [51:13] by anybody but it doesn't mean that [51:17] you don't get sued but i didn't spend [51:19] any time thinking about that [51:21] i figured we were doing something [51:22] totally different [51:24] motorola didn't want to do depletion [51:26] load totally new process [51:28] totally knew everything totally new [51:30] instruction set [51:31] none of the op codes from the 6800 would [51:33] run on the 6502 [51:35] or 6501 and so therefore [51:38] what's their claim well as it turns out [51:41] they were claiming patent infringement [51:46] well yeah a 6520 chip is exactly the [51:50] same as a 68 [51:51] 20 chip yeah we violated your patent [51:56] oh okay but then they said they tried to [51:58] get us on trade secrets [52:00] then one of the parties one of the mass [52:04] designers [52:05] brought the schematics and you go oh [52:08] that's not good [52:09] and then under deposition and [52:13] these are revealed well this is not good [52:16] so but we didn't need the schematics [52:20] it wasn't the same there wasn't anything [52:22] the same all the circuits were different [52:24] because [52:24] the enhancement load process all the [52:26] critical performance [52:28] was on bootstrap bootstrap [52:31] circuits to get the high drive for the [52:33] power supply [52:34] and depletion load got those [52:36] automatically because of the depletion [52:38] load [52:38] so we didn't have any reason to have it [52:41] schematic [52:42] and so then this mass designer was [52:46] chuck may have mentioned that in his [52:47] interview i don't know but chuck always [52:49] had a problem with it [52:51] i won't mention who it was so what [52:53] happens is [52:54] when push got the shove then the [52:56] settlement was on patent violations and [52:58] the trade secret thing was given up and [53:01] so [53:02] uh that they they defined the terms and [53:07] it was to drop the 6501 [53:09] but the 6502 then was now [53:12] the only one so [53:15] i wanted to bet technology won out over [53:18] marketing [53:20] so the 6502 [53:23] uh onboard clock generator right [53:26] different pinout different uh [53:29] architecture [53:30] about more than an order of magnitude [53:33] less expensive right than the [53:35] 6800 right how was that at that point [53:39] going with your customer design in [53:43] process you know i wasn't involved with [53:46] that [53:46] chuck was so chuck would make the [53:48] customer visits and then will [53:50] mathis there were four inventors [53:53] listed for the one patent on the 6502 [53:58] the one patent is on decimal correct [54:01] motorola the 6800 i don't think had [54:03] decimal correct [54:04] that means that you set a bid in the [54:06] status and the [54:08] mode register which is the p register [54:12] you set a bit to define whether it's [54:14] binary math [54:15] or binary coded decimal math so that was [54:18] a big deal [54:19] for whatever reason i needed to write a [54:23] fortran [54:23] simulator of that so make sure that all [54:25] the combinations were [54:28] correct so actually i did that design [54:31] but because we all worked on it all four [54:33] of us [54:34] are on the pat chuck myself rod and will [54:37] mathis they're the four inventors [54:40] as for binary coded decimal feature of [54:42] the [54:43] microprocessor so i don't know did i [54:46] answer your question [54:48] did did folks customers that [54:51] use that bcd feature that you're aware [54:53] of [54:54] maybe building calculators around [54:56] actually [54:57] atari used it because they used it in [55:00] their [55:02] asteroids game and i found this out [55:05] because when i designed the cmos version [55:08] i had to do it with one more cycle so i [55:11] didn't use my patent [55:13] that one more cycle made the asteroids [55:15] break up [55:17] because they updated the score on the [55:20] retrace [55:21] on the screen retrace so because it took [55:24] an extra cycle it messed up there [55:27] the code was timed to the screen so now [55:31] going back to it the reason why mos [55:34] technology [55:36] basically couldn't make a go of it is [55:39] because [55:39] the microprocessor industry was very [55:43] young so where are you going to get the [55:45] volume then with center tech and [55:47] rockwell picking up the big orders in [55:50] california i'm always [55:52] going out of business that's what jack [55:54] trammell [55:55] saw he saw blood in the water [55:59] and he bought up i think six months or a [56:02] year's worth of calculators thinking [56:03] they're going to staff up [56:05] they were maybe 200 employees and then [56:07] what happened was [56:08] jack said i don't need any more [56:10] calculators chips [56:13] well they're gasping because the [56:15] microprocessor industry didn't build [56:18] at the speed at which chuck told them it [56:21] would [56:21] or indicated and so that's when jack [56:24] came along and [56:26] acquired mos technology and that [56:30] i was gone by then so the the revenue [56:34] um growth didn't happen to [56:37] fast enough to to keep mos technology in [56:40] business [56:42] jack came in and and acquired it [56:45] and when did you leave i left in [56:49] about march of 1977 [56:53] and so the microprocessor came out in [56:56] the summer of 1975 we [57:00] left and started dropped the pay we were [57:03] dropped [57:04] from the payroll of motorola on the 19th [57:06] of august [57:07] we were picked up on the payroll for [57:09] most technology the 19th [57:12] of august 1974. so [57:15] within a year we brought up a process [57:17] new processor [57:19] and marketing was started in september [57:23] of that 75 is when we we had a wonderful [57:27] reception at the moscone center [57:31] i remember that i remember that that was [57:33] awesome party [57:35] there were so many people wanted a chip [57:37] so many people [57:39] i remember i could only afford the [57:41] manuals so [57:42] is that right i got the manuals but not [57:44] the chip yeah there's a [57:46] a mason jar maybe about that tall of [57:49] chips in it [57:50] chuck chuck this is chuck this classic [57:52] chuck chuck is [57:54] the showman and so and rod and i were [57:57] there [57:58] and so we had a lot of beers we had was [58:00] in the saint francis hotel [58:02] we had beers and talked with people and [58:05] a lot of people interested in what we [58:06] created [58:08] so before you left mos who who had [58:11] designed the 6502 [58:13] in to systems [58:16] well i really don't know [58:24] i know apparently wozniak bought one of [58:29] the chips [58:30] various people bought the chips i would [58:34] work the floor [58:35] and you would take one of their cards [58:38] that they gave you [58:38] you swipe it and give them a data sheet [58:40] and this is what we did [58:42] for hours at a time you could look down [58:44] from the second floor and look down [58:46] here are all these people around our [58:48] little booth knocking over [58:50] a pinball and not a pinball what do you [58:52] call it a [58:53] pachinko machine or something like that [58:55] with little balls [58:57] and the p our neighbors were not happy [58:58] with us because they were getting [59:00] trampled trying to get a data sheet [59:02] so you know it was it was just the [59:05] funnest time an engineer could possibly [59:07] have [59:08] were people skeptical that you could [59:11] uh build and ship a microprocessor at a [59:14] tenth [59:15] or less than a tenth i surprised in [59:17] motorola did you have a lot of people [59:19] questioning you about that [59:21] well see again i'm i'm i'm a design [59:24] engineer at the time [59:25] so i don't see what's going on in the [59:27] market chuck sees what's going on the [59:29] market [59:30] and chuck had his way that [59:33] i think chuck could cause some people to [59:37] doubt [59:38] because he tends to uh [59:42] manipulate the information a little bit [59:45] where i'd say hey [59:46] this is the reason why we can do what [59:48] we're doing the process yields 10 times [59:50] as much [59:51] and we got the same size wafers and [59:54] here's what the cost could be and here's [59:56] what we're selling for we're making [59:57] money [59:58] and so if you have any question about it [60:00] hey we'll be happy to show you the [60:02] schematics or anything you need to [60:04] to see that we know what we're doing we [60:06] know what we're doing they're [60:07] very successful at building bigger chips [60:10] in the calculator market they were [60:11] selling [60:13] bigger chips than we were doing in the [60:15] calculator business [60:16] at a lower price so all the experiences [60:19] there [60:19] we know what we're doing the guy that's [60:21] running the operations is a guy from ti [60:23] ti knows what they're doing and we have [60:26] their best [60:27] people so if you had a question now what [60:31] chuck actually told him i don't know [60:33] but i wasn't in those meetings for the [60:35] most part i was back [60:36] designing chips i designed a via [60:40] without any computer assistance that via [60:43] is why [60:44] i knew i could start my own company i [60:46] would be making money off just not even [60:48] have to use a simulator by this time [60:50] i knew the transistor sizing see i knew [60:53] what it took [60:54] so i could design chips without a [60:56] computer so how did the via differ from [60:58] the pia [61:00] well what chuck i can still see the orb [61:02] arby's restaurant there in [61:05] in norristown and he comes back from one [61:09] of his meetings and say hey we need a [61:11] timer [61:12] we need a timer okay we need a serial [61:15] port [61:16] okay so what are you saying chuck well [61:19] let's go [61:20] go to lunch so on a napkin the old [61:22] classic [61:23] napkin lunch napkin you know there i am [61:26] saying okay you're going to have pia [61:28] plus a timer plus a serial port [61:31] wow that's more registers okay so [61:34] we're going to have to keep it to 16 [61:36] registers okay [61:38] because i need 16 i can do that and then [61:42] so so that's chuck and will and i have [61:45] lunch and they [61:46] say the application guy chuck okay [61:49] so then i go back to the mos and [61:52] now i have to design it so i designed it [61:54] and chuck says [61:55] no we have to have whatever more [61:57] compatibility so then i had to redesign [61:59] it [62:00] and so i designed it twice with a [62:02] different pin out [62:03] i don't know what the first one was but [62:06] but then i said what about the serial [62:07] port he says [62:08] just any serial port that serial port [62:11] was used as the mouse interface on the [62:13] original macintosh [62:16] and so it's a weird serial port it's [62:18] eight bits in eight bits out it's [62:20] synchronous [62:21] not asynchronous if i had to do all over [62:23] again i said chuck [62:24] we need a an a uart [62:28] plus a timer plus the i o pins and we [62:31] got a [62:31] really good product but that serial port [62:35] is being used in different interesting [62:36] things but [62:38] it's kind of weird it's nobody else [62:41] ever duplicated it and i don't think [62:42] anybody ever would [62:44] but it's a serial port were you thinking [62:48] at that point about [62:51] applications for this chipset did you [62:55] did you consider what it might be used [62:58] for [62:59] what software might be needed to make it [63:03] a unit for a future system [63:08] well not really because [63:11] i i kind of had my boundaries pretty [63:14] fixed chuck you're doing the marketing [63:16] you that's your job you tell us what we [63:18] need we'll make it happen [63:20] and will he was somebody chuck found in [63:23] the neighborhood so to speak [63:25] that really knew applications very well [63:27] will did the hardware manual chuck did [63:29] the software manual [63:31] so that we were really we had her focus [63:34] so that's how we thought we'd be [63:36] successful you focus on that you focus [63:38] on this [63:39] and so coming back to your questions [63:41] some of these questions [63:43] i wasn't involved with however i did [63:46] help get the pong chip [63:48] i think the pond chip was manufactured [63:50] part of it part of the volume was [63:52] manufactured by mls technology [63:54] or another atari chip so i actually [63:59] worked through some of the details of [64:00] getting that figured out [64:02] and so that and the vic-20 [64:05] i worked with the