22 Nov
2023
22 Nov
'23
2:36 p.m.
On Nov 22, 2023, at 3:51 AM, ED SHARPE via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Was there ever a COMPUTER using a 4004 that you cud really do something or did
tat finally arrive with the 8008 as in the skelby shelby sp? 8008 i now there was an
Intel INTELIC 4 (?sp) could n that use 4004 or one of the later 4000 numbered
proc. We have an intelec 8 and 8 inch floppy drives here at smecc musem .... always
wanted a 4!Ed
Don't know about commercial products. But a classmate of mine got Honors in
Independent Study for a project where he built a useable general purpose computer out of a
4004, plus a boatload of other stuff. It filled a wire-wrap panel board about 8 x 10
inches. He wrote some software for it as well, and took it to a summer internship at one
of the National Labs (in the Midwest -- Argonne?) where as I understand it they liked it
enough to ask him for a copy of the system. He graduated in 1975, so the work was done in
the year or so leading up to that.
One complication was the terminal I/O (Teletype 33); originally he had a bit-banging
interface for that, which isn't easy on a 4004. At some point he finagled a UART chip
out of one of the DEC field service engineers, I think that was one of the first single
chip UARTs, used in the earlier DEC PDP-11 terminal adapters.
paul