[ Retro Scan of the Week ] SWTPC 6800
August 10th, 2015 by Benj Edwards
When taking apart your PC was required
I recently inherited a SWTPC 6800 and a fair number of accessories and peripheral cards from a late friend of my father’s. The 6800 was one of the first personal computers, released in 1975, which makes my unit the oldest computer in my collection. The SWTPC 6800 takes its name from its CPU, the Motorola 6800, which was one of the earliest microprocessors, and it refreshingly utilizes a non-S-100 bus. In fact, it created its own minor bus standard called SS-50 that manufacturers like Smoke Signal Broadcasting incorporated into compatible machines.
The 6800 is really neat machine — I cleaned up all the boards, but I can’t get it to boot so far. I’ll have to give it a shot again at a later date.
Discussion Topic of the Week: Do you own any computer released prior to 1977? Tell us about it.
August 13th, 2015 at 11:57 pm
Can’t say that I do. The oldest computers that I still have are a TRS-80 model 100 portable and a Commodore 64C, both from the early 80s.
August 14th, 2015 at 2:56 am
Just one: an Intel Single Computer 80/10 from 1975. I’ve never found enough documentation to figure out how to interface with it correctly, so I’ve never powered it up.
August 19th, 2015 at 11:27 pm
Hmm…a megabyte of RAM for a mere $32000! 🙂
August 24th, 2015 at 11:20 pm
And thank goodness for the Tic Tac Toe listing! 😀
August 31st, 2015 at 7:31 pm
This is the same 6800 system that Atari used to develop their early microprocessor coin-ops. Owen Rubin programmed his first coin-op (Cannonball, unreleased) using this system, by hand-assembling opcodes rather than writing out the assembly and handing it off to the PDP-1 operators to type it in and run it for him. Funny stuff.
September 1st, 2015 at 9:05 am
Very cool info, BDD. I did not know any of that. It’s neat to see how the early computer industry and Atari were related.