[sdiy] OT: COSMAC Elf 2000

[Larry Troth]

I honestly don't know.  I never worked with the 80x9 uCUs.  I worked with
the 8080 and Z80, then went to higher level languages and the 68000 systems
(Atari ST).

Larry T. 

-----Original Message-----
From: synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl
[mailto:synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl] On Behalf Of anthony
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 4:36 PM
To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
Subject: Re: [sdiy] OT: COSMAC Elf 2000

Oh that's right. It was the 8080. That's almost like saying a '386 is like a

'286. Maybe not as bad...

This made me think of something else. Can you make a preporgrammed 80X9 uCU 
ignore its burnt ROM and use an outboard ROM?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Larry Troth" <larry at unicode.com>
To: <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 5:50 PM
Subject: RE: [sdiy] OT: COSMAC Elf 2000


> Actually the Altair was based on the Intel 8080 8-bit cpu.  Several years
> older then the 8088/8086 cpus.  But it could still be a worth while 
> project.
> (The IEEE-696 {?} specification did allow for 16 bit data, but the primary
> bus was built for 16 bit address and 8 bit data.)
>
> Larry T.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> [mailto:synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl] On Behalf Of anthony
> Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 11:45 AM
> To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> Subject: [sdiy] OT: COSMAC Elf 2000
>
> A while back I saw an article in Nuts & Volts magazine about the COSMAC 
> Elf
> 2000. At first I read the project article avidly, hoping for a cool 
> project
> that might consume a lion's share of my vast TTL logic collection. Then I
> get to the part where it says a lot of the logic was replaced for our
> circuit building convenience by a PAL or two. So then I was totally soured
> onthe Elf 2000. This was one of the things I HATED about projects in
> Radio-Electronics: they'd hook you in with a cool sounding project and 
> then
> you'd find it was centered around some wonderful new VLSI chip that my
> paper-route-having teenage ass couldn't afford. It was like they couldn't
> think up a lot of decent projects for kids like me who had scrounged a lot
> of parts from old radios & TV's. Of course the solution was to go to the
> local library (Logansport, Indiana at that time) and bug the basement 
> clerks
>
> for all of their back issues of Radio-Electronics & Popular Electronics. 
> My
> father had several of the latter and in the late 70's, they really knew 
> how
> to put a few cool easy to build projects in their pages. I think my 
> problem
> was I was buying RE from the period 1985-1989 (and later for a spell in 
> the
> 90's when I was no longer a teenager).
>
> So the point of this messge: I thought about it and figured I could 
> probably
>
> make an Altair clone for cheaper than an Elf 2000 or even the original
> COSMAC Elf. I have all sorts of 74LS373's and 74LS374's and a few 8088's. 
> I
> know that the original Altair was based on an 8086, but the switch 
> shouldn't
>
> be too hard.
>
> It would be cool if I had some hex display Nixies (all mine are decimal),
> but a huge LED array and an army of 7-segment displays should work fine.
>
>
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