Fun fact: - Back in the early 90's, I worked at a plating plant and my job was running a reel to reel plating line that plated the IC pin blanks. The rolls were 4 feet wide and the machine was designed to never stop (Ideally). Copper plating then tin/lead plating. Third shift alone in a huge factory. Life was good then.
I like the way that Marc's channel is almost the "Jay Leno's Garage" of vintage computing. Great work guys, and wonderful to see these vintage machines preserved by people that care.
FWIW the chord keyboard was invented along with the mouse at SRI (as far as I know). It wasn't a PARC invention. They were used together on NLS, the oNLine System. The last user of this system, besides Doug Englebart himself, was Jon Postel at ISI, who used NLS to run IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, the predecessor to ICANN. He used the chord keyboard as well as the mouse, and gave me a demo once. It was highly educational.
Outside of PARC the main application I'm aware of that used the Alto's chord keyset was called "Gypsy", specifically "Ginn Gypsy", used by Ginn & Company, a publshing house in Lexington MA owned by Xerox at the time. They had 40-something Altos there (that's how I became introduced to the Alto). Gypsy was an early experiment in desktop publishing, they trained the editors to use the keyset for basic text editing, (copy/cut/move/paste). Operators would use their dominant hand on the mouse and the other hand on the keyset to sling text around while they prepared it for typesetting.
Marc, your Alto videos are mesmerising. What a group of wonderful geeks. And that computer, way ahead of its time. Also only in USA can you have a guy with a Cray supercomputer in his private collection. Incredible. Thank you!
So ahead of it's time , all we take for granted today packed into such incredible machine is really impressive . They truely lay the foundation for modern computers . A fully restored and working Alto .... Well done , very interesting video , I enjoyed every second of the restoration series . Not many is left working today , impressive work . Edit - Booting using network , I really didn't expect that , nice done .
OMG the Cray.... As a child, in the late 80's / early 90's, I was always fascinated by those beast of a machine, and their cool look. Those computers have a special place in my heart. Thanks for the part about the alto btw ;).
Thank you for showing this. I knew a professor who visited Xerox in the 70s and was very impressed by the GUI systems Xerox had created so early in the history of computing. Xerox was so close to being a big part of the future of computing. Apparently they just did not really realize it.....
The history of technology is littered with examples of things being discovered or even developed and forgotten decades before the world was ready. Even if you see the applications (presumably Xerox did) people willing to fund the idea for mass market production and buy the product have to exist at that same time.
@@Broken_Yugo The corollary to that is, there are research systems and prototypes today that are 50 years ahead of their time, but nobody's going to notice them until 2070.
I cant believe how good the Alto is considering its age! And all those other strange computers are facinating to see too. Thanks for another amazing video.
I remember being a kid and obsessed with the Digibarns website (~2008-10) which kicked off my enjoyment of vintage computers. So glad to see they’re still up and running! Wonderful video Marc!
Brute force makes total sense in my opinion due to the amount of corrosion those boards had! Yes it could be done with an LA but that'll take excess amount of time due to the number of failures and parts will then randomly fail afterwards due to mechanical damage. Love these restorations, cheers from Canada :)
This is a great contribution to computer tech history. In terms of replacing chips due to their legs, I know people can judge & claim they know better when hearing how others did their work, I've soldered wires to pins. At times when pushing chips into sockets, pins would bend & bending back may break them, so I'd solder short wires to the wider top of the pins as they go into the chip 😉
I love this idea of a rag-tag group of retro tech enthusiasts with unique experiential learning, fixing up old relics and building their reputation... So cool. I don't think any of my computers have mouse poop in them, and I think the ones with cat litter are gone, but I have a few in some state of disrepair...
Wow, I am so jealous of those Crays! I have several cards from an XMP and a Cray II but never imagined I'd ever see one standing! Marc, you guys gotta get that machine working again! Jeez, what a monumental task that would be. (jk) If I get the chance I will visit Digibarn too. Thanks for sharing! Oh, and congrats on the excellent work getting the Alto working again - that was a blast from the past.