design engineers on [64:08] the vic-20 [64:09] now chuck was completely opposed to [64:13] what i think was the vic-20 and the [64:14] commodore 64. [64:16] he was pet that's industrial strength [64:18] stuff if you know about [64:19] the pet versus the commodore 64. the pet [64:23] had a [64:24] hewlett-packard 485 bus on it and this [64:26] is industrial this is [64:28] real engineering this is a real computer [64:31] and and then of course it had the [64:33] chiclet keyboard which [64:36] was jack jack's mistake but chuck had to [64:39] put up with jack [64:40] but anyhow if it had a full-size [64:41] keyboard it would have done much better [64:43] at the beginning it got a bad image from [64:46] the chiclet keyboard [64:47] so by going back to the commodore 64 [64:50] from what i remember [64:53] the design engineer al sharpenter and [64:56] he was the guy that was behind some of [64:58] the sprites and things you could do [65:00] to make these video games and other [65:02] things so that wasn't my creation that [65:04] was these other guys [65:06] so i was more into just straight laced [65:09] i o processor do what you can with it [65:13] but i did do something chuck thought was [65:15] impossible [65:16] i took that serial port and i drove the [65:19] composite video [65:20] on a tv and i made a barnstorming game [65:23] out of it [65:23] i did it in two weeks jack says you [65:26] can't do that i go [65:27] yeah i can i figured out the timing i'd [65:30] be running it at four megahertz that's [65:32] another part [65:33] that the industry really doesn't [65:36] really know about we were running two to [65:39] four times faster than [65:40] intel or motorola so not only were we [65:43] a tenth of the cost we were [65:47] twice as fast any time you're twice as [65:49] fast [65:51] twice as low a cost and we were lower [65:53] power because of the depletion of the [65:54] process [65:55] so we were lower power higher speed [65:59] lower cost and lower power [66:02] we had everything oh it was easier to [66:05] use if you know the [66:06] the coding of it so we were easier to [66:08] use lower power [66:09] lower cost and twice as fast you got a [66:12] winner [66:12] any one of those things you got a winner [66:14] all four of them [66:16] slam dunk so at that point did you [66:20] have in your mind or in your dreams uh [66:23] what [66:23] would ultimately turn into huge huge [66:26] volume for the [66:27] 6502 architecture [66:31] i didn't know what the volumes would be [66:33] all i know [66:34] is that when you design something that [66:38] is so [66:38] right what is possible [66:42] might happen there were no beds there [66:45] were there were no [66:46] you know it's like deck i think [66:50] going mos technology small company [66:53] even though it looks like it's pdp 11 in [66:55] some ways [66:56] they have to go with motorola oh wait a [66:59] minute there's these guys that know how [67:00] to do marketing [67:01] and they know how to manufacture these [67:04] things we're going to go with intel [67:06] so you go really that architecture [67:10] wins out over hours it's not about [67:12] whether the architecture is better [67:14] it's do you know what you're doing in [67:15] manufacturing will you support your [67:17] customers need like you were saying [67:19] about bob schreiner [67:20] and saying what what's going to make it [67:22] work for you [67:24] let me know what what it takes put [67:26] together a deal and see [67:28] that most technology guys didn't didn't [67:30] know how to do that [67:31] i don't think so i wasn't in the middle [67:34] of that [67:34] i wasn't capable of being in the middle [67:36] of that i was too much of a [67:38] semiconductor engineer [67:40] did you have uh problems uh with the [67:44] integrated clock [67:45] uh generator on the 6502 no [67:48] uh no it worked the first time i never [67:52] changed it [67:53] no that that worked great now that could [67:56] be because of your analog [67:58] experience you were really aware of what [68:00] it would take to make that work i was [68:02] the [68:03] right i was a clock generator guy at [68:04] motorola at the time [68:06] now since then i'd probably change some [68:08] of my concepts [68:10] but i also redesigned a cardiac [68:13] pacemaker [68:15] oscillator that was 10 kilohertz statec [68:18] 10 [68:18] kilohertz crystal it wouldn't start up [68:21] right [68:22] so then they wanted to change it to a 32 [68:24] kilohertz oscillator [68:26] while i'm at ice so i do that design [68:29] i never that's the only chip i ever [68:31] designed [68:32] in my life i never saw it's a pacemaker [68:35] chip [68:35] you go they called me on a saturday and [68:37] said bill your oscillator works [68:40] great well wonderful [68:43] am i going to see it well no it just [68:45] works fine [68:46] i never saw it that was the last i heard [68:48] of them i guess [68:50] they had to recall pacemaker chips [68:52] that's pacemakers [68:54] that that's painful literally [68:58] to replace it with my oscillator so i [69:02] was an oscillator guy [69:03] but you know the truth be known [69:07] that david gray that's here [69:11] he got my oscillators to work really [69:14] good [69:15] on my 134 and 265 chips recently [69:18] and i go he found an article and i go oh [69:22] wow so i thought i knew what i was [69:25] talking about before [69:27] but now i've been just reintroduced to [69:29] the whole thing and [69:31] i realized there's some characteristics [69:34] that i [69:35] i wasn't aware of that we put into our [69:38] circuits they work like a champ [69:40] so anyhow so my designs were successful [69:45] did you you mentioned that you'd uh [69:48] left mos at that point what [69:51] what motivated you to do that [69:58] i wanted to design microprocessors and i [70:01] wanted to design [70:04] commercial products or industrial [70:06] products [70:08] game products i didn't [70:11] have a calculator at home my kids [70:14] my son got his first game system from [70:18] nintendo was a famicom 16-bit [70:21] but it had japanese captions and [70:23] japanese characters and [70:26] and rico who supplied them [70:29] their chips rico supplied the nintendo [70:32] it's the only exclusive agreement i ever [70:34] gave anyone [70:36] exclusively for rico to supply nintendo [70:39] 816 based chips for their super nintendo [70:43] well my son got a super famicom he was [70:46] popular on the street because [70:48] what's that so [70:51] anyway i'm digressing here but [70:56] okay so let's let's talk about your [70:59] transition [71:00] from mos okay [71:03] well when we saw the [71:07] the uh situation changing because of the [71:10] business climate they were [71:14] looking like they were going to go out [71:15] of business and [71:18] chuck was moving from [71:21] a microprocessor team leader [71:24] to a systems person [71:27] so he aligned himself with [71:30] california after the [71:34] in the process of the acquisition by [71:37] commodore now [71:38] the timing i'm not sure what the timing [71:40] looks like there [71:42] but i left soon after or in the process [71:46] of commodore acquiring mos technology [71:50] in a depressed situation or a fire sale [71:54] so do you know what year this would be [71:57] 1977 [71:58] okay so uh [72:01] about the introduction i think of the [72:03] apple ii and that what was going on [72:06] and so what happened was i wanted to [72:09] work for a [72:12] a real company not a game company i'm [72:15] not [72:16] i'm not a game guy i i like the [72:19] industrial [72:20] i the high quality i only want to design [72:23] something that goes into high volume [72:26] production [72:27] used by many and so [72:30] looking at feeding the [72:33] game or calculator consumer products [72:36] that wasn't my cup of tea that's not [72:38] what i wanted to do [72:39] but then you know what are my options so [72:42] i ended up [72:44] i would interviewed at xerox they were [72:47] going to double my [72:49] go to el segundo and bob markle [72:53] if i got his name right [72:56] he i flew me out [72:59] while i'm an employee at mls and he [73:02] wants to double my salary [73:05] and i go okay so [73:08] why would you do this because it's hard [73:10] to find microprocessor designers you're [73:12] one [73:14] right so what would i be doing here [73:17] well you'll be designing where a [73:19] research lab [73:20] so you design something then we transfer [73:22] it into production [73:24] then they redesign it for their [73:26] production [73:28] manufacturing oh bob i'm in the wrong [73:32] place [73:33] my designs don't get redesigned they go [73:36] in the volume production right away [73:38] or why didn't i do it right in the first [73:39] place tell me what [73:41] so you know i'm not a research guy i'm [73:44] somebody that wants to make things [73:46] happen [73:46] and how i know i'm making them happen [73:48] because they go into volume production [73:50] they're used by people we don't throw [73:53] away designs [73:54] we just do it the right the first time [73:56] so bob [73:58] it was nice meeting you thank you i'm [74:00] going back to pennsylvania and i need to [74:02] find out my [74:02] other thing i want to do and i don't [74:04] know what that is so that's when [74:07] glenn madeline ice he's [74:10] in the seminar business he's teaching [74:13] integrated circuit design [74:15] or integrated circuit usage and he was [74:18] the first glenn was the first [74:22] uh design manager at motorola in phoenix [74:25] and so when these integrated circuits [74:28] started happening he said [74:30] you know motorola you're going to need [74:31] somebody teaching the world how to use [74:33] because integrated circuit is so much [74:35] different than resistors and [74:37] transistors now you have a new way of [74:40] doing things [74:41] and in order to get this out into the [74:43] market you're going to need somebody to [74:44] teach [74:45] integrated circuit engineering that's [74:48] his name of his company [74:50] so he hires me realizing he could use a [74:53] microprocessor guy [74:54] to teach the world microprocessors [74:58] so then he asked me to put together a [75:00] seminar [75:01] called microprocessors for management [75:05] so i put that together he hired me [75:09] straight across the board no raise i'm [75:11] going to arizona [75:13] it feels right to me i have two children [75:17] under the age of four now i'm going back [75:20] to arizona [75:24] i'm not designing anymore i'm talking [75:27] about [75:28] designs and i get a migraine headache [75:31] i'm talking to 50 people [75:34] he charged a good price for [75:38] attending the seminars and i get a [75:41] migraine headache and it's like [75:42] i don't know if it was a two-day thing [75:44] but within an hour of the first one it's [75:46] like i got a migraine headache [75:48] and nobody can back me up i gotta do the [75:50] whole thing [75:51] are you teaching people to design [75:53] microprocessors or to design [75:55] systems with microprocessors [75:59] actually you know i don't i don't [76:03] remember what i thought [76:05] you remember the headache though i [76:06] remember the headache but i remember [76:08] it's microprocessors for management [76:11] and it's about these microprocessors are [76:13] going to change the world [76:15] and so it's not about designing systems [76:17] it's about knowing what to do [76:19] because now microprocessor replacing [76:22] other forms of logic and i didn't have [76:26] it then but [76:26] it's embedding intelligence into [76:29] products [76:30] so you need to be aware of what that [76:32] would change now that's what i'd say [76:33] today [76:34] it's not what i said then and so it was [76:36] one of those things where [76:38] i was probably getting a migraine [76:39] headache because it wasn't maybe that [76:41] good but it was [76:42] the best i could do knowing what i knew [76:45] at the time [76:46] and then i would be the microprocessor [76:48] guy [76:49] in a week-long seminar and [76:53] so i don't know exactly how many [76:55] different hours [76:57] i taught but i know that [77:00] at the end of the review they reviewed [77:02] each of the consultants that were [77:04] teaching and then they fill out [77:08] you know what's your grade i was getting [77:10] failing grades [77:12] it's like this is so painful glenn i i [77:15] don't know what i'm doing [77:17] and the other guys that were doing this [77:19] i