[sdiy] Taking a Step towards - - --((FUTURE-PREDICTIONS))-- - -

[The Old Crow]

  The Cosmac ELF/ELF-II were my first computers, built from scratch 
(couldn't afford that *expensive* $100 kit! ;)  I think that CPU is why I 
still do microcontroller code today (as opposed to microprocessor e.g., 
Pentium, M68K).  There is in fact a 1802 ELF user's group on 
groups.yahoo...

  Anyway, I rigged the ELF-II in 1979 to be the polyphonic sequencer for 
my then pristine Paia-4700j.

  The common joke in those days when getting into rwars about 6502 vs. 
1802 was we'd much rather have SEX than TAX anyday.

  The 1802 is also the first and to date only CPU to go interstellar.  
Back in early November CNN reported that a group of scientists now
believes that Voyager 1 has crossed over the heliopause some 8.4 billion
miles away. If the claim pans out, that makes the CDP1802 the first
microprocessor in interstellar space... and it's still functioning. (The 
Voyagers have seven 1802s on board).

Crow
/**/

On 15 Jan 2004, Don Tillman wrote:

> The RCA 1802 is an important footnote in computer history.  It was a
> microprocessor chip with several interesting claims to fame:
> 
>   It was the first microprocessor implemented in CMOS
>   
>   It ran on very little power; you could literallly run it off an
>   orange (!!!)
> 
>   It was the only processor with a 'SEX' instruction (SEt X register)