Mark-8
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The Mark-8 is a microcomputer design from 1974, based on the Intel 8008 CPU (which was the world's first 8-bit microprocessor). The Mark-8 was designed by graduate student Jonathan Titus and announced as a 'loose kit' in the July 1974 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine.
Radio_Electronics_Cover_July_1974.jpg
The Mark-8 was introduced in R-E's July 1974 cover article, offering a $5 booklet containing circuit board layouts and DIY construction project descriptions, with Titus himself arranging for $50 circuit board sets to be made by a New Jersey company for delivery to hobbyists. A couple of thousand booklets and some hundred circuit board sets were eventually sold. Prospective Mark-8 builders had to gather the various electronics parts themselves from a number of different sources.
Interestingly, the Mark-8 was introduced in R-E as "Your Personal Minicomputer". This may be readily understood considering that the 'microcomputer revolution' had yet to happen; the word 'microcomputer' was still far from being common fare. Thus, in their announcement of their computer kit, the editors quite naturally placed the Mark-8 in the same category as the era's other 'minisize' computers.
Although not very commercially successful, the Mark-8 prompted the editors of Popular Electronics magazine to consider publishing a similar but more easily accessible microcomputer project, and the following January they went through with their plans announcing the Altair 8800.
External links
- The Mark-8 Minicomputer (http://www.his.com/~jlewczyk/adavie/mark8b.html) – a web page by Andrew Davie with Jonathan Titus' own description of the Mark-8 project