I've been following this list for a little while, and compared to some folks I guess I'm not much of a collector. Honestly, I've never had to give any thought as to whether the joists in my house would support a computer!
But a few weeks back I started cleaning my basement, and I came across some lovingly wrapped circuit boards and stacks of papers and newsletters dating back to my high school days. My old 1802-based Netronics ELF II and the ACE (Association of Computer Experimenters) 1802 system that followed it survived the years; they still run fine. It occurred to me that in the twenty-some years since I built those systems, I've seldom had more fun with a computer.
Meanwhile I'd been looking for an excuse to learn a little about programming for the Palm OS, and a funny idea struck me. The result was TinyELF, an ELF emulator for Palm handhelds.
Naturally, I thought if I released such a thing through PalmGear.com people would have questions, and a website would be a natural way to deal with them. So I threw together a website,
http://www.cosmacelf.com
My little idea taught me a bit about the Palm OS, but at this point I've put enough "spare" time and energy into this project to really appreciate my wife's patient good humor. That basement *still* isn't clean! Oh well, judging by the posts on this list, I know I don't have to give a lengthy explanation as to why I did this --- you guys get it.
I'm posting to this list for two reasons. First, while I have some knowledge and literature on the original Popular Electronics ELF, the Netronics ELF II and the RCA VP-111, I know substantially less about RCA's VP 3301, the Quest Electronics (Super?) ELF, the DREAM 6800, the ETI-660 and the Comx 35... all 1802-based machines as I understand. If anyone could give me some accurate summary information of these machines and what made them unique, I'd be quite grateful. If you browse through the History section of cosmacelf.com you'll see that I'm looking for a more complete description of these 1802 micros. I'd also appreciate email if you notice that I've blown any details in my history or left out any links of merit.
Second, I thought that perhaps someone on this list might be interested in playing with the TinyELF emulator itself. It's not nearly as lovely as Bill Richman's ray-traced gem for the desktop, but for the Palm platform I'm fairly happy with it. You can download the emulator for free at
http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?prodID=13929
Thanks, and enjoy!
Dave Ruske
dave_at_ruske.net
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