"Build your own Mark-8". This title appeared on the front cover of the July issue 1974 of an electronic hobbyist magazine called Radio-Electronics.
The Mark-8 was an Intel 8008 / 256 bytes RAM memory based system without neither ROM monitor, power supply, case, video, keyboard, nor backup interface. Consequently, the user had to enter program instructions each time he turned the system on.
To build this computer, the home computing fanatic had first to buy for $5.50 the 48 pages instruction manual written by Jon Titus, the creator of the system, from Radio Electronics. Then order the circuit board from an Englewood, New Jersey based company for $47.50, and finally provide himself with various components, including the Intel 8008 processor for about $250. About 7500 home computing fanatics ordered the instruction manual and 400 of them the main board. Very few of them succeeded in running the final assembled system as it was a very long and full of traps job.
The LED display featured 4 rows of 8 leds. The two upper rows displayed the address bus (14 leds) and processor cycle state (2 leds). The third row displays an 8-bit memory data, and the fourth, the 8-bit value available from the output port 0.
Most of the fanatics who tried to bring the Mark-8 to a running state gave up and bought a few months later the first versions of the Altair 8800, the first real personal home computer.
If you want to learn more about the Mark-8 computer, you should read the page written by Jon Titus, the Mark-8 designer.
To note: Pictures of this page show a Replica version of the Mark-8, not an original system. The Replica was made by Steve Gabaly of Apalacia, NY and sold in the late 2000.
Original pictures needed!