didn't feel like they knew what they [77:20] were doing [77:21] but they were getting the a's and i was [77:23] getting failing grades [77:25] if i got a c that was really good for me [77:27] and so i'm thinking [77:29] glenn i don't understand how can howard [77:32] do that and me [77:34] he gets a's he says bill [77:38] you haven't figured it out yet we're in [77:40] the entertainment business [77:42] i go glenn [77:46] he says you're trying to give him too [77:47] much information [77:49] well they're paying for it don't they [77:51] get the best [77:53] well they're coming here to arizona [77:55] because it's cold wherever they were [77:58] and you're you want to leave thinking [78:00] that they know something but [78:02] you're giving them to they can't digest [78:04] what you're giving them so it's it's [78:05] painful for them [78:07] okay well that's a mismatch because i'm [78:10] giving them the good information [78:12] but they can't use it and so i don't [78:13] know how to so then i dumb down my [78:16] what i have to say and then my grades go [78:18] up and i'm thinking [78:19] this isn't this doesn't feel right at [78:21] all so i can't do this [78:24] so that's when i asked glenn so [78:27] what's it all about that famous question [78:30] that's been asked [78:31] and probably never answered but glenn [78:35] at the coffee shop at the coffee bar [78:38] outside of his office and my office was [78:41] next door to his [78:42] glenn what's it all about [78:46] glenn answered it he said for me [78:50] it's about doing what you want to do [78:52] living where you want to live [78:54] and you're comfortable [78:58] whoa thank you glenn went back into my [79:01] office [79:02] i'm not doing what i want to do i'm [79:04] living where i want to live [79:06] but my son was just born on a credit [79:09] card [79:09] so i'm not comfortable because you [79:11] didn't have [79:12] maternity benefits so here i am not [79:16] comfortable with my [79:18] debts enjoying where i'm living [79:22] but not doing what i want to do denny [79:24] mclean i think pitched 30 [79:27] winning he had a 30-win season which [79:29] hasn't been duplicated i don't think [79:31] maybe but i don't know and that's what i [79:34] feel i feel like i'm denny mclean [79:36] i just pitched a no-hitter wins [79:40] 30 games and i'm out of the business i [79:42] need to get back in the business [79:44] so that's so my transition from mos [79:48] to consulting that's when i got to [79:52] reverse engineer all of the popular [79:56] valuable industrial microprocessors [80:00] for five thousand dollars per processor [80:02] which means that i had to set up a [80:03] little [80:04] factory line uh assembly line so [80:08] bipolar i had a bipolar consultant that [80:11] he could help me with the bipolar [80:12] then i had to put it together in the [80:14] registers and what was going on [80:16] you know i did some shell oil company [80:19] had [80:19] the first patents on dynamic rams and we [80:22] were chasing they were chasing down moss [80:24] tag [80:24] so i had to reverse engineer moss tech [80:27] and show them that [80:29] bob probscene used the same circuits he [80:32] had at [80:32] shell he was a designer at shell went to [80:35] mossdeg [80:36] and i just said well he's balanced [80:38] bitline hey he's got in the sensam [80:40] so i'd do this kind of stuff because i [80:42] knew i knew what [80:45] what the transistors were doing so i [80:47] wanted to get back and [80:49] so i transitioned to ice [80:52] a year later i'm starting my own company [80:55] because jack trammell wanted me to [80:57] design cmos [80:59] calculator chips because they're lower [81:02] power [81:02] and so there's frontier or whatever it [81:05] was semiconductor [81:07] southern california is it frontier or [81:10] pioneer i don't know something like that [81:14] i think it was frontier like the [81:15] airlines i think [81:17] but i'm not sure but anyhow that was [81:20] the cmos manufacturing for commodore for [81:24] cmos [81:25] calculator chips that's how i got [81:27] started [81:28] so did that's western design center so [81:31] yeah did that [81:32] happen before you left ice or did you [81:34] leave ice [81:36] and and then start wdc [81:39] well what happened was [81:43] i was doing all this talking about [81:45] design and then [81:46] i actually trained ncr [81:49] engineers how to design microprocessors [81:53] they were using emitter [81:57] it was injection logic or emitter [82:00] coupled logic it was bipolar and [82:03] that wasn't fun for me to teach somebody [82:06] about [82:07] designing microprocessors that i did [82:09] think was a good idea [82:11] but i did what i needed to do they had [82:13] the process [82:14] whatever so ncr and then uh [82:19] i forget who else but anyhow it was just [82:22] consulting so [82:23] answering questions or giving them my [82:25] best i gave them my best [82:29] but what happened was i i went to glenn [82:32] and said i want to build up [82:34] a design capability here to do that [82:37] i need a circuit simulator and a [82:41] logic simulator so we found a logic [82:44] simulated circuit simulator [82:46] that was out of bomar ice had been part [82:49] of beaumar [82:50] the calculator company and so [82:53] frank jenkins is the same guy that was [82:56] at motorola [82:57] he did the circuit simulator and logic [83:00] simulator [83:01] i'm thinking that's good stuff that's [83:04] that works [83:05] so i knew frank and so then but frank [83:09] left motorola [83:10] selling logic simulators and circuit [83:12] simulators [83:13] back before verilog and so [83:17] what happened was that was running on a [83:20] accounting firm's [83:24] prime 300 prime was virtual memory [83:28] and so it could handle any size so [83:32] a logic circuit and so because of the [83:34] virtual memory [83:35] and then i got that to work and then i [83:40] wanted to sell logic simulators and [83:42] circuit simulators through ice [83:44] so i was building up the base for [83:46] designing chips for ice [83:49] when glenn says you know there's a [83:51] problem with [83:52] designing integrated circuits they don't [83:54] always work [83:58] but yeah but if you know how to do them [83:59] they work yeah but there's a risk [84:02] involved there and you can risk our good [84:06] good will our relationship we have [84:09] so i can't really take that risk and i'm [84:11] thinking oh my god [84:13] ah well how am i going to do this and so [84:16] then [84:17] out of the blue chuck calls me jack [84:20] wants you to design [84:22] calculated chips for him oh [84:27] okay well i need a customer [84:30] i'll go to glenn go to glenn hey glenn [84:33] i got a possibility of designing [84:35] calculator chips for commodore [84:38] glenn says no [84:41] jack ripped me off jack owes me money [84:45] it's not good i never want to do [84:46] anything with jack ever [84:48] again [84:51] but this is an opportunity for me to [84:53] design chips again [84:55] it ain't going to happen here okay glenn [84:59] so i go back and thinking is this a [85:01] two-way street or a one-way street [85:03] go back say to chuck [85:07] chuck i want to design the calculator [85:08] chips working here at ice [85:10] what do you think i got everything set [85:12] up i got circuit simulators logic [85:14] simulators we can get mass design done [85:16] and all that [85:17] nope jack doesn't want to have anything [85:20] to do with glenn [85:24] glenn's a good guy what do you mean now [85:27] glenn ripped him off i'm thinking how [85:28] can he both rip both [85:30] each other off so that's when i decide [85:34] well i can't do it here [85:38] start my own company so that's when i on [85:40] mother's day weekend [85:43] in 1978. i think [85:46] mother's day was maybe the 13th of may [85:49] that year [85:50] i don't know but anyhow i visited jack [85:53] and chuck [85:54] at a casino in las vegas [85:59] jack's down ten thousand dollars when i [86:01] arrive [86:02] then he turns around and winning [86:05] seventeen thousand dollars that's what i [86:06] remember he says [86:08] well you brought me luck let's go talk [86:11] go up to his room [86:12] chuck's sitting here jack's sitting [86:14] where you are i'm sitting over here on [86:16] the sofa [86:18] jack says so what do you want to do bill [86:21] i said well i'd like to design [86:25] integrated circuits for you okay how are [86:27] we going to do that [86:29] i'll give you a department within [86:31] commodore [86:34] i'll make you vice president of [86:36] commodore a whole division [86:39] i'll pay you more than i pay chuck chuck [86:42] is like [86:43] what where where is that coming from [86:47] so chuck wasn't too happy with that [86:49] statement from what i recall [86:52] i said well i thought about jack i want [86:54] my own company [86:56] how will that work i said well we'll [86:58] have an agreement i've been writing [86:59] agreements with [87:00] ice we'll write an agreement we'll put [87:02] milestones in it [87:04] i get paid and i'll break even [87:07] and the design will work and how you [87:09] know it'll work [87:11] is i get a royalty off of each chip so i [87:14] don't make anything if it doesn't go [87:15] into volume production [87:17] i believe in what i do i believe what i [87:20] do will be [87:20] produce volumes that's where i'll make [87:22] the profit i'll break even [87:24] and that's how it works so the idea was [87:27] he'd [87:27] pay you enough so that you had your [87:30] costs covered for the design [87:33] and all of the upside in future [87:36] was on a royalty basis yeah based on [87:40] a percentage of okay now we go back to [87:44] what happened at mos technology and why [87:46] was everybody [87:48] not happy why did everybody leave there [87:51] was a [87:52] there was some there was a learning [87:53] opportunity chuck put together [87:56] the deal guess what it is [87:59] a percentage of profits [88:03] well you get to looking at who's cooking [88:05] what books [88:06] you know when will there ever be profits [88:09] here [88:10] well you know it's how you do your [88:14] accounting what are you assigned to this [88:16] and any other thing [88:17] so there were some really unhappy [88:21] folks now chuck and i you know [88:24] we're friends now chuck's hard to live [88:26] with sometimes [88:29] and but it's that [88:32] whatever you call it the synergy of two [88:35] different styles [88:36] but you know what i call check a friend [88:40] i would [88:41] but there's some say really [88:44] i am i'm a friend of chuck's but i [88:46] understand chuck [88:47] in a way that very few people probably [88:50] understand him [88:51] and so but i know he's a winner there's [88:54] a winner there someplace [88:56] it's like that story about the pony and [88:58] all the crap [89:00] there's got to be a pony around here [89:01] with all this crap and so [89:03] i think chuck can put together some [89:05] interesting deals that only [89:06] chuck and put together it's just like a [89:08] steve jobs in a way [89:10] and so if you know him that way [89:14] life is exciting so to speak [89:16] opportunities [89:18] so so what was the deal that you [89:20] negotiated with [89:21] jack oh yeah it's per unit per unit yeah [89:25] it's per unit so you sell it you get a [89:28] percentage of the sale price [89:30] i don't care if you make a profit or not [89:31] that's your problem but i'm getting a [89:33] percentage of whatever you sell it for [89:35] and was he going to use those some of [89:37] those chips for internal use as well [89:38] yeah [89:39] and how did you get compensated for [89:41] those oh he never did [89:42] he never manufactured anything i did [89:46] ever which is interesting right [89:50] what he did was when i i duplicated the [89:53] lc5k3 [89:55] chip out of toshiba that was some [89:58] interesting design there's a serial [90:00] processor and it's hard to reverse [90:03] engineer [90:04] an lcd in planet resistors [90:08] you can't see them on the surface so you [90:10] go how is that happening [90:12] and you have these nodes that aren't [90:14] connected up to anything [90:15] well they've implanted resistors in [90:17] there you couldn't see [90:18] so i had to figure that out it makes you [90:21] use your imagination more [90:23] when you well that doesn't make any [90:24] sense that doesn't make it [90:26] then they also embed into it some [90:30] circuits that are phantom circuits [90:33] that would confuse somebody trying to [90:35] reverse engineer so all these tricks [90:37] these guys used [90:38] well i got it to work but guess what [90:40] jack wanted to do [90:42] he wanted to get the japanese price [90:46] which was half of the american price so [90:49] he wasn't going to buy any chips [90:51] he wasn't going to build any of my chips [90:53] he wanted the chip to design [90:55] so he could go back as a negotiating [90:57] okay [90:58] well did he have that idea from the very [91:00] beginning [91:02] i i don't know jack was shrewd [91:07] he may not have he may i don't know but [91:10] he was a gambler right [91:12] he was a gambler so if he's going to [91:13] gamble [91:15] and he's saying well could we build this [91:16] any less expensive than [91:18] buying them from toshiba he's making the [91:22] business decision it wasn't about my [91:23] design running [91:25] in a factory it was about can he make [91:26] more money off of [91:28] getting a better price from toshiba okay [91:31] so we were [91:32] talking about the toshiba calculator [91:35] chip [91:35] that you did for jack and you mentioned [91:38] that [91:38] uh you you did the design but he didn't [91:41] use [91:42] no your chip no and actually i designed [91:45] a four bit microprocessor [91:47] parallel now the toshiba chip was serial [91:52] but in order to get that to a scientific [91:54] calculator now [91:55] now we're going after the scientific [91:56] business the other one was five function [91:59] and that's the low end then we're going [92:02] to go [92:02] scientific in order to do the scientific [92:06] i said we needed to do parallel not [92:08] serial [92:10] and so you think could we do the 6502 [92:13] the 6502 would not have been good [92:16] because it's floating point 64-bit [92:20] we have to do 64-bit math but sometimes [92:24] we might not do 64-bit [92:26] we might do 24-bit [92:29] like the mantissa and the exponent [92:33] on a single precision right [92:37] so i have to be able to change from [92:38] 32-bit to 64-bit [92:40] and or other whatever the math [92:44] we need it would work so chuck had a [92:47] code [92:47] a guy that programmed it his name was [92:50] shiraz [92:51] and so shira i don't know if he was in [92:54] india or he was in northern california [92:56] so shira and i worked up what we were [92:59] going to do [93:00] i don't know how much chuck was involved [93:02] with it he didn't seem to be involved [93:03] with it [93:04] and i wanted will to help me with this [93:06] because [93:07] you know i'm a semiconductor guy i'm not [93:10] a processor guy [93:11] really if you think about it i had to [93:13] add on the microprocessor [93:16] functionality working with the market [93:19] like [93:19] what we've talked about so as it turns [93:22] out [93:23] a 4-bit risk processor it had like 16 [93:26] instructions but i what i had [93:30] was a field [93:33] a 4-bit field that would tell you how [93:35] many nibbles [93:37] so if i wanted to do a 64-bit i'd have a [93:40] 16 4-bit nibbles [93:43] so it's a cool processor and it also [93:46] helped with the lcd interface [93:48] so i had the lcd interface also [93:52] would be supported by this four bit [93:56] risk processor that could do 40 64 [93:59] any 4 8 12 16 all the way to 64 bit [94:03] i could do that and so i had this new [94:06] instruction set [94:07] and the 6502 wouldn't have been good at [94:11] that and keep the size down but then [94:14] another thing that was the achilles heel [94:16] that i didn't know about at the time [94:19] because [94:20] sam trammell jack's son in japan [94:23] knew the characteristics of what was [94:25] going on in the calculator industry [94:27] and one microamp of standby [94:30] is a lot so you couldn't even have one [94:33] microamp standby [94:34] but i didn't know that and i should have [94:37] known that but i didn't [94:39] and so what i designed into [94:42] this is a single transistor dynamic ram [94:45] using what probe's team did what i [94:47] learned at ice [94:49] so i had a single transistor [94:51] non-self-aligned [94:53] metal gate dynamic ram on the chip [94:56] so i could save space on the because [94:59] everything else had static [95:00] so here i am thinking the semiconductor [95:03] technology [95:04] that i knew and i got it to work and it [95:07] works fine [95:08] uh worked fine but too much power [95:12] you had to re refresh it so i had to [95:14] have a refresh [95:16] cycle in there so i had to refresh the [95:18] memory and that [95:19] was over a microphone so that wasn't a [95:22] good design [95:24] how did you get involved at the western [95:27] design center in the 65 [95:30] co2 how did that project start [95:33] okay so [95:37] xerox i have to say [95:40] the first customer after [95:44] commodore now commodore didn't want to [95:46] see cmos 6502 [95:49] the nmos was low power enough for things [95:51] like the pet and [95:52] these other things they were it was [95:54] already lower power than anything intel [95:56] or motorola had [95:57] so they weren't interested in this cmos [96:00] version [96:02] so after jack was fired [96:05] i thought he quit because he made a [96:06] billion dollars or something like that [96:09] commodore sales was over a billion [96:10] dollars which is a big deal for [96:12] commodore [96:13] but apparently jack was kicked out by [96:15] irving gold [96:16] and i didn't know that until the book [96:18] was published about [96:20] on the edge that book you're familiar [96:22] with that right so what happens is [96:28] they pull up stakes they brought a a [96:30] truck [96:32] you know whatever a truck by the office [96:34] took all their equipment [96:37] and take off with all the equipment that [96:39] they felt was theirs [96:41] from office that i had a fifty thousand [96:43] dollar note due [96:44] on in six months i just purchased this [96:48] thinking we we're gonna do well and then [96:51] they [96:52] they didn't want to do anymore i didn't [96:54] have any other customers that's one [96:56] thing jack [96:56] jack said exclusive you don't work for [96:59] anybody else you work for me you don't [97:00] work for anybody else [97:02] what i translated is i can't even talk [97:05] to anybody else [97:06] like sales i can't set up a next [97:08] opportunity [97:09] so when jack pulled up with his truck so [97:12] to speak [97:12] it's the guy from california the cmos [97:15] the design manager there he took [97:18] everything he thought they owned [97:20] and left that day and so then what i'm [97:23] doing is saying oh wow [97:25] three kids under the age of six [97:30] one customer gone now what am i going to [97:33] do [97:34] i called bob marco at xerox [97:37] hey bob i'm available [97:41] because so this was must have been near [97:43] christmas [97:45] can you come over at what year 19 [97:49] 1980. he goes [97:53] can you come over i want uh yeah i need [97:56] to talk to you [97:56] sure i'll be over in next flight so you [97:59] know bank accounts probably on a credit [98:01] card and all this other stuff [98:02] so then i go over and meet with bob and [98:05] i said so bob [98:07] so what do you have in mind he says well [98:10] bill i now that i have you i couldn't [98:13] hire you [98:14] and i took in their vice president of [98:17] commodore [98:18] xerics is going to give them their most [98:20] advanced process [98:23] just to have a part of my time [98:26] and bud fry was their vice president at [98:29] the time who was [98:30] managing me we met at xerox [98:34] and bud for i listened to him no [98:38] no we went 100 of bill [98:41] sorry so then when they pulled up stakes [98:44] then i go back to bob now bob's [98:47] saying come on over and let's talk he [98:49] said he said what happened [98:51] i said well i don't i don't have any [98:53] business you know exclusive [98:54] for commodore commodore left i don't [98:57] have anything to do [99:01] okay talks to his secretary that's we [99:03] had secretaries back then [99:06] excuse me uh she leaves [99:09] comes back with an envelope [99:13] bob hands the envelope to me [99:16] i open it 25 000 chat [99:24] bob what's this about he goes [99:27] you have a nice holiday i said but what [99:30] are we going to do [99:32] we'll figure it out after the holiday [99:34] yeah but [99:35] why would you just give me 25 000 [99:37] without [99:38] any contract or anything he says bill [99:42] when a microprocessor design engineer [99:44] becomes available [99:47] you lock them down [99:50] i want to talk to you after the holiday [99:52] we'll figure it out [99:56] well thank you bob came back i want you [99:59] to [100:00] teach my guys how to design [100:01] microprocessors [100:03] that's when i hired diane and [100:06] trained her in five weeks to help me [100:08] make good on my [100:10] my contract so i taught her mass design [100:14] but anyhow that whole process [100:17] is so random that you go [100:20] how does that figure into anything go [100:25] well [100:28] it's the way it worked it's the way it [100:30] happened so how did you get from [100:32] teaching xerox to design microprocessors [100:36] to [100:37] to restarting the 6502 [100:40] legend okay so the 65co2 came [100:44] out of the fact that gte while i was at [100:47] ice i gave a seminar on microprocessors [100:51] for management so they were one of your [100:54] students [100:55] at jte eminem semi remember [100:58] okay we were talking about that earlier [101:00] well e m semi [101:02] was there and fran kirsch who has no vow [101:05] in his last name i think it's cr [101:08] krch fran kirsch was the marketing guy [101:12] for eminem semi and he [101:16] i guess was convinced by glenn that this [101:19] would be a good [101:20] investment on eminem semi to hear this [101:22] seminar or whatever [101:24] not exactly sure what happened there but [101:28] friend knows me [101:33] dr uh desmond sheehan [101:36] got his phd from stanford got his [101:39] undergraduate from in scotland i think [101:43] he is the vice president of technology [101:46] he was the vice president of technology [101:47] at the langkirk division up here [101:50] and he he was the one that proposed [101:52] semiconductor operation to gte [101:55] corporate so he needs to make this work [101:58] and his career is attached now [102:02] to getting technology into the factory [102:05] because he's convinced corporate they [102:08] need to be in the semiconductor business [102:10] and so frank kersh is a marketing guy [102:14] and so fran knows me [102:17] introduces me to dez dez and i hit it [102:20] off [102:21] dev says i need to send you to the attea [102:25] division of gte [102:26] and lenker no not lanker [102:29] in uh outside of antwerp belgium [102:34] so i first international flight i got to [102:36] get this and so i'm [102:37] going over there and they have a 6802 [102:41] based key system for [102:45] telephones so they're telling me what [102:48] they need [102:49] for the 6802 6802 [102:53] serendipitously mitel [102:56] had a a unipolar dope polysilicon [103:00] which they were the first to do that and [103:02] it's i [103:03] oxide isolated so it's lower capacitance [103:07] so i know that oxide isolated [103:10] unipolar dope cmos is winner [103:15] that's what we need gt [103:18] figures is that on their own but [103:22] serendipitously i have my secretary [103:26] call the sales office for mitel [103:29] where gte got their process i didn't [103:31] know they got that [103:32] so they got license on the 6802 and the [103:35] process from mitel [103:36] i have my secretary call the sales [103:40] office in california [103:42] i get online with him he says can i can [103:44] can we meet in chicago [103:46] on sunday this is a friday what [103:50] yeah i want to meet in chicago or [103:52] wherever it was [103:54] or montreal or someplace that's where my [103:56] telsemi was in [103:58] montreal no no ottawa so we have to meet [104:00] at this airport because you can't fly [104:02] directly into ottawa [104:04] and so it's like minus 30 degrees [104:07] it's 70 degrees in arizona it's in like [104:10] whatever [104:10] february and so [104:14] i go there and they're saying [104:18] we fired our guys that were in lake [104:20] tahoe [104:21] designing the 6802 and it only runs at [104:24] 250 kilohertz [104:26] and we need it to run the original spec [104:29] was 5 megahertz i said [104:31] if it's so far off i i think i can get [104:34] it