Engineering:EDUC-8

Short description: Early Australian hobby computer

{{Infobox information appliance | name = EDUC-8 | title = | aka = | logo = | image = EDUC-8 Microcomputer.jpg | caption = EDUC-8 Microcomputer on display at the Computer History Museum. | developer = | manufacturer = Electronics Australia | family = | type = microcomputer | generation = | releasedate = August 1974 (1974-08) | lifespan = | price = | discontinued = | unitssold = | unitsshipped = | media = | os = | power = | soc = | cpu = | memory = 256 bytes of RAM | storage = | memory card = | display = | graphics = | sound = | input = | controllers = | camera = | touchpad = | connectivity = | platform = | service = | dimensions = | weight = | topgame = | compatibility= | predecessor = | successor = | related = | website = The EDUC-8, pronounced "educate", was an early microcomputer kit published by Electronics Australia in a series of articles starting in August 1974 and continuing to August 1975. Electronics Australia initially believed that it was the first such kit, but later discovered that Radio-Electronics had just beaten it with their Mark-8 by one month. However, Electronics Australia staff believed that their TTL design was superior to the Mark-8, as it did not require the purchase of an expensive microprocessor chip.

The EDUC-8 was an 8-bit bit-serial design with 256 bytes of RAM. The internal clock speed was 500 kHz, with an instruction speed of approximately 10 kHz, due to the bit-serial implementation. The instruction set was based on the DEC PDP-8. Although the instruction set was based on the PDP-8 it was missing quite a few instructions, along with some important flags. This was essentially an education machine designed to put people on a path to understanding how a computer worked and how to start programming what was at the time, a common computer in the market.

Unlike the MITS Altair 8800, the EDUC-8 included two serial input and two serial output ports at the back of the computer. The EDUC-8 also had front panel lights and switches to program the computer. The later articles included a variety of peripherals, allowing the computer to interface to a keypad, octal display, paper tape loader, paper tape puncher, printer, keyboard, music player, teleprinter, magnetic tape recorder and alphanumeric display. The articles were collected into a book, where additional information was published detailing how to expand the number of I/O ports to 256, adding up to 32KB of additional memory, and using the computer to control various switches.

Like the PDP-8 this machine was equipped with the same register arrangement. Program counter, Memory Address, Memory Buffer, Accumulator and Switch Register which made programming largely the same as the original.

External links

• EDUC-8 kit computer at the Computer History Museum.
• The Electronics Australia EDUC-8 microcomputer
• Educ-8 Documentation
• sworld EDUC-8 Micromputer
• The Educ-8 article collection at Archive.Org