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The Netronics ELF II

The article also made mention of an alternate source of an ELF computer for hobbyists who either came late to the game or didn't want to hunt down the parts on their own. A company named Netronics Research and Development in New Milford, Connecticut was producing a computer christened the ELF II. The ELF II featured a hexidecimal keypad, 1861 graphics and 256 bytes of RAM, and also added an 86-pin expansion bus. A "Giant" board provided cassette I/O, serial and parallel I/O and a small monitor ROM, and 4K RAM expansion boards were also available at about $90 a pop. Netronics also sold ASCII keyboards and a version of Tom Pittman's Tiny Basic.

Some may remember Tom Pittman from the Steven Levy book Hackers. Pittman, a freelance engineer, was a member of the Homebrew Computer Club who Levy characterized as a "software wizard." Tiny Basic and its manual weren't the only Netronics offerings written by Pittman: they also sold a $5 booklet titled A Short Course in Programming that taught 1802 machine language, step-by-step, from blinking an LED to the obscure programming required for the 1861. As short as his course was, Pittman introduced the reader to the full host of 1802 microprocessor features without dependence on a technical vocabulary. Pittman also contributed to periodic newsletters for Netronics customers.

The RCA VP-111, VP3300 and Studio 2

RCA joined the 1802 computer market with the VP-111 (known popularly as the "VIP"). The VIP contained a cassette interface, audio circuitry, 1K of RAM (expandable to 32K), and 512 bytes of ROM. Like the Netronics ELF II, the VIP had a proprietary expansion bus with various cards available. The VIP came with a 31 instruction interpreter, CHIP-8, that gave users a higher-level way to write simple video games. Some of the games shipped by RCA were written by Joyce Weisbecker, Joseph Weisbecker's daughter. RCA sold Tiny Basic as a 4K ROM on an expansion board.

RCA also produced some terminals based on the 1802, the VP3301 and VP3303. Both TVTs featured a membrane ASCII keyboard and could display 24 lines of 40 characters or 12 lines of 20 characters in eight colors. The terminals connected to a modem or host computer via RS-232C or 20mA current loop. The VP3303 differed from the VP3301 in that it provided a built-in RF modulator for connection to a television set.

It is also worth mentioning that RCA produced a video game based on the 1802, the Studio 2 sold by Radio Shack. Like most of the 1802-based microcomputers, the Studio 2 used the 1861 for video output.

The Quest SuperELF

Quest Electronics entered the fray with their SuperELF, which took the 1802 a bit further than the Netronics ELF II. The SuperELF had buttons for Reset, Load, Go, Wait, Input, enabling a 32-byte Monitor ROM, memory Protect and Single step. SuperELF users could add 2 or 4 additional 7-segment LEDs to display the state of the address bus, which was very handy when keying in long programs. Still more LEDs displayed the CPU state (fetch, execute, DMA or interrupt) and mode (reset, load, run or wait). The SuperELF even allowed expansion via the popular S-100 bus.

Other Systems

Still more systems were built based on the 1802, though these are somewhat more obscure. The ETI-660 sprang from the pages of Electronics Today International, a publication which sold their name to another company in 1999. The ETI-660 was intended to be programmed in CHIP-8.

The DREAM 6800 deserves special mention here despite being based on Motorola's 6800 microprocessor rather than the 1802. It is often erroneously credited as being an 1802 machine because it also implemented the CHIP-8 interpreter. CHIP-8 was popular on the 1802, but was not exclusive to it.

Possibly the last commercial microcomputer produced with the 1802 was a 1983 machine named the Comx 35. The Comx 35 took the form of an ASCII keyboard with an integrated joystick and BASIC in ROM. Unfortunately, by 1983 the 1802 was hardly cutting-edge technology, and the slow speed of the machine quickly sealed its fate.

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