 EDUC-8 Microcomputer on display at the Computer History Museum. | |
| Manufacturer | Electronics Australia |
|---|---|
| Type | microcomputer |
| Release date | August 1974; 50 years ago (1974-08) |
| Memory | 256 bytes of RAM |
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The EDUC-8, pronounced "educate", was an early microcomputer kit published by Electronics Australia in a series of articles starting in August 1974 and continuing to August 1975. Electronics Australia initially believed that it was the first such kit, but later discovered that Radio-Electronics had just beaten it with their Mark-8 by one month. However, Electronics Australia staff believed that their TTL design was superior to the Mark-8, as it did not require the purchase of an expensive microprocessor chip.
The EDUC-8 was an 8-bit bit-serial design with 256 bytes of RAM. The internal clock speed was 500 kHz, with an instruction speed of approximately 10 kHz, due to the bit-serial implementation. The instruction set was a subset of the DEC PDP-8, though it was missing quite a few of the PDP-8’s instructions and some important flags. This was essentially an education machine designed to put people on a path to understanding how a computer worked and how to start programming what was at the time, a common computer in the market.
Unlike the MITS Altair 8800, the EDUC-8 included two serial input and two serial output ports at the back of the computer. The EDUC-8 also had front panel lights and switches to program the computer. The later articles included a variety of peripherals, allowing the computer to interface to a keypad, octal display, paper tape loader, paper tape puncher, printer, keyboard, music player, teleprinter, magnetic tape recorder and alphanumeric display. The articles were collected into a book, where additional information was published detailing how to expand the number of I/O ports to 256, adding up to 32KB of additional memory, and using the computer to control various switches.
Like the PDP-8 this machine was equipped with the same register arrangement. Program counter, Memory Address, Memory Buffer, Accumulator and Switch Register which made programming largely the same as the original.
References
- Rowe, Jamieson (August 1974). "Build your own digital computer!" (PDF).
- EDUC-8 An Educational Microcomputer System For The Home Constructor and College Student, by Jamieson Rowe published by Electronics Australia
External links
- EDUC-8 kit computer at the Computer History Museum.
- The Electronics Australia EDUC-8 microcomputer
- Educ-8 Documentation
- sworld EDUC-8 Micromputer
- The Educ-8 article collection at Archive.Org
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