2 Jul
1997
2 Jul
'97
11:57 a.m.
Sam Ismail wrote:
One of the
This is a case of two computers and one name.
The Video Brain is also a desktop, CP/M microcomputer built in the early
1980's. It physically resembles an Applied Digital Data Systems ADDS 70
intelligent terminal with dual 5 1/4" floppies mounted beside the monitor.
Now you must investigate further and tell us which one it is.
Yours in good faith.
systems he mentioned he had was a Video Brain.
Apparently this is a
video game system. I *think* I vaguely remember hearing about this
system. At any rate I'm curious about it and was wondering if anybody
knew what it was as we both had too much tequila for him to describe and
for me to comprehend it.
Video brain was made by a firm called UMTECH, used a
microprocessor
called F8 and had 1 to 4K of RAM memory. It was possible to store the
data on cassette and, you are right there, it had many plug-in
cartridges with games on them. It was sold mainly through departments
stores and specialty electronic stores (at least that is what "A
Collector's guide to personal computers" book has to say about it)
enrico
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13 Jul
13 Jul
3:17 p.m.
On Wed, 2 Jul 1997, COMMPUTERSEUM/Kevin Stumpf wrote:
>Sam Ismail wrote:
> One of the
>> systems he mentioned he had was a Video Brain. Apparently this is a
>> video game system. I *think* I vaguely remember hearing about this
>> system. At any rate I'm curious about it and was wondering if anybody
>> knew what it was as we both had too much tequila for him to describe and
>> for me to comprehend it.
>Video brain was made by a firm called UMTECH, used a microprocessor
>called F8 and had 1 to 4K of RAM memory. It was possible to store the
>data on cassette and, you are right there, it had many plug-in
>cartridges with games on them. It was sold mainly through departments
>stores and specialty electronic stores (at least that is what "A
>Collector's guide to personal computers" book has to say about it)
>
I remeber reading a little blurb about Video Brain in the April 1981
Creative Computing. Essentially, by that time the company had gone out
of business. . .
3:46 p.m.
On 13 Jul 97 at 17:17, Charles P. Hobbs wrote:
I remeber reading a little blurb about Video Brain in
the April 1981
Creative Computing. Essentially, by that time the company had gone out
of business. . .
I missed the little blurb in my April 1981 issue but do see a couple
of articles on the Video Brain in the Feb '79 and Mar '79 issues of
Creative Computing. Says they used the F8 processor. I've heard of
it but don't know much about it. Anyone know how it compared to say
the 8080 which the article says was the other processor they
considered using.
-----
David Williams - Computer Packrat
dlw(a)neosoft.com
http://www.neosoft.com/~dlw
10:28 p.m.
New subject: F8 chip was Video Brain
On Mon, 14 Jul 1997, David Williams wrote:
On 13 Jul 97 at 17:17, Charles P. Hobbs wrote:
The F8 was made by Fairchild. IIRC is was the brain of the Channel F
video game system. The blurb below is from the "Microprocessor
Cookbook" by Michael F. Hordeski (this is a TAB book and I am typing, so
be careful).
The F8 is a multichip NMOS microprocessor system that is designed around
a bus architecture. The heart of the system is the CPU chip. When this
combind with the program storage unit (PSU) which contains a masked ROM,
timing and interrupt control, a minimal system configuration is obtained.
The memory interface unit contains the memory address registers and
address buss not contained in the CPU. The DMA chimp contains the hold
and wait circuitry required for direct memory access.
...
The CPU chip contains sixty four bytes of scratch-pad memory which can
eliminate the need for random-access memory in simple applications.
...
The data bus provides the external interface through two sets of eight-
bit input/output ports. Transfer gates are used to move data
I remeber reading a little blurb about Video
Brain in the April 1981
Creative Computing. Essentially, by that time the company had gone out
of business. . .
I missed the little blurb in my April 1981 issue but do see a couple
of articles on the Video Brain in the Feb '79 and Mar '79 issues of
Creative Computing. Says they used the F8 processor. I've heard of
it but don't know much about it. Anyone know how it compared to say
the 8080 which the article says was the other processor they
considered using.
from the data bus and external busses for processing.
The CPU chip also
includes a clock and power-on-reset circuits, but it does not
contain a
program counter or memory address registers. These are included in one
of the companion chips. Without the address registers there is no need for
an address bus, and this reduces the CPU chip count.
...
The F8 was a 2 chip design (there was a later 1 chip version). The
main competitor was the Intel 8048. Below is a comparison chart from
"Microprocessors from chips to systems" by
Rodnay Zaks:
8080 F8
Technology PMOS NMOS
# of Instructions 69 70
Cycle Time (uS) 1, 3, 1.5, 2 2 to 13
Direct addressing (bits) 16 16
Registers 7 1 + RAM
Stack(levels) soft external sp
interrupts 1 1
on-chip clock - -
ROM(bytes) - -
RAM(words) - 64
timer - -
PFR - -
I/O lines - 16
package (pins) 40 40
Power supply (V) +5, -5, +12 +5, +12
HTH,
--pec
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