Maybe the boards could be replaced with modern ones, keeping all that crazy wiring charm and most of the historical accuracy without the impossible electricity demands.
I see many older Macintoshes there that need recapping. We would be happy to do this work at a discount as this collection is amazing. Love your channel Marc!
I have so many questions! Mostly involving Cray, Fanny Packs, Gandalf's House and the juxtaposition of modern smartphones being more powerful than the entire barn combined. Amazing!
Wow! I almost forgot the second Alto….great job!! This video also reminds me you have some old (and huge) IBM stuff laying around isn’t it?😀. Thanks for keep those machines alive. Without you guys there are no chances to see such rare beauties running 👍.
3 года назад+9
You should have an Alto retro lan, that would be something unique! ;) Anyways nice to see it working again, good work as always!
I started watching this channel earlier this year, so only recently did I see the previous four parts of this project. I am very pleased now that this Alto also managed to boot! Now.... About that disk drive...
@@CuriousMarc My Dad wrote a Trek-like for the Mac in the early 90s. It's apparently still up on his website: quandir.com/StarPatrol.html I helped design the graphics (which kinda shows in certain parts; he was very kind to his pre-teen son...)
Have any of you Alto restorers run across one with a disk controller for the "Trident" T-80/T-300 disks? (washing-machine cartridge disks) Altos were used as file servers too, running a program called "IFS", or the "interim file system", which was never replaced -- the interim was forever! IFS ate every cycle the Alto could offer, the display was reduced only to the cursor to save cycles and hand them to the disk. Cursor danced around on the screen to show disk traffic.
@@CuriousMarc Neat, there weren't too many of those IFS machines. IFS was a cantankerous beast. T-80s were at least moveable without a forklift! Another Alto drive config was the Shugart(?) 29MB 17" sealed drive, we had those on our 5700 "penguin" printer, it was used for spool and font storage. Same drive was used on certain DLion(Star) configs.
If you have a meter or scope, you are equipped to test high voltages. Touch a probe to the insulation of the thick high-voltage lead going to the CRT, or bring a scope probe near the flyback transformer. You should see some kind of indication or signal. And always check first for static electricity on the CRT's face ;-)
I wouldn't recommend touching the big red wire or suction cup, but the static test is definitely a good one, especially with color but even the lower voltage monochrome tubes will raise hairs toward the face of the tube if the HV is there.
At that Linc 1962 desk at 13:20, I see strange dark blue top keyboard contraption that reassembles very much my first school computer in Poland - Meritum I from Mera Elzab (TRS-80 clone). It used the case and keyboard originally found in Polish minicomputers from the Mera SM series. But how on earth would such keyboard have landed in the digi-barn? Coincidence? I doubt it. Or maybe the whole keyboard design had been "copied" from the American early computers during the COCOM era? What a mystery!
@@alfulton5946 That's what I was wondering, there isn't any color scheme to the wires, how would you repair something that literally was in a barn and potentially was messed up by either animals or transporting over the past 40 years. It really belongs in a museum.
@@DantalionNl Not sure what's at the other end of those cables but if it's regular thin tin wrap, it can break off a post after age (square post corner cuts, corrosion etc). I'd hate to touch that mess.
Unfortunate that the infrastructure requirements probably means that Cray will never boot again, but what a cool artifact to have custodianship of. 150kA rated power supplies are madness!
Unfortunately most of the boards of this Cray had been removed and sold before Bruce got it. It has only one complete column. So it cannot be repowered.
I second that! At Hochschule Darmstadt (Germany) where I got my master's degree in computer science, they have one of these and I want to see it work as well.
Wow great stuff. A demo of the digibarn artifacts would be great for computer history and testing the ICs that's just good old brute force cybernetics.
Haha. I was just re-watching the series of this one yesterday. What a fluke. Read about that guy that finally repaired the system last year. Nice work. 10:30. When I saw this house, I knew there had to be an Alto in it.
