Inventors Council of Dayton January 3rd 2024 Meeting

[ICOD President]

Hi Gang,

The Inventors Council of Dayton is meeting this Wednesday, January 3rd at Central Christian Church 1200 Forrer Blvd in Kettering. Usual gathering time of 7:15pm with the meeting starting around 7:30pm. The meeting will be open forum and give everyone a chance to update us on their projects. Show and tell your interesting items.

I'll have some news items from the USPTO and from Inventor Groups and organizations.

I will bring the SCELBI computer replica I am building to discuss the tools available in the Spark Place at the library in Xenia. I used the Spark Place Vinyl printer to produce the front panel graphics for the replica. The SCELBI 8H was the first microprocessor based computer available in kit form and marketed to hobbyist. It used the first 8 bit microprocessor on the open market, the Intel 8008. The SCELBI pre-dates the Mark 8 by 6 or 7 months with its first ad showing up in QST magazine in January 1974. So I guess this is somewhat of an anniversary. That was 50 years ago this month. The replica is a SCELBI 8B which was introduced a year later. The main difference is it supports more memory, 16k while the 8H chassis was full at 4K. The 8B used the 2102 Static RAM which many machines of the time adopted. I used the 2102s in my Home Brew Mini-computer in 1976. The Mark 8 showed up in the July 1974 Radio and Electronics magazine. The Altair 8800 showed up in the January 1975 addition of Popular Electronics. The Altair used the much better 8080 microprocessor which MITs was able to get at a lower price than other computer builders. The SCELBI computer couldn't compete with the Altair and was discontinued a year or two later. It has been an interesting challenge to find all the parts needed to complete a SCELBI. TTL I.C.s, edge connectors, Amphenol sockets, the 8008 microprocessor and more. Many of the TTL Integrated Circuits are "pulls". They were pulled from electronics being recycled. Some are new-old-stock. So far the ones I have tested work but the big test comes later this week when the SCELBI is turned on for the first time. 

Stephen W. Frey

President, Inventors Council of Dayton

Assistant Curator, Dayton Microcomputer Association Computer Museum

inventorscou...@gmail.com