> These appear to be in perfect shape, although
> strangely enough, both of
> the 8319 and the 8329 dated chips have a spot of
> yellow paint on them. I'm
> not exactly sure why. I'd guess it was probably put
> on them when they were
> tested at the factory.
Those have got to be pretty close to the "last run" of
chips.
8008's were "overclockable" like anything else; I'll
bet the spot of paint has something to do with how
fast they can run without screwing up. I have also
read somewhere that some runs had less bus drive than
others for some reason.
> If more chips don't turn up, and the prices don't
> come down on their own,
> it might eventually be worthwhile to have chips like
> these reproduced.
> There are a number of companies out there now that
> specialize in that kind
> of work. Based on prices I've seen in the past, I'd
> guess that the 8008
> could be produced for less than $0.50 in batches of
> 10k at a time, but
> funding a project like that is way out of my current
> budget. The real
> issue that I can see would be getting permission and
> possibly a mask from
> Intel. Maybe Intel would be willing to license such
> older chip designs
> under a hobbyist license? :)
>
A project that I've shelved until this winter is a
drop-in 8008 replacement using a 50 Mhz UBICOM
processor and a little "daughterboard" to adjust the
pinout. I had the instruction logic working but was
still working on the external states when I put it
down. My goal was to make a simple assembly that could
be plugged into an 8008 socket and work exactly like a
real 8008. I thought it was a cool project because it
would be a case where a single-chip CPU could be
programmed to emulate another single-chip CPU, both
logically and electrically.
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Received on Fri May 10 2002 - 10:09:04 BST