Those keyboard keys look for all the world like Keytronic foam-and-foil mount, particularly ones I've seen on some Compaq Portables that I own that... well, they decided they were _very_ determined to unalive themselves, to where I got tired of arguing. But you might see if the keycaps off a not-worth-repairing Compaq Portable II, III, or 386 might fit that keyboard.
I am almost impressed with Fedex's work on this shipment. It feels well beyond accidental damage -- it's beginning to look as though they have a personal vendetta against you.
I once had the shipper (who would only use FedEx) put Fragile stickers on the box. It arrived absolutely pulverized. It was a mint IBM 5153 monitor too and was decently packed.
If you can send a text file, you can send a CP/M program. CP/M's roots are in the times of punched tape, when text was the One Universal Format, and so there's a well-known and reasonably standard textual representation for CP/M programs as text, the Intel HEX format, and CP/M came with a utility, LOAD, to convert these into binary executable COM files. Converting an existing COM file back into HEX can be done in something like five lines of Perl (or one really long one if you want to go there). Also, in the early microcomputers' era, the main way to move stuff around was called Kermit. Many versions of Kermit could speak at least XModem. It's a really primitive protocol, which makes it simple to edit, and its limitations aren't too bad on a short cable and low noise. Doing Kermit as a type-In so that other data could then be transmitted automatically was once a somewhat common homebrew experience.
Also, this thing comes with BASIC, so worst case scenario (if the LOAD command you mention isn't available in the onboard ROM for space constrains), the Perl could convert binary to a text file that is a BASIC program with tons of DATA statements, in the style of old magazines. (But using OPEN and PRINT#1,CHR$(D); instead of POKE and CALL). That should be enough to copy over some minimal software (e.g.: for better fetching of binary files over the COM port) to prepare future copying.
I am guessing that the 'TEXT' transfer is a 7 bit transfer whereas the other transfer is some sort of 8 bit transfer. Similarly, I am guessing that Kermit would be your best data transfer protocol. The wikipedia article seems to agree: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_(protocol)
Yes and funny enough I know that.. but I pronounced it wrong anyway and then I compounded the error by calling the machine a Kaypro 10 when it was actually a Kaypro 16. :) so many things to juggle when making a video hehe
@@TechTimeTraveller Hey, there's a reason many set a screen up as a teleprompter. (Alec from Technology Connections even made a video about teleprompters, including his own semi-janky setup(s).) Interesting as ever! And yah, seems like MicroOffice must've been a rather rough-and-ready company at this stage, not quite big or professional enough to have it all together yet. (Especially since desktop publishing apps -- that made graphically-pleasing pages anyway -- were still a couple years in the future in this pre-Macintosh, pre-Amiga era.)
@AaronOfMpls I think for me the issue is simply that I am not super social and do most of my communication in writing. Sometimes I form a mental concept of how a word is pronounced and even after learning the correct way I still say it wrong when recording. And then once you've recorded 30 min of narration you don't want og o back and cut and paste corrections because it's very hard to match the tone and cadence you were using that day. :) but dammit.. I knew it was Kaay pro and not Ki pro. I have that problem with KiCAD too. :)
@@TechTimeTraveller Oh yah, I've certainly encountered words in writing myself without a pronunciation guide, and only later learned the "real" pronunciations.
4:23 FedEx once flattened an IBM AT I bought. Completely squashed the steel case in one corner. They must have backed a forklift over it or something, I've never seen anything like it. In my 18 years at this address, I've had exactly 0 cases where FedEx delivered something on time or undamaged. If it's on time, it's broken. Otherwise it's late. Sometimes the driver will forge my signature and steal packages. I hate them.
FedEx in my area are absolutely a disgrace. I have bought so many things that are fragilish only to have them destroyed. Our regular driver literally throws the boxes to my porch from 2 steps away. I have it on Ring camera and it is so frustrating. I know if I say something he will probably make it worse. Long gone are the days when they actually somewhat cared about your packages. Can you imagine if we were still only using CRTs today. Most of them would arrive destroyed.
@@TechTimeTraveller Yep, and agreed with the other gentleman - I have it on Ring camera for the last probably 4 or 5 years easily. Marking something as delivered but not actually getting out of the truck and never actually dropping off a package, and then they put it in as "Left with secretary" and a forged signature. I'd love to meet my secretary someday and get my mail back.
Here in the UK, Fedex are just another courier. Stuff generally arrives on time and in one piece, I don't recall ever having had a problem with them. Had some bother with other couriers like UPS who weighed an empty cardboard box of 3.4kg, assumed it must be 34kg, then tried to bill me for under-reporting the weight.
So glad I found your channel. I love your humour and the little cutaway gags. Regarding gluing stuff together, don't forget the baking soda trick - you can pour some on near the broken plastic and apply more glue to reinforce the plastic.
@@TechTimeTraveller Highly recommend Tech Tangents video on this as he gives very thorough instructions on how to do this. You effectively build up layers of baking soda which turns into a strong material. Great trick for fixing weakened plastics!
I am impressed that the system included the original power supply and the software/RAM cartridges. Great find! I have seen a few old laptops being sold without their power supplies which (in my opinion) makes them nothing more than a fancy doorstop. Likewise, it would be challenging or impossible to find loose software/RAM cartridges for this system. ETA: It is great that the various manuals are dated; this gives a very solid estimate of when the machine was purchased.
