The Intel 8008 processor has two speed grades, 500 kHz and 800 kHz. The 800 kHz version is labeled as the 8008-1. Peter Miller is building a SCELBI 8B and decided to try to run his newly built system at 800 kHz. Using the existing hardware design he simply scaled the clock configuration. In his words…
Φ1 has a duty cycle of 42.5% and Φ2 has a duty cycle of 27.5%. The only thing I had to figure out an exact quantity for was the delay between Φ1 and Φ2, (rising edge of each, since that’s what my scope liked) which I just did (850ns + 200ns) * (500KHz/800KHz) = 656.25 ns.
What a nifty little hack! As far as I can remember or know, this could well be the first time that a SCELBI was set up to run at the higher 8008-1 clock speed. Of course, without doing additional detailed testing, there is always the chance that some component of the timing is marginal and some systems don’t work reliably at this higher speed.
Since I/O is timing is derived from the 8008 clock, most standard I/O devices will not interoperate with normal speed SCELBI I/O at this speed, but I’m sure the I/O could be fixed with some additional effort. Two devices that will probably require some extra effort are the O-scope and Cassette interfaces since they both utilize the hardware SYNC clock for timing. I/O like the serial interface that uses software for I/O timing, should be able to interoperate by simply retiming the software timing loops.
This story is about being creative when you cook, but in case you already are a creative baker, it includes a great chocolate cake recipe. I wrote it as part of a feature writing class that I took at the University Of Massachusetts-Lowell.
Here is an image of part of the 1st Connecticut Artillery Regiment in Fort Richardson, a fort that protected Washington D. C. during the Civil War. This is a crop of an image that was probably taken in the winter of 1862, shortly after the conversion of this unit from infantry to artillery, and prior to the unit experiencing any combat. Note the spiffy uniforms and very military appearance of these men. Note the short swords and epaulettes. I think it makes for a very impressive display.
1st Conn Artillery at Fort Richardson
Here is another image showing men of the 1st Connecticut Artillery. In this case, the men are manning the famous 13″ mortar, Dictator, in front of Petersburg. This image was taken in the late summer of 1864.
1st Conn Artillery in front of Petersburg
What made me want to share these two images is the vast difference in appearance in the men between these two images. In the second image, the men assume a very casual appearance. Their dress is haphazard, with an assortment of hats and the frock coats have been completely dispensed with. What is more apparent is the lack of military bearing. They look to me exactly like a work crew at a construction site.
According to the regimental history of the 1st Connecticut, the regiment was initially sworn into US service on May 22nd, 1861 for three years service. The enlistments of the original men of this regiment were already up by the time of the second image. There is a note in the regimental history reporting that 400 men were to go home in May, 1864, well before this picture was taken. There were a number of new replacements in the regiment. Somehow, by now, the regiment was 1700 men strong, which was bigger than many infantry brigades from this time. The history contains a complete roster including enlistment and discharge dates for each soldier. I’m thinking about doing an analysis of company G, the company that manned the dictator to find out how the size and composition of the unit changed over time.
As pointed out in a previous post, a number of the officers of the 1st Connecticut, went home in late October and early November. I can’t find any indication of why the captains stayed on until fall.
Is the second image…
an image of men that were complete exhausted by war
veterans that were disdainful of the pomp of the early war days
draftees that didn’t care for military life
the difference between garrison uniforms and those worn on an active campaign
was there something else that caused them to appear so bedraggled?
I did find one hint in the history. That was a set of instructions that Colonel Tyler gave shortly after arriving on the peninsula in April of 1862. It says
The light blue pants will be packed in the knapsacks, and the old ones worn on the march.
That is all that I have on this topic at the moment. Any thoughts?
Len of 8008chron.com has fixed a lot of page ordering issues with the SCELBAL manual that can be downloaded from scelbi.com. Len has generously given me permission to put his version of the manual up on my website.
In a previous post, I show a picture of the artillery officers examining the Dictator in the summer of 1864. All of the officers in the photograph were identified, in the book, “The photographic History of the Civil War,” except one. Since the Captain Osborne, who was in command of the Dictator was not among those identified, I guessed that the unidentified officer might be him.
