Mark 8

From: Tim Olmstead <timolmst_at_cyberramp.net>
Date: Fri Jun 20 16:02:07 1997

At 06:30 PM 6/18/97 -0500, you wrote:
>
>On Wed, 18 Jun 1997, Kai Kaltenbach wrote:
>> | ----------
>> | From: James Willing
>> | Subject: Re: Mark 8
>> |
>> | On Wed, 18 Jun 1997, Marvin wrote:
>> |
>> | > I need another project :) and I was thinking about building the Mark
>> | > 8 computer. Somewhere, I seem to recall that someone was having the
>> | > board sets for this computer made up, does anyone out there know
>> | > or remember who might be doing this?
>> |
>> | That would be me...
>>
>> If you get one of these up and running, I have a Scelbi book, "Space
>> Wars for the 8008 Microprocessor" with full hex code listings...
>
>I also have the three books -
>
> An 8008 Editor Program
> Machine Language Programming for the 8008
> Assembler Programs for the 8008
>
>I am such a packrat 8-)
>
>BC
>
>

Here I go volunteering again. Could those books be scanned/ocr'd? I'm sure
that the original authors wouldn't care, even if they did admit to writing
them. I have all the hardware and software to do that.

I have a softspot in my heart (and my head) for the 8008. That was my first
computer. I couldn't afford to buy something like the Mark 8, so I designed,
and built it, myself. By the time I was ready to retire it, I had an S100
video card (SSM), and a 9-track tape drive, running one track serial at 5k
baud. Used my own designed r/w amps, even. It ran great, just real slow.

I still have the CPU chip from that machine, holding down a piece of foam.
Seing these posts about the Mark 8 made me nastolgic. If I could get enough
data, I might consider building a new machine with that old "first CPU" chip.

Today it would look a LOT different. Let's see, what WOULD it look like?
Start with a PAL to generate the oddball clocks, and some misc decoding, for
it, then throw a 32k skinnydip SRAM at it (OK, you can tie one address line
to ground to limit it to 16K), an 8K EPROM (since that's what I've got in
stock), say, an 8251 for serial I/O, and you've got a basic machine.

What do ya think?

Tim Olmstead
timolmst_at_cyberramp.net
Received on Fri Jun 20 1997 - 16:02:07 BST