World Computer Day started on Feb 15, 2021, to celebrate the ENIAC’s 75th birthday as the world’s first all-electronic programmable computer, and to honour and continue honouring ENIAC’s game changing breakthrough well into the future.
In 2022, the second World Computer Day was held on Tuesday, Feb 15 2022, with the theme of celebrating the 6502 processor the chip that changed the world!
The 6502 was from MOS Technologies, with Bill Mensch, the 6502’s co-creator, on the call sharing fascinating stories from the 6502’s creation and use in computers, how he interacted and worked with Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and others of the era, with lots of interesting details and fun facts shared by Bill, who also answered questions from attendees on the call.
The 6502 was never originally intended to be the main CPU of a computer, but that’s what it quickly became and it was a massive success, and with devices powered by the 6502’s sucessors still used and sold today.
The 6502 was the main processor used in the Apple 1 and Apple II family, the Commodore 64, the Atari 2600, Atari 8-bit family, Nintendo Entertainment System games console, the handheld Atari Lynx games console, the BBC Micro, Kim-1, AIM-65 and others.
The were wonderful computers of the era that were pushed to their limits to do amazing things in their lifetimes.
The 65C02 processor has also been used for years in pacemakers, helping save countless lives, so the story of the 6502 is truly fascinating!
The World Computer Day 2022 Zoom call was recorded from from 8.30am to 10.30am Eastern US timezone on February 15 2022, via Zoom conference recorded with Camtasia 2021 on a MacBook Air M1, with participants from around the world, again going an hour longer than scheduled because of the amazing living history of the 6502 from Bill Mensch and others.
It’s also the day that Achim Baqué, curator of the Apple-1 Registry, revealed that https://www.Apple1Registry.com/en/serial.html
he has solved the mystery of the provenance of the handwriting of numbers on the back of most of the first batch of 100 Apple-1 motherboards!
There was no proof of who had written the numbers of the back of these motherboards until now – with the breakthrough being that the handwriting matches that of Steve Jobs.
Careful research and authentication has uncovered that the handwriting matches Steve Jobs’ handwriting samples and not those of others there at the time, and the news should increase the already lofty value of these incredibly rare Apple-1 motherboards, and which is for sale as a fully working original model, with wooden case and Sony TV-115 monitor, for US $1.5 million on eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/174195921349?hash=item288ee2d1c5:g:UNoAAOSwWqtdrkDz as I type!
So, the recording of that Zoom call in full is above.
The link to the first video, is below. It was was recorded on February 10, 2022, with many more live speakers and attendees, also celebrating and telling stories about the 6502, the technology, the people and more of the era.
https://bit.ly/worldcomputerday
The call was from 3pm to 6pm ET, and features a much larger audience and set of speakers, and shared a huge amount of information, history, reflection and celebration of the 6502, and also of the amazing Bill Mensch, whose Western Design Center still sells updated 6502 processors to this day, its history and ongoing legacy from a range of people, from the amazing Bill Mensch and a radiant range of his colleagues from the era, as well as the curator of the Apple-1 Registry, Achim Baqué, and Compuseum foudner and president, Jim Scherrer.