Launched in 1974, Motorola's 6800 was an 8-bit processor with a 16-bit address bus, meaning it could address up to 64K of memory.

It was an early example of a processor which only required a single 5V power supply, rather than the three voltages that most other CPUs of the time required. This feature, which made the CPU cheaper and easier to build around, predated Intel's 8085 by a couple of years.

The 6800 appeared in MITS' unpopular 6800-based evolution of the Altair 8800 - the Altair 680 - but its most loyal customer seemed to be South West Technical Products Corporation (SWTPC) which stuck with the processor for several years in its microcomputer of the same name.

The 6800 evolved into the 6809, a processor used in the Dragon range of home computers in the 1980s, whilst it also inspired MOS Technology's 6502, which launched as a much cheaper sort-of-copy of it in 1975.