The RC6502 system uses a 39-pin bus; the physical layout is a single row of 0.05" square header pins on 0.1" centers. Conventionally the boards have a male right-angle connector on one edge and these are plugged into a backplane with female connectors.
The pinout is as follows. The signal directions (input or output from
the point of view of CPU and peripheral boards, respectively) are
guidelines, and a specific board might have a different direction. For
signals where both are marked in, both CPU and peripheral boards are
usually capable of using the signal as an input, but it's expected
that one board in the system will be generating the signal.
Signal Pin CPU Periph
Name No. Dir. Dir. Notes
--------------------------------------------------------------
A15 1 out in
… …
A0 16 out in
GND 17 in in
Vcc 18 in in
Φ2out 19 in in
/RESET 20 in in Must be actively controlled by one board
Φ0in 21 in in
/IRQ 22 in in Pull-up req'd; usually provided by CPU board
Φ1out 23 in in Little used; also called EX0
R/W̅ 24 out in
RDY 25 in out
SYNC 26 out in
D0 27 ↔ ↔
… …
D7 34 ↔ ↔
TX 35 ? ?
RX 36 ? ?
/NMI 37 in out Pull-up req'd; usually provided by CPU board
× 38 Also known as EX1
× 39 Also known as EX2
This section gives, for each group of signals:
- Additional information on how the signal is wired and/or used, where not obvious.
- Which boards take the signal(s) as input and/or output.
- Any special uses or behaviour by certain boards.
Must be supplied by only one board. Only the following boards have provision to supply power.
- Backplane: Provision to supply 5 V via an LM7805 regulator or directly from the backplane power input if JP1 is shorted.
- SBC: Jumper J8, when closed, supplies 5 V from the Arduino Nano board, which in turn is powered by the USB connection. The Nano and the SBC board (with NMOS parts) draw 200-250 mA. Depending on what kind of port the USB cable is connected to, it will usually provide a maximum of 100 mA, 500 mA or 1000 mA.
All data lines are used by virtually all boards as both inputs and outputs.
At the moment only CPU boards drive the address and R/W̅ lines. No current CPU boards have provision for DMA (this would require a CPU with a bus enable function or a buffer to isolate the CPU lines from the bus) so no peripherals can ever drive these lines.
Φ0in is normally used only by the CPU (other boards needing the system clock use Φ2out).
- Input:
- Output:
Φ2out is a CPU output signal and is driven only by CPU boards. It's used as an input on many boards, often for qualification of the R/W̅ signal.
Φ1out is a CPU output signal. The SBC board sends it to the bus, but the CPU board does not. No boards appear to use this. The bus signal is marked as EX0 on some schematics.
The /RESET line circuits are expected always to drive the /RESET line; boards should not provide pullups for it (and no boards are known to do so). Thus, only one reset circuit may be on the bus.
- Output: Reset, SBC. Neither can be disabled, so these two boards are incompatible with each other.
- Input: CPU, RIOT, Serial IO, Terminal.
The interrupt lines are open-collector, with pull-ups usually supplied by the CPU board.
/RDY is a CPU input signal; the CPU and SBC boards provide a 3.3 kΩ pullup on this line.
The following boards generate RDY output:
SYNC is a CPU output, and is generated only by the CPU and SBC boards.
Input:
- Debug: Used as an input to the single-step circuit.
- SBC: Connected to the Arduino Nano; TX is the D1/TX output and RX is the D0/RX input.
- Serial IO: Connected to the Arduino Nano; TX is the D1/TX output and RX is the D0/RX input.
The following boards may optionally use this line as an input:
- TIA: If JP5 (T0_EN) is shorted, use this as the T0/I4 (pin 36) input for the TIA chip. This is a latched input port typically used for joystick/paddle triggers.
The following boards may optionally use this line as an output:
- RIOT: If JP5 (T0_EN) is shorted, connect the right player joystick/paddle fire button signal.
The following boards may optionally use this line as an input:
- ROM: If JP4 is shorted, use this as a "page" input to disable the ROM (presumably other boards could use the inversion of this signal to enable something else in its place). However, use of this feature is discouraged, and many systems may instead use a [RAM] board for ROM as well.
