website/content/museum/asci-systemx.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
ASCI SystemX	Computers	Home Computer	U.S.A.	1979	Motorola 6800	name company company_name specs tabs photos comments oc_id source SystemX /companies/asci ASCI label value NAME SystemX label value MANUFACTURER ASCI label value TYPE Home Computer label value ORIGIN U.S.A. label value YEAR 1979 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE Monitor label value KEYBOARD Hexadecimal 16 keys keypad + NMI and RESET pushbuttons label value CPU Motorola 6800 label value SPEED 1 MHz, 1.5 MHz with a Fairchild version of the 6800 CPU label value RAM Unknown label value TEXT MODES Hexadecimal 7 digit display label value SIZE / WEIGHT 30(W) x 25(D) x 5(H) cm. label value I/O PORTS Exorciser bus, I/O, Serial label value BUILT IN MEDIA Additional tape recorder card label value OS Hexadecimal monitor label value POWER SUPPLY External power supply unit label value PERIPHERALS Several I/O cards label value PRICE Unknown photos title subtitle text image COVERED SYSTEM null title subtitle text image KEYBOARD A strip along the frond edge, lists all the commands that the keyboard permits: set a breakpoint, jump to a memory location, examine and modify memory content, etc. null title subtitle text image MAIN BOARD null title subtitle text image TAPE RECORDER null author date text Michael (USA) Wednesday 4th December 2013 Was lucky enough to find four of these that were being thrown out by a school. author date text TC (US) Saturday 31st December 2011 The ASCI System X also had an RS-232 port and an available expansion board with BASIC on ROM. IIRC BASIC was launched from the monitor by: G\ F836\ D The BASIC board could eat itself if a user POKEd at the wrong addresses. ASCI''s marketing catchphrase for the System X was "a system so updated, it can''t be outdated". I''m not gonna hold my breath waiting for a USB 3.0 interface though. :) 758 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230210082457/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=758 2023-02-10

The ASCI SystemX, also called U68 was a single board training system that was used in an educational environment during the early 1980s.

It was mounted in a wooden box and covered with a smoke colored plastic lid. When it was closed, all the electronic part was covered, except the 16 key hexadecimal keypad and a seven digit LED display.

The main board featured a Motorola 6800 processor and an Exorciser bus connector. Several I/O boards could be connected to the system allowing microprocessor based experiments.

Motorola 6800 is a 8-bit microprocessor which was released at about the same time as Intel 8080. The 6800 had 16-bit address bus and could address up to 64 KB of memory. From common registers the CPU had only two accumulators and one index register. The 6800 didn't have I/O instructions and therefore 6800-based systems had to use memory-mapped I/O for input/output capabilities. Motorola 6800 started the big family of 680x microcontrolers and microprocessors, some of which are still produced today.