It's weird though that there were two different manual versions in the same binder. The whole thing had a.. not quite amateur but a step above that.. mom and pop kinda feel?
First GRiD Compass didn't use LCD, it was Plasma Discharge Display, similar to VFD stuff. And apparently screen was sizable cost of the laptop, next to buble memory.
Nice video. At 10:00 there's a comment about not using a ROM... by the late 80s nobody, and I mean nobody, was spending the money to burn ROMs, and instead relied on EPROMs. The cost of a custom mask and ASIC was just way too high compared to a EPROM. This was common throughout the entire industry. This reminds me of the Sinclair Z88.
Yeah, it’s only the absolute highest production quantities which justified the extra setup cost. Which is part of why video games had a minimum order quantity and strict rules about returns.
I'm pretty sure it's less an issue of the cost of a custom mask, ASIC and more one of the need to ship software quickly and provide updates. Mask ROMs are best for situations where the software is considered complete and basically bug free, like releasing console video games.
This looks like a First Run VTech Laptop LOL I had seen recently when gluing plastics together, put glue on the piece, then Dip it in Baking Soda... I haven't tried it, but seemed popular
@@TechTimeTraveller Who was the Company that made the Z80 Computer, where there looked like Novels, then there was a small ISA type slot where you would Piggy-Back the Next Book to Add Storage or FDD, etc... wasn't that Also MicroOffice, I haven't seen one in 20 years, now I gotta hit the Internets
@MotownBatman I know there were a couple of other CP/M clamshell style laptops but urgh it's been so long I've forgotten what they were. I think I know what you're talking about though.
@@TechTimeTravellerapparently they were bought by “Telxon Corp”, who are now owned by “Symbol Technologies”; a barcode scanner, RFID tag, WLAN business. Basically they supply supermarkets with everything they need to operate. Oh, but apparently Symbol spun MicroOffice off into a separate division, so it was only part of Telxon before being independent again. Gah, mergers and acquisitions is such a headache. Allegedly Micro is now owned by “Medsphere”, which seem like they do similar things as Telxon but for hospitals.
I remember one time getting a couple of Cisco 2811s (1u routers) in a box for a massive laser AIO printer with enough packing foam to fill up my bin....in hindsight after seeing this I'm kind of glad they did it this way.
I recall watching an episode of Computer Chronicles where a guest was showing how his company got around the LCD size limitations by combining several LCD panels to make a larger viewing area. The guest was mentioning color displays were a few year's away, and eventually LCD's would replace CRT's. The other guest laughed at the idea people choosing LCD's over CRT's.
@@TechTimeTraveller I read an article back then about Western vs Far Eastern philosophies regarding investing in technology. The West was more interested in short term payoffs while their counterparts in the Far East were more interested in longer term investments. LCD technology was in it's infancy, and technology becoming better (smaller, faster, and cheaper) was inevitable.
@@timmooney7528 this is largely due to the different structure of their finance system - in the west financial institutions are generally separate from the entities they invest in and so are only interested in eventual returns; while many Japanese conglomerates also own their own bank which provides all their other companies with credit and is paid-back by success of the whole group rather than purely from individual investment dividends.
Drop the cartridges and productivity software, add a semi-graphical interface (but keep the terrible passive non-backlit LCD) and you've pretty much got one of those awful 'internet appliances' that companies like Brother were hawking around around 1996. Still, it's a really interesting piece, and I'd like to know more about the guys that designed and built it. It's like they could see the future, they just couldn't quite build it. And who among us hasn't been involved in a toxic relationship with volatile RAM....
Non-backlit LCDs aren't nearly so bad as many people make out (they're just spoiled by modern tech) and in some cases the bigger issue may be the narrow range of ideal viewing angles. As long as the LCD is transflective, they work just fine if used indoors in a well-lit area.
You can still possibly salvage the NiCad batteries that came with it 😁 I just zap mine with a 12v car battery for a second or two to wake them up l, this is so they could take a charge, I then cycle them before I put them back into service. You'd be surprised at how resilient these old batteries are. (There are also a ton of guides on the internet and youtube for your reference.) Cheers and good luck! ☺️ Awesome Content my Man! 🙌 keep em coming! 😉👍
Thank you! Re the nicads.. they were leeching stuff out that was corrosion the metal inside the case. I thought when they got to that level they were toast? They can be recovered from that?
Thank you so much for responding to my comment! ☺️ Sorry my bad, I did not notice the corrosion 😢 in this case they're toast, even if they would work, aside from the diminished capacity, they would leak even more of it's deadly goop. I would suggest a rebuild in this case, you can choose to stay true and stick to nicad/nimh, or even better, you can put two 18650 cells, charging circuit and voltage regulator and you are pretty much golden!
I've tried but.. like, you really have to be in person to appreciate how bad it is lol. It has a dial to adjust contrast but it's got like 0.0001 degree of turn from readable to illegible. I wonder if that is how it was originally or if it has just worn out.
I have the NEC-APC with dual 8" floppies on CPM-86 with a bunch of softwares and NEC Spinwriter. I added a FORTRAN compiler. It was a business package costing more than a good new car at the time.
