Last updated June 7 2021. Edited by Herb Johnson, (c) Herb Johnson. Contact Herb at www.retrotechnology.com, an email address is on that page..
This page references software for Lee Hart's COSMAC 1802 "Membership Card". This link is to the home Web page for the "Membership Card" history, development, current status, and links to other documents.
simple test programs
Simple RAM display program
toggle in binary loaders and bit-banged serial
EF lines, serial, interrupts
a short assembly program to blink to aliens...
elf-mon, a tiny monitor program
small monitor and memory test programs by Chuck Yakym
See the 8th Web page for a small Forth.
Tiny BASIC for the 1802
Forth monitor for a hand-held calculator
Forth-79 from FIG
Lee Hart's IDIOT ROM-only monitor for the 1802
debugged IDIOT ROM monitor code and baud rates
Wasserman / Graham 1802 floating point code from Dr. Dobbs May 1979
An 1802 cross assembler in C
A multiple-CPU cross assembler in C with macro support
Some 1802 disassemblers
RCA's UT4 ROM monitor
RCA's UT5 ROM monitor as part of a calculator terminal.
RCA's UT20 ROM monitor
Microboard Computer Development System with UT62 ROM monitor and BASIC 3
RCA's UT71 ROM monitor
Membership card PC parallel port loader
PC Parallel Port loader in QBASIC
RCAbug, SCRT (subroutines), interrupts, X=P; from COSMAC data sheets
The OUT instruction and the Membership card
A 1977 data collection project with COSMAC
Morse code and the 1802
Also, you might walk through the various Web pages for each revision of the 1802 Membership Card. They often contain notes on software and hardware issues. I keep a list of revision page-links on the M/S Card home page.
In 1979, Paul Wasserman of Union, NJ (USA) wrote an article published in Dr Dobb's Journal #37, May 1979 Volume 4, titled “A Floating Point Subroutine Package for the 1802”. He produced code based on PL/M coded methods in the book "Microprocessor Programming for Computer Hobbyists" by Neil Graham, published by Tab books. The code supports four binary bytes of mantissa and two bytes binary exponent with fundamental arithmatic operations and binary/decimal conversion. His article provided a hex-listing of the code, showed address locations in the code (to relocate it); but no source. In early 2021 I disassembled the binary into assembly language based on PL/M code in the Graham book; and reproduced the article. Here's the code and article and related information. Dr Dobbs Journal at the time, released code and information published for use as I performed. Please contact me if you have further interest. - Herb Johnson
Lots of 1802 software - assemblers, compilers, interpreters, monitors, 1802 assembly code - are discussed or distributed on the groups.io cosmacelf ELF 1802 discussion group Web site. The corresponding Web site is cosmacelf.com.
At the cosmacelf discussion site, there's a "Files" area, where many COSMAC owners and particularly 1802 M/S Card owners have provided software and hardware projects. There's a number of Arduino or Raspberry Pi hardware "loaders" which upload and download files to the 1802 M/S Card. Some are stand-alone, some work with a Windows or Linux personal computer. There's also software to drive a traditional "PC Parallel Port", which was once common on desktop and laptop personal-computers.
An important 1802 resource, is Marcel van Tongeren's EMMA 02 COSMAC emulator. He emulates the 1802 Membership Card; more importantly, he emulates many COSMAC computers including RCA prototype, development, and early gaming systems. His work and his emulator was able to recover early COSMAC programs from audio cassette tapes. Read the details of that work and others in recovering the contents of those decades-old tapes. Other links on that page, reference the earliest COSMAC prototype computers and details of their designs.
Following below are a few programs and hardware made specifically to support the Membership Card.
May 2018: Here's a Web page on operation of the Rev J M/S card with BASIC 3 and an FTDI-chipped USB serial adapter. Since Aug 2017 Lee Hart and Chuck Yakym provide a BASIC, a Tiny BASIC, and a ROM monitor; as binary images for ROMS or binary download. See his 1802 M/S card sales page under "BASIC for the 1802". Details and documents for use are in the ZIP files and on his site. There may be copies in "The Eagle" folder by Chuck, on the cosmacelf discussion-group on the Yahoo Web site.
Jan 2017: Lee Hart on ROM monitors: says "So far, I have tested [the 1802 Membership Card] with the following ROM monitor programs: Some software on other Web sites is described, with Web links, on the Membership Card home page.
ELF2K is a ROM with software provided by Spare Time Gizmos, and from Elf/OS utilities, for the STG's former ELF 2000 COSMAC kit. Check the STG Web site for details and terms of use. In April 2018, "codedoctor" Lok used Al Williams' patches on the ELF2K ROM to use the ELF2K ROM on the 1802 M/S card.Al Williams described in July 2017, How to use Elf2K with Rev I, in a file on the cosmacelf Yahoo Web site. You may have to be a member to obtain the file.
Mike Riley developed Elf/OS for
a series of Elf computer designs, in the early 2000's. Check his site for details. A number of 1802 M/S card owners have installed an image of the Elf2K ROM, which is partially based on Mike's work.
Chuck Bigham completed a Rev B kit in Jan 2011. Chuck has connected his Membership Card to a Windows PC serial port, via a Pixaxe 2002 conroller, a handful of components, and software he developed for it. Copies or updates of this software may be on
the cosmacelf Yahoo group file archive under "MC Converter" as "converter.zip" and "convertersource.zip". My copies are converter.zip and convertersource.zip. Check also has a Web sitee: check Chuck Bigham's site for details.
Chuck Yakym built a Rev B kit in early 2011, and created a Windows 32-bit program (Win XP, 7) to access and program the Membership card through the PC parallel port. Copies or updates of this software may be on the cosmacelf Yahoo group file archive under "The Eagle". As of 2011 the ZIP file is "CosmacElfControl.zip". Also check that archive for other 1802 programs by Chuck. My copies is CosmacElfControl.zip
In May 2012, I found "Programs for the COSMAC ELF", a series of booklets written and sold by Paul C. Moews, were scanned and made available
by Matthew Mikolay on his vintage computer Web site Turns out, he's local to me and also exhibited at the VCF-E 8.0 show. Funny our paths did not cross. Anyway, he's also got Harry Kleinberg's CHIP-8 document and an cross assembler called "chasm" he wrote (in C++). And....he founded a
Yahoo group for the VIP, rcacosmac.
Speaking of CHIP-8: CHIP-8 was a simple interpreter developed by Joe Weisbecker and his colleagues, to integrate the earliest COSMAC features of graphics, storage, and COSMAC program functionality (including games) into a concise (memory-saving) assembly language. The concept proved out beyond COSMACS when other people developed CHIP-8 interpreters for other microcomputers, mostly for developing games.
In the last decades, many people have developed CHIP-8 extentions and implementations. A Web search will find many of those developments. Unfortunately some CHIP-8 Web links and sites are only available via archive.org (Internet Wayback Machine). Matt Mikolay has some CHIP-8 resources on his COSMAC Web site.
A 2019 Web site by Marc Bertrand, offers a CHIP-16, an update to a CHIP-12 implementation by Gilbert Bertrand.
This page and edited content is copyright Herb Johnson (c) 2021.
Contact Herb at www.retrotechnology.com, an email address is available on that page..
- Herb Johnson's [copy of the] IDIOT monitor
– Chuck Yakym's monitor + Tiny BASIC at cosmacelf Yahoo
– Spare Time Gizmo's Elf2K EPROM
Also see Lee Hart's 1802 M/S card site, as noted above.
CHIP-8
Contact information:
Herb Johnson
New Jersey, USA