Back in the 1970s, the microprocessor market was growing with the likes of the Z80, the 6800, the 6502 and the 8080 leading the way and encouraging other companies to have a go
National Semiconductor entered the market with its SC/MP chip, developed as a low-cost alternative, hence its common name of Scamp
Scamp was budget but lacked the speed of some of the competitors as it used a serial ALU and had a strange bank switching scheme
It had good features, though, requiring very few additional parts and only a 5V supply
There were several low-cost SC/MP development boards available, including the Nibbler, which was a reasonable computer for $150, but you still needed a power supply, a card cage and, most problematically, a terminal, which were hard to source cheaply.
