A cold windy wintery day, stuck inside being good little socially-isolated folk, what better task than another round of purging the ancient folders of papers, photocopies, ephemera and treasure…

More old photocopies of electronics and computing hardware projects that I never screwed up the courage – or the money – to tackle.

First find from the folder, not necessarily in order I collected the articles, just order I’m uncovering, one of many single-board computers or bus-based systems that I daydreamed about building over the years:

• 68000 board, R.F. Coates, parts 1 and 2, Electronics & Wireless World October 1985, pp51-54 and November 1985, pp51-54,64.

Interestingly enough, along the way to locating online PDF versions of the magazines, I stumbled on https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Wireless_World_Magazine.htm which states that:

Wireless World Magazine was a British electronics journal. It began in 1911 as the Marconigraph. In April, 1913 it became Wireless World and was issued continuously under this name until 1986 when it became Electronics & Wireless World.

I think they’d better check their dates, those 1985 copies of mine are definitely titled Electronics & Wireless World.

A divergence into “smarthome” power controlling:

• “Mains equipment control”, Nigel Gardner. Electronics & Wireless World, March 1987 pp267-270.

Then a whole series of articles on the SC84 Microcomputer, a bus-based Z80 system that I really wanted, but never worked up the courage to get started on:

• SC84 Microcomputer, J.H. Adams, Electronics & Wirelss World, May 1984, pp37-40,51. Part one, Z80 processor card.
• SC84 Microcomputer, J.H. Adams, Electronics & Wireless World, June 1984, pp39-42. Part two, IO card.
• SC84 Microcomputer, J.H. Adams, Electronics & Wireless World, July 1984, pp31-33,64-66. Part three, CRT display.
• Switch-regulated power supply, J.H. Adams, Electronics & Wireless World, September 1984, pp39-41. Power supply for the SC84.
• SC84 Microcomputer, J.H. Adams, Electronics & Wireless World, September 1984, pp51-53,63. Constructor’s tips for the SC84.
• SC84 Microcomputer, J.H. Adams, Electronics & Wireless World, October 1984, pp21-27. EPROM software for the SC84.

I also seem to have a photocopy of the three circuitboard overlays, the MCOS Listing version 1.01 and the display’s character ROM version 1.00 – I suspect that some time in 1984 or ‘85 I must have written away for more information on the system.

Followed by part 2 of an article, again Electronics & Wireless World:

• High-speed interface/buffer 2, J.F. van der Walle. Electronics & Wireless World, April 1986, pp41-43. Did I ever have part 1 (March 1986, pp71-73) in my folders of old paperwork? Did I stumble on the article and was unable to back-track find part 1, or was I just too much of a cheapskate to photocopy the first part? I suspect it may have even been related to design work for a project in university.

Another favourite from that time was Steve Ciarcia’s Circuit Cellar column in BYTE magazine, although again I never built any of the projects, just collected the ones that I would have liked to build.

• Adding SCSI to the SB180 Computer – Part 1: Introduction, Steve Ciarcia, BYTE Magazine, May 1986, pp85-94
• Adding SCSI to the SB180 Computer – Part 2: Bus Phases, Steve Ciarcia, BYTE Magazine, June 1986, pp107-114
• Build the Circuit Cellar IC Tester – Part 1: Hardware, Steve Ciarcia, BYTE Magazine, November 1987, pp303-313
• Build the Circuit Cellar IC Tester – Part 2: Software and Operation, Steve Ciarcia, BYTE Magazine, December 1987, pp283-289
• The BCC180 Multitasking Controller – Part 1: The Hardware, Steve Ciarcia, BYTE Magazine, January 1988, pp271-280
• The BCC180 Multitasking Controller – Part 2: EPROMs and Compilers, Steve Ciarcia, BYTE Magazine, February 1988, pp259-
• The SmartSpooler – Part 1: The Spooler Hardware, Steve Ciarcia, BYTE Magazine, April 1988, pp263-270.

There you go, enough for today. Another archive box partly emptied. A good few kilograms of ancient paper tipped in the recycling bin – along the way a few large folders of old course notes – mostly Novell CNE and ITIL – were hurled without needing much of a mention.