Western Design Center
Shortly after founding the Western Design Center (WDC) in 1978, the first major effort of Mensch and his team was the development of the WDC 65C02, an enhanced version of the NMOS 6502 microprocessor. The 65C02, in addition to being implemented in CMOS circuit technology that reduced power consumption and improved noise immunity, added some new instructions and corrected a number of defects that were present in the NMOS 6502. The 65C02 was subsequently adopted for use in the Apple II computer and, later, in the Apple II.
Mensch's next design, which was to become an important product at WDC, was a 65C02-compatible 16-bit microprocessor, designated the 65C816 (now designated the W65C816S—more information on WDC products is available in the article about WDC). The 65C816's design came about following a consultation with Apple and was adopted by the latter for use in the Apple II computer. Later on, the 65C816 was chosen as the core of the processing unit that powered the popular Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
As a means to further promote the W65C816S microprocessor, Mensch subsequently developed the Mensch Computer, which was a computer system designed around the WDC W65C265S microcontroller, which contains a W65C816S core. The Mensch Computer, which include the Mensch Works software suite, was produced for a time by WDC and was geared toward hobbyist and educational applications.
As of 2012, Bill Mensch is still involved with design engineering at WDC, in addition to his work as CEO. He has written the upcoming Terbium processor family's data sheets and will be making the major RTL design decisions associated with that processor architecture.
Read more about this topic: Bill Mensch
Famous quotes containing the words western, design and/or center:
“For twenty-five centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon the world. It has failed to understand that the world is not for the beholding. It is for hearing. It is not legible, but audible. Our science has always desired to monitor, measure, abstract, and castrate meaning, forgetting that life is full of noise and that death alone is silent: work noise, noise of man, and noise of beast. Noise bought, sold, or prohibited. Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise.”
—Jacques Attali (b. 1943)
“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Everything that explains the world has in fact explained a world that does not exist, a world in which men are at the center of the human enterprise and women are at the margin “helping” them. Such a world does not exist—never has.”
—Gerda Lerner (b. 1920)