Chuck Peddle

Chuck Peddle was an American electrical engineer whose work on the MOS Technology 6502 and Commodore PET helped make personal computers affordable. After engineering roles at General Electric, he joined Motorola and worked on the 6800 microprocessor and its peripheral circuitry.

Peddle believed that a much cheaper processor could open a larger market. When Motorola declined to pursue the idea, he and several colleagues moved to MOS Technology. Their 6502 processor appeared in 1975 at a fraction of the price of competing chips. It became the foundation of machines from Apple, Atari, Commodore, Acorn and Nintendo.

To demonstrate the processor, Peddle's team created the KIM-1 single-board computer. After Commodore acquired MOS Technology in 1976, he convinced Jack Tramiel that the future lay in complete computers rather than calculators. Peddle led the team that produced the PET 2001, combining a 6502-based computer, keyboard, display and cassette drive in one enclosure.

The PET was launched in 1977 and became one of the first successful ready-to-use personal computers. Peddle later left Commodore and helped found Sirius Systems Technology, where he developed the Victor 9000 business computer. He died on 15 December 2019.