Mystery Micro

[collectorcraig]

Hi,

I am new to the group and think I will enjoy visiting and learning from others. My hat goes off to Erik on putting together a great site for collectors to gather and share.

I collected several micros years ago and haven't done much with them for years. I have one particular early system that I have tried to find out more about over the years but nobody seems to know much about it. I bought it at an electronics swap meet in Minneapolis in the late 1970's. I should have asked more questions then! The guy selling it worked for either Honeywell or Univac as a design engineer. He had three computers for sale--a SOL-20 with the walnut sides, an Altair 8800, and this Intel system. I could only afford one at the time, so I bought the Altair. However, I saw another guy walking away with the Intel system and got his business card. About a year later, I called him and made a deal to buy it.

The name plate on the front is inscribed "8 BIT MICRO COMPUTER SYSTEM." It is in an elaborate, thick red translucent plastic case and has an Intel 8008 CPU. It also has an EPROM burner unit with it. Could it be some sort of early prototype system or a promotional unit built by Intel? Anybody seen others like it? Would love to find out more about it!

Here are a few photos:

http://www.solomonson.net/computer.pics/Intel.CPU.jpg

http://www.solomonson.net/computer.pics/Intel.Misc.jpg

http://www.solomonson.net/computer.pics/Intel.EPROM.jpg

Thanks for looking,

Craig Solomonson
Cambridge, Minnesota

 

[~llama]

the SIM 8-01 is the computer system described in the 8008 users manual (i have a link in the "manuals" section) as is the MP7-03 ROM burner, so they're Intel boards :D awesome! MCS-8 stuff is cool.

http://www.alikat.org/library/old/8008UM.pdf <-- there's the link... in the manual you'll read lots of stuff about the SIM 8-01 and the EPROM burner

 

[CP/M User]

Re: Mystery Micro

"collectorcraig" wrote in message:

<snip!>

> The name plate on the front is inscribed
> "8 BIT MICRO COMPUTER SYSTEM." It
> is in an elaborate, thick red translucent
> plastic case and has an Intel 8008 CPU.
> It also has an EPROM burner unit with it.
> Could it be some sort of early prototype
> system or a promotional unit built by
> Intel? Anybody seen others like it?
> Would love to find out more about it!

I don't know if you know about:
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/
as they have a couple of 8008 systems
there as well. You can also search there
by the date on when this system came
out.

If I correctly recall the 8008 came out in
the early '70s & replaced the 4004, when
the 8080 came out I believe this was the
8008's replacement.

I recall one time seeing a 8008 system
(at the museum site given above) which
had a disk drive, though some people
say that it's not adquite enough to have
an OS (like CP/M). Not that I'm critising
this processor, I think it would be
interesting to get that going & seeing
what it can do. I wouldn't say that the
8008 was some sort of a prototype since
there were a few systems which used this
CPU. I would say that you've got yourself
one of the early founders of the
microcomputer, even though it came
after the 4004, but I don't think they used
the 4004 in anything more than just a
eletronic calculator!

Cheers,
CP/M User.