@@TechTimeTraveller amen ! The stuff you do with early computers I do with video games and tech arround it. Its a crazy feeling knowing these units have been hand assembled and are possibly the last ones of their kind. Rock on !
I built a reaction tennis game similar to the one in your video when I was in high school. The Magnavox company in my town sponsored an Explorer Scout program for future engineers in the late 70's. The big difference for us was we were given the task of laying out our PCB with tape on Mylar film. Unfortunately, mine eventually was thrown away, for whatever reason. Just one of the many experiences that sent me on my career path in electronics.
That sounds awesome! Yeah I don't think many of these kits regardless of who made them would have survived unfortunately as they often look like random electronics junk. Were the designs you laid out pre-made? Or did you have to come up with your own?
@@TechTimeTraveller The circuit was already designed and parts placement was defined. We were allowed to run our traces any way we wanted. Of course, there was a lot of "assistance" from the engineers, but each layout was unique and had our name etched into the copper as well. They provided a custom enclosure to finish it off. Sadly, I don't even have pictures of it.
It wasn't exacly unobtanium for Eastern Bloc countries, they couldn't manufacture a lot of chips so they needed to somehow import them. They were very rare among hobbyists tho.
Regarding the "Apple 1 Motherboard": Way back in the day when I got my brand new VIC 20 the local computer store had some cartridge port expanders that were labeled as motherboards. Basically it was a circuit board with the edge connectors and switches to change which one was enabled.
I've never seen a Syquest 5mb. We accepted 44, 88 and 200mb disk at the printing company I worked at when they were popular. They weren't known for reliability and came in foam case, in the event they were dropped.
The horizontal-mount potentiometers should be adaptable to vertical installation. I hacked those up plenty of times in the late 80s. Straighten the two legs, and solder a wire to the wiper terminal to make a third leg. The two big wiper legs can be cut off. If you do it carefully nobody will even notice unless they know what to look for.
As soon as I saw the ports on the back of that Z80 Prototype computer I was thinking it was part of a PoS system... Those look similar to the connectors used by IBM/Toshiba before everything became RS-485 and USB.
It might. The only documentation I've found is a government spec sheet for a project.. it says 8V lead acid was the original. Looks like 4 d cells strapped together. 7 might be enough. I'm wondering if the plug in just charged the battery rather than running the machine.
@@TechTimeTravellerA single lead cell is nominally 2 volts, but four of them in a regular full discharged state would be about 7 volts. A fully charged 2 cell LiPo is 8.4 volts and drops below 7 very late in the discharge, so it would work perfectly. The LiPos are quite picky with charging, and would need a low-voltage cut-off, though.
I've been looking for that Martin Research book but because of the common name of the book and because I don't know the author or authors so finding the correct book has been difficult to hunt down.
The search terms I used in my saved searches on ebay were exactly: "microcomputer design" Martin Took a while.. but the books do come up from time to time.
I had one of those White/DRC terminal boards connected to a Cherry keyboard installed in a SWTPc CT-1024 cabinet back in the early 1980's. Quite a Franken-Terminal. It worked pretty well though. I used on my ATR8000 CP/M computer.
I'd try asking people in the ham radio community about the Microkit stuff. I go to hamfests here in Michigan, and I've talked to several people over the past few years who were involved in the early computer industry here in one way or another.
That's an idea. Lots of overlap between those communities. Yeah I've asked around everywhere I can think of so far but no dice. Seems strange.. they clearly had some mass production going on, but so far not a single other survivor has turned up. Weird.
I've got some old Soviet ZX clones, got them cheap enough. One has its keyboard and another had Beta disk inter face controller. Got an old oil pump controller box to put one of them in.
When you really learn what is going on in a computer. I mean, everyone kind of gets it, i am not saying you don’t really know… but when you really nail it down and wrap your mind around it. You’ll look at the world differently… it’s amazing any of it works at all.
My dad was a digital engineer in the memory department. he kept a lot of the things he worked on for me to play with so we have buckets of boards in our basement. I should let him know they might be worth something... and feel kind of bad for playing with them as a kid. He also kept a few of the dev models, including a display of the first solid state drive he built.
33:50 "these 1-minute shorts videos really s#&¤%#¤" Yes, they do, and I actively block them from all my subscribed channels. And honestly I don't know why any of the channels I subscribe to actually even bothers to make these. I mean, youtube does not force you to do it... Does your target audience actually bother to watch those?
RUclips doesn't force you but I've noticed everything performs better when you do shorts. It's one of those things where I suspect but cannot prove they push Shorts producers a little more in their competition with tiktok.
smbakeryt just did a video on bubble memory a while back. apparently if you wanted to fill that spot to get full memory you can the part is still available and i think if i recall was really cheap. It's a long lasting memory type.
those pots, the two legs (bent straight) should fit in the board and then just attach one of the back tabs to where the center pin was. stop chasing these parts it's gonna cost way more and you're never going to get an honest part seller. just ain't gonna happen... on ebay.
