COSMAC 1802 Membership Card Checkout

A check-out of Lee Hart's retro-computing COSMAC 1802 "Membership Card" prototype. Retro-computing designed to fit in an altoid can.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• rca
• 1802
• elf
• cosmac
• membership
• card
• retro
• computing
• retrocomputing
• altoid
• can

[ptdecker]

For interested parties, Wikipedia has a good article on retro-computing.

[DanFrederiksen]

at the risk of sounding obvious but isn't this suicide by useless endeavors?

at least use a modern microcontroller. retro and nostalgia is mental suicide. it's just giving up

[ptdecker]

@DanFrederiksen Depends, it's been a great teaching tool with my daughter so far. She's learning basic computer and hardware concepts very quickly with it. Doing this with a microcontroller is, of course, trivial. Just buy an Arduino, but did you learn anything about hardware? Does it matter that you didn't? Probably not if you don't plan on being a hardware engineer. But, if you are interested in building the chips that power your desktop super computer this is a good way to start.

[DanFrederiksen]

@ptdecker no it isn't. anything that this implementation illustrates you could simply illustrate on paper in seconds. this is useless nostalgia. nothing more.

[ptdecker]

@DanFrederiksen We'll have to agree to disagree. Lee Hart (its designer) posts a good response to your position here on the Hackaday blog's entry for the site. I've posted the link in the video.

[ptdecker]

@StormRisingOriginal Depends upon the point of view. The 1802 microprocessor is probably one of the best for teaching the basics of how a computer actually works. I'd venture the vast majority of folks (even programmers these days) have no idea how a computer actually works. This computer is about as basic as it gets, but it has all of the classic components of a Von Neumann architecture computer. Of note, the 1802 is the "useless" brain inside the Galileo spacecraft.

[UhtredOfBebbanberg]

This is excellent! The small form factor, switches, and LEDs make for a very compelling package, and a great teaching tool. For learning computer basics, this is far better than simply looking at diagram or textbook. I'm looking forward to teaching my own daughter with some sort of gadget like this someday.

[TheMereMortal]

Fantastic. The RCA 1802 is an extremely rugged, underrated microprocessor.

[douro20]

The CDP 1802 was the first CMOS microprocessor- RCA made a big deal about it back in 1976. They produced a development system for it (this was the COSMAC Elf) and a horrible game console called the Studio II. Trust me- they could had done better. Anyway, the 1802 is a nice little processor which taught many EE students the basics of microprocessor design and programming.

[summer20105707]

Retro computing is a wonderful hobby. Most things in the modern computer world are all spoon fed to you. If you want a challenge work with machines that don't do the thinking for you. Don't get me wrong, I am comfortable with modern and old computers. I like both. But why would I throw away my classics. That would be like tossing away a 57 chevy.

[summer20105707]

I must admit the point of this eludes me. But retrocomputing is a wonderful hobby. Modern computing is great too.

[DanFrederiksen]

don't throw yourselves on the sword of nostalgia people. it is death of the mind

[DanFrederiksen]

@ptdecker might want to put it in the description, you can't click it or copy it so have to manually type it in.

and I'm quite familiar with Lee Hart. he is rather stuck in the past. for instance he's into electric cars as am I but he promotes the use of lead acid batteries and dismisses lithium batteries as unproven and unreliable and that lead is the better choice which is blatantly wrong. and no matter how much data he is offered he sticks doggedly to the lead mantra.