Ok - time for me to throw my "early uP hacking" story into the ring... I saw Intel's data books for the original MSC8 microcomputer - and I just had to have one - be the 1st kid on the block with his very own computer so to speak. This was back in late '73 or early '74, if I properly recall. The MSC8 was designed around the Intel 8008! I never saw a 4004 machine, although they existed, and were, as far as I know, the very first uP on a chip... Anyway, I spent more than a year groveling around early Silicon Valley and begging for free parts. I managed to get all the memory and lots of TTL that I needed free from National, more TTL from Signets (Philips), and not 1 but *2* 8008's free from Intel (they listed somewhere between $100 - $200 ea. even in those days - yikes!) and various and sundry parts from other vendors - Fairchild, TI, etc... It helped to call them all up and claim I was a starving student (I was). I set upon building my own machine - it took me almost 2 years and just about all of my spare time - I was an upperclassmen in HS at the time (there - I just dated myself - you figure out my age), and I was sorely distracted for various reasons. Long story short: I managed to build a custom VDT and 300 Baud cassette-based data storage system to boot, and hooked the whole mess together. The machine had 1K of memory (32 chips!), lots of flashing front panel lights and toggle switches, and ran at a whopping 800 kHz... It seemed like there was more external control and decode logic in the system then there must have been gates in the uP! I entered it in the California State science fair in '76 and won 3rd place in my category and a special Air Force communications award. Just getting the whole thing to run was the challenge - I never really managed to get the darn thing to do much in the way of an application... The KIM-1 had been introduced in '75 and I was off to smaller, faster, cheaper, better... Ciao, Chuck Mauro RAPID Engineering KLA-Tencor > -----Original Message----- > From: Wim E. van Bemmel [SMTP:bemspan@XS4ALL.NL] > Sent: Thursday, April 30, 1998 1:51 PM > To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU > Subject: Re: [0t]bit,byte,nibble & futher off topic > > Whow, there are more oldies like me around... > > The first thing I did was loading a short routine to make available a > hex > keypad, to get rid of the entering of address and data bytes by the > dip-switches... then there came a second step in the bootstrap > process, > entered using the hex keypad, to get to a cassette tape loader, and > by the time I got that operational the ELF and Super-ELF came to the > market, > RCA 1802 based boards that had tape utilities and a keypad on board, > an even > 4k of RAM, while the SC/MP had 512 bytes... > The whole thing started because my friends and me wanted our Railroad > System, > the Central Pacific Railroad, built in Rotterdam, Holland, CTC > controlled.. > this system contained long underground trajects, so a kind of train > tracking > was needed. This took so much TTL or CMOS that it looked > attractive to use micros instead. > Funny that now, some 15 years later I am turning to PIC's to ease some > model railroad jobs.. > > Ron Kreymborg wrote: > > > Hey! My first too! Must have been around '77. Had to build a > laboratory > > controller that monitored an analogue input and switched various > outputs > > as a result. Would have been a lot of '74 parts and the SC/MP looked > like > > it could do the job in one chip. Wrote an assembler in Basic and > when I > > was happy with the code, burnt it into a fusible link prom. I think > it had > > 32 8-bit locations. Had to build the prom programmer first. Big kick > when > > it worked! I found later it was the first time a micro had been used > for > > laboratory control at Monash Uni. > > > > Ron > > > > On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, Russell McMahon wrote: > > > > > My first "micro-computer" was one I built myself (a friend's > > > design) based on the SC/MP ("SCAMP") (remember them?) from > > > NatSemi. We had 8 switches on the data bus and used the fact > > > that the chip would count up through memory on startup, and > > > had a static clock. You would start it up, set the data > > > switches to the required code and press "enter". This would > > > input one byte (here byte = 8 bits :-)) and so on. There was > > > NO other program loading device so you did this every time > > > you wanted a program loaded. I guess programs were fairly > > > small and power tended to be left on. > > > > > > You can probably work out approximately how old I am from > > > this :-). > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Andy Kunz > > > To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU > > > Date: Thursday, 30 April 1998 02:16 > > > Subject: Re: [0t]bit,byte,nibble & futher off topic > > > > > > > > > >>Takes me back a long time. The UYK 'family' were based on > > > the MPC-16 micro > > > >>emulator. You could not believe the amount of products > > > that UNIVAC marketed > > > >>from that basic design. > > > > > > > >They were pretty good machines, too. Flipping the toggles > > > and LOAD to > > > >bootstrap them was a pain, though. > > > > > > > >Andy > > > > > > > > > > > -- > Regards, > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > Wim E. van Bemmel > No Unsollicited Commercial mailto:bemspan@xs4all.nl > Life is about Interfacing .... > ------------------------------------------------------------------