--- Dave Ruske <dave_at_ruske.net> wrote:
> 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.
I know about the first half of your list. Never heard of the DREAM 6800, the
ETI-660 or the Comx 25. Love to learn more about them, too. The 1802 is one
of my favorite chips, owing, I think, to the fact that it was my first exposure
to machine language (and not just because there is an instruction with the
mnemonic "SEX" :-). A buddy of mine who was a little older than I, built
the standard Quest Elf and made a robot around it (after cobbling up an input
port for the bumper sensors and high-drive output for switching motor relays),
with the original 256 bytes.
Quest had two designs - the Elf and the Super Elf. The original Elf was,
essentially, a commercial version of the Popular Electronics Elf with
a pair of 1822 SRAMs (256 bytes), a Q LED, optional onboard +5V regulator,
toggle switches, and no 1861 Vixie chip. I think its importance is its
simplicity for a commercial offering. There are about a dozen chips total,
including buffers for the toggles and display LEDs, just like the model
written up in the PE. ISTR paying ~$35 for the bare board when I was in
grade school. It took me a while to collect the parts, one chip at a time
(the 4049s, etc., were cheap enough, but the CPU and RAM and displays were
quite pricey in their day). It was one of the many SBCs that could be
put together for around $100, but it predated the ZX-80 by a bit.
> 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
Stunning. I wish I had a IIIc instead of a III. Nice work.
-ethan
> Thanks, and enjoy!
>
> Dave Ruske
> dave_at_ruske.net
>
>
>
>
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Received on Wed Apr 11 2001 - 09:27:33 BST