I did a little more investigation and was surprised to find that after the war, Captain Osborne became a significant figure in the community of Derby, Connecticut. One of his great achievements was the establishment Derby Neck Library. The establishment of this library included a donation from non other than Andrew Carnegie. Captain Osborne must have been some kind of mover and shaker in order to solicit a donation from such a significant figure.
Captain Osborne’s daughter, Mrs. Frances Osborne Kellogg, took over the family business when he died in 1907. She expanded the successful businesses and accumulated additional property. She had no children, and outlived her husband. When she died, she arranged that the 350 acre property was given to the state, and it has become Osbornedale State Park. The house they both lived in is open to tours. Captain Osborne’s obituary makes for some interesting reading. It can be found at the Derby Historical Society Website
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The kind people at the park answered an inquiry of mine and provided a picture of Captain Osborne taken later in life. I have used a photo editing application to put the photo they sent me with an enlargement of the original photo of the officers at the dictator.
Captain Osborne?
I can’t say for sure whether the two individuals are the same, but I would say that there is a good resemblance. What are your thoughts?
One last thing, Derby, Connecticut, is really close to Milford, Connecticut, where the SCELBI computer was developed. In fact, at one point, Terri Wadsworth taught at Derby High School. Sometimes, it’s a really small world.
Peter Miller is in process of building a reproduction SCELBI 8B and came up with good solutions for the chassis and front panel. Be aware that the following files are ONLY for the SCELBI 8B. The SCELBI 8H had slightly different backplane dimensions and the front panel lettering is different.
Peter Miller’s Chassis
The front panel was purchased from Front Panel Express using this design file. Unlike the original chassis, David choose to get the lettering engraved.
The chassis was fabricated by protocase using this design file. Note that some additional drilling will be required to complete this chassis.
This story can be downloaded from my feature story page. Much of the new information that is in this biography was learned during an afternoon I spent in early 2020 with his widow, Terri Wadsworth.
It is well known among Civil War historians, that some states allowed soldiers to cast votes from the field in the election of 1864. These were California, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. When possible, soldiers from other states, might be sent home to vote. In fact, Lincoln sent a letter to Sherman dated September 19th, 1864, asking if he could safely send Indiana soldiers home to vote in the election which was scheduled for the 11th October. Indiana was a particularly important state to Lincoln because of the large number of southern sympathizers in the southern part of that state.
What I haven’t seen mention of, is how the many civilian contractors supporting the efforts of the army dealt with the same issue. I found this note in the National Archives which gives a little hint of what had to be a difficult issue.
Construction Workers Ask to go Home to Vote
October 31st, 1864
To Brig. Genl Rufus Ingalls
Chief Q.M. Armies Before Richmond
General,
I have to state for your information that one hundred and twenty four (124) of our carpenter force have this day asked for leave of absence for the period of eight (8) days for this date for the purpose of going to their several homes to vote at the coming “Presidential Election”.
I therefor respectfully refer the matter for your consideration and for my own part not wishing to detain the men from exercising their rights as voters yet I think the public service is greatly in want of every man we have upon work now in hand or in contemplation.
I have the honor Genl. to be very respectfully your Ob. Ser.
J__ Morgan
___ Eng. U.S.M.RR.
You should know that the fall of 1864, was a period when a large amount of construction was going on at City Point. Grant had realized that he wasn’t likely to break through to Petersburg until the next year’s campaigning season and the armies were preparing to settle in for a siege that would most likely last through the winter.
Like so many things in the archives, you only find one part of an exchange, which results in a little mystery. I don’t know exactly who Morgan was. A number of similar messages I’ve found related to the USMRR at City Point are from C. L. McAlpine, who was an engineer in charge of repairs. Perhaps more significantly, I’m also unsure about how General Ingalls responded to this message.
I had established in a previous post that the dictator was first moved to position in front of Petersburg on July 8th, 1864, and was used against the Chesterfield battery. On August 25th, 1864, the construction corps was tasked with building a platform for it. So what happened between July 8th and August 25th.