What would be neat is to do a mini-documentary on one of your 70's collection in 80s style editing with the Mindset Computer. All you would need are two VCRs and a VHS camcorder or better yet, a super8 film camera and a super8 to VHS converter.
The point of sale computer board is definitely point-of-sale! Those weird connectors on one side are what POS people use so that end users can’t really connect any random cable into those ports. You’ll still see those kind of oddball connectors on older POS terminals still in use. That one must have been a beast - the 512k of RAM must have held a local copy of the transaction log and perhaps the PLU lookup table. A wonderful bit of history there!
Manty thanks! I wondered what the unusual looking ports were about. This makes sense. Now if only I could find the production machine that evolved from this!
We had one of the external "hard drives" at 1:22:23 back around 1990, and 2(?) cartridges for it. The carts (basically large floppies) died before long, probably of bad blocks or flaky magnetic material, and replacements were in the $60+ range which was too rich for my blood as a starving college student. It ran through the serial port (no SCSI on the 128). IIRC you could use part of its capacity as a print spool, which really helped.
A friend of mine had a Syquest drive for his Amiga and it was faster and more reliable than the Iomega Zip and Jaz drives that knocked Syquest out of the market.
@timlocke3159 I'm sure. We had a SQ 88 for work, and I had a Zip 100 at home, and the Syquest was miles better because it was a hard drive. I bet the SQ 250(?) was even better.
I really enjoy seeing whatever piece of old tech you've managed to get your hands on in these unfridging videos and I found the Unsolved Mysteries inclusion to be hilarious!
Canada Post still has first and standard class. They however have made it so it refers to size and type of mail rather than speed of delivery or priority. I think first class is now only for personalised letter mail, which most people don't receive these days.
@otters-vintage-all-sorts No. It's just a complex project - a bit more than what I was dealing with with the TVT. Also trying to acquire parts can be a challenge sometimes.
This is a long one.. I've put in chapters so everyone can jump around or come and go as they want to. Cheers!
I have to say it makes me really happy seeing other people beeing so hyped about the stuff they got and saving history in the process !
Saving history while having fun. It ought to be the law!
@@TechTimeTraveller amen ! The stuff you do with early computers I do with video games and tech arround it. Its a crazy feeling knowing these units have been hand assembled and are possibly the last ones of their kind. Rock on !
I built a reaction tennis game similar to the one in your video when I was in high school. The Magnavox company in my town sponsored an Explorer Scout program for future engineers in the late 70's. The big difference for us was we were given the task of laying out our PCB with tape on Mylar film. Unfortunately, mine eventually was thrown away, for whatever reason. Just one of the many experiences that sent me on my career path in electronics.
That sounds awesome! Yeah I don't think many of these kits regardless of who made them would have survived unfortunately as they often look like random electronics junk. Were the designs you laid out pre-made? Or did you have to come up with your own?
@@TechTimeTraveller The circuit was already designed and parts placement was defined. We were allowed to run our traces any way we wanted. Of course, there was a lot of "assistance" from the engineers, but each layout was unique and had our name etched into the copper as well. They provided a custom enclosure to finish it off. Sadly, I don't even have pictures of it.
Interesting to see so many Western parts in that ZX clone, and it looks to be very early. The chips marked "T" are from Tungsram.
It wasn't exacly unobtanium for Eastern Bloc countries, they couldn't manufacture a lot of chips so they needed to somehow import them. They were very rare among hobbyists tho.
You know you are getting old when the first laptop you ever used in your job ( the IBM laptop) pops up in a vintage computing video.
Regarding the "Apple 1 Motherboard": Way back in the day when I got my brand new VIC 20 the local computer store had some cartridge port expanders that were labeled as motherboards. Basically it was a circuit board with the edge connectors and switches to change which one was enabled.
I've never seen a Syquest 5mb. We accepted 44, 88 and 200mb disk at the printing company I worked at when they were popular. They weren't known for reliability and came in foam case, in the event they were dropped.
They seem to have been a short lived and rare thing.
@@TechTimeTraveller They were killed off by Iomega's Zip and Jaz drives, in spite of being more reliable, which, of course, isn't saying much.
The horizontal-mount potentiometers should be adaptable to vertical installation. I hacked those up plenty of times in the late 80s. Straighten the two legs, and solder a wire to the wiper terminal to make a third leg. The two big wiper legs can be cut off. If you do it carefully nobody will even notice unless they know what to look for.
agreed.😀
That IBM PS2 laptop was pretty cool
That Soviet clone. I can smell the oppression. 🤣
I had an L40SX for a while, until one of the keyboard ribbons ripped on it. I had it booting from a CF card.
