Mail Archives: geda-user/2016/10/24/17:20:44
Very, very cool story!
The 1802 is far from mainstream of course, but it's still a current
product, made by Intersil. The only ones still made are mil-spec, which
oughtta tell us something.
-Dave
On 10/24/2016 04:55 PM, Bob Paddock (graceindustries AT gmail DOT com) [via
geda-user AT delorie DOT com] wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 9:39 AM, Dave McGuire (mcguire AT neurotica DOT com)
> [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com] <geda-user AT delorie DOT com> wrote:
>> On 10/23/2016 10:24 PM, Atommann (atommann AT gmail DOT com) [via
>> geda-user AT delorie DOT com] wrote:
>>> Recently I redraw[1] the cosmac elf microcomputer which was from the
>>> Popular Electronics magazine 1976 August issue. And soldered one[2],
>>> it works right away!
>>
>> Hi! I don't have any suggestions for your problem, but I just have to
>> speak up about the Elf.
>
> Here is some 1802 trivia you'll not find anyplace else.
>
> The predecessor to the 1802 was a two chip set the 1800/1801 available
> only in ceramic packages.
> It was used in some early satellites. Perhaps some other Government projects.
>
> As this predates my involvement I don't know the details, some how
> what would become my boss in the future at Matric Limited,
> got a hold of one of these chip sets, probably still has it hidden
> away someplace to his wife's dismay; I expect I'll be the one cleaning
> out this stuff someday after Lee's passing no one else would know what
> it was or where it was stashed in the old building.
>
> Matric got a contract form the government to build a Automatic Roof
> Bolter for Coal Mines as a subcontract to Ingersoll Rand.
> So there is some government connection back to RCA, this is the part
> I'm missing, which got Lee the 1800/1801 chips.
>
> Lee designs a new Coal Mine control for a different contract about the
> time the 1802 is released.
> After the ELF came out, I was hired on to write software for the 1802
> for the new 1802 based control.
>
> Everyone is aware of the impact of the 1802 after the Popular
> Electronics article comes out.
> What people are not aware of is how it died. I don't know what
> happened internally at RCA.
>
> RCA was bought out, Harris etc. Same people setting at the same desks
> with new name on the door of the company for a while.
>
> RCA had a product line called MicroBoards, which were a 44-pin edge
> card bus and a line of industrial membrane keyboards under the name
> Cardinal Technology.
>
> The controls that ran the sub Alvin from Woods Hole Oceanographic
> Institution that found the Titanic was using these boards, because the
> CMOS 1802 and rest of the 4000 family logic was the only thing they
> found that would work through the dew point as the sub descended at
> that time.
>
> Matric bought out the MicroBoard line from RCA (not sure who actually
> owned it at this point.) I flew to New Jersey to learn the testing
> procedures and over see the transfer for the board line. After awhile
> Matric also took over the keyboard line and Matric ended up with all
> of the remaining inventory of the 18xx chips for IO, Graphics, a few
> 1802, some 1805 (1805 had the 1802 stack code hard-coded and a couple
> of other minor changes that escape me right now) etc.
>
> After several years Matric retired the MicroBoard line and a few more
> years retired the keyboard line.
>
> After a few more years setting the the warehouse at Matric all of the
> related stuff including the chips were moved to a storage locker where
> accountant kept their YEARS of paper work. All just tossed in. It
> was no fun the one time I had to go find some 18xx chip to fix
> something.
>
> After I left Matric for my current gig (Resume anyone? Feel it is
> time to move on and do something different), so this part is second
> hand:
>
> Someone from the US State Department showed up at Matric with a
> Cardinal keyboard in hand saying "You *WILL* fix this" (they had be
> told on the phone that the line was no longer supported).
>
> The keyboard failed, I don't know why, and needed some of the chips
> from the storage locker as no one else in the world had them.
>
> The keyboard controlled a Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. Which one I
> do not know. No one wanted to do the paper work to use a new keyboard
> to run the plant.
> So *THAT* keyboard had to be repaired, which it was, it could not even
> be replaced with an identical (not that there were any) keyboard.
>
> So the last vestiges of the once proud 1802 family are decaying away
> in a storage locker to the best of my knowledge (perhaps someone has
> cleaned it out and trashed everything by now, I do not know)...
>
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
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