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Work · February 18, 2026

m6502, a 6502 CPU for FPGAs and Tiny Tapeout

Hey HN, Recently built an Apple II emulator and at the same time was getting into Tiny Tapeout and decided it would be cool to build a cycle-accurate 6502 CPU and an MCU for it. It's cycle accurate and the core itself should be 100% compatible with a stock MOS 6502 (would need to still test this though!). Tested on some FPGAs (fomu, ulx3s) and works great, hoping to get it taped out in the upcoming IHP26a shuttle. Also as part of the project I built a bus multiplexer to allow memory/bus access from an RP2040 to work around the limited pin count on Tiny Tapeout. This let's you load up…

m6502, a 6502 CPU for FPGAs and Tiny Tapeout launched on February 18, 2026 with 5 votes, #1,882 of 16,627 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches.

Visit github.com ↗Alternativestop 11% of February 2026

What it does

A cycle-accurate 6502 CPU core for FPGAs and ASICs, including peripherals - chrismoos/m6502

A compact MOS 6502 CPU implementation in SystemVerilog, designed for FPGA and ASIC deployment with a focus on minimal gate count. m6502 is a cycle-accurate 6502 CPU core that can be used standalone or integrated into larger systems. The core is optimized for resource-constrained environments, making it suitable for small FPGAs like the Lattice iCE40 (Fomu) and projects with limited I/O like Tiny Tapeout. An optional MCU wrapper is provided as a practical way to experiment with the core, offering peripheral integration (GPIO, SK6812 LED controller) and simplified memory interfacing. However, the CPU core itself is fully standalone and can be integrated into any design. The CPU core is a…from github.com

In the maker’s words, at launch

Hey HN, Recently built an Apple II emulator and at the same time was getting into Tiny Tapeout and decided it would be cool to build a cycle-accurate 6502 CPU and an MCU for it. It's cycle accurate and the core itself should be 100% compatible with a stock MOS 6502 (would need to still test this though!). Tested on…

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