This particular model has an all-black case with a round red lens. A thin silver ring surrounds the lens. The lens itself has "Texas Instruments" embossed in the red plastic. This model is referred to as "Series 500."

After all these years the crystal appears to have aged, since the watch appears to gain many seconds each day.

The 9836 is an early 1980's vintage industrial/laboratory computer based on the Motorola 68000 processor. It came out of the Fort Collins HP facility and had a ROM version of "Rocky Mountain BASIC".

I picked up the second machine and it came with some documentation and several 5.25-inch floppy discs. One of those discs has a BASIC 2.1 System on it, which works fine.

I am still interested in finding more software, ROMs, and documentation for these machines!

I was looking for four (4) replacement displays, to be used in the seconds and tens-of-seconds positions in two identical time code display units.

The display measures 7/8-inch high by 7/16-inch wide and contains seven incandescent segments. The display itself is not a tube, as a normal numitron would have. This has a flat glass front and square sides, shaped much like an integrated circuit package.

It has 13 pins in a DIP (dual in-line package) configuration, six pins in one row and seven in the other. This makes it similar to a minitron in appearance but somewhat smaller in pin count (minitrons typically have 16 pins).

The display is stamped "5GZ FFD71F" on one side. Based on reader input, this may be a FFD-71 display made by IEE.

Update:

I ordered four displays from Allied Electronics. They arrived in a few days and worked just fine. They're physically a little bit different than the originals -- somewhat thicker and taller -- but the actual display image is identical.

My copy of Shortwave Receivers Past & Present indicates that the Explor-Air (KT-135) was manufactured from 1958 to 1970 and that "[D]ifferent knobs were also featured over the long production life of this model."

A kind person saw my Wanted page and offered a pair of knobs that matched perfectly.

I'd like to find the development/demo kit that Motorola produced for the MC14500B (the DS14500A Industrial Control Unit Demonstration System), and any of the 16-pin CPU parts themselves.

I did manage to locate a Demonstration System, which you read about here.

I've scanned some parts of the game and put them here.

Internally, the main PC board has a part number of 85-1618-4 silkscreened on the top and 85-1618 on the underside.

Update:

Bought a manual at a nearby hamfest ("boot sale" for our U.K. readers).

I have a Hewlett-Packard 5036A Microprocessor Lab in a Samsonite briefcase that appears to work but I don't have any documentation for it.

UPDATE

I purchased a second HP 5036A and it came with a 450+ page manual entitled Practical Microprocessors, HP part number 05036-90003. I purchased a second copy from a used bookstore, so now each Lab has an accompanying manual.

UPDATE REDUX

I purchased another 5036A from a former Hewlett-Packard employee. This appears to be different than the usual model in that it has a ZIF (zero insertion force) socket for the ROM.

Speaking of ROM, click here for an assembly listing of the 5036A monitor ROM or here for an assembler output listing.

Update:
I ordered a manual from www.bktestequipment.com and it arrived a few days later. They bought out the parts and copyrights on the old B+K products and appear to be doing a brisk business. Friendly service and very responsive.

Click here to see a brief review article from the November 1968 issue of Electronics World. (A larger version is available here.)

Now I just need some probes for it...

OR in World War 2: Operational Research Against the U-Boat, C. H. Waddington, 1973, ISBN 023615463X

I finally received a copy of this title in December 2006. I first ran across a reference to it in The Pleasures of Counting.

From the Preface:

Operational Research has by now become an important factor in management, not only in military contexts but for industry. With its wider acceptance has come, inevitably, greater specialisation; most publications about operational research are devoted to the study of some rather particular detailed problem. The general character of a discipline, which is what students need to learn, is perhaps better exemplified in its first phases of development, when its principles are first being worked out, and there is not too much detail or backlog of professional infighting to obscure the main outlines.

Elements of Networking Style, Mike Padlipsky

I received an e-mail in July, 2000, informing me that iUniverse.com had just come out with a "backprint" of the title. I ordered it on the web and it arrived about two weeks later. As an aside, Mike's writing style is, shall we say, unusual. His ideas have merit, but it takes some work to filter through the commentary and get to the nuggets.

Mad Scientists' Club, Bertrand Brinley

I moved this information to a separate page, which you can see by clicking here.

Inside the TRS-80 Model 100 by Carl Oppedahl

I received my first TRS-80 Model 100 as a gift in 1983, and it's been a favorite ever since. Other laptops surpass it in many respects, of course, but it is rugged, has a real keyboard, boots up instantly and is easily programmed in BASIC. I even used it once to brute force a password on an HP-2000F system via the built-in modem! Recently I've become interested in these "classic" computers, and was was looking for a book by Carl Oppedahl entitled Inside the TRS-80 Model 100. It finally found a copy via websearch at Title Wave Books, a used book store in New Mexico. It showed up a few days after ordering. The Model 100 is not Year 2000 compliant -- the date that appears on the main menu is hardcoded to show a century value of "19". There is a software patch to correct this problem, which can be found here.

Calculator User Guide and Directory, Charles Sippl

I'm interested in old calculators, primarily from the 1960s and 1970s, so the Calculator User Guide and Directory by Charles Sippl has proven to be a useful reference. It covers essentially every commercially available handheld and desktop calculator available during the early to mid-1970s.

Cheating at Cards, Bryan Clough

Cheating at Cards by Bryan Clough discusses various weaknesses in credit card systems. Jeff Moss recommended it a while back, and I eventually ordered in from Amazon UK. It took nearly five months to arrive here in Maryland.

Programmer's Guide to the 1802, by Tom Swan

Back in the late 1970's there were a series of single-board computers that were built around the RCA 1802 microprocessor. At the time I was never fortunate enough to own one of those Elf or SuperElf machines, and so never had the opportunity to program the 1802. A few years ago I was doing some reverse engineering on some cellular telephone firmware that ran on an 1806, a later version of the classic 1802. I located an old RCA databook with the mneumonics and wrote a disassembler, but the online references at the time suggested a book by Tom Swan entitled Programmer's Guide to the 1802. I eventually located the title via an on-line bookseller. Besides a clear explanation of the 1802 itself, the book also provides code for an 1802 assembler. Now I just need to find someone who is getting rid of their Elf or other 1802 single-board computer and I'll be able to do what I couldn't do 25 years ago. For more information about the RCA 1802 microprocessor, click here.

U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II, Department of the Navy

A 500+ page book that details the history of the Bureau during World War II, including the persistent torpedo problems that plagued submariners during the early part of the war.

ZAP! The Rise and Fall of Atari, Scott Cohen

Like many game players in the 1970's, I put a lot of quarters into arcade games - including many made by Atari. Later I bought an Atari 2600 game machine with many of the "classic" game cartridges. This book chronicles the history of Atari and its founder, Nolan Bushnell. You can read a review of the book here.