Telmac 1800
Encyclopedia
The Telmac 1800 was an early microcomputer
Microcomputer
A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers...

 delivered in kit form. It was introduced in 1977 by Telercas, the Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 importer of RCA microchips. Most of the 2,000 kits manufactured were bought by electronics enthusiasts in Finland and Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

.

An expansion board, OSCOM, later became available, and included an alphanumeric
Alphanumeric
Alphanumeric is a combination of alphabetic and numeric characters, and is used to describe the collection of Latin letters and Arabic digits or a text constructed from this collection. There are either 36 or 62 alphanumeric characters. The alphanumeric character set consists of the numbers 0 to...

 video display, and up to 12 kB of memory. A 4 kB Tiny BASIC
Tiny BASIC
Tiny BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language that can fit into as little as 2 or 3 KB of memory. This small size made it invaluable in the early days of microcomputers , when typical memory size was only 4–8 KB.- History :...

 could be run on this configuration.

Major features

  • RCA 1802 (COSMAC)
    RCA 1802
    The RCA CDP1802, also known as the COSMAC , is an 8-bit CMOS microprocessor introduced by RCA in early 1976. It is being by Intersil Corporation as a high-reliability microprocessor...

     microprocessor CPU
  • cassette tape interface
  • 2 KB
    Kilobyte
    The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information...

     RAM
    Random-access memory
    Random access memory is a form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow stored data to be accessed in any order with a worst case performance of constant time. Strictly speaking, modern types of DRAM are therefore not random access, as data is read in...

    , expandable to 4 KB
  • 64×32 pixel
    Pixel
    In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....

    s display resolution
    Display resolution
    The display resolution of a digital television or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is controlled by all different factors in cathode ray tube , flat panel or projection...

  • able to run a CHIP-8
    CHIP-8
    CHIP-8 is an interpreted programming language, developed by the late Joseph Weisbecker. It was initially used on the COSMAC VIP and Telmac 1800 8-bit microcomputers in the mid-1970s. CHIP-8 programs are run on a CHIP-8 virtual machine...

     interpreter
    Interpreter (computing)
    In computer science, an interpreter normally means a computer program that executes, i.e. performs, instructions written in a programming language...


External links

  • Chip8.com Website dedicated to Chip-8 and related systems. Maintains the most complete collection of Chip-8 programs on the net.
  • Revival Studios Developer of new Chip-8/SuperChip/MegaChip8 games.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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