Last updated Aug 19 2011. Edited by Herb Johnson, (c) Herb Johnson. Contact Herb at retrotechnology.com.
Lee Hart and I have been friends and colleagues since the 1980's. Since the 21st century, he's become known for at least two things: electric cars, and the low-low-power microprocessor from RCA, the COSMAC 1802. THis has become kind of a tribute Web page to a bit of his activities.
In 2006 I found that the RCA Cosmac 1802 CMOS processor has generated considerable RECENT design and development interest for such an old 8-bit processor. Lee Hart prototyped at that time, a really small and low-power computer around that 1802, and informed me about it and discussed it in the Yahoo! 1802 discussion group cosmacelf. In 2009 I offered Lee a piece of my Web site and domain, and my production and editing of those pages, to support Lee's project, because it's a good example of modern use of an old technology which still has merits today. A year later, Lee is on his SECOND prototype of his "1802 Membership Card" - see below for details.
- Herb Johnson
The original Sunrise was designed by Solectria Corp. Lee Hart and his co-conspirators bought the last prototype from them and hauled it from Florida to Minnesota. He and others are at work to make a master prototype they call the "Sunrise EV2", from which other EV's can be made. It's an "open source" design; they intend for others to make their own from open plans. Most parts are available from "donor cars" and commercial sources: they are working on casting body parts from fiberglass. Check my Web page for some additional information and Web links to Lee's EV work. More on the Sunrise EV2 car as a user-buildable project is on his Sunrise Web site.
Lee often posts about electric car design and components in the EVlist EV discussion list or EVDL. It's a great resource for anyone who wants to build or understand electric vehicles and their parts. On my On my Sunrise Web page, I also have Web links to Lee Hart's other work on EV technology; the EVILbus, a data protocol, and designs to balance the recharging of battery packs.
Long ago in 1982, Lee Hart designed and built for TMSI, a COSMAC 1802 based single board computer called BASYS. Here's what the BASIS looked like. It ran on almost no power - the serial line interface current could power the whole computer!
In 2005-06 Lee Hart, in discussion with some of his 1802 colleagues from Dave Ruske's Web site Cosmac Elf, came up with a small card design for the one-time RCA Cosmac 1802 processor which he calls the "membership card". It's built to about the size of an Altoids can. The design process was discussed in the Yahoo! cosmacelf discussion group.. In April 2006 he had a prototype for the two stacked circuit boards needed; he completed the PC board layout by the fall of 2006. But for various reasons, the project became dormant or moved slowly since. With encouragements from me and others in cosmacelf, he got moving on the design and by October 2009, Lee made some PC boards and sent me a kit. I constructed it, as did a few other folks, early in 2010. The response and results encouraged Lee to offer a "Rev B" kit in Sept 2010. Check the Membership Card Web page for this design history and progress, up to the kits available at this time.
This page and edited content is copyright Herb Johnson (c) 2010. Contents written by Lee Hart, are copyright Lee Hart (c) 2011 . Contact Herb at www.retrotechnology.com, an email address is on that page.. --
