10 May
2002
10 May
'02
6:09 a.m.
These appear to be in perfect shape, although
strangely enough, both of
the 8319 and the 8329 dated chips have a spot of
yellow paint on them. I'm
not exactly sure why. I'd guess it was probably put
on them when they were
tested at the factory.
Those have got to be pretty close to the "last run" of
chips.
8008's were "overclockable" like anything else; I'll
bet the spot of paint has something to do with how
fast they can run without screwing up. I have also
read somewhere that some runs had less bus drive than
others for some reason.
If more chips don't turn up, and the prices
don't
come down on their own,
it might eventually be worthwhile to have chips like
these reproduced.
There are a number of companies out there now that
specialize in that kind
of work. Based on prices I've seen in the past, I'd
guess that the 8008
could be produced for less than $0.50 in batches of
10k at a time, but
funding a project like that is way out of my current
budget. The real
issue that I can see would be getting permission and
possibly a mask from
Intel. Maybe Intel would be willing to license such
older chip designs
under a hobbyist license? :)
A project that I've shelved until this winter is a
drop-in 8008 replacement using a 50 Mhz UBICOM
processor and a little "daughterboard" to adjust the
pinout. I had the instruction logic working but was
still working on the external states when I put it
down. My goal was to make a simple assembly that could
be plugged into an 8008 socket and work exactly like a
real 8008. I thought it was a cool project because it
would be a case where a single-chip CPU could be
programmed to emulate another single-chip CPU, both
logically and electrically.
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