The magazine article that introduced the COSMAC ELF came out in 1976, but there’s no reason you can’t still enjoy building one of these machines today. A case in point is this new ELF by James Brown that bears a striking resemblence to the one built by Joe Weisbecker.
James had this to say about his new creation: “Here is one I made last week on the kitchen table. This was my first DIY computer effort and first time wire wrapping. The whole thing took 4 days and worked the first time to my surprise. This is my first attempt, but now that I have some authentic caps and resistors I'm going to try for a perfect match. Actually none of the best ELFs on the web are matching the original magazine pictures if you look closely! But it’s just for fun, so I'm aspiring to the non-perfect original. The underside is a slight hybrid, but as there is no original picture for this, I made it as nice and robust as possible. As you can see it’s colour coded.”
James says he’s “from England but living in Lithuania, so I reckon it could be the only ELF for miles around. Also, I need better working conditions!!!”
The final photo below shows the new ELF running alongside a pair of functioning RCA Microtutors.
Click the photos below for larger views.
