I have had an interest in the 4004 for a number of years. I've acquired a
SIM4-01 that I've used over the years to read and program 1702A EPROMs. I've
recently also located a copy of Tom Pittman's resident 4004 assembler. Quite
remarkable when you realize that that it was a complete two pass assembler that
ran in just 1K of machine code.
I've always been interested in application code that ran on the 4004. The CHM
has recovered the ROMs used on the original Busicom calculator and has been
disassembled. One can easily find it on the web. In my searches I've found code
that was used to calculate time differences from satellites ( now days GPS ). A
couple of the more interesting pieces of code that I've come across was a load
calculator for helicopters and an electronic maneuver board ( used on shop to
determine closest point of approach with time, speed and distance ). These two
projects were interesting because they were developed by students of Gary
Kildall, before CP/M was even a dream.
A number of years ago, I began a project to recreate a working maneuver board
calculator. The original used 13 ea 1702As. That was a little bit much so I
used a single 2732 instead. Anyway, I had the maneuver board at the VCF west
this year, along with the sim4-01 and a 4004 to arduino interface. If one has a
4004 or a 4040 with adapter, one could run the Busicom calculator code on that
arduino retro-shield.
One of the fellows had the weighing machines running on 4004 as well.
All in celebration of the 50th year.
Dwight
