Built my first computer 40 years ago
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About 20 years ago I wired a PDP 11 to an AS400 so that we could grab ancient data. (There was a team of three of us, not a solo effort I hasten to add). It was a frustrating week, but ultimately successful.
--------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^]
From which machine did the ancient data originate? They're both ancient. ;P I still own a PDP-11/23 (minus disk drives, they weighed 67 pounds per drive. RL02)
"It's true that hard work never killed anyone. But I figure, why take the chance." - Ronald Reagan That's what machines are for. Got a problem? Sleep on it.
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That machine is newer than the Apple Macintosh. It was built in the 1990s, designed in the 1800s. But too far ahead of the precise engineering required to build.
"It's true that hard work never killed anyone. But I figure, why take the chance." - Ronald Reagan That's what machines are for. Got a problem? Sleep on it.
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
Where I work I'm considered a dinosaur for knowing what near and far pointers are! We've been doing some work with another company and one of their guys has been really impressive. When I looked him up on linked in I saw he was writing assembly and porting a unix kernel the year I was born!
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
I was still using my Smoke Signal Broadcasting 6809 system (built in 1981) until about 15 years ago when I finally transferred my mailing list data files to a Windows 98 based PC using PROCOMM+ on the PC side and the type command on the SSB system :thumbsup:. I am still amazed at what I could do with a 4Mhz processor, 32Kb of static RAM and a 720Kb floppy disk drive. :cool:
Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
I built a two-bit adder from relays a year or so ago.
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
1976 (or there abouts) I soldered up a veroboard mounted National Semiconductor SC/MP (scamp). 256 bytes of memory in two chips. Front panel had 8 leds, 8 switches for address and 8 switches for data. A push button for deposit and another for run. There was a single bit of output which I connected to an earpiece and it could play very simple, very short pieces of 'music', mainly stuff from my 'Learn to play the Recorder' workbook. The 'case' was made of chipboard with holes drilled in the top to allow ventilation. Front panel was a lovely piece of brushed aluminium. Consumed months of my pocket money and worth every cent. The design came from Electronics Australia and they had produced a pcb but I couldn't afford to buy it. Did anyone else make one of these?
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
I 'built my first computer' 24 I years ago (in my case it was more designed my first embedded system) with an SGS Thompson ST6 microcontroller ... I seem to think it ran ran at am impressive 4MHz. :-D
"State acheived after eating too many chocolate-covered coconut bars - bountiful" Chris C-B
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
The first computer I worked on had a 1MB drum memory. There was only one compiler for it in the world, in California, and I was in London, the only modem in the company was the other side of the site, and I had to create punch tape to move the code form modem to computer. It was old and slow, (bit like me now) but it got into my blood and I am still coding 30 years later.
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
I built my first computer in 1975 using an Intel 8080. It had 1KB of ram and used LEDs and toggle switches for IO. Gradually I upgraded,it by adding tape cassette interface and hexadecimal displays with calculator style keyboard. By 1980 it had a full qwerty keyboard, a Thompson VDU chip, 64KB of dynamic ram plus 32 KB of EPROM with a Z80 and boasted my own slightly wierd version of BASIC. I still have it but I don't know if it works.
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Hah! Bunch of whippersnappers! When I was vewy vewy young, I built one of these: http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/heathkit_ec1.html[^] Standard output was to an oscilloscope. :omg: :wtf:
I was a keen used of Heathkit (as was my father!) - Had the small scope, the valve voltmeter and the DX100 AM transmitter, but I never knew about the EC1. I'd love to have one to play with now... First computer I built was the Z80 based Nascom 1 kit - about 1976 or so as I recall. Programmed it to play Lunar Lander and Star Trek, which I'd first encountered running on an Elliot 903 / ASR33 Teletype at Leeds Uni in 1973/4!
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Hah! Bunch of whippersnappers! When I was vewy vewy young, I built one of these: http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/heathkit_ec1.html[^] Standard output was to an oscilloscope. :omg: :wtf:
I remember the EC-1. Always wanted one...
