Information

For the benefit of future historians, I [Lee Felsenstein] shall state that the Sol is a single-board computer built around the 8080 microprocessor and the S-100 bus structure. It incorporates an integral video alphanumeric display circuit, serial and parallel interfaces, and random-access and read- only memory on the board along with an audio cassette tape interface. A keyboard plugs into a connector on the board, and a video signal comes off through a coaxial cable. Regulated DC power is supplied to the board through another push-on connector, and that's all that is needed to make it compute. [3]

The design was originally suggested by Les Solomon, the editor of Popular Electronics. He asked Bob Marsh of Processor Technology if he could design a smart terminal for use with the Altair 8800. Lee Felsenstein, who shared a garage [2465 Fourth St, Berkeley] working space with Marsh, had previously designed such a terminal but never built it. Reconsidering the design using modern electronics, they agreed the best solution was to build a complete computer with a terminal program in ROM. Felsenstein suggested the name "Sol" because they were including "the wisdom of Solomon" in the box. [2]

The Sol, therefore, got designed partly by me [Lee Felsenstein], partly by Bob Marsh, and partly by chance and circumstance. [3]