Chuck Peddle
Engineer & Marketing Manager

Chuck Peddle was one of the team of eight Motorola employees and engineers who worked on the 6800 microprocessor and left the company for MOS Technology in 1974 along with Harry Bawcom, Wil Mathys, Rod Orgill, Ray Hirt, Mike Janes, Terry Holdt, and Bill Mensch. 

Peddle considered the $300 price point of the 6800 a disadvantage, and urged Motorola management to pursue a more affordable microprocessor that could be used in a wider array of applications. When they refused, Peddle convinced seven other Motorola employees to pack up their homes and move across the country to begin work on what would become the 6502 microprocessor at MOS Technology, a wafer-fab company in Valley Forge, PA founded by a former colleague of his from General Electric, John Paivinen. 

After Commodore Business Machines purchased MOS Technology in 1976, Peddle oversaw the creation of the Commodore PET computer.

​Much has been written about Chuck Peddle, who has been hailed by many as the father of the personal computer.* Below are links to websites and videos that recount Peddle's various contributions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Peddle

https://www.commodore.ca/commodore-history/chuck-peddle-father-personal-computer/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enHF9lMseP8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q6iuMHFwfk
​
Chuck died on December 15, 2019, a giant in the history of the computer industry.

*To the creator of this website, however, he is best remembered as a family friend whose name came up often throughout her youth, and whose brother recalls time spent with Chuck, Chuck's son, and their Dad, Terry, in a YMCA program popular in the 1970s.