And you've got some goodies to show us. Take a look at the goodies first. I Just brought one box of items. It's a mixture of different things, but yep, people will remember some of the things from the magazine.

All right. I'm going to get some closeups on these These are especially Look this tech computer. you see everything has to be produced before it goes in the magazine because it must work. None of this idea that PO it in the magazine if it doesn't work we bad luck.

The thing is that all our things worked because we produce prototypes and of course that was the expensive part is producing all these prototypes and getting them all to work and giving them to the to the workers to take home and they're all just hand done. At the time all the chips have been taken out now because this is just one of the things that we we gave to them to produce their own programs and make sure it worked. and this is the very first. one of mine is the first that's the original check one.

That's right, this is the first. once we got the printed circuit board made I screwed it down to a base with a simple power supply because we had to very quickly get the programs running. so that was the that was the computer that I devised the first programs on. and would you believe this is the nonvolatile ram that I put the programs in and about 5 years later I plugged it in and the batteries still work, they still going and it had uh 2716 or 2 2732 in there I can't remember which one, but it took a fraction of a microamp to keep it keep it from from losing its memory.

and it still worked from 1988 and we changed them in 1988 and that was Uh. it actually, uh, corroded up now, but that still worked after sitting around for all those years. Fantastic! And this is just this is another board that we used for the the train system. This is a a dedicated board for the train system.

We use a Z80 for that as well. Yep, and and then finally we used a three chip computer. This is the Very Mic Micro Comp. Is that the first one? Yes, No, not.

Well, it. there was only one board made of it and it worked First go. so that so the actual the actual prototype worked and when we got the final program working, it was the very simplest. I Advised the very simplest three chip computer y because we just wanted to show what was needed and what wasn't needed.

It didn't have a keyboard, but it did provide quite a number of programs already built into the prom and we had all sorts of different effects that you could get on the displays. but we wanted to show what the absolute minimum was to get a A A A Micro micro processor working in those days because now we've got microcontrollers. Exactly You to know that Somebody on my Forum just the other day asked about the micro comp one. They asked if they could get the schematic for and get the details.

Yes, you can, it's still in one of the books. Yeah, it's incredible. Yes, Well that was a huge advancement in those days to get something as simple as that. Now look, we've just got a box of all these prototypes, just recent prototypes.

This is a logic probe which which has this is that was it. It does about 19 different features. It does inductance, capacitance, It has a a timer on it, it has a counter on it, it has obviously high and low Logic on it and it measures voltage measures not to 5 volts and not to 20 volts. all with a single chip and a display and very few components.

Oh, it's actually right, that's it. Hasn't got a dedicated board? No, no no this is something you can build yourself because it has so many lines going to it that it would probably be at least a two or three layer board so it look was much easier just to to put the the wires in yourself and and just create the thing. But the beautiful part of surface mount is that they're so tiny they almost disappear so the so the whole thing doesn't look terribly complicated. You know that there's no parts on top and there's there are a few parts there.

but but they've all disappeared in amongst the the land. So that's why I like surface mount because I just use a a magnifying glass to put them in and if I can do it, there are some very very tiny transistors you can do. Anyone can do it. Yes, that's right.

There are some transistors in there and the rest are just um. surface mount resistors and capacitors and a and a electrolytic here and a Zena diode there and that's all you need is you can put it together yourself but that that's a that's a logic probe. Um, this is another prototype. Arrangement Here this is a a programmer a Pi programmer that goes from USB socket and this is an original prototype.

um that you have to program the chip to start. Unfortunately, you need another programmer to program the chip or you can buy the kit there. Only $25 for the kit and that's a A u um a USB kit. Again, it's all on Prototype Bo to start with.

We have got the final final version there on a PC board but everything has to be built uh on on prototype board to make sure it works. Uh what? we picked up here that looks like an FM bug to me. No, this one here. No, this is this.

Hug electros on it. Yeah, this is our Infinity bug. Oh that's the infinity one. Yeah, and what happens is you put that on the phone, you actually put it.

across the two wires so it's in parallel with the phone. and when you're ring the phone, this starts timing and if you ring the phone then hang up and exactly start to ring again so that it rings Rings the phone Exactly 1 minute later within about a 10c gap this is opening up itself to within that Gap to receiving the ring pulses again. and if it receives the ring pulses within the 10 seconds after the one minute then it turns on and that microphone turns on and anything in the room you can he the ticking of a clock. It's extremely sensitive.

it uses the phone line voltage to go down the phone and you can hear what's happening in in the in the room. This just happens to be three High bright leads uh, working from a chip and you can program it to produce anything you like. It has a routine inside it, but you can program it to produce flashing across there, flashing backwards. All flashing on just depends on how you push the buttons and of course the the steps get Remembered in the Chip And just turn it on again and whatever program you put into it it repeats it so that that's a little little IDE idea there that you can.

Um, that's exactly the same thing again. So that's that's uh, one of our multi-chip programmers that we've got. How many kits have you produced? Would you have any idea? Over 200 over 200 kits? But but, but it's not just the kits. The fact is that every kit finishes up with four or five prototypes.

So we got 1,000 prototypes and we've got another 200 kits that we haven't released. I've got at least 200. KS So we've got any any plans to just dump the data on those or no, No, they will'll be released slowly. All these things will just be released slowly.

St Straight to the website. Yes, that's right. Yes. I'm putting them on the website now.

Uh, just a few kits at a time and they'll all eventually go there because they just so much work has gone into them. So that's basically just that's just one box of whole range of prototypes which no special order. I Love the original tech one computer. That's just yeah.

Well that's where it started from. it is that is that will bring back a lot of memories for a lot of people. I'm sure we we sold quite a few of those. In fact I think we sold 1,200 y 1200.

Yes, 1200 Tech 1es. Yes, it was a very popular and we got about 20 or 30 people sending back programs so it was in those days. but what happened was that very soon after that uh other different uh improvements came along and unfortunately the the the Z8 came in afterwards and then the um something cos 5 or something co8 from from Phillips came in. that's the Cop eight cop eight came in and there was a whole range of chips that started to come in and then came in.

Of course the the Um microcontroller which actually killed all this because I was thinking all along, why don't they just add features so at least the the chip will actually drive something which they never did Z8 Zocks never did zylog, never did that and they got left behind. Yeah, they got killed by Pi Microchip introduced the 16c 84 at the time. well even even the very first one. even the first eight pin ones that they had.

um they they had eight pin ones before the the 5 508 pick 12f 508s and things like that I thought that was after the the 884 was it was. yeah the 84 was the first one. the 16 C84. okay well they brought that in and then they bought in the smaller versions.

So cheap, so cheap. But actually the Z8s were very cheap I finished up buying them they made in Italy or made in in Israel and were $150 $125 No. but it needed so much periperal it needed so much around it, so much board space. and then you could buy the the other Pck thing to to do everything for the $3 so you didn't need the board space and it was just so much easier to program because this had 700 different instructions.

you know it was just a enormously complicated thing and the P's got 700 instructions as well. It's just that they're all shrunken down to to 36 or 30 odd. That's right, 35 36 instru. That's right.

but it's still got the 700 possibilities because you can still set a bit and and uh and and and uh reset a bit so that you can do all these things anyway. So it exactly the same features and uh, was it was really a vast Improvement. It was just no turning back once. I went to a pick.

You just don't go back. It just didn't go back and neither did the engineers and neither the technicians. Nobody went back exactly. And it's only the people that knew about the Z8 and the Z80 and things that they kept on with it.

but everybody else went straight on. The Chinese went straight onto it. Yep, everything became, uh, a microcontroller design it is. Thank you very much for the memories there.

Colin Um.