The Ampere WS-1 is a truly weird Japanese laptop. It has a 68000 processor, runs a custom OS called Big.DOS, and is designed to be programmed in APL. It was apparently designed by the same person who designed the Datsun 240Z. Data storage is on microcassette and ROM cartridges. The microcassette drive is logic controlled and could even make voice recordings.
07:11 - mnie to w ogóle nie dziwi, przedtem tworzono sprzęt aby działał, w związku z czym jeżeli nic się nie popsuło przez te pierwsze 90 dni, to potem już nie miało prawa się popsuć, podczas gdy teraz kupujesz nowy sprzęt i dostajesz 2 lata gwarancji, to wiesz (a przynajmniej możesz się spodziewać), że po tych 2 latach leci na złom 😎
6:33 musical instruments, like the DX7 and the PSR6100 and PSR6300 by Yamaha used the same concept: a dead cheap DRAM like the 6264 with a battery. Often a small NiCd. Non-standardized form factors and way overprized.
The battery looks like it has a couple of diodes. A very simple battery charger, just uses diodes to give the higher PSU voltage priority and provide a charging voltage.
These LCD displays are the reflective type so you always look at them at an angle, often below with the opposite angle your light source - room ceiling light. For a power deprived device they were the best option, back-lighting, probably with an electro luminescent panel back then would have trashed those poor 'C' cells in no time flat. That image transfer, I wonder if they meant 'drive image', or as they call them a cartridge. maybe it came with software to run on a connected computer to then pull that drive image apart etc.
If someone tried to convince me to part with 5k for a 'computer' that got all the way to production with the word 'detroyed' still appearing on every format function, I would definitely but politely decline.
I thought u could send text with hyperterminal, i think its seperate to the send file option. It must have been over 10 years since i used it. I was wondering if u could send a basic program in text? also I was wondering if you could send a file from the roadrunner to the PC and try and decipher what protocol its using.
I did try sending text.. I regret I cut that from the video. It would start receiving blocks but the text data was no good. I'm starting to think there's something screwy with the rs232 interface. I had a ton of trouble getting it to even receive anything from my Morrow and that machine is one of the easiest to set up with serial terminals.
Very interesting. I find it hard to imagine what people would have done with a device like this that would have justified the cost. Even by 1983 standards that is crude compared to a desktop.
I'm thinking it ended up being a roadwarrior thing for high powered gadget loving execs and top sales guys and probably was mostly used as a terminal to communicate with the office. An 8 line text only display really doesn't lend itself to much else.
@@TechTimeTraveller Might have been used by journalists, who were apparently quite fond of the TRS-80 Mode 100 back in the day. Anyone who needed to do some light remote work might have appreciated the ability to do it on the go without needing a TV. It's also worth considering that having a computer at home was far less common back then, whereas today most people have either a desktop, laptop, or a smartphone.
if it just had a floppy drive it could run a lot of 3rd party software with cpm but they choose to use these cartridges that nobody supported maybe floppy drives were too big and power hungry but even sometime like tape or a custom floppy format would be better
@@TechTimeTraveller They're true professionals who take their job very seriously. I think they're just confused about what that job is. They seem to think FedEx seems to stand for Federal Demolition Express.
A "vertically limited" LCD isn't so bad when your usage consists of word processing and spreadsheets. It's even okay for text adventures. For people accustomed to the low fixed resolutions of early home computers, this would probably have been an acceptable limitation.
Yeah.. 8 lines is decent I guess if the tradeoff is cost and battery life. But some manufacturers were ridiculous.. the Xerox Sunrise had 3 lines and 1 was taken up by menu.
How many times have u hit the wrong key on your HP Envy? I feel like throwing mine though the window everytime i type on it. (I'm not one of the keyboard guys BTW)
Anyone post schematics for these? I'm always fascinated by the creative use of hardware in the early systems. So many workarounds to save a chip or two.
I've not seen any.. probably were never offered to the public. Would be interesting to do a slightly modernized take on this with better screen and storage options.
What a weird little thing! Kind of like a TRS-80 Model 100 but worse. I had several different TRS-80s and never heard of NVRAM cartridges for them. With cassette and disk storage available there probably wasn’t much demand for it.
The TRS-80 Model 100 does have a bay on the bottom for more memory an "OPTION ROM". You also don't need dedicated "NVRAM" if the system battery keeps the contents of RAM and lasts long enough to transfer anything important to another media/machine.
We had the PC convertible briefly on loan from my dad's company. Then we had a t1100. I remember taking it to my grandparents' one day and trying to play a sierra game on it. Nope.. lol
13:30 "the keys are irreplaceable" may i recommend investing in a 3d printer? learning CAD can take a bit of time but it's worth the effort, it's how i maintain my older computers and peripherals.
@@TechTimeTraveller trust me, its not as hard as it initially seems, it's worth the effort, the easiest way i've found to learn is by trying it. printers are cheap, the ancient plastic parts for these computers are expensive.
Are the program cartridges roms? if so they should easlilly be albe to reproduce with the cost of man hours. 3d print cartridges and kicad up some boards. A little hunting and compatable chips could be found.
@@TechTimeTraveller Do you know of anyone else with this system or a compatable one? It really sonds like it could be easyenough to be worth reproducing the cartridges.
@@joshuamacdonald4913 I've not been able to find anyone else that has one or any reference in worthpoint.com to another sale of one. Seems to be a rare bird.
