Subject: Re: Source of Vintage CPUs: Vintage Burglar Alarms

From: Ethan Dicks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Apr 21 12:35:48 2003

--- Patrick Rigney <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Over the weekend I dissected two commercial alarm panels...
.
.
.
> Panel #2, however, seems to have been the real gem...
> an RCA CDP1806, two 1852s...

Is the 1806 the version with the embedded FORTH interpreter?

Nice find on the 1852s - those are highly sought after (almost as much
as 1861s!)

What brand is the panel, in case one of us is lucky enough to run
across a pile of them at the Hamvention or the like?

-ethan
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo
http://search.yahoo.com

---

From: "Patrick Rigney" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Apr 21 12:36:42 2003

Over the weekend I dissected two commercial alarm panels people had saved
for me.  While I was grateful for the thought, I didn't give my donors much
credit for being discriminating.  Boy was I wrong.

When I opened the first panel, the board inside had a 6805 sitting smack in
the middle of it.  It also yielded a 2716, a 2764, a 6821, and a pair of
6116 static RAMs, along with numerous other Motorola-branded support chips
and passives.  I thought that was a pretty cool find, especially considering
my short-sighted view of its potential.

Panel #2, however, seems to have been the real gem.  The large board within
didn't look that interesting, just the usual myriad passives, and the panel
was clearly very old (looked 20 years or more).  It had a daughter board
about six inches square and fully enclosed in shielding, hiding its
contents.  I removed the board, stripped it of its shielding, and found...
an RCA CDP1806, two 1852s, an RCA-branded 6116, and three other support
chips.  The label on the 27128 EPROM on the board says "(C) 1984".

Simple stuff, but I was jazzed.  Classic computers are
everywhere... --Patrick

---

From: "Patrick Rigney" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Apr 21 19:24:43 2003

> across a pile of them at the Hamvention or the like?

Ethan, it was a Radionics panel.  --Patrick

---

From: "Philip Pemberton" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Apr 28 01:18:07 2003

Patrick Rigney wrote:
> its shielding, and found... an RCA CDP1806, two 1852s, an RCA-branded
> 6116, and three other support chips.  The label on the 27128 EPROM on
> the board says "(C) 1984".
Wow. Those COSMACs get everywhere - deep space probes, hobby computers,
alarm panels...
Yes, I do have an Elf. Yes, it does have an 1861 VIDC fitted. No, it's not
for sale. It's the first computer I built from scratch, most of the parts
are modern and there's a photo of it on www.cosmacelf.com. If anyone wants a
better photo or in depth specs of my Elf, let me know. About the only mod
I've made to it is the display - I couldn't get any Hewlett Packard hex
displays so I bought some TI TIL311s and fitted them. For those of you
looking for TIL311s, TI also branded them as "DIS1417". I bought some of
those from a hamfest in October last year and I'm planning to buy more this
year if I see any lying around. They're nice displays, even if they are
power hungry little beasts.

Later.
--
Phil.
[email-masked]
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/