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
Matthew Dennis wrote:
using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor
Had me with 6800. Tear-eyed with 6809. Stack down the best 8-bit microprocessors of all time :cool: -- RP
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
About 1980 I built a UK-101 kit computer. Bare-board kit with (most) chips supplied. At the time I lived 5 doors from the embryonic "Watford Electronics" who operated out of the front room of a terraced house, but were able to supply the individual chips I needed. I built the thing in a single night, but by the end I was so tired that for some bizarre reason I soldered the 6502 socket onto the WRONG side of the board. Not being a whizz with a soldering iron, there was no way that baby was coming out again. So I did the obvious... :omg: and bent each pin of the 6502 up though 180 degrees, and inserted the chip the "wrong way up" into the socket. Turned the power on and... woohoo! It actually worked. * Got pretty fed up with the 4Kb memory limit (8 1k x 4bit chips), so examined the circuit diagram carefully. Then soldered on another 8 chips ON TOP of the existing chips, all pins save the main addressing pin. Ran an external wire from that to the address decoder and bingo! 8Kb on-board memory (though rather warm memory). The screen was a paltry 64 chars wide by 16 chars deep. So I did the same trick with the video memory (now 2kb instead of 1kb), addressed the extra 1K through via an external wire again, and cut a PCB track and patched in a second to double the rate at which the VDU was refreshed and - voila! 32 rows of on-screen text, each character now square and using 8 lines of TV instead of rectangular and using 16 lines. Of course the thing was a bit slow, running at 1Mhz, so again a bit of snipping and soldering, and - via a switch dangling in mid-air - I could double the clock rate to 2Mhz. Brill! Next I got a bit fed up with the limited character set; snip, snip, solder, switch; now I could toggle between the full 256 character white-on black, OR I could have 128 characters white-on-black PLUS the same 128 characters black-on-white (inverse video). Smashing! Of course storage was still via a serial link to a cassette recorder, running at 300Baud, making saving programs pretty time consuming. Snip, solder, switch, switch - now I had a hardware switchable baud rate of 300, 600, or 1200. 600 baud was pretty reliable, at 1200 baud you had to clean the tape head every day and use decent quality tapes, but it worked. Then my friends at Watford Electronics had an AY-3-8910 sound chip in the window. So I bought an add-on board (plain drilled PCB, all the wiring external) and knocked up a 3-voice soundboard, addressed directly via the upper regions of the address space. I built a second one, on a differen
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
Back in 1979 I bought a MOTOROLA MEK D1 devkit with MC6800 CPU, 128 bytes of RAM, MIKBUG in 512 bytes ROM as the OS, an ACIA serial port. Had a video controller to fire an 11 in. green monitor. I had a Radio Shack keyboard with no ENTER key. I also had a cassette deck as mass storage which worked at 1200 bauds. I wrote my programs directly in object code. Loved the MC6809 and the MC68K. Had a lot of fun back then. Have lots more fun today. Andy Day
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
Here in Malaysia they used to sell Apple 2+ kits in 1982 - pirate motherboard and all the chips and you put it together yourself. The ROMs were already programmed. I built one and used it for a few years with no problems. My first computer was before that - a Mini-SCAMP. 16 address switches, 8 data switches, 8 leds and a couple of push-buttons - thrilling stuff!
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I played Adventure on PDP circa 1978 but do not remember which version. Never could cross the bridge.
Crossing the bridge: You have to pay the dwarf: Give him the golden eggs (they will return to their original place if you utter the formula FEE FIE FOE FOO) and you can pass. When you go back, you bring the bear with you, that will scare him off.. (Why do I still remember such things? I last played Adventure in 1983, on a CDC Cyber mainframe)...
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Crossing the bridge: You have to pay the dwarf: Give him the golden eggs (they will return to their original place if you utter the formula FEE FIE FOE FOO) and you can pass. When you go back, you bring the bear with you, that will scare him off.. (Why do I still remember such things? I last played Adventure in 1983, on a CDC Cyber mainframe)...
I believe our copy of Adventure was broke as I did that but it would lock after you started to cross the bridge, unless you forgot to leave the bear in which case it colapsed. I to can remember Adventure from long ago, but cannot remember things I should today.
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
I was born with a built-in "digital" computer, which to this day, is still affective for counting, adding and subtracting numbers up to ten, and multiplying by nine. I guess technically this is the oldest computer my parents built.
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Just realized that I build my first computer 40 38 years ago. A Southwest Technical Products SS50 bus system. Can't even remember which processor was in it. It was a SWTP 6800 using the Motorola MC6800 8 bit processor. I later designed and build a MC6809 CPU, with 1M memory and CRT controller, card for a University project course. Anyone else remember their stone-age computing accomplishments? Thanks for the links to the information that corrected my memory. "There are 3 things that go with age. The first is memory and I can't remember the other 2". My Mom.
I also built my first computer back in the '70s, though I admit I didn't finish it. I'm a programmer who eventually got tired of programming something that I had no idea what was inside. I based my computer on a PDP8 bus that I had gotten from work, and used the 74181 bit slice ALU chip with the intent to build a 16-bit PDP-11 knockoff. I taped up a set of double-sided boards and etched them at home. No plated-through holes though - just wires soldered in to connect the two sides. I finally got stuck when I got to the proms that I needed to implement the microprogram. They and the equipment to burn them were too expensive. I built a great living-room ready box to put it all in too. The populated boards that I did finish sat in a card box for years until I could bring myself to throw them out (wife helped on that).