to a megahertz or two megahertz but [104:35] not five i don't think i can do five [104:38] but it'll have to be totally redone and [104:40] i don't think you want me to do that but [104:41] i think i can get it to [104:43] to run it one to two megahertz if that [104:45] would work for you because that's what [104:47] the original one worked at anyway [104:49] so you'd be matching up with the nmos [104:50] but you're not doing everything you [104:52] could have done [104:53] had those guys knew what they were doing [104:55] well we fired them [104:56] because they were apparently two forms [105:00] of snow and [105:02] they were not really working too hard [105:04] and enjoying themselves on the slopes [105:06] and other ways [105:07] and so you go how serendipitous is [105:11] this so i said what you know [105:15] basically i'll do this for fifteen [105:17] thousand dollars [105:18] they give me a check just like xerox did [105:22] now i got i got the wolf away from my [105:24] door for another whatever [105:26] and so another month maybe or two and so [105:30] so then now it's cmos [105:33] unipolar dope poly good [105:37] oxide isolated wow this will be good [105:40] i started my own process i had my own [105:42] rules called oxycmos [105:44] for oxide isolated cmos [105:47] so i had my own design rules and [105:49] everything and so then [105:51] dez sends me to belgium okay so i go to [105:54] belgium [105:55] listen to these guys 6802 they're using [105:59] the nmos version [106:00] and we want to add this and that the [106:02] modem features and dialing features and [106:05] all that [106:05] so i brought back the spec that's what [106:07] that asked me to do [106:08] so then i put together two proposals [106:12] we could either do the 6802 version [106:15] or the 6502 version [106:18] so aldous wilkins at gt now running he's [106:21] the operation vice president [106:22] running gte vice president running their [106:25] operation [106:26] out of motorola he's got motorola people [106:29] all around them [106:32] and they're not happy with the 6502 [106:34] because i left motorola [106:36] and the 6502 stole some of their thunder [106:39] right [106:40] so here's their all motorola and i got [106:43] gte [106:45] vice president dez is there we're having [106:48] a meeting [106:49] otis wilkins in his office and [106:54] i at some point so i presented [106:59] 6802 two chip version [107:02] 6502 one chip version [107:07] so presented that [107:12] otis looks at dez and me [107:15] says i'll be i'll be back in a little [107:17] bit so i thought he had to go to the [107:19] bathroom [107:21] but what he did was talk to [107:24] fran kirsch and frank kerr says to him [107:28] hey it's been my experience [107:31] that the smallest chip wins [107:36] every time he comes back [107:39] says to dez it's your call dez [107:43] you're you're the man you you make the [107:45] choice [107:46] dez says is 6502 based [107:54] i got emotional but i had to wait until [107:57] i got in my car [107:59] wow that surprised you [108:03] it was the right decision [108:06] sometimes in big corporations the right [108:08] decision isn't made [108:10] dez was the one he knew [108:13] technology and when it was his turn [108:16] he picked the one that he believed in i [108:18] designed every chip that they had at gt [108:21] all the chips that i designed they were [108:24] a licensed ceo [108:26] so that's how the 6502 came about and [108:29] then rockwell licensed it like [108:31] the same week or whatever i don't i [108:34] always think gte was first and rockwell [108:35] was second but [108:36] i think that's the way it was but anyhow [108:39] the 65 co2 was [108:41] it rockwell put in billions of [108:44] modem chips because they use the cmos [108:47] 6502 [108:48] in their modems that they were selling [108:49] so how many [108:51] 65 xx cxx [108:56] instances do you think there are in the [108:57] world well there have been estimates [109:00] i you know actual number i've been [109:02] saying 5 to 10 billion for the last [109:04] 15 years and we sell about 100 million a [109:07] year [109:08] so you know these little video games [109:10] that you can get at [109:12] walmart for 15 bucks they have my 8 16 [109:15] oh [109:17] those chips are sold for [109:21] i don't know 25 cents [109:24] full system on a chip 25 cents i mean i [109:26] don't know what the margins are but [109:27] they're very small [109:28] of course apple used the uh apple [109:32] yeah apple they use it in the apple 2c [109:35] and the apple 2e [109:37] but you know if you add up all the apple [109:39] pro you know how many millions did they [109:41] sell [109:42] five million i don't know what the [109:44] number is 10 million maybe [109:46] commodore sold maybe 50 million [109:49] but the 6502 used in floppy disk [109:51] controllers and modems [109:54] and game systems that you never heard of [109:58] they're billions so why do you think [110:01] that is bill what is it about [110:04] the architecture that [110:08] that has attracted so much usage [110:12] right well i think we talked about this [110:15] earlier [110:16] the architecture was never labeled [110:19] properly [110:20] ever so when you look at [110:23] the architecture and you look at how it [110:26] was used for apple [110:27] commodore atari nintendo what you'll [110:31] find is that [110:32] the architecture provides for powerful [110:36] solutions [110:37] based upon addressing registers [110:39] effectively [110:41] so we had zero page as an example three [110:44] cycle accesses [110:45] and so we could actually access [110:48] memory registers addressable registers [110:52] in memory to do floating point fashion [110:55] you could do [110:56] on an 800 or an eight anything out of [110:59] intel [111:00] you can i have this on my website and i [111:02] didn't do it [111:03] i didn't do the benchmarks instruction [111:05] level benchmark [111:06] gte did it they come back when they did [111:09] this they go [111:10] bill did you know how awesome your [111:12] microprocessor is in comparison to like [111:15] the z80 and the 6800 and the 8080 [111:19] i go really [111:22] well what that tells me is that they [111:25] didn't do it as well as they could have [111:27] because i'm doing as good as you can so [111:30] that means that they [111:30] didn't it's not like they could have [111:34] but why didn't they i don't know but [111:36] addressable register architecture [111:38] provides the resources to do anything [111:41] with this [111:42] little little processor that's why it [111:45] was used effectively [111:47] in these others these early systems it [111:49] just is two to four times better than [111:51] the other guy [111:52] and did wozniak know that [111:56] i don't know he was maybe buying it for [111:58] its price [111:59] but then that would mean that he [112:02] fell into something that really was [112:04] effective but i'm saying when you do it [112:06] the best you can do it [112:08] and nobody can do it better you know [112:11] that [112:13] but does the other person know that no [112:15] they'll use [112:16] what the marketing guys sell them and if [112:18] it matches up [112:20] they have a match they make money that's [112:23] the end of the day [112:24] or the end of the conversation but for [112:26] me [112:28] the architecture is the best it can at [112:31] eight bits [112:32] and the pipelining and what we did there [112:35] was to minimize the number of [112:37] transistors [112:37] so we did it the best possible that's [112:40] what we know [112:42] when you uh [112:45] i think it could be said that you [112:47] invented the idea of [112:49] a microprocessor ip as a [112:53] as a business did you have that idea and [112:56] then pursue it or did you [112:58] find yourself doing it and then realized [113:01] what you were doing how did that come [113:02] about [113:02] okay glenn madeline again glenn madeline [113:06] told me taught me that [113:11] if in the consulting business you can [113:14] get somebody to pay for a study [113:18] you get paid for that way then you give [113:21] a seminar on it [113:22] then you sell the book you can sell it [113:24] three ways and everybody's happy [113:26] there's nobody complaining about that [113:29] the original guy got what he wanted [113:31] the next guy get what do you want they [113:32] all get one so if you can sell it three [113:34] times [113:35] so i'm thinking hey if i [113:38] design it 65 co2 [113:42] and i license it 10 times [113:45] that is better than what glenn was doing [113:48] but the idea [113:49] glenn started in my head so then i'm [113:52] thinking [113:53] you know a microprocessor can be used [113:55] for so many different [113:56] things and really applying the [114:00] microprocessor to [114:02] an application application specific [114:05] requirement is better left up to the guy [114:08] that knows [114:09] the market opportunity so for me [114:12] licensing a microprocessor [114:15] fulfilled glenn's business concept [114:18] and i could design just the building [114:22] blocks and somebody else can [114:24] enhance them for their market separation [114:27] their market needs [114:28] and so to me so i've licensed it [114:31] not 10 times but over 60 times [114:34] throughout the years [114:35] and so what was happening at the time [114:38] that i licensed it [114:39] was everybody was looking at well i have [114:42] a factory that needs a second source [114:44] ami was second source to motorola at the [114:46] time so what people were trading designs [114:51] so that their customer was supported if [114:54] they went out of business [114:55] now companies like [114:59] intel might have i don't know how many [115:01] factories 20 factories that could run [115:02] the same design [115:04] so it's not the second sourcing anymore [115:06] so what i was doing is licensing for a [115:08] fee [115:10] then i could do what i wanted to do and [115:13] actually [115:14] collecting royalties i get a quarterly [115:17] fee [115:17] i get royalties and i get i used to get [115:21] sometimes [115:21] the nre for the startup of the whole [115:24] thing i still do that [115:26] but i i'm very flexible i meet the needs [115:30] of my customer so you you need this you [115:33] need that [115:34] i'll mix and match to get the [115:36] opportunity because [115:37] it's getting to know one another and [115:39] what's what's the right [115:41] form of thing so what i'm doing with [115:43] chuck right now is the right form of [115:44] things which could be [115:46] the most lucrative thing i've ever done [115:48] working with chuck again [115:50] but he has to make good on his marketing [115:52] so [115:53] so there you go so i think it's it's [115:56] it's the idea that [115:58] i needed to change the equation and for [116:01] me [116:02] changing the equation is licensing for a [116:04] fee [116:05] at first and then for fee and royalties [116:09] and then just to prove that they had an [116:11] accounting system early on [116:13] i have a quarterly fee and it starts [116:15] with the fee and so now i have qualified [116:18] that they know how to [116:19] communicate financially and now [116:23] good luck with your market so i cheer [116:25] i'm a cheerleader [116:27] so i cheer for people do you [116:30] um do you have a favorite [116:33] application of the of the co2 [116:37] that's come over the years i have [116:40] favorites in [116:42] various categories how's that because i [116:44] can't pick one [116:46] i i just can't pick one [116:50] the defibrillator pacemaker one [116:54] i actually did all the life tests and [116:57] everything and supplied [116:59] defibrillator chips to a company uh so i [117:03] knew [117:04] the testing cost was over a hundred [117:05] dollars per unit just to test to make [117:08] sure that they were [117:09] you know what they called infant [117:13] death or whatever it's called so that [117:16] you don't want to embed a chip that's [117:18] going to die in the first [117:19] year but if it passes that test then you [117:22] know [117:23] from your own experience that'll last [117:24] for a long time and so [117:27] i i needed to go through all that [117:29] learning experience but then i [117:30] needed to find somebody that would [117:32] manufacture life [117:34] grade tests and how that happened was [117:38] nobody motorola got out of the business [117:41] harris got out of the business [117:42] inner cell if they