DEV Community

Cover image for I Programmed an AI in 6502 Assembly - It Worked

I Programmed an AI in 6502 Assembly - It Worked

Paul Newell on May 06, 2026

In 1975 the 6502 processed 8-bit values through memory and control flow. A Claude Code skill now uses the same mnemonics to process forge tickets t...
Collapse
 
ben profile image
Ben Halpern

So cool

Collapse
 
davehoran profile image
Dave Horan

This is pretty awesome. I used Claude to build a 4-bit system emulator with a generic ops code set. It was fun and it sparked some good conversations with my kids. Applying this to forcing AI instructions is really interesting. It does force the user to structure their requests, which always seems to be the root of the problem with many AI workflows. The token usage is an interesting side effect. I wonder if the breakeven point can be determined. Now you've got me thinking more about DSL and how to use them in the AI context. The prose method is so verbose. At least with COBOL is was verbosity with precision. AI chats are verbosity with ambiguity unless you have a structured discipline and process to making requests or leveraging specific skills -- which have become their own DSL in their own right. Nice work!

Collapse
 
dougmaloney profile image
Doug Maloney

Very cool idea and implementation. As someone who's first computing experience was with punch cards and 2nd was using a new Commodore PET, it shocked me how those opcodes still made sense. I'm now using AI to modernise code from platforms from the same era.

Collapse
 
apipeek-dev profile image
API Peek

oh man!
I should learn the machine code.

Collapse
 
alienisty profile image
Alessandro Nistico

The title is misleading, I thought you implemented an AI in 6502, that would have been very cool... Maybe one day 😁

Collapse
 
pururva_agarwal_49847572a profile image
Pururva Agarwal

Your \"Same Verbs, Bigger Nouns\" observation is spot on. We face this constantly translating medical intelligence. An LDA for a symptom like \"kaaichal\" (Tamil for \"fever\") needs to pull a nuanced local context, not just generic concepts.\n\nResolving specific drug brand names for interactions across 22 languages means the \"noun\" behind...

Collapse
 
mixture-of-experts profile image
Mixture of Experts

Seeing modern AI logic applied to such a limited instruction set is very cool.

Collapse
 
newellpaul profile image
Paul Newell

If some younger readers did not get the quiche reference:

Real programmers don't use Pascal — Ed Post, 1983

Worth 2 mins of your time 😆

Collapse
 
jbnv profile image
Jay Bienvenu

Nobody programming on the Internet this century has been a "real programmer." 😄

Collapse
 
harjjotsinghh profile image
Harjot Singh

this is such a fascinating way to bridge retro tech with modern workflows. love how you mapped the 6502 assembly to triage and fix processes. it’s a clever twist.

speaking of modern apps, at Moonshift you can deploy a full next.js app with postgres and auth in about 7 minutes, and you keep the code on your github. if you want to give it a whirl, I can set you up with a free build.