from the April 1977 issue of Interface Age magazine

by Adam Osborne

The first small signs of a long predicted shake out are beginning to appear among microprocessor manufacturers. The first two casualties are the Elecronic Arrays EA9002 and possibly the Rockwell PPS-8.

The EA9002 simply took too long to develop. The smallest EA9002 system has three chips: The EA9002 CPU with read/write memory, external read only memory and I/O ports. In mid-1976 that still stood a chance of making it; but now, for simple applications, the EA9002 has to compete with the one-chip F8 from Fairchild and Mostek— and the 8048 from Intel. In more complex applications the EA9002 must compete with the two-chip 8085 system from Intel and the two-chip 6500 system from MOS Technology. Mark the EA9002 as the first stillborn 8-bit microprocessor.

from the May 1977 issue of Interface Age magazine

by Adam Osborne

Now that the Intel 8085 and 8048 are here, IMSAI is going for these two products; IMSAI is not planning to offer a Z-80 CPU card. I wonder why the Z-80 and the Intel products have to be mutually exclusive?

I have had a chance to examine the 8085 and the 8048— and I believe some intriguing user patterns are likely to emerge.

from the July 1977 issue of ROM Magazine

by Lee Felsenstein

“I designed the Sol!”

These words are made to be spoken from a pinnacle of technical authority, preferably by a gimlet-eyed Herr Doktor who pursues exact solutions to the nineteenth decimal place and who reigns over a limitless sea of subordinates slaving away over rows of drafting boards.

Or they could come from a furry little gopherlike creature with a piece of string for a belt who sleeps all day and occasionally surfaces to deposit a few dog-eared pages of scrawled diagrams with his custodians.