Commodore 6502 And 6510 Chips

I am somewhat confused. Is a 6510 microprocessor compatible with the 6502 microprocessor? The box my Commodore 64 came in says that this is true, but I have read differently. If this is true, can I buy a book on programming the 6502 and use it with the 6510 that is in the 64?

Shawn Carnell

Yes, you can. The only differences between the 6502 and the 6510 are locations 0 and 1. In the 6510, these two locations act as an eight-bit parallel input/output port. By POKEing values into memory locations 0 and 1 on the 64, you can do such things as switch out BASIC and Kernal ROM and turn them into usable RAM. For more details on the memory bank-switching technique, see "6510 Microprocessor Chip Specifications" (Appendix L), and "Memory Management on the Commodore 64," page 260 of the Commodore 64 Programmer's Reference Guide.

Other than these two locations, the 6502 and the 6510 are the same.