The 68000 was by far the easiest assembly language to program. The instruction set is HUGE, compared to the 6502 which has a small instruction set. As I recall, the 68000 allows you to have 8, 16, and 32-bit operations in both moving data and math and has a bunch of internal registers.
For me, programming the 68000 didn't feel much different from writing code in C.
However, the 68000 takes more clock cycles to execute its instructions. If we compare systems like the original Apple McIntosh vs the Apple II GS, or the Sega Genesis vs. the SNES, in both cases you have a roughly 8 Mhz 68000 versus a 2.8 or 3.58 Mhz 65816. The 65816 only has an 8-bit data bus but can execute instructions faster. Also, the original McIntosh used about 37% of its CPU time to drive the display.
For me, programming the 68000 didn't feel much different from writing code in C.
However, the 68000 takes more clock cycles to execute its instructions. If we compare systems like the original Apple McIntosh vs the Apple II GS, or the Sega Genesis vs. the SNES, in both cases you have a roughly 8 Mhz 68000 versus a 2.8 or 3.58 Mhz 65816. The 65816 only has an 8-bit data bus but can execute instructions faster. Also, the original McIntosh used about 37% of its CPU time to drive the display.
The 68000 is superior, but the 65816 is competitive with it. It is like CISC vs. RISC.
Apple deliberately limited the speed of the Apple II GS because they didn't want it to compete with the more expensive McIntosh. The chip can go up to 14 Mhz. Some people stated that the Apple II GS was the computer that Apple should have made instead of the McIntosh. It was cheaper, ran a graphical user interface, and was backward compatible with the Apple II.
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