I'm really fascinated by these early portable computers and had never seen this one featured before. Sad that it got damaged in transit, those keycaps seem like they might break if you look at them the wrong way though.
It's like they're made of papier mache. They're suuuper thin and now the effects of age are making them turn to dust just touching them a little too hard.
Great video!! How could that damage be so horrible haha like the played volleyball with it?? Your background music is a little to loud for me over headphones. Maybe a tip. :) keep it going!
Yeah it's tricky mixing the music to be right for headphones and speaker.. still learning. I actually had the background music set at -37db but it still perks up in youtube post processing. I'll try -47 next time. And yeah I have no idea how FedEx is still in business or what they did to smash it so badly. It was literally in a box with 6 inches of padding on all sides.
@@TechTimeTraveller that’s crazy! Don’t know if you are using premiere? But if you do there is an option for ducking the audio automatically. Or Maybe a little highpass filter to cancel out the highs in the music that match with your voice over.
I would try a different terminal program, see if you can find one with more protocol support, like maybe Terra term pro or Kermit. It’s probably an older protocol for the file transfer. If you try to send a basic file from the laptop to your pc does that work?
Yes transferring works no problem between the laptop and my PC or various other vintage machines. I think there may be something wonky going on with the serial card. I had it out today and heard something rattling around inside the module...
What output do you get when you have the cpm laptop send a file to your pc with hyperterminal? We may be able to tell the protocol it wants by what it’s sending.
![NOSFERATU - Official Trailer [HD] - Only In Theaters December 25](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nulvWqYUM8k/mqdefault.jpg)
05:41 - Remember folks: beware of volatile RAM.
I concur. My ex wife's nick name was RAM and she was volatile. :P
KALE!!! 🤓
Those keyboard keys look for all the world like Keytronic foam-and-foil mount, particularly ones I've seen on some Compaq Portables that I own that... well, they decided they were _very_ determined to unalive themselves, to where I got tired of arguing. But you might see if the keycaps off a not-worth-repairing Compaq Portable II, III, or 386 might fit that keyboard.
Why? Did you shove a paperclip into it?
Lmao
21:25 you searched for "pepsi" but in the little manifesto you missed a letter and it's only "peps".
So, do we still have pepps?
Nice catch! I did try a few others though and it didn't find those either.. but now I want to review the outtake.. I must have been mistyping.
I noticed that as well, I don't like peeps so it did not seem all that odd to me.
Warning, when formatting, all information will be "detroyed"! That is so destructive, it even eats letters in the firmware :) 17:36
Funny, but it is just a simple typo.
I am almost impressed with Fedex's work on this shipment. It feels well beyond accidental damage -- it's beginning to look as though they have a personal vendetta against you.
I once had the shipper (who would only use FedEx) put Fragile stickers on the box. It arrived absolutely pulverized. It was a mint IBM 5153 monitor too and was decently packed.
@@TechTimeTravellerFedEx stands for F’ed Up Express. I had to use them to RMA my ROG Ally and they promptly lost it.
If you can send a text file, you can send a CP/M program. CP/M's roots are in the times of punched tape, when text was the One Universal Format, and so there's a well-known and reasonably standard textual representation for CP/M programs as text, the Intel HEX format, and CP/M came with a utility, LOAD, to convert these into binary executable COM files. Converting an existing COM file back into HEX can be done in something like five lines of Perl (or one really long one if you want to go there).
Also, in the early microcomputers' era, the main way to move stuff around was called Kermit. Many versions of Kermit could speak at least XModem. It's a really primitive protocol, which makes it simple to edit, and its limitations aren't too bad on a short cable and low noise. Doing Kermit as a type-In so that other data could then be transmitted automatically was once a somewhat common homebrew experience.
Also, this thing comes with BASIC, so worst case scenario (if the LOAD command you mention isn't available in the onboard ROM for space constrains), the Perl could convert binary to a text file that is a BASIC program with tons of DATA statements, in the style of old magazines.
(But using OPEN and PRINT#1,CHR$(D); instead of POKE and CALL). That should be enough to copy over some minimal software (e.g.: for better fetching of binary files over the COM port) to prepare future copying.
I am guessing that the 'TEXT' transfer is a 7 bit transfer whereas the other transfer is some sort of 8 bit transfer. Similarly, I am guessing that Kermit would be your best data transfer protocol. The wikipedia article seems to agree: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_(protocol)
It's "KAY-pro", not "Ki-pro", and I loved using a Kaypro 10 for software development.
Yes and funny enough I know that.. but I pronounced it wrong anyway and then I compounded the error by calling the machine a Kaypro 10 when it was actually a Kaypro 16. :) so many things to juggle when making a video hehe
You’re a pedant after my own heart. 😉
@@TechTimeTraveller Hey, there's a reason many set a screen up as a teleprompter. (Alec from Technology Connections even made a video about teleprompters, including his own semi-janky setup(s).)
Interesting as ever! And yah, seems like MicroOffice must've been a rather rough-and-ready company at this stage, not quite big or professional enough to have it all together yet. (Especially since desktop publishing apps -- that made graphically-pleasing pages anyway -- were still a couple years in the future in this pre-Macintosh, pre-Amiga era.)
