Netronics Programmer Board, Product Board

This document last updated Nov 26 2025. It's a filler page to document a Netronics brand COSMAC 1802 "product". It was only known from a series of construction and use articles in Popular Electronics in 1980 and 1981. The product was described as "product board" and "programmer board". It was sold as a kit or boards by Netronics Inc, a producer of an 8085 microcomputer and the 1802-based Elf II microcomputer. I do not own one of these units.

Another Netronics COSMAC product of the same era, is the Elf II. Look at my Elf II Web page for the unit I own. Links there are to another Elf II I reviewed. It's reported that the cross-connector for these boards, became the Elf II bus connector - I've not confirmed the signals match.

Additional information about the product and programmer boards will come from reports by owners. I've published content here from sources which I acknowledge and link to. Thanks to several people from cosmacelf groups.io who encouraged this archive in late 2025. - regards Herb Johnson

Photos

Photo of the Product Board. Photo courtesy of the Ed Keefe estate. Ed's COSMAC collection can be found in a gallery on his Web site. Ed passed away in 2022.

Photo of the Programer Board. Photo courtesy of the Ed Keefe estate.

Both board as connected for use. Photo courtesy of the Ed Keefe estate.

Product board. Photo courtesy of Andrew Wasson, who obtained the board from the Keefe estate. Here's Andrew's github which includes this photo.

Programmer board. Photo courtesy of Andrew Wasson, who obtained the board from the Keefe estate. See Web link above for origin.

There's a YouTube video about operating these boards. Here's a Web link to the video.

Popular Electronics articles

These four Popular Electronics articles describe the Netronic products on this Web page. I'm taking pains to describe articles, because they start from zero knowledge, and they represent typical construction and programming articles of the late 1970's which introduced microprocessors to service techs, electronic hobbyists and such. Later construction OR programming articles, didn't have to do all that work. - Herb

Microprocessor Applications for the 1980's ... It's a Whole New Ballgame" (part I) by George Meyerle. May 1980 Popular Electronics.

The Part I article in the May 1980 issue of Poptronics. It introduces the RCA 1802 architecture and how to write a binary (assembler) program for it. The article assumes zero knowledge of microprocessors and programming, and represents coding as flowcharts, and hex values hand-assembled.

Here's the archived magazine from World Radio History.

Now you can build microprocessor project using an inexpensive product development system" (part II) . George Meyerle. November 1980 Popular Electronics.

The Part II article in the Nov 1980 P-E, is the description and construction of the two boards, the "product board" and the "programer board" as they are called. The schematic is shown in pieces, but my impression is that with diligence and skills, one could reconstruct a complete pair of board schematics from its contents. It would likely help if one had the boards in possession to signal-trace and confirm some details.

My impression is that there's no content in the Part I article which is particular to or necessary for building the Part II product. But Part I provides 1802 programming background of course.

Here's the archived magazine from World Radio History.

Microprocessor Applications for the 1980's - Part III" by Ron Reese, Popular Electronics, Jan 1981

The Jan 1981 article describes a wired-telephone dialer that accepts phone number digits and puts out pulse-dialing using a relay on Q. This article refers back to the Nov 1980 article on Netronics Product Board It references the Part I programming article, and introduces additional COSMAC instructions apparently not covered previously. The article shows flowcharts in preparation to write code for the dialer.

Here's the archived magazine from World Radio History.

Microprocessor Applications for the 1980's - Part III, A Computerized Automatic Telephone Dialer (conclusion)" by Ron Reese, Popular Electronics, Feb 1981

Effectively the Feb 1981 article is "Part IV", as it continues from the previous Part III article of flowcharts and program description, to show the actual 1802 coding. It describes the program and 1802 instructions, introducing 1802 opcodes not included in the Part I 1802 code introduction.

Here's the archived magazine from World Radio History.

Overall: In my opinion, the point of these articles was to introduce people to programming a microprocessor at the binary/instruction level, and constructing and operating the product. The articles begin from a point of zero knowledge and zero experience with microprocessor computing. Entirely reasonable in 1980, and with the COSMAC 1802 as a relatively unfamilar processor. I don't know the particular details, how P-E and George Meyerle and Ron Reese negotiated the series.

The magazine's purpose included teaching about electronics at the component level (for construction and circuit description) and at the product level (for service techs). Also of course to sell kits, books, training courses and so on. The application of microprocessors in the late 1970's was in control, to read and produce signals, to do things in the world. A telephone dialer as in the 1981 article was both familiar and useful, but also "digital" and simple. - Herb Johnson

The authors and Netronics

George Meryerle was the owner and a founder of Netronics R&D Ltd. Located in Brookfield CT. Netronics produced in the late 1970's an 8085 based microcomputer as well as the Elf II 1802 microcomputer, and other products. He maintained an interest in the Netronics COSMAC materials and his company into the 2020's. George passed away in Oct 2024.

Ron Reese wrote a number of digital and COSMAC articles for Popular Electronics from at least 1978 to 1982. Another COSMAC article was in Dec 1982, another Netronics 1802 product which drove a SC-01 speech synthesizer chip. Further information on Ron Reese would be appreciated.

Copyright © 2025 Herb Johnson