(In progress)
This online exhibit is a work-in-progress, to be completed Fall 2026.
Introduction
In 2024, the Computer Museum received a generous gift from David Stoutemyer: an NRI 832 digital computer, plus several manuals and related artifacts.
The NRI 832 was created in 1971 by the National Radio Institute for a distance education course to teach the basics of digital computing, from soldering to machine code programming. The 8-bit computer has 32 bytes of memory, 15 instructions, 3 registers, and a simple interface: 16 lights, four buttons, and a lot of switches to set the memory and registers.
Our programming guide summarizes the parts, instruction set, and how to write and run a program.
Reproductions
The NRI 832 has proven to be an intriguing computer to many people!
In July 2025, a high-school co-op named Michelle Wu included the computer in a blog she wrote about the era of computers without monitors or screens. In the fall, a new UW engineering student got in touch to ask about helping document more of artifact, with additional photos of the interior. (Thanks Raymond!) Even later that year, Josh Ensley, another high-school co-op working for us, took the ambitious step of writing an NRI 832 emulator so he could learn Python.
Then, in early 2026, Michael Gardi (B.Math, 1982) and local maker, visited the museum. Mike is known among hobbyists and historians for his reconstructions of early digital computers. He quickly spotted our NRI 832, and offered to build a reconstruction that we could hold in the museum. We quickly agreed!
He documented the story of that reconstruction thoroughly on Hackaday.
He also kindly agreed to collaborate with Josh, who would rewrite his Python emulator in C, to run on the Arduino Mike chose for the reconstruction. Working together, their "look-alike, work alike" emulator is finished, and you can drop by the Computer Museum to try it out.
Over the rest of the summer, we'll build a library of programs you can try. And this fall we hope to get an online emulator working for you to try at home.
NRI 832 Programming Guide
