Subject: How many Mark 8's?

From: "Jon Titus" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 13 00:43:10 2003

Hello:

Let me chime in on the number of Mark-8 computers, etc.  Several years ago I
went through some old records that showed the royalties paid to me by both
Radio-Electronics magazine and Techniques.  R-E paid a small royalty for
each of the instruction booklets they sold.  You may recall the original
magazine article could not hold all the information and construction
details.  Techniques paid a royalty on the sets of printed-circuit boards
(PCBs) they sold.  Based on the information I still have, I figure R-E sold
about 7500 copies of the booklet, and Techniques sold about 400 sets of
PCBs.

Unfortunately, the original R-E article and the booklet failed to publish a
key piece of information: the wiring diagram for the board-to-board
connections.  So, I heard from many people who needed this information, but
these communications took place before email and low-cost fax, so I have no
record nor recollection of how many people I spoke with.

As you can probably guess, I also have no idea how many people actually
built a Mark-8, nor do I know how many of those built systems still exist.
My original Mark-8 is in the Smithsonian, and it was in working condition
when it left here, so that counts as one system.  The prototype memory board
for the original point-to-point wired Mark-8 prototype went to the American
Computer Museum in Bozeman, MT in October.  The ACM also got mimeographed
copies of the original "Mark-8 Newsletter" and its successor, the "Micro-8
Newsletter."

If anyone has questions about the Mark-8, refer to the Web site:
http://www.his.com/~jlewczyk/adavie/mark8b.html
which contains information I wrote back in 1999.  (I need to go back and
clean it up a bit.)

Please note, the email addresses in that posting are incorrect.  People can
reach me at the permanent email addresses:
[email-masked]
or
[email-masked]

For a while longer, the [email-masked] email still works.  We expect a
shift to comcast.net sometime soon, though.

Cheers,

Jon
Jon Titus

36 Sunset Drive

Milford, MA 01757-1362 USA

Phone: +1-508-478-8040

E-mail: [email-masked]

Member, National Association of Science Writers