@AaronOfMpls I think for me the issue is simply that I am not super social and do most of my communication in writing. Sometimes I form a mental concept of how a word is pronounced and even after learning the correct way I still say it wrong when recording. And then once you've recorded 30 min of narration you don't want og o back and cut and paste corrections because it's very hard to match the tone and cadence you were using that day. :) but dammit.. I knew it was Kaay pro and not Ki pro. I have that problem with KiCAD too. :)
@@TechTimeTraveller Oh yah, I've certainly encountered words in writing myself without a pronunciation guide, and only later learned the "real" pronunciations.
4:23 FedEx once flattened an IBM AT I bought. Completely squashed the steel case in one corner. They must have backed a forklift over it or something, I've never seen anything like it.
In my 18 years at this address, I've had exactly 0 cases where FedEx delivered something on time or undamaged. If it's on time, it's broken. Otherwise it's late. Sometimes the driver will forge my signature and steal packages. I hate them.
Whoever coined the term 'going postal' really should have said 'going fed ex'. They just seem angry.
FedEx in my area are absolutely a disgrace. I have bought so many things that are fragilish only to have them destroyed. Our regular driver literally throws the boxes to my porch from 2 steps away. I have it on Ring camera and it is so frustrating. I know if I say something he will probably make it worse. Long gone are the days when they actually somewhat cared about your packages. Can you imagine if we were still only using CRTs today. Most of them would arrive destroyed.
@@TechTimeTraveller Yep, and agreed with the other gentleman - I have it on Ring camera for the last probably 4 or 5 years easily. Marking something as delivered but not actually getting out of the truck and never actually dropping off a package, and then they put it in as "Left with secretary" and a forged signature. I'd love to meet my secretary someday and get my mail back.
Here in the UK, Fedex are just another courier. Stuff generally arrives on time and in one piece, I don't recall ever having had a problem with them. Had some bother with other couriers like UPS who weighed an empty cardboard box of 3.4kg, assumed it must be 34kg, then tried to bill me for under-reporting the weight.
So glad I found your channel. I love your humour and the little cutaway gags.
Regarding gluing stuff together, don't forget the baking soda trick - you can pour some on near the broken plastic and apply more glue to reinforce the plastic.
I did not know about the baking soda trick. So this is before or after applying glue?
@@TechTimeTravellertech tangents has a good video on it
@@TechTimeTraveller Highly recommend Tech Tangents video on this as he gives very thorough instructions on how to do this. You effectively build up layers of baking soda which turns into a strong material. Great trick for fixing weakened plastics!
You can also use plastic model glue, which contains acetone.
I am impressed that the system included the original power supply and the software/RAM cartridges. Great find!
I have seen a few old laptops being sold without their power supplies which (in my opinion) makes them nothing more than a fancy doorstop. Likewise, it would be challenging or impossible to find loose software/RAM cartridges for this system.
ETA: It is great that the various manuals are dated; this gives a very solid estimate of when the machine was purchased.
It's weird though that there were two different manual versions in the same binder. The whole thing had a.. not quite amateur but a step above that.. mom and pop kinda feel?
First GRiD Compass didn't use LCD, it was Plasma Discharge Display, similar to VFD stuff. And apparently screen was sizable cost of the laptop, next to buble memory.
11:39 - Glad to hear _The Tech Time Traveller's Wife_ is one of us when it comes to crazily nerding out about retro tech stuff.
I was shocked she volunteered to help!
The screen isn't vertically challenged, it's an early Apple ultraultraultraultrawide iDisplay.
Pixarvision
the original "dynamic island" lol
Nice video.
At 10:00 there's a comment about not using a ROM... by the late 80s nobody, and I mean nobody, was spending the money to burn ROMs, and instead relied on EPROMs. The cost of a custom mask and ASIC was just way too high compared to a EPROM. This was common throughout the entire industry.
This reminds me of the Sinclair Z88.
Yeah, it’s only the absolute highest production quantities which justified the extra setup cost. Which is part of why video games had a minimum order quantity and strict rules about returns.
I'm pretty sure it's less an issue of the cost of a custom mask, ASIC and more one of the need to ship software quickly and provide updates.
Mask ROMs are best for situations where the software is considered complete and basically bug free, like releasing console video games.
A bit weird that the lastic clips stayed intact, while a massive chunk of the bulk broke off. Shenanigans, I say.
This looks like a First Run VTech Laptop LOL
I had seen recently when gluing plastics together, put glue on the piece, then Dip it in Baking Soda... I haven't tried it, but seemed popular
It does have a very Vtech feel. Apparently MicroOffice was bought out by a larger company.. maybe we know who got it.. haha
@@TechTimeTraveller Who was the Company that made the Z80 Computer, where there looked like Novels, then there was a small ISA type slot where you would Piggy-Back the Next Book to Add Storage or FDD, etc...
wasn't that Also MicroOffice, I haven't seen one in 20 years, now I gotta hit the Internets
@MotownBatman I know there were a couple of other CP/M clamshell style laptops but urgh it's been so long I've forgotten what they were. I think I know what you're talking about though.
@@TechTimeTravellerapparently they were bought by “Telxon Corp”, who are now owned by “Symbol Technologies”; a barcode scanner, RFID tag, WLAN business. Basically they supply supermarkets with everything they need to operate.
