8-bit 64K 1802 computer with front panel and serial port in an Altoids tin

http://www.sunrise-ev.com/1802.htm

by wrycoder • 4 years ago

109 22 4 years ago

sunrise-ev.com

DonHopkins• 4 years ago

Is there one with a Curiously StrongARM CPU?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StrongARM

stargrazer• 4 years ago

The 1802! My very first micro! The Cosmac ELF! Knowing that as a hobbyist got me my first job designing with the 1805A in various projects.

Can one still buy the 1805?

wrycoder6• 4 years ago

Check the page! He’s selling kits with 1980s era thru-hole parts.

whartung• 4 years ago

This is absolutely delightful.

The little blue "not quite an IMSAI" case is wonderful.

This looks a bit more approachable than the mini PDP-11 clone (which is beautiful) as far as a piece of electronic sculpture.

And I think it rates a bit higher on the "cool" scale than the innumerable Z80s that are floating around.

I don't know much about the 1802, though. I just never really studied it back in the day.

The supercapacitor is a great idea.

wrycoder6• 4 years ago

It was the first CMOS microprocessor [0] and a rad-hard version flew to Jupiter back in the day.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_1802

krallja3• 4 years ago

The version I bought came with a parallel port, which can be used either for

1) GPIO - so you can control external devices.

2) controlling the device, with ELF-LINK.BAS!

Now it looks like Lee's replaced the parallel port with some 7-segment LEDs, which makes it work more like the original ELF (displaying hex instead of binary). But toggling switches does get pretty old, so that parallel port is mighty handy for programming via a computer with persistent storage...

wrycoder6• 4 years ago

If you read the manual at the link, you’ll see you can still do that via the serial port.

krallja3• 4 years ago

The site appears to be down, and I only have the manual that came with my revision :/

How does it work? Do you have to toggle in a serial boot loader first? I can’t imagine Lee adding all the hardware necessary to implement serial DMA…

tzs• 4 years ago

The DNS servers for sunrise-ev.com are not responding at the moment. Here the site at archive.org.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220721014008/http://www.sunris...

ngcc_hk2• 4 years ago

Seems you can run lisp on it … but click only binary download. Any info? Or can you run ulisp?

wrycoder6• 4 years ago

If you scroll down below the ordering section, you'll see an EPROM containing:

"The Diskless Elf/OS ROM by Mike Riley gives you a taste of everything! It has Tiny BASIC, FORTH, Lisp, VTL2, a monitor, simulator, and a mini-editor/assembler. It can also upload/download files in XMODEM format to use your PC as its "disk". All in a single 32k ROM!"

That EPROM can be ordered for $5.

There's a link to Riley's site. The Lisp interpreter I found there is a 2600 line file of fully commented asm.

Edit: this is, after all, a 64K computer kit, usually 32K RAM 32K ROM, but it could be 64K RAM, if you toggle in a minimum bootloader each time, like they did in the old days.

You can do a lot with 64K.

For comparison, the original Arduino Uno had only 2K RAM and was announced about six months after this kit came out.

ceejayoz• 4 years ago

Ah, but what about a computer in a 2x2 Lego block, including screen? https://twitter.com/ancient_james/status/1545557881038438400

quickthrower2• 4 years ago

The altoids one uses “80s” parts though

ngcc_hk2• 4 years ago

“ The 1802 has also been verified from NASA source documentation to have been used in the Hubble Space Telescope.[30]” see wiki

_joel• 4 years ago

The main CPU's a beefy 486/25 since 2000ish - all that power!

bencollier49• 4 years ago

Is the RCA 1802 still produced, or do all these designs use old stock?

wrycoder6• 4 years ago

He appears to be using a Harris part.

nine_k• 4 years ago

A computer in an altoids box is cute but nothing special; pick an ESP32 or something.

A computer in an altoids box using real parts from 1980s is indeed mind-boggling.

I suppose the PCB is 4 layers at least.

vitiral• 4 years ago

Looks awesome! I also want modern computers that are more understandable from bottom to top. Like you I feel like hardware simplification has to be one of the first steps. You might be interested in my project, civboot.org and github.com/civboot/fngi

Lee_Hart• 4 years ago

Just a few random comments from the designer... - All my kits are strictly 1980's vintage thru-hole parts. - No 4-layer; it's all plain old 2-layer, and with bigger traces and spaces than modern PCBs. -Early kits had the PC compatible parallel port. Current kits have a 6-digit 7-seg display instead (since no one seems to have parallel ports any more). - Even without an EPROM, a serial loader is only about 30 bytes. - The 1802 has built-in DMA; so if you add a UART, no software is needed for serial loading. - Mike Riley's 1802 diskless ELF/OS EPROM has a monitor, debugger, assembler, emulator, BASIC, VTL, FORTH, and lisp; all in just 32k. - The 1802 is still in production, but mainly in mil-spec (expensive) versions. But they're not hard to find on the surplus market. -- Lee Hart

8-bit 64K 1802 computer with front panel and serial port in an Altoids tin

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