A Gandalf house could be on the tourist trail (Check out England's National Trust properties). nb if there is a Gandalf House, there should be a "Catweazle house".
it sucks that there are so few of these early computers left and that many of them can never be booted again due to either lost documentation or like those supercomputers they require a power supply that no one can easily supply and thats if there is even enough hardware still there for it to run or be repaired
Please, please, please, give us more information on the IBM Wheelwriter to your left (4:44). I got one of these from my grandpa and I want to make it communicate over a serial port!
Considering this is about "the Alto", vertical video actually is a must in this specific case.
It's interesting but the other uses dwarf word processing, even for a 70s mini computer.
> casually network boots a computer from 1973
calling this computer ahead of its time would be the biggest understatement of the millenium.
@@kreuner11 *led
Marc: we're not equipped to test high voltages
Ken: you've got a finger
🤣
, And don't forget to wet it before testing the HV.
HV zap hurts twice. Once during the initial shock, and secondly when you pull you your hand/arm away quickly causing your elbow to hit something else!
That was a fine example of a "Swiss watch" being used as a hammer.
Mid 1990s style computing, just 20 years ahead of it's time. Windows, Macintosh, all owe to this machine.
In most important ways this is still fundamentally better than what we got today.
The cleanness and flexibility of the design is leagues ahead.
Fun fact: - Back in the early 90's, I worked at a plating plant and my job was running a reel to reel plating line that plated the IC pin blanks. The rolls were 4 feet wide and the machine was designed to never stop (Ideally). Copper plating then tin/lead plating. Third shift alone in a huge factory. Life was good then.
I like the way that Marc's channel is almost the "Jay Leno's Garage" of vintage computing. Great work guys, and wonderful to see these vintage machines preserved by people that care.
FWIW the chord keyboard was invented along with the mouse at SRI (as far as I know). It wasn't a PARC invention. They were used together on NLS, the oNLine System. The last user of this system, besides Doug Englebart himself, was Jon Postel at ISI, who used NLS to run IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, the predecessor to ICANN. He used the chord keyboard as well as the mouse, and gave me a demo once. It was highly educational.
Outside of PARC the main application I'm aware of that used the Alto's chord keyset was called "Gypsy", specifically "Ginn Gypsy", used by Ginn & Company, a publshing house in Lexington MA owned by Xerox at the time. They had 40-something Altos there (that's how I became introduced to the Alto). Gypsy was an early experiment in desktop publishing, they trained the editors to use the keyset for basic text editing, (copy/cut/move/paste). Operators would use their dominant hand on the mouse and the other hand on the keyset to sling text around while they prepared it for typesetting.
@@mitchlichtenberg1858 So Xerox actually completed one of the strategic goals for having the Parc facility.
Marc, your Alto videos are mesmerising. What a group of wonderful geeks. And that computer, way ahead of its time. Also only in USA can you have a guy with a Cray supercomputer in his private collection. Incredible. Thank you!
So ahead of it's time , all we take for granted today packed into such incredible machine is
really impressive . They truely lay the foundation for modern computers .
A fully restored and working Alto ....
Well done , very interesting video , I enjoyed every second of the restoration series .
Not many is left working today , impressive work .
Edit - Booting using network , I really didn't expect that , nice done .
OMG the Cray....
As a child, in the late 80's / early 90's, I was always fascinated by those beast of a machine, and their cool look.
Those computers have a special place in my heart.
Thanks for the part about the alto btw ;).
Thank you for showing this. I knew a professor who visited Xerox in the 70s and was very impressed by the GUI systems Xerox had created so early in the history of computing. Xerox was so close to being a big part of the future of computing. Apparently they just did not really realize it.....
The history of technology is littered with examples of things being discovered or even developed and forgotten decades before the world was ready. Even if you see the applications (presumably Xerox did) people willing to fund the idea for mass market production and buy the product have to exist at that same time.
@@Broken_Yugo The corollary to that is, there are research systems and prototypes today that are 50 years ahead of their time, but nobody's going to notice them until 2070.
I cant believe how good the Alto is considering its age! And all those other strange computers are facinating to see too. Thanks for another amazing video.
16:15
"Osmelloscope" - I see you are a man of Canuckistan culture as well. :-D
I appreciate that.
