FW: 77/68

-----Original Message----- From: Peter Matthewson [mailto:peter.matthewson@tiscali.co.uk] Sent: 14 January 2004 21:27 To: 'andyh(a)andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk' Subject: 77/68 Andy, Just saw your note on 77/68 from the classic computing mailing list. This made me smile; I can only see about 2 references to it that I can find anywhere on the web. My acquaintance with the 77/68 began when it featured in volume 1 edition 1 of Personal Computer World that I chanced upon in WH Smith in Dewsbury, I think this was round about December 1977. I am not entirely sure it was the UKs first home PC because I recall reading about a 4040 based system described in Wireless World which must have been a year or so earlier. I was so captivated by all this I withdrew all my savings bought the bits and built one, for ?60. The 6800 microprocessor cost ?14 I recall. I managed to get it working, I am not quite sure since I was a 15 year old schoolkid with only a multimeter for test equipment, working in isolation and did not really know what it was that I was building. The main problem I had was with wiring the edge connector, the data bus was in one bit order on the edge connector and the address bus in the reverse bit order, a detail I didn?t understand the significance of initially. It was about 2 years before I met anyone who had any idea what I was talking about. I extended the system with 1024 bytes of ram, built a keyboard and cannibalised an old calculator display for peripherals. And I built a 32 bits per second tone burst modem for storage of programmes on cassette tapes. The monitor program I wrote to drive all this took 256 bytes of memory. Those were the days - he said wistfully. Its still up in the loft. I almost feel inspired to get it out and fire it up again! Regards Peter Matthewson