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From:	"Bob Paddock (graceindustries AT gmail DOT com) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com]" <geda-user AT delorie DOT com>
Date:	Mon, 24 Oct 2016 16:55:46 -0400
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Subject:	Re: [geda-user] COSMAC ELF in gEDA and the power rail problem for
	logic ICs
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On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 9:39 AM, Dave McGuire (mcguire AT neurotica DOT com)
[via geda-user AT delorie DOT com] <geda-user AT delorie DOT com> wrote:
> On 10/23/2016 10:24 PM, Atommann (atommann AT gmail DOT com) [via
> geda-user AT delorie DOT com] wrote:
>> Recently I redraw[1] the cosmac elf microcomputer which was from the
>> Popular Electronics magazine 1976 August issue. And soldered one[2],
>> it works right away!
>
>   Hi!  I don't have any suggestions for your problem, but I just have to
> speak up about the Elf.

Here is some 1802 trivia you'll not find anyplace else.

The predecessor to the 1802 was a two chip set the 1800/1801 available
only in ceramic packages.
It was used in some early satellites.  Perhaps some other Government projects.

As this predates my involvement I don't know the details, some how
what would become my boss in the future at Matric Limited,
 got a hold of one of these chip sets, probably still has it hidden
away someplace to his wife's dismay; I expect I'll be the one cleaning
out this stuff someday after Lee's passing no one else would know what
it was or where it was stashed in the old building.

Matric got a contract form the government to build a Automatic Roof
Bolter for Coal Mines as a subcontract to Ingersoll Rand.
So there is some government connection back to RCA, this is the part
I'm missing, which got Lee the 1800/1801 chips.

Lee designs a new Coal Mine control for a different contract about the
time the 1802 is released.
After the ELF came out, I was hired on to write software for the 1802
for the new 1802 based control.

Everyone is aware of the impact of the 1802 after the Popular
Electronics article comes out.
What people are not aware of is how it died.  I don't know what
happened internally at RCA.

RCA was bought out, Harris etc.  Same people setting at the same desks
with new name on the door of the company for a while.

RCA had a product line called MicroBoards, which were a 44-pin edge
card bus and a line of industrial membrane keyboards under the name
Cardinal Technology.

The controls that ran the sub  Alvin from Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution that found the Titanic was using these boards, because the
CMOS 1802 and rest of the 4000 family logic was the only thing they
found that would work through the dew point as the sub descended at
that time.

Matric bought out the MicroBoard line from RCA (not sure who actually
owned it at this point.) I flew to New Jersey to learn the testing
procedures and over see the transfer for the board line.  After awhile
Matric also took over the keyboard line and Matric ended up with all
of the remaining inventory of the 18xx chips for IO, Graphics, a few
1802, some 1805 (1805 had the 1802 stack code hard-coded and a couple
of other minor changes that escape me right now) etc.

After several years Matric retired the MicroBoard line and a few more
years retired the keyboard line.

After a few more years setting the the warehouse at Matric all of the
related stuff including the chips were moved to a storage locker where
accountant kept their YEARS of paper work.  All just tossed in.  It
was no fun the one time I had to go find some 18xx chip to fix
something.

After I left Matric for my current gig (Resume anyone?  Feel it is
time to move on and do something different), so this part is second
hand:

Someone from the US State Department showed up at Matric with a
Cardinal keyboard in hand saying "You *WILL* fix this" (they had be
told on the phone that the line was no longer supported).

The keyboard failed, I don't know why, and needed some of the chips
from the storage locker as no one else in the world had them.

The keyboard controlled a Nuclear Power Plant in Japan.  Which one I
do not know.  No one wanted to do the paper work to use a new keyboard
to run the plant.
So *THAT* keyboard had to be repaired, which it was, it could not even
be replaced with an identical (not that there were any) keyboard.

So the last vestiges of the once proud 1802 family are decaying away
in a storage locker to the best of my knowledge (perhaps someone has
cleaned it out and trashed everything by now, I do not know)...

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