Have to admit I cheated. I knew about the 8048 but had to go to Wikipedia to verify the dates. There I found out about the TI TMS1000 which I had never heard of before. I guess it didn't get much exposure in Blighty. It was only a 4 bit machine.
I should not have been so surprised though. Friends of mine were building machines with the TMS9900 16 bit chip prior to 1980. They were nice devices to program.
Have to admit I cheated. I knew about the 8048 but had to go to Wikipedia to verify the dates. There I found out about the TI TMS1000 which I had never heard of before. I guess it didn't get much exposure in Blighty. It was only a 4 bit machine.
I should not have been so surprised though. Friends of mine were building machines with the TMS9900 16 bit chip prior to 1980. They were nice devices to program.
Since the TMS1000 is a 4bit'er it was likely used as a calculator chip and hence not generally available. Perhaps that's why I wasn't aware of it.
Certainly has been a brilliant ride though. I bought my first MC6800 D1 kit as soon as it was available in Australia. IIRC this was about April 1976. I do know it was in 1976 and it was the start of my micro ride
I once saw a working calculator made entirely from discrete transistors. That thing was packed! It wouldn't have been cheap. It's pretty clear the primary target for all the first gen microcontrollers was calculators.
TI built their own calculators so didn't make a point of advertising the chip, while Intel made a show of publicising the 4004 for others to make calculators with.
All these "old" part numbers are making me feel nostalgic.
Do you guys remember the Nat Semi SC/MP?
Here in Oz their was a kit that was similar in format to a Altair 8800 (Switches and Leds for you young folk)
Good rimes!
All these "old" part numbers are making me feel nostalgic.
Do you guys remember the Nat Semi SC/MP?
Here in Oz their was a kit that was similar in format to a Altair 8800 (Switches and Leds for you young folk)
Good rimes!
Yes, often called the scamp. Feeling a bit ancient
It's kind of scary. Kids today are surrounded by wall to wall screens, at home, in the mall, in the street on the road. They have been born into world awash with PC's, games consoles, phones, tablets. The are permanently plugged into the net, furiously texting away all day long, watching vids, playing games. Whatever it is they do now a days.
I was twenty years old before the first 8 bit home computers started to hit the market. Effectively for a good chunk of my life there were no computers in the conciousness of regular people. When I was discovering computers at age 10 it was a distant dream. I dreamed of building something that could calculate out of rotary telephone dials and relays as described in a kids book on computers I found in the library. Sadly I did not have the skill to pull that off.
By age 15 I could build a calculator from a kit. By age 20 we were building 8 bit micros. And so on...
We have rocketed from almost nothing to total dependence on computers and the internet in less than thirty years.
And still the average productivity of a good software engineer is about 10 lines of code per day. Some things never change
If anyone out there has any clue about that kids book on computers which included the telephone dial construction project, circa 1968 or so, I would like to know.
I have never seen it since and don't remember the title or the author.
It would be fun to see exactly what that was about, perhaps I could actually build one now:)
Yes, often called the scamp. Feeling a bit ancient
I just went and did a Google review of the SC/MP. I seem to recall having a scamp, the architecture sure looks familiar. I went through the pictures but nothing looked familiar. It could be one of the micros that my brother (an electronics buyer at the time) may have just brought home data sheets and given those to me. He may have also gotten one f National Semi's development boards. Anyway, as much as I can remember anything from back then, the SC/MP looks to be a friendly face!
Yes, the dials are where you set to boot device address, if I recall correctly.....it's been a long time since I had to face one of those beasties. They were much fun!!
I taught myself to program in BASIC sitting at a TRS-80 at the local Radio Shack store when I was in high school. The sales guys there had no clue about what it was, how it worked or how to sell it but corporate had sent them one and told them 'it is a business machine' LOL. When they saw me looking at it longingly they made it clear.. "PLEASE sit there and look like you know how to use it, maybe then someone will take an interest and not be intimidated so we can sell the blasted thing"!
Later I was interested in the 68000 series. Designed a simple system to use it but never built it as the Amiga 1000 came out and I got one of the first ones delivered in LA.
