I call our museum "The Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum" is because of the original "Bugbooks" . About 1974 I was part of a team that produced these books. The first two Bugbooks were written and published by Professor Rony and I. I named the books Bugbooks because the small digital integrated circuits looked like a bug with its legs. Professor Rony typed the manuscripts and we self published the first few printings of the "Bugbooks" . These books were the start of a book series called "The Blacksburg Continuing Education Series" . The books covered various topics of digital electronics, computers and software. Dr. John Titus and Dr. Chris Titus joined the group and became important members of our team.
Bugbooks 1 & 2 for sale 1975
During the period 1974 to 1984 about 75 books were published with a circulation of over 1 million copies. Our team hired 31 authors to help write books in the series. In addition to the books our team designed several computers and other teaching / engineering aids that were sold world wide. John Titus was the computer designer and I designed the digital engineering / teaching hardware aids. Most or the books were published and marketed by "Howard W Sams" and the hardware was marked by "E and L Instruments" in Derby Connecticut. Many engineers, technicians and electronic hobbyist of the late 70's and 80s used these books and hardware. All the books and hardware are on display in our museum. A reoccurring comment from
folks visiting the museum is - I learned digital electronics from the "Bugbooks". The experience with the Blacksburg Group started my interest in collecting microcomputer memorabilia for 40 years and has resulted in the thousands of items collected and the small display in the museum. The Bugbook story involves many relationships, interesting events and eclectic people. It is my intent to get the details of these adventures in writing -- soon I hope. .
We originally called the computer "Dyna -Micro" and the the production units were called "MMD1" - that was just short for 'Mini Micro Designer'. The Wikipedia listing for the single board computer does not mention John Titus as the designer - it does mention the computer was made popular by Bugbooks. Bugbooks 5 and 6 used with this computer. An
original prototype is on display in our "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum".
John Titus tells in his own words the development of the MMD-1 computer
The second item about the microcomputer pioneering work by John Titus ----
Dr. John Titus
The MARK8 computer construction article published in the July 1974 Radio Electronics by John Titus was a Milestone for the magazine in the computer revolution. According to Wikipedia - Radio-Electronics featured audio, radio, television and computer technology. The most notable articles were the TV Typewriter (September 1973)[1] and the Mark-8 computer (July 1974).[2]These two issues are considered milestones in the home computer revolution.[3]
Here are some really nice comments John made about our work together more than 35 years ago.
Me - David
It has always been a great pleasure for me to be a
colleague of Dr. John Titus. The work we did together in the 'Blacksburg
Group' 38 years ago was a real highlight in my electronics and computer
journey. John is retired and living in Utah near family. Thank you John for the memories. "By David Larsen" KK4WWComputer Collector Historian Send Message CLICKLike us Click
Vintage computer collecting for many collectors includes many different types memorabilia in addition to vintage computers. Popular memorabilia include such items as advertising posters, outdoor signs furnished to attract customers, sales counter displays, T-shirts with logo, aids used in programming, original manuals/data sheets, interesting photos, counter displays, magazines, news letters, programming aids -- the list does not end.
John Titus was very creative designer. One of his many creative designs was an 8080 microprocessor programming aid the "8080 Octal Code Card" slide rule. This was extremely useful aid for programming the 8080 at the assembly level or in pure machine code. This was marketed for a few years in the late 70's & I doubt if many still exist. This is a great collectable memorabilia for computer retro geeks.I show how this is used and give a little demonstration in the video.
Update 11-27-15 I still have some of these cards - just contact me if you would like one. Just located a group of 50 of these in our Bugbook Computer Warehouse and they look just like the day they were made - Sharp. I will be glad to share these with memorabilia collectors for $5 including shipping .Contact me here.
One of my reasons for writing about the 8080 slide rule to point out the use of our Bug's. The bugs were part of our "Blacksburg Group" branding effort more than 40 years. I still use them to help identify and connect my present work to the "Blacksburg Group" which I was a part of during its 10 years of operation in the 70's & early 80's. I call this a slide rule because it has a slider inside and by sliding it to the proper position you had all the machine code instructions for the 8080 at in one neat package. Only the geeks that program microcomputers in machine code and being able to program one machine program step at a time really care about this.
John Titus 8080 octal code card
The origin of how we created these bugs is an interesting story and I will tell about that in a future post. Just a hint - the integrated circuit (IC) chip of the 70's looked somewhat like a real bug. The chip had many connecting pins making it look like a bug with many legs.
Integrated Circuit (IC) looks like Bug
Most of the designs and writing our group did was about digital electronics and the most digital electronic circuits were contained in these IC chips. We thought it was a unique idea to have some original characture bugs as a branding logo. The first use of the bugs was with Bugbooks I & II just before we formed the "Blacksburg Group. These Bugs were on literally on several million products. The "Blacksburg Continuing Education" books series by itself has more than a million in print. They have been out of print for more than 30 years however you can still go to Amazon and find most available from used book sellers. Many have become collector items - some in new condition are selling for up to $500. Try this - go to amazon.com book section and type in "Blacksburg Continuing Education Series Books" and check it out. I was sure surprised to see the asking price for some of the books in our old series. I guess these books are part of the vintage memorabilia I am writing about in this post. Also notice you will see the Bugs in the upper right hand corner of every book.
The bugs are currently owned by my colleague Dr. John Titus and I use them with his permission.
People often have a specific image such as "Professor" , "Teacher" "Amateur Radio guy" "Farmer" and in these posting if you had no other reference I would most likely be "The Computer Collector fellow". I want to tell about one other hat I wear is - "Chantilly Farm" Owned by my wife Gaynell and I.This is a 200 acre 'Festival Farm' in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Floyd County Virginia. Chantilly farm is managed by the LCF Group and our Promotion Manager is Jason Gallimore, Jason books all the great music for Chantilly. We have other good help as well. What do we do at Chantilly Farm? Take a look here www.chantillyfarm.com . Have a great week -"by David Larsen" Computer Collector/Historian
