Netronics

ELF II (COSMAC) (1979) [5]

The Netronics ELF II was an early microcontroller trainer kit featuring the RCA CDP1802 COSMAC microprocessor

My First Single Board Microcomputer in 1979:
Netronics ELF II
Based on the RCA COSMAC CDP1802 8-bit microprocessor. 
  • 256 bytes of RAM. later I added 1k of RAM.
  • DMA based bitmap graphics using RCA CDP1861 Pixie-graphics chip.
  • Hexadecimal keypad for enter your code in HEX.
  • Two-digit hexadecimal LED display.
  • A single "Q" LED.
  • And, 5 expansion slots I never used.
  • Have a huge compendium of articles.
Added a video modulator, speaker driver and cassette tape interface for program storage. I put a battery backup under the PCB to keep the RAM alive.

One picture displays some modern chips sets I'm playing with today (2024).
Top Left to right: Adafruit Trinket, BBC Micro:BIT, Arduino UNO.
It' absolutely amazes me as to what they have stuffed into the chips these days.

Was once a member of Association of Computer Experimenters (ACE) in Canada and have all the articles. Today you can get all of them online.


This computer started my 30+ year IT career.

Photos are for illustrative purposes only. Please refer to the text description.Last Updated : 2024-09-20 : VE3XRM


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