Curated resources about TMS 1000 microcontroller and handheld games/calculators

This project contains a curated list of resources related to the TMS 1000 early 4 bits microcontroller for Texas Instruments and a number of devices, mostly handheld games from the 1970's and early 1980's

With also original material/utilities/guides for specific devices such as the Little Professor

Source: Ken Shirriff

TMS 1000

History

• wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TMS1000
• The TMS1000: The First Commercially Available Microcontroller - https://hackaday.com/2020/02/18/the-tms1000-the-first-commercially-available-microcontroller/
• history - part 2 - https://www.eejournal.com/article/a-history-of-early-microcontrollers-part-2-the-texas-instruments-tms1000/

Technical information

• User manual (1976) - https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_tiTMS1000TualDec76_3193454
• Programmer manuel (1975) - https://en.wikichip.org/w/images/f/ff/TMS1000_Series_Programmer%27s_reference_manual.pdf
• Patent US3991305A - https://patents.google.com/patent/US3991305A/en
• TMS 1000 family at datamath - http://www.datamath.org/Chips/TMS1000.htm
• Reverse engineering RAM storage in early Texas Instruments calculator chips by Ken Shirriff - http://www.righto.com/2020/11/
• various die shots and ROM disasemblies by Sean Riddle
  • specific info on TMS 1000 ROM bits https://www.seanriddle.com/tms1000bits.txt

Emulation

• MAME - https://github.com/mamedev/mame/tree/master/src/devices/cpu/tms1000
• another emulator - https://github.com/hotkeysoft/emulators/tree/main/TMS1000

Other utilities

• assembler/disassembler - naken (GPL v3) -https://www.mikekohn.net/micro/naken_asm.php

Little Professor

History

• wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Professor
• How the Little Professor Almost Launched an Army of Educational Professors - https://padandpixel.com/how-the-little-professor-almost-launched-an-army-of-educational-professors/
• What Texas Instruments’ Little Professor Can Teach Us And why the iconic children’s calculator deserves a place in a museum - https://spectrum.ieee.org/texas-instruments-calculator

Big Professor (contributed)

• building instructions
• STL files (work in progress)
• arduino code

MIT App Inventor (contributed)

• app inventor project permalink https://gallery.appinventor.mit.edu/?galleryid=e7948368-f020-4d3b-a362-2e1b589711bc
• on play store https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=appinventor.ai_sarah_ponlard.LittleProf&hl=fr&pli=1

Merlin (and Master Merlin)

History

• wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(console)
• A Nostalgic Look Back at Merlin The Electronic Wizard Game https://www.worldcollectorsnet.com/articles/a-nostalgic-look-back-merlin-electronic-wizard-game
• The Electronic Wizard: Remembering MERLIN (Parker Bros; 1978) https://flashbak.com/the-electronic-wizard-remembering-merlin-parker-bros-1978-363874

Technical information

Manuals in Merlin directory

DataMan

History

• wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dataman
• The many Histories of DataMan https://romchip.org/index.php/romchip-journal/article/view/154

Technical information

• patent https://patents.google.com/patent/US4340374A (also in DataMan subdirectory)
• datamath http://www.datamath.org/Edu/DataMan.htm

Licence

Source code of Little/Big Professor utilities and simulator are provided under GLP V3