- TIA: If JP4 (T1_EN) is shorted, use this as the T1/I5 (pin 35) input for the TIA chip. This is a latched input port typically used for joystick/paddle triggers.
The following boards may optionally use this line as an output:
- RIOT: If JP4 (T1_EN) is shorted, connect the left player joystick/paddle fire button signal.
This section describes changes to the bus interface used by third-party boards.
appleii6502 (apparently an anonymous user hosting his blog on Ninja Tools) has been producing and selling RC6502 boards and kits in Japan. The technical focus seems to be around re-using the signals generated by the SBC's 74LS138 decoder by routing them on to the bus in the following way:
Decode Range RC6502 Bus Apple 1 Expansion Slot
$A000 35 TX T (pin L)
$B000 36 RX S (pin 11)
$C000 39 R (pin 21)
The $C000 to expansion slot pin R mapping corresponds to the Apple 1 address decoding jumper settings needed by the Apple Cassette Interface (ACI).
His Apple1 SBC Slot Expander adds two 44-pin expansion slots with
the same pinout as the original Apple 1. RC6502 bus signals TX, RX, 38 and
39 are brought to pads adacent to pads for the Apple 1 slot signals S, T
and R to which the builder can solder jumpers. Pin 39 is labeled $̅C̅0̅0̅0̅;
it's intended that the SBC be modified to bring its address decoding for
that signal to that pin. These jumperings are shown in images
here.
The Cassette Interface is a clone of the original ACI that plugs into the slot expander. It has a 2K ROM enabled by RC6502 bus pin 39, which must be set up as a $C000-$CFFF decode (see above).
Another post on slot expander decoding explains how to disconnect the Arduino's TX/RX (by cutting the pins off the Arduino board) and instead wire $A000 and $B000 decoding to those bus pins. Presumably this is for a future expansion card project.
The RC6502 bus is very similar to the RC2014 bus used on some Z80
homebrew computers. The following table compares the two; pins with
substantially different/incompatible functions are marked with a bullet
(●).
The 6502 uses the Motorola bus prococols; the Intel bus protocols are substantially different, precluding sharing of peripherals unless they are specifically designed with the extra hardware necessary to support both. However, the backplanes are interchagable with some cavats; see below for details.
RC6502 Pin RC2014 Notes
----------------------------------------------------------------
A15 1 A15
… … …
A0 16 A0
GND 17 GND
Vcc 18 Vcc
Φ2out 19 ● /M1 Low on Z80 instruction fetch/int ack cycles
/RESET 20 /RESET
Φ0in 21 CLK
/IRQ 22 /INT
Φ1out,EX0 23 ● /MREQ
R/W̅ 24 ● /WR
RDY 25 ● /RD
SYNC 26 ● /IORQ
D0 27 D0
… … …
D7 34 D7
TX 35 TX,TX2 May be user-specified function on RC2014
RX 36 RX,TX2 May be user-specified function on RC2014
/NMI 37 ● USER1
-,EX1 38 USER2 Some RC2014 modules use USER2 and USER3 as
-,EX2 39 USER3 IEI and IEO for interrupt daisy chain.
40 USER4,IEO Nonexistent on RC6502
The RC2014 backplanes (as of the 0.4 draft specification) can be used with RC6502 boards and vice versa, with some caveats. The power (18) and ground (19) pins may be supplied by the backplane and are compatible. The following other pins have caveats:
- /RESET (20)
- RC2014 backplanes with a power supply (SC105, SC112) have a 4.7 kΩ pull-up resistor on /RESET. RC6502 board reset logic should be able to pull this line low to reset the system. RC2014 backplanes also have a reset switch; this must not be closed as it will conflict with the standard reset output circuitry of RC6502 boards, potentially damaging the board.
- RC6502 backplanes have no reset logic, so a pull-up (4.7 kΩ to Vcc) and an RC2014 board will need to supply a reset signal. The SC108 CPU board supplies power-on reset but has no reset button. The SC101, SC114 and SC130 provide a reset button.
- Pin 40.
- RC2014 backplanes provide pin 40 as a bus or daisy chain (with pin 80) depending on the model. This pin does not exist on RC6502 boards and thus can be ignored. Be careful not to insert the RC6502 board offset by one pin.
- RC6502 backplanes do not provide pin 40, so the USER4 signal cannot be used.