In fairness, that term came into existence in the 1940s, about the same time as the scope itself.
First video I've seen of yours and this collection of vintage hardware is phenomenal. Thanks for sharing!
I almost forgot about Josh's Lambda...he may have the only working LMI Lambda left in the world.
I remember being a kid and obsessed with the Digibarns website (~2008-10) which kicked off my enjoyment of vintage computers. So glad to see they’re still up and running! Wonderful video Marc!
Morgan, I am so glad to hear about your inspiration, makes all the work on the site and collection worthwhile - Bruce @ Digibarn
What a cool video, I really enjoyed the extended uncut zoom call, and nerding out at the digibarn.
Incredible. A true labor of love. Well done!!
On this series, the intro with the flashback has been actually very useful.
Outstanding work, I love how so many people came togehter to get it going.
Brute force makes total sense in my opinion due to the amount of corrosion those boards had! Yes it could be done with an LA but that'll take excess amount of time due to the number of failures and parts will then randomly fail afterwards due to mechanical damage. Love these restorations, cheers from Canada :)
The Man gas a Cray 2 in his Barn , Yes . Bruce is the OG Curator :) QC
This is a great contribution to computer tech history.
In terms of replacing chips due to their legs, I know people can judge & claim they know better when hearing how others did their work, I've soldered wires to pins.
At times when pushing chips into sockets, pins would bend & bending back may break them, so I'd solder short wires to the wider top of the pins as they go into the chip 😉
Definitely it was built as dummy show item from some bunch of dead junky parts. Very impressed you guys managed to resurrect & restore it.
I love this idea of a rag-tag group of retro tech enthusiasts with unique experiential learning, fixing up old relics and building their reputation... So cool.
I don't think any of my computers have mouse poop in them, and I think the ones with cat litter are gone, but I have a few in some state of disrepair...
Marc, Ken and Carl need to arrive with sirens blaring in a 1959 Cadillac and be wearing unlicensed logic analyzers strapped to their backs.
@@1944GPW Now that is definitely a plan!
I remember the earlier videos and thought it was done for for good. You guys are truly amazing.
I was rewatching the previous episodes recently... What a wonderful suprise to get an update to this series. Thank you!
Wow, I am so jealous of those Crays! I have several cards from an XMP and a Cray II but never imagined I'd ever see one standing! Marc, you guys gotta get that machine working again! Jeez, what a monumental task that would be. (jk) If I get the chance I will visit Digibarn too. Thanks for sharing!
Oh, and congrats on the excellent work getting the Alto working again - that was a blast from the past.
Maybe the boards could be replaced with modern ones, keeping all that crazy wiring charm and most of the historical accuracy without the impossible electricity demands.
Josh is killing it with that SIGGRAPH 1987 shirt in mint condition.
you're an awesome guy marc, you and your team of archeocompter rescue team ^^
Hi Mark, every video you post brings happyness to me.
Fascinating and with a good atmosphere. Thanks for all the good moments you bring!
Never thought i'd see an update to this Alto; i'm glad it's back in order. Thanks for sharing!
That IS a blast from the past!
.... oooh..... Intertec Superbrain! .... not as "special" as his Bruce's other machines... but I remember it fondly.
Un grand bravo Marc, vous nous prouvez à nouveau que la patience est une grande vertu ! J'adore votre chaîne, c'est toujours un énorme plaisir :)
I am so glad to see this one resolved. That is also quite the collection he has going there...
WOW NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD SEE ONE OF THEM RUNNING AGAIN
Great job
I see many older Macintoshes there that need recapping. We would be happy to do this work at a discount as this collection is amazing. Love your channel Marc!
Congrats, all, on the success of this impressive distributed collaboration.
I have so many questions! Mostly involving Cray, Fanny Packs, Gandalf's House and the juxtaposition of modern smartphones being more powerful than the entire barn combined. Amazing!
A beautiful restoration and a fascinating video series, thank you for sharing this hard work with the world.
A series of bypasses and bodges that would make Montgomery Scott proud.
Josh went above and beyond the call of duty on this. Testing each of the chip by hand numbs my brain.