On July 12th, the platform car that the Dictator was mounted on broke after only 5 shots. Note that a time bomb blew up an ammunition barge at City Point on the 9th which caused a tremendous amount of damage. The lack of ammo or transportation may account for some of the delay between moving the Dictator up to the front on the 8th and only five shots having been fired by July 12th.
Dictator Truck Broken
The report of the fate of Lieut. Hall shows just how hazardous duty at the front was. I’m thinking that is an image of the Dictator on that flat car.
Dictator on Flat Car
The platform car must have been repaired as the Battle of the Crater was fought on July 30th, 1864 and the Dictator was used to attempt to suppress the Chesterfield battery during that battle. This is part of the report of that battle by Col. Abbot of the 1st Connecticut Artillery.
Battle of the Crater Report
I wonder how accurate that report from the deserter was. On July 31st, the day after the Battle of the Crater, the 13″ mortar was ordered back to City Point. Why it was ordered back is not known.
Dictator Ordered Back To City Point
Finally, as was shown in the previous blog post, a dedicated platform was ordered to be built on August 25th. This must be an image of the Dictator relocated to the new platform.
Rear View of Dictator on Platform
Here is another view of the Dictator on the platform, along with some officers.
Dictator on Platform
Most of the officers on the platform are identified in the caption of the same image that is included in the book, “The photographic History of the Civil War.”
Officers with Dictator
With the binoculars, is Brigader General H.L. Hunt, chief of artillery for the Army of Potomac. To his right is Colonel H.L. Abbott, commander of the 1st Connecticut, which operated all the Union siege artillery during the siege of Petersburg, including the Dictator.
In the rear row, from left to right is, Captain F.A. Pratt, Captain E.C. Dow (just behind Colonel Abbott), an unidentified captain, Major T.S. Trumbull (just behind and to General Hunt’s left) and unidentified person who appears to be a civilian.
Major Trumbull commanded all of the siege artillery in front of Petersburg until September 1st, when poor health forced him to relinquish command. Soon after that, he passed away. I think he has a gaunt look about him in this image, so perhaps he was already failing when this image was taken. Captain Pratt commanded company M of the 1st Connecticut and Captain Dow commanded company F. These companies manned several positions along the siege lines at this time.
I am investigating the identity of the unidentified captain, who perhaps could be Captain W.F. Osborne, commander of company G and the Dictator. Captains Dow, Osborne and Pratt were discharged in October or November, 1864, all having served since May, 1861.
Sometime in late summer or early fall, the Dictator was moved back to City Point and I don’t believe that it was used again.
Sometimes I’ll do some thinking about a topic and try to apply some math to the problem. In this case, it was in regards to the losses suffered by the German U-Boat arm in World War II. A number of sources list the killed at about 75% and another 5% captured out of a total of something like 40,900 men.
The extensive uboat.net site has listed the top 50 German Submarine commanders of World War II. I thought I would do some analysis of the fates of those top 50 commanders and see how they fared in comparison to the general loss rate.
The following table counts the number of these commanders that for one reason or another ended their front line service in each year, from 1940 through to the end of the war. The result is interesting.
Fates of the top 50 U-Boat Commanders
The blank column counts those that were still active at or near the end of the war. The loss to death or capture ratio was 50%, much better than the often reported overall rate of 80%. I suspect the reason is that many of these commanders were transferred to staff or training positions before they were killed. A few points can be gleaned from these stats.
Of the 30 sub commanders that were still in the front lines in January, 1943, 16 were killed and 2 captured by the end of that year. It appears that the U-Boats were badly beaten in 1943. No military force can sustain a loss rate like that and continue to operate effectively, at least without a period of rest and reorganization.
Also, by the end of 1943, all but three of these commanders were no longer actively commanding submarines in war patrols. You must wonder if all of these transfers were an effort to rest fatigued commanders or an attempt to spread the expertise of these men around through the training and staff positions that they recieved.
Of the three that still commanded front line boats after 1943, one was transferred to a training command in January, 1944 and the two others ended up operating in the Indian Ocean, presumably a much safer environment for U-Boats.
A follow on project might be to compare the fates of these top 50 commanders to the entire list of U-boat commanders, which I think, can be derived from the data on uboat.net.
