oh, and it IS historic and who cares whether it's a computer in the modern sense. microprocessors were at first used to perform embedded jobs not replace the PDP8. More like automobile controllers, cash registers, traffic lights, stuff like that. They were computers in that sense. I am sure the user of such a device in the mid 70s just used it for what it was and did not give a thought about it. Bill On Tue, Jan 16, 2024 at 2:48 PM Bill Degnan <billdegnan@gmail.com> wrote:
Christian Just my opinion, but this looks like exactly what it says it is, a microprocessor-driven ePROM reader writer that allows a person to perform some specialized functions related to altering the contents of an ePROM, such as re-locating to a different memory space or similar edits before writing a copy. This is a peripheral device. I would not call this a computer, as in "general purpose stand-alone computer for convenient human i/o, programming". I have a similar 4040 (4004) programmer. The microprocessor takes the place of a lot of microcode ROMs, thus cheaper than a similar unit without a microprocessor.
Maybe this is what everyone else has been already saying I have not read every post in this thread. Bill
On Tue, Jan 16, 2024 at 1:11 PM Christian Liendo via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Here is a picture of the unit. I pulled it out of storage and I didn't have a day to really work on it. But it should give you an idea of what it is and how it was assembled.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/YpDBYpxU56vC9dbq7
On Sat, Jan 13, 2024 at 2:01 PM Herbert Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, Christian has/had in hand physically, at least the "compiler" Comstar product, maybe also the "controller" product? Not quite clear what he owns. I hope he puts it up on some kind of Web page or other editable Web-accessable thingy, that has stability and can be edited and refined. Too hard to do that in threaded discussions (this a case in point).