12:45 That Cray wiring. What a nightmare.
Me: "That background music sounds oddly familiar..."
*Checks music credits*
Me: "I KNEW IT!"
I heard that descending guitar melody & had the same thought, but figured it was probably just a coincidence... Good ear mate
Wow! I almost forgot the second Alto….great job!! This video also reminds me you have some old (and huge) IBM stuff laying around isn’t it?😀.
Thanks for keep those machines alive. Without you guys there are no chances to see such rare beauties running 👍.
You should have an Alto retro lan, that would be something unique! ;)
Anyways nice to see it working again, good work as always!
An Alto VPN
So glad to finally see it alive after all this time!
I started watching this channel earlier this year, so only recently did I see the previous four parts of this project. I am very pleased now that this Alto also managed to boot! Now.... About that disk drive...
It has been a long wait I had nearly forgot it, but now it's totally worth it, loved the series on the first Alto and the first episodes of this
So happy to see the digibarn alto again
What a lovely series! MORE OF THAT PLEEEAAASE!!! :D
No logic analyzer and all done in a week. That is just amazing 😮
So cool to see Trek! You turned on the aft shields. :)
I knew we did something!
@@CuriousMarc My Dad wrote a Trek-like for the Mac in the early 90s. It's apparently still up on his website: quandir.com/StarPatrol.html I helped design the graphics (which kinda shows in certain parts; he was very kind to his pre-teen son...)
A real piece of history here. Inspired Jobs and Gates.
Took a long time but it was worth the wait!
You are real heroes. Thank you for this.
And there was me expecting a HP 9825 keyboard repair. Or not, due to a custom chip...
All credit to Ken for being the Yoda that he is, but this guy with the CRAYs in his shed is a _Wizard._
Love these kind of Videos Marc. Please make also 1 of Josh's domain!
BRUCE! Miss ya man … please come to the Thing at the Place this year! We miss you.
Wow, some Cray supercomputers! Super neat!!
Excellent Work There
Have any of you Alto restorers run across one with a disk controller for the "Trident" T-80/T-300 disks? (washing-machine cartridge disks) Altos were used as file servers too, running a program called "IFS", or the "interim file system", which was never replaced -- the interim was forever! IFS ate every cycle the Alto could offer, the display was reduced only to the cursor to save cycles and hand them to the disk. Cursor danced around on the screen to show disk traffic.
Our Alto was probably a file server, it had the Trident disk interface card in it. But we don’t have the Trident drive to go with it.
@@CuriousMarc Neat, there weren't too many of those IFS machines. IFS was a cantankerous beast. T-80s were at least moveable without a forklift! Another Alto drive config was the Shugart(?) 29MB 17" sealed drive, we had those on our 5700 "penguin" printer, it was used for spool and font storage. Same drive was used on certain DLion(Star) configs.
If you have a meter or scope, you are equipped to test high voltages. Touch a probe to the insulation of the thick high-voltage lead going to the CRT, or bring a
scope probe near the flyback transformer. You should see some kind of indication or signal. And always check first for static electricity on the CRT's face ;-)
I wouldn't recommend touching the big red wire or suction cup, but the static test is definitely a good one, especially with color but even the lower voltage monochrome tubes will raise hairs toward the face of the tube if the HV is there.
At that Linc 1962 desk at 13:20, I see strange dark blue top keyboard contraption that reassembles very much my first school computer in Poland - Meritum I from Mera Elzab (TRS-80 clone). It used the case and keyboard originally found in Polish minicomputers from the Mera SM series. But how on earth would such keyboard have landed in the digi-barn? Coincidence? I doubt it. Or maybe the whole keyboard design had been "copied" from the American early computers during the COCOM era? What a mystery!
That's the MyMateVince methodology. Swap back and forth to identify faults. Brilliant.
What was the name of that IC tester Josh mentioned? TomTec?
I never thought that I will say it: this computer gone nuts!
your videos are worthy of 100% likes. Instant like from me anywais.
Marc [wistful incredulity]: "OK, so you did not use the Logic Analyser... at all...?"
Wow, great video with some amazing collections!
