In the explosion of home computing in the late 1970s and early 1980s,
there were countless small manufacturers--many of them short-lived.
Among manufacturers producing both kits and finished systems, I want
to call out the Ohio Scientific Challenger (
http://osiweb.org).
Emerging from Hiram, Ohio around 1975, the Challenger was possibly one
of the most hackable early home computer platforms. The spirit of
hackability came from relatively affordable prices, a highly modular design,
easy-to-understand architecture, clever processor-agile main boards
(6502, 6501, 6800, and Z80), and an earth-shattering number of
interface options. The interface options included a BSR X-10 powerline
controller with home security software, a speech synthesis module, a
tone generator, DTMF decoding, and loads of I/O in the form of A/D,
D/A, joysticks, parallel, serial, etc. The catalog included hacking
solutions such as prototype boards and EPROM programmers. All told,
these almost line up favorably with today's plethora of Raspberry Pi
hats and Arduina shields!
I've been playing with an excellent emulator from "Mark's Lab"
(
http://osi.marks-lab.com/). With it, you can try out pretty much any
software ever made for the Challenger, the collection of which is
surprisingly rich for an isolated platform of the time.
There are of course modern-day hardware projects based on the
Challenger. I've been reviewing a YouTube series that follows a build
of the glitchwrks reproduction of the OSI 400 board
(
http://users.glitchwrks.com/~glitch/2022/09/16/osi-400-build) at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybaUvGbl2w4.
The OSI is an amazing little corner you might find a bit more colorful
than the average CP/M clone or S-100 system.
