On 2019-Aug-30, at 7:24 PM, John Ames via cctalk wrote: > Ran into this at the electronics-surplus store just down the way from > my workplace and grabbed it on the cheap. I don't actually know what > it *is,* but the labels on the switches make it look a *hell* of a lot > like a 16-bit general-purpose computer of some kind. Despite the > claims of being "microprocessor-controlled," I looked at every board > inside the thing and couldn't spot anything that looked like a 16-bit > or even 8-bit CPU. Genuinely curious what this is, but I can't find > much on it online - the name pops up in a few archived documents, but > Bitsavers doesn't have anything for the company. Though the design is > attributed to Stanley Kubota and Edward Corby - looks like Mr. Kubota > still has an online presence at https://www.exsellsales.com/about-us/ > so I'll have to drop them a line... > > Anybody heard of or encountered one of these before? > > http://www.commodorejohn.com/whatsit-front.jpg > http://www.commodorejohn.com/whatsit-back.jpg
"couldn't spot anything that ... looked like a CPU" By what criteria? Were you just looking for 'large' chips? Might you have overlooked an 8008 or 4004? - they were in 'small' 18 & 16 pin DIPs. Given the mid-70's appearance (confirmed by Chuck's 1976 ref) those would have been possibilities for the task. If there's no single-chip microproc in there, there might be a minimal CPU built out of multiple chips. "Microprocessor" in that era was sometimes used in a wider sense than just single-chip-processor. ROMs or EPROMs for firmware could be another hint as to architecture.