were combination rca [117:46] 1802 who would use an 1802 and a [117:48] pacemaker i don't know [117:49] but a company i licensed ela medical [117:53] part of [117:54] l'oreal pharmaceuticals was the first to [117:56] embed a microprocessor in a human body [117:59] for life support so these kind of people [118:02] looked for me for two years because i [118:05] had a clause [118:06] in all of my agreements still there that [118:08] you can't tell anybody about [118:11] your license so my licensees couldn't [118:14] tell anybody [118:16] where they got it you know wow that [118:18] sounds like negative marketing [118:20] well this medical company out of [118:22] australia [118:23] said they looked for me for two years [118:25] somebody [118:26] must have not honored my agreement [118:28] because they told [118:30] because they said we went to gte they [118:32] have the same instruction set they went [118:34] to [118:34] rockwell they have the same instruction [118:36] set and they all said it's their [118:37] microprocessor [118:39] but somebody but i don't know who it was [118:41] told them who it was [118:43] me so we're back to [118:47] why are you picking me because we can do [118:50] business the other guys are getting out [118:52] of it [118:53] for one reason lawyers so if they have a [118:56] problem [118:57] they're going to sue you and they don't [119:00] want any part of that [119:02] i said okay well in my agreement you're [119:05] going to have to agree to [119:06] indemnify me against everything [119:10] so and we want to be real understanding [119:13] that i'm giving you [119:14] everything i know so when the judge asks [119:17] the question [119:19] what was your part in this i'm saying i [119:20] gave him everything i know [119:22] you've got all the source all the [119:24] information [119:29] so that's so i'm probably one of the few [119:32] companies [119:32] that are indemnified by my customers [119:36] so that's just i need to solve the [119:40] problem [119:40] this the problem is is that you cannot [119:43] not use [119:44] the world's best microprocessors [119:48] to save lives so [119:52] you you've evolved the architecture over [119:54] the years [119:55] somewhat tell us about uh what [119:58] what changes you've made and why well [120:01] listening to your customer is a good [120:02] thing [120:04] gte the original packet switching i [120:07] think for the darpa net [120:09] was out of a company called telenet [120:13] packet switching and so gte [120:16] des sent me to virginia and said [120:20] we need to see what they want in this [120:22] microprocessor we're going to design [120:24] so they use the sixty five or two set [120:27] they said [120:28] there's no other microprocessor [120:30] available that can outperform [120:32] the 6502 for packet switching if we [120:35] could have memory lock that would mean [120:37] one processor working on [120:38] a piece of information wouldn't be [120:41] interfered with if it's doing a read [120:43] modify write back into memory so if you [120:46] could hold off that put memory block on [120:48] there [120:49] and if you could do some bit [120:50] manipulation [120:53] i forget what it was that they asked me [120:55] so there were just a few features that [120:56] they [120:57] asked me for and i put them in so [121:00] those were why the enhancements then [121:03] rockwell [121:04] wanted the bit manipulation instructions [121:06] put in [121:07] which i put in [121:10] but it conflicts with my 816 opcodes [121:14] but they wanted to be able to set memory [121:16] bit reset memory bit [121:17] or clear memory bit and branch on bit [121:20] set and branch them by clear those four [121:22] so rockwell wanted those so i put those [121:24] in [121:25] so uh i don't know ncr is a licensee of [121:28] mine was a licensing of mine [121:30] and so i don't think they asked me for [121:33] anything but [121:33] i listened to them and that's where the [121:35] enhancements come from [121:37] how did you uh get to the 32-bit [121:40] 16-bit architecture first [121:44] well nobody wanted it but i wanted it [121:50] i figured that if i could do the 16-bit [121:53] and make it compatible completely [121:56] with the 8-bit i can get the 16-bit [121:59] accepted [122:01] excuse me so what happened is [122:04] i went to apple and apple came to me [122:08] they said well this is what we'd like so [122:11] they gave me these features that they'd [122:12] like [122:14] but they said we're not going to use it [122:16] so [122:17] why are you telling me what you would [122:19] like then [122:21] and i i don't know factually if this is [122:24] correct [122:24] but i was told that wozniak came back to [122:27] apple [122:28] to do the apple 2x it was called [122:31] then apple 2 gs graphics and sound [122:35] and so uh so they they gave me some [122:39] features that they wanted [122:40] for 16-bit but that [122:43] they never said they want to make it [122:44] compatible with the 8-bit [122:46] run the old code but i figured wait [122:49] if you run the old code and i had an 802 [122:54] which was an 816 that was pin [122:57] compatible so you could plug it right [122:58] into the old apple ii socket [123:01] learn that from motorola right so if you [123:04] plug it into the old socket [123:05] hey you got a you got a customer so [123:09] mine was the first processor to emulate [123:13] the previous generation so i did that [123:16] but i i remember visiting apple for the [123:19] last design review [123:22] and they said bill you know we're not [123:24] going to use it we have our own 16-bit [123:26] microprocessor [123:28] really what's that 68 000 [123:33] okay so you're not going to use it [123:37] right so i came back addressed my team [123:41] with tears in my eye [123:45] this is the right thing to do [123:50] somebody will want it [123:54] so we finished it up my sister actually [123:57] did [123:57] all the layout on the original design [124:00] i wanted a brother and sister to design [124:03] the only [124:05] 16-bit microprocessor in the world [124:08] and if you aim if it became popular that [124:11] would be [124:11] an added bonus that's what we did [124:15] so because i designed it at home [124:20] so i'm a i'm a double entrepreneur i've [124:23] got my little company [124:24] but i need to do this because i know [124:25] it's the right thing to do i did it at [124:27] home [124:28] on a game table brought it in my sister [124:31] was the only layout designer because [124:33] everybody else was brought had to do the [124:35] projects they were on [124:37] so it's got an interesting history but [124:40] newsweek they call it there's a [124:43] there's a mythological figure that looks [124:45] forward and backward at the same time [124:48] and the article it's a short article [124:50] they had that 816 is that [124:53] so then they came back and actually [124:56] apple used it [124:57] in the apple 2gs i went to apple [125:00] and dan hillman that dan helmut [125:04] i think he was the project leader on the [125:07] print circuit board design [125:09] of the apple 2gs he invited me up [125:12] i said what's going on he said i just [125:14] want you to come up [125:15] came up to his office he had the other [125:18] designers [125:19] of the apple 2gs there [125:24] and i don't know if they gasp but it [125:26] seemed like they may have [125:28] because dan hands me the first [125:31] pcb that was fully stuffed it says bill [125:36] i want you to hold this [125:39] and that's when you fill out about it [125:42] that's when i found out that must have [125:44] been very emotional [125:47] yeah i'm an emotional guy that was [125:49] emotional [125:50] and then the other guys were like how [125:52] the hell does he get to hold it first [125:56] dan's a good guy and wendell sanders [125:59] another name and he was one that visited [126:01] me [126:02] do you know wendell i met him i think [126:04] during [126:05] the apple three yeah he was the apple [126:07] iii guy [126:08] and wendell's son was the head of the [126:10] ipod division of apple recently and then [126:12] he went on sabbatical i don't know if he [126:14] came back or not [126:15] but wendell was the guy that came down [126:18] and told me what you know they might be [126:22] interested in [126:23] and wendell and i i call us [126:26] friends i went to his big home that he [126:29] was building up in the mountains [126:31] and i found out recently about two years [126:33] ago [126:34] we talked again because he wanted a [126:36] white ceramic [126:37] 6502 for his apple one he's got an apple [126:41] one did you know that [126:43] he's got a website of an apple one [126:46] and and he wanted it something happened [126:49] and [126:50] so we're trying to get him a white [126:52] ceramic 6502 [126:54] i have a couple of white ceramic [126:57] no i i think they're white ceramic maybe [126:59] there's a purple one or whatever [127:01] uh 6501 people want 65 of one [127:06] i've got three of them all right i only [127:09] have [127:10] plastic 6502s from that era i [127:14] have probably have a lot of those [127:17] i don't know i have a lot but i have a [127:19] few [127:21] i think at centertech we didn't i i may [127:24] be wrong but i don't remember selling [127:26] uh ceramics no i think it came out of [127:28] the original [127:30] mos mos because yeah because that's easy [127:33] for prototyping [127:34] uh you can you can assemble it you take [127:37] the lids off and [127:38] probe them when you could now you can't [127:40] but yeah [127:42] but also the plastic is lower cost right [127:44] and that's what you were going for [127:45] we were we were shipping shipping and [127:48] volume [127:49] and and i don't think we had military [127:52] customers or anybody who would be [127:54] willing to pay the extra [127:55] freight for uh for a ceramic package [127:59] well you've in addition to evolving the [128:03] 6502 architecture and evolving the [128:06] business model creating this [128:08] microprocessor ip [128:12] business you you've also been [128:16] pioneering at western design center in [128:18] other areas like [128:20] education for example right tell us [128:23] about [128:24] your your vision there well [128:30] on the way to education can i make a [128:34] you can make any numbers of detour [128:36] situations i want to make a detour to [128:37] another [128:38] important business model that i [128:40] pioneered the fabulous semiconductor [128:42] business model [128:44] i have a meeting gt's in the meeting [128:48] there are they're a supplier their [128:50] licensee [128:52] of my 816. wozniak's in the meeting [128:56] a couple other guys from apple are in [128:58] the meeting it's at apple's headquarters [129:00] i think [129:01] if i recall uh ncr is invited to the [129:05] meeting [129:06] their licensee of my 65 co2 [129:10] rockwell and ncr got together for a [129:13] cmos version of the 6500 one [129:16] one chip microcomputer ncr called it the [129:19] austin chip [129:21] code name bob jones [129:24] ncr is there out of fort collins [129:28] he knows what the meeting's about bob [129:31] jones is sitting right here [129:33] destin's over here [129:36] this is uh who's in and who's out [129:41] on supplying apple with h16 chips [129:47] gt daz says gt's and we're licensed [129:50] we're ready to go [129:54] ncr we're not in [130:00] what oh i have to think on my feet [130:06] you need two sources right okay ami [130:09] don't they build your custom chips [130:11] center tick maybe whoever [130:13] somebody yeah i said you control the [130:17] the quality of those custom chips you [130:19] put in your systems right [130:21] yeah okay i can re-target [130:25] my design for that process [130:28] so they can build based upon your spec [130:31] your quality standards [130:33] the 816 i'll be the second source gt's [130:36] the first source [130:38] we don't need ncr that was the boy that [130:41] was the birth [130:43] of the fabulous summit connector model [130:45] and so then [130:46] sanyo a licensee of mine they are the [130:49] best [130:49] ever quality great quality [130:53] they were supplying wafers and i only [130:55] think i had to pay for some of them [130:57] because they were licensing [130:58] they wanted to see that it would run on [131:00] their foundry so they were [131:02] testing packaging everything based upon [131:04] being licensed [131:06] so i had a complete second source in [131:08] sagna [131:09] i