Early Microprocessors in Industrial Microcomputers

[Paul Koning]

> On Mar 9, 2016, at 1:54 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
> 
> On 03/09/2016 09:28 AM, william degnan wrote:
> 
>> Not a lot is said about early use of microprocessors in industrial
>> microcomputers.  Everything you read about is so home computing
>> oriented, but I believe actual sales would have been greater in the
>> industrial space
> 
> Do you count that 1-bit MC14500 dingus as a microprocessor? :)

Not quite industrial, but an interesting early microcontroller application I remember is from around 1977, a music synthesizer keyboard (possibly the first one that was sensitive to how hard you hit the keys) using an RCA 1802 microcontroller.  It acted as a peripheral to an 8080 based "host" -- a PLATO terminal with a waveform synthesizer attached, along with that keyboard.

	paul