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Performance of Radio Shack's 1976 Science Fair Microcomputer Trainer

So here's the catch - just got mail from Jason.

And Jason said that this thing did debut in 1985 (!), not 1976. I am guilty of copying BS from the Web.
He sent me this link to the 1985 RS catalog:

1985 Radio Shack Catalog Low-res page 155 of 184

1985 Radio Shack Catalog Low-res page 155 of 184
web.archive.org

That makes the machine much less pioneering than I thought, and the Busch Microtronic (from 1981) is then actually the first trainer for juveniles / kids, not the Science Fair trainer as previously thought.

Actually, the Japanese Gakken FX Computer R-165 from 1981 was BEFORE the Radio Shack, and the Radio Shack was a watered-down re-implementation of the R-165. The R-165 actually supported digital input ports, which the Science Fair did not (they removed the capability to save a few pennies?!)

Later, the Gakken GMC-4 was released in 2009 (same virtual CPU model, not sure if it had the GPIO port).

Thanks much Jason for setting the record straight!
 
These old experimenter systems are really cool. I have one of the 200-in-1 electronics trainers, and have been wanting to put something like a PicoMite on it, maybe connected to a Pi Zero W so that I can ssh into that and then use a serial terminal emulator to control the PicoMite to control the experimenter. :p
 
Yeah, just not very feasible... I guess the Pico could control a relay-based switch matrix, instead of the spring wires :ROFLMAO:

As for the Science Fair Microprocessor Trainer, it's not really set up for electronics experiments, as there is only one way of wiring it up, really. No GPIO is possible (lack of instructions) - you could use the 7 LEDs for driving some electronics circuit, but for input you would basically need a relay or the like to emulate the "push" of one of the keypad buttons... not fun. There are no extra dedicated GPIO ports, no external address nor data bus, so nothing to extent or enhance, really.
 
LambdaMikel said:
Yeah, just not very feasible... I guess the Pico could control a relay-based switch matrix, instead of the spring wires :ROFLMAO:

As for the Science Fair Microprocessor Trainer, it's not really set up for electronics experiments, as there is only one way of wiring it up, really. No GPIO is possible (lack of instructions) - you could use the 7 LEDs for driving some electronics circuit, but for input you would basically need a relay or the like to emulate the "push" of one of the keypad buttons... not fun. There are no extra dedicated GPIO ports, no external address nor data bus, so nothing to extent or enhance, really.
Click to expand...
Yeah, there is that, but I was thinking of using the Pico (on my 200-in-2) to do the processing, and use the other components (variable resistors, LEDs, switches, etc) as I/O for the Pico. Kind of like the Parallax Professional Development boards. (http://www.ic0nstrux.com/image/data...eller-Professional-Development-Board/PPDB.JPG)
 
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