mean a complete fabulous business [131:12] model with them [131:13] and so so when the fabulous [131:17] semiconductor association was started [131:18] they wanted me to be on the board [131:21] of the original charter board and i said [131:24] thanks for the invitation but i can't do [131:26] it the reason why [131:28] is because i don't want sanyo to even [131:31] ever [131:33] think i needed anybody else [131:37] for my fabulous model so you figure it [131:40] out [131:41] and i'll enjoy seeing your progress so i [131:44] wasn't on the board i was a member for a [131:45] while and i still get [131:47] their emails and stuff like that but [131:50] yeah i started that [131:51] and that was in 19 at [131:55] 84 i think [131:58] about 10 years before the fabulous [131:59] semiconductor association was started [132:02] now your question education so when [132:06] you you do these things and you know you [132:09] want more engineers [132:12] to be creative applying the sciences [132:16] practical application engineering is the [132:18] pr [132:20] excuse me engineering is the practical [132:23] application of science and math [132:25] electrical engineer is all about [132:27] electronics [132:28] and as a semiconductor engineer you want [132:31] to know the physics [132:32] of the semiconductor materials and how [132:34] to take best advantage of [132:36] you know electronic electron movement [132:40] in those semiconductor materials and so [132:43] knowing that you'd say [132:46] well wait a minute if [132:50] a learner someone that wants to learn [132:52] about these things [132:54] has the opportunity to use it use my [132:57] technology in all of its forms [133:00] ipform we have hardware description [133:03] language viral log hardware description [133:06] language versions of all of our chips [133:08] and then we have the chips themselves [133:11] and now we just introduced in october [133:14] the abort level product that [133:17] would make it convenient for someone to [133:18] get started with a usb [133:21] port from your favorite pc macintosh [133:25] smartphone i call them smart things [133:27] something with a microprocessor i call [133:29] smart thing so i don't want to keep [133:32] repeating all the different things so [133:33] just a smart thing with the usb port you [133:36] can [133:37] power and use as a terminal [133:40] for our small computers so [133:44] we have small computer boards and we're [133:47] looking for this [133:48] maker revolution uh i was in a [133:51] presentation where wozniak was the [133:53] original maker [133:55] so yeah could i go along with that [133:58] probably [133:59] but there are a lot of people that make [134:00] their own things just because they [134:02] wanted [134:02] the joy of seeing something they did [134:05] work [134:08] i may be one of those in a specific [134:10] category [134:12] called embedded intelligence technology [134:15] there's only one reason you design a [134:17] microprocessor [134:19] and that one reason is to embed [134:22] intelligence [134:23] into things the intelligence is [134:26] completed when you hook onto it [134:29] sensors and actuators that will do [134:32] something [134:33] with that intelligence and the software [134:36] the coding [134:37] of what you wanted to do [134:41] whoever is your coder if that's yourself [134:44] making something work [134:45] then that's the that's the reason why [134:47] you design microprocessors or we just [134:49] have big boxes sitting on [134:52] on floors with air conditioning units [134:54] and everything else [134:55] but the microprocessor is what changed [134:57] everything [134:58] for embedding intelligence into things [135:01] so i'm saying [135:02] in order to learn about this just like [135:05] glenn madeline [135:07] found out that you need to teach [135:10] about integrated circuits i have started [135:14] a foundation called the bill and diane [135:16] mensch [135:17] foundation to support learning about [135:21] embedded intelligence [135:23] so now i want to [135:26] say you know think about it [135:30] we all have an embedded intelligence to [135:34] do what we do [135:35] as humans and every living thing has an [135:38] embedded intelligence [135:40] so just that message alone [135:43] can help the learner figure out what do [135:47] they want to learn about nobody's [135:49] nobody you don't have a usb port you [135:52] don't have a port that [135:53] downloads the information maybe someday [135:56] you might but right now you don't and i [135:58] think [135:59] you would enjoy choose picking and [136:01] choosing from this world [136:02] wonderful world of information that we [136:05] have at our fingertips [136:06] with the smart things we have right now [136:09] so to me [136:10] education is got to be [136:13] the way of the future for humanity [136:17] and if we're in the information age then [136:20] i think [136:21] that's to support the age [136:24] of understanding so i'm all about [136:28] education i've been supporting education [136:31] financially for more than 25 years [136:36] do you see this becoming more and more [136:40] of the [136:41] future role of western design center [136:45] well yeah i think it's [136:48] it's pretty obvious that if we have a [136:51] young engineer [136:53] or a young learner like in fifth grade [136:56] i'm going for [136:57] actually i'm going for the nursery [137:02] i want the mother of their baby [137:07] to relate to [137:11] the nursery rhyme called old macdonald [137:15] had a farm [137:17] and i came up with this four years ago [137:20] in april [137:21] four and a half years ago at an advisory [137:24] meeting of notre dame [137:25] at stanford in palo alto i couldn't [137:28] sleep [137:29] one night thinking about old man [137:33] stanford had a farm [137:37] and on that farm they built a university [137:41] and at that university [137:44] they learned about embedded intelligence [137:48] and with that embedded intelligence they [137:50] created [137:52] exciting or engineering innovations [137:56] with opportunity for all [138:00] e-i-e-i-o [138:05] so when the mother knows [138:08] and the father knows their baby [138:12] has a wonderful embedded intelligence [138:17] what will you do with that [138:21] but if they never related to it that way [138:24] then there may be a missed opportunity [138:27] here and there [138:29] so that's how far back that's how [138:33] deep this interest runs [138:37] so i think that just knowing [138:40] that when you program yourself [138:45] with information and then what you're [138:48] going to do with that [138:49] processing that information then the [138:51] first person [138:53] that benefits is yourself [138:56] and when you get good at something [138:59] you'll have more left over for someone [139:04] else [139:07] so when you started this journey [139:10] that's taken you here uh 40 years ago [139:14] something like that right 43 years ago [139:20] did you have any idea where we would be [139:22] today no [139:24] no no [139:28] i knew working on the microprocessor [139:31] 6800 [139:32] pia like i said before [139:36] i knew this was [139:40] changing the equation [139:43] and i knew with the 6502 [139:47] and with chuck picking the instructions [139:50] and what we [139:50] our goals were for you know we would go [139:53] our goal was to [139:55] be price competitive with the 4040 [139:58] chipset so i designed the 6530 [140:02] which is a raw it had rom ram [140:05] i o and timer on it [140:08] and so that was used in the [140:12] kim board keyboard input monitor [140:16] so the code of the 6530 had the key [140:20] it's really uh machine code monitors [140:24] what they say on wikipedia [140:26] so it's a monitor that use the keyboard [140:28] so that's why so many people picked up [140:30] about 50 000 of them i think were sold [140:32] of the kim one very popular single board [140:35] computer probably the most popular [140:37] it probably the most endeared single [140:40] board computer of all time [140:42] well there was also a tim teletype input [140:45] monitor [140:46] and that's what i used on the original [140:48] tester for [140:50] all of the microprocessors for the first [140:52] two and a half years [140:53] and i o chips i had a little load boards [140:55] and all this for testing yeah it's [140:57] and a paper tape and that's why i was [140:59] talking to the guy that cranks the [141:02] babbage machine he knows all about [141:05] terminals [141:05] and so i want to get a terminal to hook [141:07] up to my old tester that i have [141:09] but anyhow the point is and we did a sim [141:12] at uh center tech [141:13] yeah you did a set manny lemus [141:16] right and so so that was a two chip [141:20] system [141:21] it was a 6530 plus the 6502 was going to [141:24] compete with the 4040. [141:26] i don't know that we ever really [141:28] competed with the 4040 or even tried to [141:31] i wasn't in the marketing that was chuck [141:33] and his team [141:35] so to me that was our goal [141:38] so we way overshot our goal way overshot [141:41] it [141:44] so so you asked a question what did i [141:46] know i knew what we were doing [141:48] with seminole i knew rod and i [141:51] had the conversation atomos technology [141:54] in their conference room on the second [141:55] floor [141:57] rod said if this works [142:02] as good as we think it's going to work [142:05] in his words [142:06] we can go to the happy hunting ground [142:10] as indians saying for heaven [142:14] knowing [142:18] we did something very special with our [142:20] lives [142:23] so that was rod and me we knew what was [142:26] we were doing [142:28] we didn't know specifics but we knew [142:31] what we were doing [142:33] and i in that 1973 [142:38] december when my my first [142:41] important my first child was about to be [142:43] born [142:45] is when i said chuck we could build a [142:47] home computer out of these chips [142:50] and so i knew we could do that [142:53] now the apple ii atari [142:57] computer and you know commodore 64 [143:00] vic-20 all the the beeb out of uk [143:03] the bieb is where arm came from [143:07] so the designers of the original acorn [143:10] use the 65x2 [143:11] they're the only people that ever asked [143:14] me about the abort feature on my [143:17] to this day but you'll have to tell us [143:21] about that you'll have to tell us about [143:24] i'm asking you [143:25] so what's that tell us about the [143:27] important the abort feature [143:29] well prime i had a prime 500 [143:33] so i went from the 300 to the 500 that's [143:36] a virtual memory [143:37] and what that means is that if you make [143:40] a memory fetch [143:42] and there's no physical memory there [143:45] then you have to abort [143:46] that fetch and then repair [143:51] the location you could either change [143:54] move memory around in the system [143:56] physically [143:57] it's really a memory management issue [144:00] with the address bus [144:02] and then retry so i figured [144:06] well why don't i just build an abort so [144:08] if i go [144:09] and something says i'm not there [144:13] then i don't want to change anything [144:15] inside the processor [144:18] and then i go off to an interrupt [144:20] routine [144:21] that says there's been an error detected [144:25] and then i repair the air whatever that [144:28] mean [144:29] and then i retry that's how i did it so [144:32] arm put it into their processors [144:34] i've never chased them down because [144:39] they didn't duplicate my 816. they used [144:41] my idea [144:42] but i never i i never pursued them i [144:46] talked to some lawyers in philadelphia [144:48] because i was an expert witness for [144:53] samsung and they wanted to pursue arm [144:58] and we had a conversation but [145:01] whatever so this is a long time ago [145:05] but anyhow you know the the idea of [145:07] putting in some of these features and [145:09] doing some of these things [145:10] it just felt right and so i wanted to do [145:12] it and i did it [145:15] yeah so what's next [145:19] well these boards that we introduced to [145:22] you at lunch [145:26] are what i think for me [145:29] is the most exciting thing i've ever [145:31] worked on and the reason why [145:34] is next year [145:38] right now i no longer have to say [145:41] apple atari [145:45] commodore nintendo [145:49] we have our own boards now so now we can [145:52] work directly with [145:53] kids people that want