Oh, but apparently Symbol spun MicroOffice off into a separate division, so it was only part of Telxon before being independent again. Gah, mergers and acquisitions is such a headache. Allegedly Micro is now owned by “Medsphere”, which seem like they do similar things as Telxon but for hospitals.
when you find this on the flea market and you are not sure if it is an expensive early 1980s business computer or a cheap toy from 1995
I remember one time getting a couple of Cisco 2811s (1u routers) in a box for a massive laser AIO printer with enough packing foam to fill up my bin....in hindsight after seeing this I'm kind of glad they did it this way.
I recall watching an episode of Computer Chronicles where a guest was showing how his company got around the LCD size limitations by combining several LCD panels to make a larger viewing area. The guest was mentioning color displays were a few year's away, and eventually LCD's would replace CRT's. The other guest laughed at the idea people choosing LCD's over CRT's.
With what they had back then I can't really fault them for saying that. They really didn't start getting decentish until mid-90s IIRC.
@@TechTimeTraveller I read an article back then about Western vs Far Eastern philosophies regarding investing in technology. The West was more interested in short term payoffs while their counterparts in the Far East were more interested in longer term investments. LCD technology was in it's infancy, and technology becoming better (smaller, faster, and cheaper) was inevitable.
@@timmooney7528 this is largely due to the different structure of their finance system - in the west financial institutions are generally separate from the entities they invest in and so are only interested in eventual returns; while many Japanese conglomerates also own their own bank which provides all their other companies with credit and is paid-back by success of the whole group rather than purely from individual investment dividends.
This is super interesting and very informative.
I think the 256 bytes guy should make a regular appeaerance, because he's brilliant.
Drop the cartridges and productivity software, add a semi-graphical interface (but keep the terrible passive non-backlit LCD) and you've pretty much got one of those awful 'internet appliances' that companies like Brother were hawking around around 1996. Still, it's a really interesting piece, and I'd like to know more about the guys that designed and built it. It's like they could see the future, they just couldn't quite build it.
And who among us hasn't been involved in a toxic relationship with volatile RAM....
Non-backlit LCDs aren't nearly so bad as many people make out (they're just spoiled by modern tech) and in some cases the bigger issue may be the narrow range of ideal viewing angles.
As long as the LCD is transflective, they work just fine if used indoors in a well-lit area.
Cool laptop but I agree that it needed an external disk drive and a bigger LCD screen.
Those keycaps, springs, and mounts sure look like Keytronic foam & foil. I’ve got a number of extra KT F&F springs if you need any.
🐝 Unit
You can still possibly salvage the NiCad batteries that came with it 😁 I just zap mine with a 12v car battery for a second or two to wake them up l, this is so they could take a charge, I then cycle them before I put them back into service. You'd be surprised at how resilient these old batteries are. (There are also a ton of guides on the internet and youtube for your reference.) Cheers and good luck! ☺️ Awesome Content my Man! 🙌 keep em coming! 😉👍
Thank you!
Re the nicads.. they were leeching stuff out that was corrosion the metal inside the case. I thought when they got to that level they were toast? They can be recovered from that?
Thank you so much for responding to my comment! ☺️
Sorry my bad, I did not notice the corrosion 😢 in this case they're toast, even if they would work, aside from the diminished capacity, they would leak even more of it's deadly goop.
I would suggest a rebuild in this case, you can choose to stay true and stick to nicad/nimh, or even better, you can put two 18650 cells, charging circuit and voltage regulator and you are pretty much golden!
No Pepsi. I'll just order a Tab.
Got a polarizer filter for your camera? That might help with the display visibility.
I've tried but.. like, you really have to be in person to appreciate how bad it is lol. It has a dial to adjust contrast but it's got like 0.0001 degree of turn from readable to illegible. I wonder if that is how it was originally or if it has just worn out.
I have the NEC-APC with dual 8" floppies on CPM-86 with a bunch of softwares and NEC Spinwriter. I added a FORTRAN compiler. It was a business package costing more than a good new car at the time.
I have one too but accidentally bumped the CRT neck while trying to retrieve a fallen wire.. barely even tapped it but it vented. :(
@@TechTimeTraveller Too bad, that APC had one of the best CRT screens at the time. I know couple of guys ran AutoCad on the color screen version.
It would be amazing if it had a VFD screen
that would ruin the battery life but it would look cool
Poking Technology has ported "CP/M" to lots of odd hardware...
IIRC, he even has written compiler to compile CP/M programs for the hardware...
The Ampere WS-1 is a truly weird Japanese laptop. It has a 68000 processor, runs a custom OS called Big.DOS, and is designed to be programmed in APL. It was apparently designed by the same person who designed the Datsun 240Z. Data storage is on microcassette and ROM cartridges. The microcassette drive is logic controlled and could even make voice recordings.
07:11 - mnie to w ogóle nie dziwi, przedtem tworzono sprzęt aby działał, w związku z czym jeżeli nic się nie popsuło przez te pierwsze 90 dni, to potem już nie miało prawa się popsuć, podczas gdy teraz kupujesz nowy sprzęt i dostajesz 2 lata gwarancji, to wiesz (a przynajmniej możesz się spodziewać), że po tych 2 latach leci na złom 😎
6:33 musical instruments, like the DX7 and the PSR6100 and PSR6300 by Yamaha used the same concept: a dead cheap DRAM like the 6264 with a battery. Often a small NiCd. Non-standardized form factors and way overprized.
