On the 6800/6809: don't forget to look at the Fairlight CMI and the Qasar M8 developed by Tony Furse: the sampling synthesizer that was the sound of the 80s.
This past summer, Tony has been retrieving his 8-inch Motorola Exorciser floppies. He encouraged me to work on my Motorola Exorciser emulator- it now emulates a 6809 version of the Exorciser:
Ha. I have a love-hate relationship with the MC6805. On the one hand, I built a lot of devices based on the 68HC05 series. On the other, having to implement a 16-bit division routine on one was what made me swear off assembly language for good.
it would be reductive to chalk up the sound of the 80s to any one synth. Especially when the Fairlight was responsible for a number of iconic songs:
http://ghservices.com/gregh/fairligh/topsong/
This past summer, Tony has been retrieving his 8-inch Motorola Exorciser floppies. He encouraged me to work on my Motorola Exorciser emulator- it now emulates a 6809 version of the Exorciser:
https://github.com/jhallen/exorsim
(check out the long discussions in the issues...)
"Blue Monday" on QasarBeach Fairlight CMI emulator:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPXqM7qrkfc