I was working on mini-computers full-time from 1974 (maintaining and teaching hardware and software). The single chip micro chips were being talked about. The 8008 must have been available because they were used in a Video Terminal that I released around Australia in early 1975. In reality, we talk about the first micros as being the 8080 and 6800, which were quickly followed by others. The 8008 was cumbersome compared to these, because it required so much logic around it, apart from the 1702 EEPROMS and 1Kbit SRAMs (the biggest at that time). IIRC the 1702 was either 2Kbit or 4Kbit arranged as 256/512 Bytes. Two very large pcbs (est 12"x18") made up the processor for the video terminal, and another did the analog driver for the crt.
I setup my own company at the end of 1976 and by late 1977 I had my own mini - it was the length of my garage (literally because I fitted out one garage, air cond etc).
For me, it was the schools with lots of Apple ][ computers.
The Apple ][ almost got me kicked out of school senior year for showing up at one too many school board meetings harping to the board, in front of parents, that our school NEEDED at least one for an after school program to keep up with the 'big' schools. I think it was the flyers I was going to pass out to students to take home asking for support that did me in...
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I should not have been so surprised though. Friends of mine were building machines with the TMS9900 16 bit chip prior to 1980. They were nice devices to program.
Certainly has been a brilliant ride though. I bought my first MC6800 D1 kit as soon as it was available in Australia. IIRC this was about April 1976. I do know it was in 1976 and it was the start of my micro ride
TI built their own calculators so didn't make a point of advertising the chip, while Intel made a show of publicising the 4004 for others to make calculators with.
Do you guys remember the Nat Semi SC/MP?
Here in Oz their was a kit that was similar in format to a Altair 8800 (Switches and Leds for you young folk)
Good rimes!
It's kind of scary. Kids today are surrounded by wall to wall screens, at home, in the mall, in the street on the road. They have been born into world awash with PC's, games consoles, phones, tablets. The are permanently plugged into the net, furiously texting away all day long, watching vids, playing games. Whatever it is they do now a days.
I was twenty years old before the first 8 bit home computers started to hit the market. Effectively for a good chunk of my life there were no computers in the conciousness of regular people. When I was discovering computers at age 10 it was a distant dream. I dreamed of building something that could calculate out of rotary telephone dials and relays as described in a kids book on computers I found in the library. Sadly I did not have the skill to pull that off.
By age 15 I could build a calculator from a kit. By age 20 we were building 8 bit micros. And so on...
We have rocketed from almost nothing to total dependence on computers and the internet in less than thirty years.
And still the average productivity of a good software engineer is about 10 lines of code per day. Some things never change
If anyone out there has any clue about that kids book on computers which included the telephone dial construction project, circa 1968 or so, I would like to know.
I have never seen it since and don't remember the title or the author.
It would be fun to see exactly what that was about, perhaps I could actually build one now:)
I just went and did a Google review of the SC/MP. I seem to recall having a scamp, the architecture sure looks familiar. I went through the pictures but nothing looked familiar. It could be one of the micros that my brother (an electronics buyer at the time) may have just brought home data sheets and given those to me. He may have also gotten one f National Semi's development boards. Anyway, as much as I can remember anything from back then, the SC/MP looks to be a friendly face!
That's not to be confused with ISB (Intimidating Switches and Buttons)
Yes, the dials are where you set to boot device address, if I recall correctly.....it's been a long time since I had to face one of those beasties. They were much fun!!
I taught myself to program in BASIC sitting at a TRS-80 at the local Radio Shack store when I was in high school. The sales guys there had no clue about what it was, how it worked or how to sell it but corporate had sent them one and told them 'it is a business machine' LOL. When they saw me looking at it longingly they made it clear.. "PLEASE sit there and look like you know how to use it, maybe then someone will take an interest and not be intimidated so we can sell the blasted thing"!
Later I was interested in the 68000 series. Designed a simple system to use it but never built it as the Amiga 1000 came out and I got one of the first ones delivered in LA.
Ah, good times!
In that case Radio Shack spectacularly failed to learn anything at all in 30 years!
I setup my own company at the end of 1976 and by late 1977 I had my own mini - it was the length of my garage (literally because I fitted out one garage, air cond etc).
The Apple ][ almost got me kicked out of school senior year for showing up at one too many school board meetings harping to the board, in front of parents, that our school NEEDED at least one for an after school program to keep up with the 'big' schools. I think it was the flyers I was going to pass out to students to take home asking for support that did me in...