Anyone reminded of the Pocket Pal portable terminal from Space Quest IV?
AT phone home,
Damn you: Now I need a serial dumb terminal! 🤣
15:15 I too like to live dangerously. 😅 maybe one day i can afford a proper bench power supply.
Seeing this laptop makes me feel so privileged with my Windows 2000 laptop.
You talked about formatting RAM being weird, how about formatting a USB thumb drive or a SD card in a camera both are memory.
It's KayPro, as in, "hey bro" 😄
Yep. And I knew that before I did the narration but has long ago formed my own idea of what it sounded like just from reading about it.. lol. Sigh
The battery looks like it has a couple of diodes. A very simple battery charger, just uses diodes to give the higher PSU voltage priority and provide a charging voltage.
These LCD displays are the reflective type so you always look at them at an angle, often below with the opposite angle your light source - room ceiling light. For a power deprived device they were the best option, back-lighting, probably with an electro luminescent panel back then would have trashed those poor 'C' cells in no time flat.
That image transfer, I wonder if they meant 'drive image', or as they call them a cartridge. maybe it came with software to run on a connected computer to then pull that drive image apart etc.
If someone tried to convince me to part with 5k for a 'computer' that got all the way to production with the word 'detroyed' still appearing on every format function, I would definitely but politely decline.
7:20 The 90 day warranty is intended to not exceed the probable life expectancy of this startup computer company.
You couldnt find the word "pepsi" because you misspelled it in your manifesto as "peps"
21:27 You misspelled Pepsi, which is why search didn't work
You tried searching for "Pepsi" but in the doc you wrote "Peps"
I shake alot, and im only 43, trying to do that gluing would would be a living nightmare.
I thought u could send text with hyperterminal, i think its seperate to the send file option. It must have been over 10 years since i used it. I was wondering if u could send a basic program in text? also I was wondering if you could send a file from the roadrunner to the PC and try and decipher what protocol its using.
I did try sending text.. I regret I cut that from the video. It would start receiving blocks but the text data was no good. I'm starting to think there's something screwy with the rs232 interface. I had a ton of trouble getting it to even receive anything from my Morrow and that machine is one of the easiest to set up with serial terminals.
@@TechTimeTravellerit would be interesting to see the part 2 with the serial communication research. Thanks
The RAM chip seen at 10:59 is an 8k x 8 bit RAM chip. If it is drive F then it has less than 8k of space available after it has been formatted.
Very interesting. I find it hard to imagine what people would have done with a device like this that would have justified the cost. Even by 1983 standards that is crude compared to a desktop.
I'm thinking it ended up being a roadwarrior thing for high powered gadget loving execs and top sales guys and probably was mostly used as a terminal to communicate with the office. An 8 line text only display really doesn't lend itself to much else.
I'm comparing it to the TRS-80 model 100
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100
@@JoelReesonmars Never knew about that. That is a tidy-looking unit.
@@TechTimeTraveller Might have been used by journalists, who were apparently quite fond of the TRS-80 Mode 100 back in the day.
Anyone who needed to do some light remote work might have appreciated the ability to do it on the go without needing a TV.
It's also worth considering that having a computer at home was far less common back then, whereas today most people have either a desktop, laptop, or a smartphone.
if it just had a floppy drive it could run a lot of 3rd party software with cpm but they choose to use these cartridges that nobody supported maybe floppy drives were too big and power hungry but even sometime like tape or a custom floppy format would be better
0:31 - Olivetti branded TRS-80 Model 100
this channel is a perfect blend of soothing facts and good humor.
Never use FedEx if you can avoid it. UPS or even USPS are better.
You can say that again. I honestly don't know what they do to achieve that level of destruction on something so well packed.
@@TechTimeTraveller They're true professionals who take their job very seriously. I think they're just confused about what that job is. They seem to think FedEx seems to stand for Federal Demolition Express.
@McVaio If they changed their name to F-ed Ex I think they could sell lots of tshirts at least!
@@TechTimeTraveller😂😂
A "vertically limited" LCD isn't so bad when your usage consists of word processing and spreadsheets. It's even okay for text adventures.
For people accustomed to the low fixed resolutions of early home computers, this would probably have been an acceptable limitation.
Yeah.. 8 lines is decent I guess if the tradeoff is cost and battery life. But some manufacturers were ridiculous.. the Xerox Sunrise had 3 lines and 1 was taken up by menu.
Losing the key caps is very freaking relatable.
The frustrating thing is I really went to some trouble to try and keep them all together. I don't know what happened! Maybe they just disintegrated.
That is such a sad-looking nugget of a laptop D:
How many times have u hit the wrong key on your HP Envy? I feel like throwing mine though the window everytime i type on it. (I'm not one of the keyboard guys BTW)
The problem with mine is it has a Core i9 and you risk 3rd degree burns trying to type on it. :)
the cartridges were a mistake they should have used tapes or some other magnetic storage
it cannot find Pepsi because you don't believe in Peps
Anyone post schematics for these? I'm always fascinated by the creative use of hardware in the early systems. So many workarounds to save a chip or two.
I've not seen any.. probably were never offered to the public. Would be interesting to do a slightly modernized take on this with better screen and storage options.