to make a [145:55] difference [145:57] but before i would always indirectly [146:00] feel good about the apple ii [146:02] and how teachers would plug in boards [146:05] into their [146:06] professors would control things that [146:09] they wanted [146:09] total control and when you're working [146:12] with the pc [146:13] you've got an asynchronous bus and [146:16] you don't have the synchronicity that [146:18] some [146:19] people want so now we have that and we [146:22] have the i o to support [146:24] sensing processing communicating as with [146:27] the usb [146:28] port on your smart thing and then [146:31] actuating [146:31] turning on lights making [146:35] motors move and do things you want to do [146:38] so it's sensing processing communicating [146:41] and actuating that's what we're about [146:43] we have an x for our accelerator we call [146:45] it [146:46] x c e l r [146:49] 8 r accelerator [146:52] so our accelerator series has that x has [146:56] these letters in the corner of each of [146:57] the x's so we're doing little things [147:00] because we're proud of what we're doing [147:04] and [147:09] we're going to directly connect with [147:12] people now [147:14] so then i won't be yeah the apple was a [147:16] great product [147:18] jobs killed it because he wanted to make [147:20] space for the macintosh in education [147:22] that was a major disappointment for me [147:26] i've heard from the teachers and the [147:28] professors that that was a loss for them [147:31] and the commodore didn't replace it and [147:34] the atari never really replaced it so [147:37] now we're doing it but we're doing it [147:39] with one small board at a time [147:42] but you're using your smart thing so [147:43] we're not trying to duplicate what the [147:45] smart thing has we're trying to add [147:47] to the smart thing so we want to work [147:50] with all smart things not just one or [147:52] the other [147:53] so we don't need a high resolution [147:54] display that already comes with your [147:57] smart thing [147:58] we don't need to have hd audio or h [148:01] to hd video or any of that that comes [148:03] with your smart thing [148:04] what your smart thing is needs the way [148:06] to interface the real world [148:08] other than the various wireless [148:10] connectivity [148:12] and so we think [148:15] we've got the right product at the right [148:16] time and [148:19] we're happy to be there and so we're not [148:22] trying to out do arm at anything [148:26] we think of arm as our [148:30] practical son got to do what they got to [148:34] do [148:35] and it's not something i want to do but [148:37] i'm proud of them [148:39] i they start it with my technology [148:42] and i wish them well i buy their [148:45] products that have [148:46] arms in them and [148:52] you know it's what we're doing so i'm [148:54] right now what we're doing is [148:56] the most exciting time in my career [148:58] because we can connect with [149:00] all levels of engineers [149:03] people that want to be engineers people [149:05] that are engineers [149:07] and you know our technology because of [149:10] our [149:11] various boards we have can service the [149:14] kindergarten through postdoc [149:17] doing something with advanced technology [149:20] using [149:20] programmable logic devices and then when [149:23] they want to [149:24] retarget to an asic [149:27] then they can retarget to an async [149:29] because of what we've done [149:31] so we open the doors to creativity [149:34] you know one opportunity at a time [149:38] but we embrace the category of [149:41] microprocessors [149:42] so that means that we [149:45] we know what it is like to be a leader [149:49] and we also know what it's like to be a [149:52] follower [149:53] although i'd say we probably aren't [149:55] following anybody [149:56] because we're doing it our way and [149:59] you know the things like arduino and [150:03] raspberry [150:04] pi and you know launch pad from ti [150:08] and some of these other things they're [150:09] wonderful they've got great features [150:12] they're very useful they are used in [150:14] education [150:15] we hope ours are too [150:20] do you see the the maker movement you [150:24] talked about we've talked about [150:26] previously as [150:31] a follow-on to the beginnings [150:34] of the [150:38] computer personal home computer [150:41] wave that you started with the 6502 [150:47] do i the question do you see the the way [150:50] that you started back [150:51] back in the day as really leading into [150:54] this [150:55] uh new world that we're seeing today [150:58] i think so uh did i start it i don't [151:01] know if i go that far [151:02] i think the technology was available for [151:05] people that saw that [151:07] that wanted to be part of that that's [151:09] why wozniak is somebody that's right [151:11] you know referred to in this category [151:13] because he did something very visible [151:15] and [151:16] out of that grew the world's most [151:18] valuable company and the most valuable [151:20] brand [151:22] it's no longer the most valuable capital [151:24] market [151:25] market cap wise but i think it's still [151:27] the most valuable brand [151:29] so can things grow that way yeah how [151:31] many of them [151:33] i think we need we only got one of those [151:35] but one of them is better than none [151:38] but do i see the maker i i think [151:42] what i'm amazed by is what people [151:46] do with their creativity i mean [151:49] right now these smart things that we [151:51] have 16 gigabytes [151:53] on a small thin it's like [151:57] really you know i can't wrap my head [152:00] around that [152:01] and so that's an example of saying [152:04] did i ever think that no [152:07] larry who is my mentor and someone that [152:11] wrote the code for my terminal interface [152:13] on my [152:14] small computers when i was designing [152:18] four uarts [152:19] on my 265 chip pieces [152:22] one uart two yards [152:25] maybe three yards but why four well look [152:28] at what we've got [152:30] and you go well i i said to him you want [152:33] to [152:33] interface to a pc you want to interface [152:35] to a printer [152:36] you want to interface through a modem [152:38] and you want to interface to a keyboard [152:41] those are the reasons and that's what i [152:43] had him design into my mensch computer [152:45] so to me this maker thing i i'm a maker [152:49] too [152:50] if you think of my men's computer as i [152:53] just wanted to have a reference design [152:54] on how you could do some of these things [152:56] so we built that it's [152:59] i only built 100 of them but this maker [153:02] movement [153:03] is very important and i think it [153:06] synergizes or energizes humanity [153:10] in a way that's never been done before [153:14] and part of it a big part of it [153:17] is the maker movement encoding these [153:20] smart things [153:22] doing things that you know that plus [153:24] this equals this [153:26] and that's what creativity is and so [153:29] opening up the doors to creativity is [153:31] what we're doing [153:32] our way and it's simple elegance [153:36] you add to it we're not successful [153:40] until you're successful [153:44] bill what would you like people to know [153:47] about [153:49] bill minch western design center and [153:53] in particular what is it that we might [153:56] not know [153:57] that this is an opportunity [154:01] to go on the record wow [154:06] wow i've tried to tell you everything [154:09] in my answers [154:14] well one thing that has never been [154:17] talked about in 1984 [154:22] wall street journal if you know the [154:24] second first page [154:28] there's two sections there used to be [154:30] two sections [154:31] they call it the second first page [154:34] in the left hand column it was [154:37] a technology article i got a call one [154:41] day [154:41] at the wall street journal said [154:46] i understand you're doing something with [154:48] apple or whatever and i go [154:49] well they use my microprocessors [154:55] but you know [154:58] what what are you talking about and so i [155:01] didn't know what [155:02] he was interviewing me for and so [155:06] it was because they were they were [155:08] introducing to the market the apple 2c [155:11] it was time to the apple 2c [155:14] i knew what the apple 2c was the apple [155:18] 2e then was retrofitted or whatever with [155:20] the [155:21] 65co2 because wozniak [155:24] said it was 20 percent faster to do some [155:26] of the things that they were doing in [155:27] basic because of some of the [155:29] improvements that i made i didn't know [155:32] if it was or wasn't [155:33] but they must have benchmarked it or [155:35] something so it was a minor improvement [155:38] so what happened was they [155:42] the wall street journal [155:46] closed with a paragraph about me [155:50] quoting me of saying apple could build [155:54] notebook size computers [155:57] using our cmos technology [156:00] we have in place today [156:04] they didn't do that nobody was talking [156:06] about notebook computers back in 1984. [156:09] they were talking about laptops they [156:11] were talking about big boxes [156:13] the osborne or whatever you want to say [156:15] i'm saying but i've said [156:17] it would be a notebook for schools [156:21] that didn't happen now it happens they [156:23] called macintoshes [156:25] but at the time you can see that [156:28] power was a big deal but performing and [156:32] doing things [156:33] that the kids could use in a notebook [156:35] for education [156:36] so that's i'm quoted in there well [156:40] rumor has it that apple was unhappy with [156:43] me because [156:44] that first column was reserved for apple [156:48] but bill gets his last thing in and so [156:52] based upon that there were professors at [156:55] asu [156:55] and other people say who's this guy in [156:57] mesa who's this guy that's getting this [157:00] and i couldn't believe how many more [157:02] people [157:03] read the worst wall street journal all [157:06] of a sudden [157:07] i'm known prudential base calls me and [157:10] says we want to take you public [157:12] you know really yeah could you meet with [157:15] us in wall street uh [157:17] at gold gold street which is right off [157:21] of wall street i think [157:22] and so i met with them and was probably [157:25] 84 [157:26] 85 because of that article [157:29] and they want to take me public and i'm [157:31] going i can still see the front of their [157:33] building [157:34] and i go you know you really [157:38] don't know what i'm doing i don't think [157:41] anybody knows what i'm doing actually [157:43] but i certainly don't know what you're [157:46] doing [157:47] and so we're like two ships passing in [157:50] the night [157:51] so thanks for the invitation thanks for [157:54] the opportunity to talk to you about [157:55] this [157:56] but no thank you i'm happy doing what [157:59] i'm doing [158:02] and i don't know what it would look like [158:04] if we did what you're thinking [158:06] because it would change everything for [158:08] me [158:10] i haven't made i'm doing exactly what i [158:13] want to do [158:15] i didn't say and i don't need your money [158:18] but basically that's what i was saying [158:21] so when i see arm do what they do [158:25] people come up to me at conferences and [158:27] said they stole [158:29] your ideas i said what what are you [158:32] talking about [158:33] well they're doing what you were doing i [158:36] go [158:37] yeah but i gave them the idea [158:40] i already knew i didn't want to do that [158:43] so [158:44] i don't know what they're going to do [158:46] with it but that when [158:48] i had that at this conference they had [158:50] just gone public [158:51] and their market cap was 10 billion [158:53] dollars well how do you feel about that [158:55] i go [158:58] i think that's wonderful i mean [159:02] i don't want to do that but the fact [159:05] that they did it [159:07] and the fact that that may have made [159:09] these smart things [159:11] that we have in our pocket the engine [159:13] for the smart things [159:15] then you see the power of the business [159:17] model and so [159:19] i couldn't be more happy about they did [159:22] it [159:23] and i passed on it i didn't want to do [159:26] it [159:27] i don't need the money i'm happy [159:31] bill thank you very very much you're [159:34] welcome [159:35] it's been a pleasure my two