Intel D8088 - 1981 Production

Hard to imagine its been 30 years since IBM released the 5150 Personal Computer for the grand sum of $1265 thus starting the flood of PCs.  Build with generic hardware, and MS-DOS from Bill Gates and crew (itself only released a month prior), the 5150 did away with proprietary, the MS-DOS OS was not exclusive to IBM, and the hardware was essentially off the shelf, using Intel’s 4.77MHz 8088 (cut down version of the 8086) processor and a discrete 256k of RAM.  Other companies, could, and did, in mass, replicate and add to the 5150 making the 8088, and with it the x86 instruction set the de facto standard even to today. (though ARM has been making a large impact as of late due to the rise of mobile computing)

Here is an early add for the 5150, not only have we come a long ways in computers, but advertising as well.

A computer befitting of a museum which recently sold at auction for $213,000 was brought back to life at a event at the Polytechnic University in Torino.

$213,000 Apple 1 being programmed vi $2000 Mac Book Pro

The owner, Mark Bogle, President of the clothing company BasicNet, did not want this Apple 1 to sit idle.  instead, infront of an audience of hundred, the Apple 1 was checked with an oscilloscope and a program was fed to it by none other then a Mac Book Pro. Its an amazing feat really, considering its a 35 year old motherboard. One can only imagine the crowds reaction if one of the power filtering caps decided to fail upon boot up. Read more here (all in Italian but Google translate works fine)

Commodore USA has started taking pre-orders of its newly revamped Commodore 64 Home Entertainment system.   Of course this version comes with Blu-Ray and a dual core Intel (gasp!) processor running a version of Ubuntu Linux, it will include a Commodore OS 1.0 emulator, which should run all your favorite C64 6502 based games.

Commodore USA C64 - 1.8 Dual core Atom - 2GB RAM

The Original C64 had 64k of RAM, the Intel Atom D525 has 112k of just L1 cache.  At least the die size is similar .
Commodore USA is also making modern version of the VIC computers for your enjoyment, albeit in slightly modified cases.

Technologizer has published a very interesting article on Osborne Computers, and its founder, Adam Osborne.  Osborne computers was started 30 years ago (April 3rd 1981).  They were the fastest growing, and fastest failing company in Silicon Valley, impressive even today. Adam Osborne was one of the most important people in Silicon Valley (along with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs).  His books in the 70′s are still invaluable resources for collectors, I have several editions of ‘An Introduction to Microcomputers’ which provide an invaluable reference to some of the chip designs of the 1970′s and early 1980′s.

The Osborne 1, the first wildly successful portable, was based on a Zilog Z80A processor and ran the then popular CP/M OS.  If it wasn’t for cash flow problems, Osborne computers may very well have still been making computers today.  It is also interesting that Mr. Osborne had a habit of picking designs that ended up to be not very successful (he chose the Zilog Z8000 and Intel 8089 I/O processor as ‘Chips of the Year’ in 1980)

Andrew Tait decided to see if an install of Microsoft’s original Windows, could be upgraded through each version to end up at the current version.  Its amazing that yes it worked, and that Windows 3 programs continued to work in Windows 7.

Perhaps even more remarkable, is that Windows 1 was deigned to run on an 8086 processor, clocked at 4.77MHz with 256k of RAM. Using VM Ware it can still be run on modern hardware.

A parting thought…The entire Windows 1 OS will fit in the L2 cache of any modern processor.

Happy Thankgiving to all our readers and supporters around the world.  Eat lots of turkey, or whatever ya like.

We’ll likely have a few interesting processor news stories as well.

In September a Apple 1 computer with a few accessories sold for $23,000.  Christie’s has just auctioned off an early (first run) Apple 1, with invoice, shipping box, letter from ‘Steven Jobs’ and many accessories for a staggering $213,600.  This would have been one of the original PCB’s, sold without components and later assembled by someone else.  The main CPU is of course a 6502 but in this case a R6502P by Rockwell made in late 1981.

Complete Apple 1

What made this one so much more valuable?  The documentation and original box.  Whoever bought it should however replace the CPU with a white ceramic MOS 6502 to preserve the beauty of the original Apple 1.

Apple recently released the new (or rather updated) Macbook Air.  21 years ago they released their first laptop, the Mac Portable.  It was not the success that Apple hoped, but the later PowerBook was. Mr. McCarron recently posted a pic of these side by side.

Mac Portable and Macbook Air

Needless to say in 21 years Apple was improved their laptops a fair amount. However there are some similarities.  The Macintosh Portable shipped with no physical hard drive (a 20 or 40mb one was available as an option). It had 256k of onboard ROM (truly solid state storage).  If you wanted more, you were stuck with floppies. Its RAM was handled by 1MB (expandable to 9MB) of SRAM, which was faster (then DRAM), and allowed an actual sleep mode. Technologizer did a tear down of one last year for its 20th anniversary which shows the guts rather well.

MC68HC000FN16

The CPU was a 16MHz CMOS version of the Motorola MC68000 (MC68HC000FN12F).  The 12F is an ‘uprated’ 12MHz CPU that would run at 16MHz.  Later Motorola released it as a standard part (the FN16 pictured here)  The chipset was provide by VLSI who would go on to make the first ARM CPUs for the Newton line with Apple.

Just a few quick comparisons.  The entire memory of the Mac Portable would fit in the L1/L2 cache of the CPU on a Macbook Air.  The battery for the portable? 2.7lbs, heavier then the entire Air.

Uneasysilence has a great post of vintage tech ads from the 70′s and 80′s. Back when technology was rather nerdy, and well, so were the marketing departments it seems.

Texas Instruments TI 9900 Processor - 1978

Check them out, and if you know of more, let me know in the comments

Wired has an interesting article about several prototypes of rather historical devices.  Of much interest are the Apple 1, and the Atari 2600 although the doorbell powered Moog is pretty classy as well.

Take a look at the Atari 2600 prototype and notice that they used a MOS 6502 in it.  The final version used the lower cost (and smaller) MOS (or Synertek) 6507.

Atari 2600 Motherboard - 6507 CPU

When designing a product, it often is easier to use the standard full featured version of an IC for development work, and then as you refine the design, trim down to the least, and smallest components you can.

We also learn how Foxconn got its idea of low wages.  Steve Jobs himself paid his sister a mere $1/board to assemble the Apple 1.

Its interesting to see how prototypes can be so vastly different from the finished product.  A fact that design engineers know all to well. “I have to put all of THAT into what?”