What a thrilling story! THX!
It makes me wonder how the cray 1 was ever able to troubled shoot all those wires
The trick is wirewrap never dies so there is no need to.
@@DantalionNl that definitely helps but what if a mouse or rat chews on the wires
@@alfulton5946 That's what I was wondering, there isn't any color scheme to the wires, how would you repair something that literally was in a barn and potentially was messed up by either animals or transporting over the past 40 years. It really belongs in a museum.
@@alfulton5946 Whoa! It's literally rat's nest wiring!
@@DantalionNl Not sure what's at the other end of those cables but if it's regular thin tin wrap,
it can break off a post after age (square post corner cuts, corrosion etc). I'd hate to touch that mess.
Let's hope the California wildfires stays away from this place
Unfortunate that the infrastructure requirements probably means that Cray will never boot again, but what a cool artifact to have custodianship of.
150kA rated power supplies are madness!
Unfortunately most of the boards of this Cray had been removed and sold before Bruce got it. It has only one complete column. So it cannot be repowered.
Siggraph 1987. Nice.
12:18 request: This analog computer!
I second that! At Hochschule Darmstadt (Germany) where I got my master's degree in computer science, they have one of these and I want to see it work as well.
You guys rocks !!! Cheers from France by à not so young (30!) law clercs passionate about computers
150 000 AMPS for a cray? I find that very hard to believe or maybe we're thinking about different things.
150,000 Watts, not amps. (Yes. The computer was 150 kW, but for that you got 160 MegaFlops of performance)
@@milesprower6641 Yeah makes more sense, but in the vid they mixed it up with amps.
Wow great stuff. A demo of the digibarn artifacts would be great for computer history and testing the ICs that's just good old brute force cybernetics.
used a Xerox Star at work, good to see its parent :)
What a beautiful Zelda cover, where did the song come from?
From the immensely gifted Neskvartetten on ocremix: ocremix.org/remix/OCR01408
What's the output resolution to the crt? It looks pretty sharp.
Apparently it’s 606 × 808 pixels, approximately the same as an 8.5 × 11 inch (Letter) size sheet of paper.
@@germansnowman Thanks, impressive for its age!
I can't wait in 40 years:
Here we are trying to get this iPhone 4 to boot.
Nobody will even bother, Apple's gone to such lengths to make their products unrepairable.
The iPhone 4 is not revolutionary, won't be interesting
Cool. What was the foot pedal thing to be used otherwise writing music note at a program at that computer?
Where do I find this Tontek IC tester kit? Seems very useful but I can't find it online.
Link here: www.tauntek.com/LogICTester-low-cost-logic-chip-tester.htm . I’m trying to build one right now.
Haha. I was just re-watching the series of this one yesterday. What a fluke. Read about that guy that finally repaired the system last year. Nice work. 10:30. When I saw this house, I knew there had to be an Alto in it.
Not so often we get to see the Marc of CuriousMarc!
Geez, so many things from my teen years! I will always regret getting rid of my Tektronix 4000 series storage terminal. (And OSI C1-P, and C2-P...)
A Gandalf house could be on the tourist trail (Check out England's National Trust properties). nb if there is a Gandalf House, there should be a "Catweazle house".
14:48 is this an SGI Personal Iris in the background there?
I should be paying attention to the Alto story, but I spotted what looks like an HP85 and an HP8566 behind you? Any story behind those?
0:42 At least it wasn't containing dead critters.
I think I remember… but going to watch the old videos anyway
The Frankenalto!
it sucks that there are so few of these early computers left and that many of them can never be booted again due to either lost documentation or like those supercomputers they require a power supply that no one can easily supply and thats if there is even enough hardware still there for it to run or be repaired
The Alto key set looks like today's stenotype keyboards.
The "portrait" display reminds me the B/W CPT word processor page display.
Cheating? As long as the results are good, it's not cheating. It's working smarter, not harder!
"well... you've got the finger"
Please, please, please, give us more information on the IBM Wheelwriter to your left (4:44). I got one of these from my grandpa and I want to make it communicate over a serial port!