What a weird little thing! Kind of like a TRS-80 Model 100 but worse. I had several different TRS-80s and never heard of NVRAM cartridges for them. With cassette and disk storage available there probably wasn’t much demand for it.
It's very close to the TRS-80 model 600, I think. But without the benefit of a disk drive.
The TRS-80 Model 100 does have a bay on the bottom for more memory an "OPTION ROM".
You also don't need dedicated "NVRAM" if the system battery keeps the contents of RAM and lasts long enough to transfer anything important to another media/machine.
This laptop would of done better in the late '70's and not the early '80. Thank you for taking the time to show it off.
all it needed was a better storage medium like tapes or floppy discs cartridges were not good for this
this is the goofiest laptop I've ever seen lol
with so much leftover space, i wonder what factors prevented having 2 character lcds rather than 1.
Probably a combination of cost (large LCD displays weren't cheap) and the complexity of writing software designed to use both of them.
If only there were some technology you could have used to find out the correct way to pronounce "Kaypro."
If only I never made mistakes narrating a 30 minute video..
I love me a good cybertruck dig.
My first laptop was a Toshiba T1100. I barely used it. The only old portable I still keep is a Commodore SX-64. I absolutely love it.
We had the PC convertible briefly on loan from my dad's company. Then we had a t1100. I remember taking it to my grandparents' one day and trying to play a sierra game on it. Nope.. lol
laptops were bad before the 2000s you would only use them if you were desperate for portability
Are you sure the seller didn't drop this before they packed it? Seems rather sus.
I was looking at it again yesterday and noticed screws missing from the bottom.. who knows.
The port on the back looks like a printer port to me.
13:30 "the keys are irreplaceable" may i recommend investing in a 3d printer? learning CAD can take a bit of time but it's worth the effort, it's how i maintain my older computers and peripherals.
I've been meaning to purchase one but the design aspect is still way over my head.
@@TechTimeTraveller trust me, its not as hard as it initially seems, it's worth the effort, the easiest way i've found to learn is by trying it. printers are cheap, the ancient plastic parts for these computers are expensive.
not to be confused with Microsoft office
Hey! Did you get the Mindset? 😁
Does it runs windows XP😅
1:35 - LCD _displays_ again? 😂
Are the program cartridges roms? if so they should easlilly be albe to reproduce with the cost of man hours. 3d print cartridges and kicad up some boards. A little hunting and compatable chips could be found.
I opened one up once and they're literally just EPROMs on a PCB.. they look rather simple. I think MicroOffice did the porting and such themselves.
@@TechTimeTraveller Do you know of anyone else with this system or a compatable one? It really sonds like it could be easyenough to be worth reproducing the cartridges.
@@joshuamacdonald4913 I've not been able to find anyone else that has one or any reference in worthpoint.com to another sale of one. Seems to be a rare bird.
15:42 COLOR CHANGE
B-B-B-BEE-U-NIT!! 🎶
But can it run Doom?
por5t rogue
What type of the terminal does it emulate?
I think it's supposed to be VT100. But I could not get it to work with my pc terminal set up that way. At least for downloading.
Imagine using one of these as a terminal to remotely manage a modern headless server.
I'm really fascinated by these early portable computers and had never seen this one featured before. Sad that it got damaged in transit, those keycaps seem like they might break if you look at them the wrong way though.
It's like they're made of papier mache. They're suuuper thin and now the effects of age are making them turn to dust just touching them a little too hard.
Eh pointing out a typo but it's a meaningful one this time. The search didn't find the word pepsi because you wrote peps in the text.
Yes didn't choose the best example for that cut. But I did try searching other words I did have and it didn't bring up results.
Great video!! How could that damage be so horrible haha like the played volleyball with it?? Your background music is a little to loud for me over headphones. Maybe a tip. :) keep it going!
Yeah it's tricky mixing the music to be right for headphones and speaker.. still learning. I actually had the background music set at -37db but it still perks up in youtube post processing. I'll try -47 next time.
And yeah I have no idea how FedEx is still in business or what they did to smash it so badly. It was literally in a box with 6 inches of padding on all sides.
@@TechTimeTraveller that’s crazy! Don’t know if you are using premiere? But if you do there is an option for ducking the audio automatically. Or Maybe a little highpass filter to cancel out the highs in the music that match with your voice over.
Man, those were the days. I had an NEC laptop that you had to have at just the right angle to see its screen
We had a PC Convertible.. same kind of deal, although the screen on this Roadrunner makes that look like a 4K LG monitor by comparison.
I would try a different terminal program, see if you can find one with more protocol support, like maybe Terra term pro or Kermit. It’s probably an older protocol for the file transfer. If you try to send a basic file from the laptop to your pc does that work?
Yes transferring works no problem between the laptop and my PC or various other vintage machines. I think there may be something wonky going on with the serial card. I had it out today and heard something rattling around inside the module...
What output do you get when you have the cpm laptop send a file to your pc with hyperterminal? We may be able to tell the protocol it wants by what it’s sending.
1984 SSD Drives!
1 minute in. Advert already. Unsubscribed
@LeeLee-gy7gp You know RUclips doesn't let us choose sometimes right?
WTF is a ChiPro?
wow its not a mechanical type writter sir
Try the bicarbonate of soda and super glue trick with your key caps to strengthen them.