My first microprocesser-based computer
I'd been fascinated by the IDEA of computers since the Sixties. When this design for the RCA1802 was published in Popular Electronics 1976/77.....
......I built it, with point-to-point wiring, as soon as I could get the parts. 1 MHz! 8 bit processor!! 256 BYTES of RAM!!! 8 toggle switches to input each byte!!! 8 LEDs to show byte outputs, and two ( filament) 7-segment displays....
Over the next couple of years I expanded it, but it was overtaken by the first SBCs. Shortly after, out came the PET and we wrote software to link them and use the PET's parallel port to 'talk' to the Elf, and it's printer to printout disassembled 1802 code.
As the photos show, it still exists- but I'd hesitate to switch it on! Still got the original mag. too, somewhere...
The 1802 had an interesting architecture, and the CMOS technology made it radiation resistant and low power. It was used in quite a few of the early spacecraft/satellites.
