The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-molded plastic case, Rod Holt developed the switching power supply, while Steve Jobs was not involved in the design or development of the computer. It was introduced by Jobs and Wozniak at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire, and marks Apple's first launch of a personal computer aimed at a consumer market—branded toward American households rather than businessmen or computer hobbyists.
The Amiga 500, also known as the A500, was the first popular version of the Amiga home computer, "redefining the home computer market and making so-called luxury features such as multitasking and colour a standard long before Microsoft or Apple sold these to the masses". It contains the same Motorola 68000 as the Amiga 1000, as well as the same graphics and sound coprocessors, but is in a smaller case similar to that of the Commodore 128.
The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer launched on 29 January 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd.. It is notable for being one of the first computers available in the United Kingdom for less than a hundred pounds. It was available in kit form for £79.95, where purchasers had to assemble and solder it together, and as a ready-built version at £99.95.
The KIM-1, short for Keyboard Input Monitor, is a small 6502-based single-board computer developed and produced by MOS Technology, Inc. and launched in 1976. It was very successful in that period, due to its low price and easy-access expandability.
The Intel 4040 microprocessor was the successor to the Intel 4004, introduced in 1974. The 4040 employed a 10 μm silicon gate enhancement-load PMOS technology, was made up of 3,000 transistors and could execute approximately 62,000 instructions per second.
The Netronics ELF II was an early microcomputer trainer kit featuring the RCA 1802 microprocessor, 256 bytes of RAM, DMA-based bitmap graphics, hexadecimal keypad, two digit hexadecimal LED display, a single "Q" LED, and 5 expansion slots. The system was developed and sold by Netronics Research and Development Limited in New Milford, CT, USA.
The COSMAC is an 8-bit microprocessor family introduced by RCA. It is historically notable as the first CMOS microprocessor. The first production model was the two-chip CDP1801R and CDP1801U, which were later combined into the single-chip CDP1802. The 1802 represented the majority of COSMAC production, and today the entire line is known simply as the RCA 1802.
The COSMAC Elf was an RCA 1802 microprocessor-based computer described in a series of construction articles in Popular Electronics magazine in 1976 and 1977. Through the back pages of electronics magazines, both Netronics and Quest Electronics offered low-priced, enhanced kits that were based on this design. The system was a very early single-board personal computer. It was operated without built-in ROMs and programs were entered directly with help of the CPU integrated DMA using 8 toggle switches and an Input push button.
The KC 85 were models of microcomputers built in East Germany by VEB Mikroelektronik "Wilhelm Pieck" Mühlhausen. The first model in the series, the HC 900, originally designed as a home computer and introduced in 1984, was renamed to KC 85/2 in 1985 to de-emphasize its use as consumer good.
CHIP-8 is an interpreted programming language, developed by Joseph Weisbecker made on his 1802 Microprocessor. It was initially used on the COSMAC VIP and Telmac 1800 8-bit microcomputers in the mid-1970s. CHIP-8 programs are run on a CHIP-8 virtual machine. It was made to allow video games to be more easily programmed for these computers. The simplicity of CHIP-8, and its long history and popularity, has ensured that CHIP-8 emulators and programs are still being made to this day. It also gave inspiration to similar systems with certain limitations and compatibility independent of hardware called fantasy consoles.
The Signetics 2650 was an 8-bit microprocessor introduced in July 1975. According to Adam Osborne's book An Introduction to Microprocessors Vol 2: Some Real Products, it was "the most minicomputer-like" of the microprocessors available at the time. A combination of missing features and odd memory access limited its appeal, and the system saw little use in the market.
The Tangerine Microtan 65 was a 6502 based single board microcomputer, first sold in 1979, which could be expanded into, what was for its day, a comprehensive and powerful system. The design became the basis for what later became the Oric Atmos and later computers, which has similar keyboard addressing and tape I/O as in the Microtan 65. The Microtan 65 has a single step function that can be used for debugging at the hardware level. The computer was available as ready-built boards or as kits consisting of board and components requiring soldering together.
The original Macintosh was a relatively simple machine, now of interest for its simplicity and for the fact that it was the first computer produced by Apple under the name Macintosh. The Macintosh used standard off-the-shelf components to the greatest extent possible, achieving a moderate price point by mixing complex LSI chips, readily customizable programmable array logic, and off-the-shelf components.
The Parallax P8X32A Propeller is a multi-core processor parallel computer architecture microcontroller chip with eight 32-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISC) central processing unit (CPU) cores. Introduced in 2006, it is designed and sold by Parallax, Inc.
The COMX-35 was a home computer that was one of the very few systems to use the RCA 1802 microprocessor, the same microprocessor that is also used in some space probes.
Each time Intel launched a new microprocessor, they simultaneously provided a system development kit (SDK) allowing engineers, university students, and others to familiarise themselves with the new processor's concepts and features. The SDK single-board computers allowed the user to enter object code from a keyboard or upload it through a communication port, and then test run the code. The SDK boards provided a system monitor ROM to operate the keyboard and other interfaces. Kits varied in their specific features but generally offered optional memory and interface configurations, a serial terminal link, audio cassette storage, and EPROM program memory. Intel's Intellec development system could download code to the SDK boards.
The RCA CDP1861 was an integrated circuit Video Display Controller, released by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in the mid-1970s as a support chip for the RCA 1802 microprocessor. The chip cost in 1977 amounted to less than US$20.
Joseph A. Weisbecker was an early microprocessor and microcomputer researcher, as well as a gifted writer and designer of toys and games. He was a recipient of the David Sarnoff award for outstanding technical achievement, recipient of IEEE Computer magazine's "Best Paper" award, as well as several RCA lab awards for his work.
The Rockwell PPS-4, short for "Parallel Processing System, 4-bit", was an early 4-bit microprocessor from Rockwell International, released in late 1972. Although practically unknown today, the PPS series was widely used in calculators, games and toys, and other embedded applications. Updated versions continued to be produced into the 1980s.
