Thread: R-Pi meets MK14
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Old 6th Feb 2013, 12:28 am   #6
SiriusHardware
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
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Default Re: R-Pi meets MK14

One of the great ironies of the situation is that even the PIC16F887 processor used on the serial hex downloader / keypad interface has considerably more on-device power in terms of code memory, peripherals and I/O than the entire MK14 has. That's before you even start looking at what the Pi can do.

Of course, it's absurd nowadays to really think of using the MK14 for any serious purpose - programs are held in volatile RAM and disappear as soon as you switch the machine off. But I still have great affection for it because it put a computing device into my hands when I could not have afforded one any other way (The more serious 'Nascom One' and similar machines were priced way out of my schoolboy reach). I was (then) the kind of youth the Raspberry Pi is aimed at now, so the MK14 was very much the Raspberry Pi of its day.

And by selling quite well, it convinced Clive Sinclair that there was a market for his later more consumer-oriented cheap home computers which launched the British home computer boom of the eighties - In the meantime, Chris Curry, (also at Science of Cambridge when the MK14 was conceived) went off to form Acorn, who went on to introduce BBC model B computers at hands-on level into British schools. So although not particularly impressive itself, the MK14 is arguably one of the most important British computers ever made.

Last edited by SiriusHardware; 6th Feb 2013 at 12:36 am.
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