Searching for Scelbi information

[mwillegal]

I’ve been bitten by the Scelbi bug and am working with a small team of folks to seriously investigate the possibilities of doing a limited edition reproduction of the Scelbi 8H and/or 8B.

Data mining on internet and preliminary “networking” has yielded some good scans of the the main plug in cards, some schematics, scans of the Scelbal manual, etc. However I’m still looking for more information, in particular detailed information on the following.

1. power supply
2. TTY interface
3. cassette interface
4. the oscilloscope output interface
5. backplane and I/O connections
6. software
7. differences between the 8-H and 8-B
8. ROM cards
9. main and expansion enclosures
10. documentation

If you have any information on any of the above, or want to contribute in other ways, let me know.

While we gather information, I will continue to work on the Mac OS/X 8008/Scelbi emulator. See the 8008 thread on my blog for information on this emulator. http://www.willegal.net/blog/?cat=16

Regards,
Mike Willegal

 

[billdeg]

Articles about the Sclebi 8 from Byte

http://vintagecomputer.net/cisc367/Byte May 1976 Shooting Stars.pdf
http://vintagecomputer.net/cisc367/Byte September 1975 Sclebi Ad.pdf

..further research may reveal more technical stuff in early Byte's or SCCS's, Dr Dobbs, even as late as 1976. I recall the occasional article that compares and contrasts the Sclebi with the Altair (8008 and 8080).

Bill

 

[Al Kossow]

I’m still looking for more information

I've temporarily put grayscale blueprint scans up under
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/scelbi/blueprints
for a couple of days. I'm not going to leave them up
because of their size.

I assume you already have the info in pdf/scelbi/

 

[Al Kossow]

you'll also find some pictures here
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/?s=scelbi&type=all&t=objects

 

[mwillegal]

Hi Bill,

The software is good stuff, I can try to run it in my emulator now. Once I build a replica of the real thing, I'll need to have something to run on it.

Regards,
Mike W.

Dumb question but do you know if there were any articles about the Sclebi 8?

I do have this one article, not really want you want exactly, but..
http://vintagecomputer.net/cisc367/Byte May 1976 Shooting Stars.pdf
http://vintagecomputer.net/cisc367/Byte September 1975 Sclebi Ad.pdf

..maybe more technical stuff can be found in early Byte's or SCCS's newsletter, even as late as 1976. The Sclebi would be a few years old but there were articles I recall that comare and contrast the Sclebi with the Altair.

Bill

 

[mwillegal]

Thanks for posting the high res scans. Also I believe the image in this link from the CHM is actually an 8B. I believe the 8H machines had 8 slots and the 8B machines added a memory controller in between the memory and the rest of the system.

Regards,
Mike Willegal

you'll also find some pictures here
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/?s=scelbi&type=all&t=objects