As soon as I saw the ports on the back of that Z80 Prototype computer I was thinking it was part of a PoS system... Those look similar to the connectors used by IBM/Toshiba before everything became RS-485 and USB.
Wire wrap work requires a younger brain and eyes than mine.
I wonder if a 7.4V LiPo would work for that Terra Systems 1010.
It might. The only documentation I've found is a government spec sheet for a project.. it says 8V lead acid was the original. Looks like 4 d cells strapped together. 7 might be enough. I'm wondering if the plug in just charged the battery rather than running the machine.
@@TechTimeTravellerA single lead cell is nominally 2 volts, but four of them in a regular full discharged state would be about 7 volts. A fully charged 2 cell LiPo is 8.4 volts and drops below 7 very late in the discharge, so it would work perfectly. The LiPos are quite picky with charging, and would need a low-voltage cut-off, though.
I've been looking for that Martin Research book but because of the common name of the book and because I don't know the author or authors so finding the correct book has been difficult to hunt down.
The search terms I used in my saved searches on ebay were exactly: "microcomputer design" Martin
Took a while.. but the books do come up from time to time.
The book has popped up on ebay. www.ebay.com/itm/394895446212
I had one of those White/DRC terminal boards connected to a Cherry keyboard installed in a SWTPc CT-1024 cabinet back in the early 1980's. Quite a Franken-Terminal. It worked pretty well though. I used on my ATR8000 CP/M computer.
Neat! I'm thinking I might try using it with the custom S100 machine I got also. Hopefully it works.
Bishop graphics made those precut templates to make the PCBS
I'd try asking people in the ham radio community about the Microkit stuff. I go to hamfests here in Michigan, and I've talked to several people over the past few years who were involved in the early computer industry here in one way or another.
That's an idea. Lots of overlap between those communities. Yeah I've asked around everywhere I can think of so far but no dice. Seems strange.. they clearly had some mass production going on, but so far not a single other survivor has turned up. Weird.
It's been a true delight to watch. Thanks a lot!
Vector PCBs had nothing to do with Vector Graphics.
Vector is still in business :)
@@absurdengineering Yup, at least the one making the prototype PCBs. Expensive as heck though!!!
I've got some old Soviet ZX clones, got them cheap enough. One has its keyboard and another had Beta disk inter face controller. Got an old oil pump controller box to put one of them in.
When you really learn what is going on in a computer. I mean, everyone kind of gets it, i am not saying you don’t really know… but when you really nail it down and wrap your mind around it. You’ll look at the world differently… it’s amazing any of it works at all.
My dad was a digital engineer in the memory department. he kept a lot of the things he worked on for me to play with so we have buckets of boards in our basement. I should let him know they might be worth something... and feel kind of bad for playing with them as a kid. He also kept a few of the dev models, including a display of the first solid state drive he built.
8:28 also as with most old books, it's free as a pdf
“I’m trying to limit my collecting activities these days”… while spending 80 minutes opening up new acquisitions. :)
I’m almost positive you can set up a Mac 128 to boot straight from hard drive.
"When your hard drive sounds like a chipmunk on meth..." I love that!
33:50 "these 1-minute shorts videos really s#&¤%#¤"
Yes, they do, and I actively block them from all my subscribed channels. And honestly I don't know why any of the channels I subscribe to actually even bothers to make these. I mean, youtube does not force you to do it... Does your target audience actually bother to watch those?
RUclips doesn't force you but I've noticed everything performs better when you do shorts. It's one of those things where I suspect but cannot prove they push Shorts producers a little more in their competition with tiktok.
Holy cow! Actual bubble memory in that Terra computer!? I wonder if it works?
I hope so. 40 year old bubble memory though.. 😬
smbakeryt just did a video on bubble memory a while back. apparently if you wanted to fill that spot to get full memory you can the part is still available and i think if i recall was really cheap. It's a long lasting memory type.
those pots, the two legs (bent straight) should fit in the board and then just attach one of the back tabs to where the center pin was. stop chasing these parts it's gonna cost way more and you're never going to get an honest part seller. just ain't gonna happen... on ebay.
LOL the Unsolved Mysteries bit!!! 😂❤
ooo bubble memory! These are missing from my collection :)
I love the robots from Impossible Mission in the chyron!
What would be neat is to do a mini-documentary on one of your 70's collection in 80s style editing with the Mindset Computer. All you would need are two VCRs and a VHS camcorder or better yet, a super8 film camera and a super8 to VHS converter.
I do have some working cam corners. Used to have a windup brownie 8mm film camera but I think the film for that is long out of production.
Man, that dislike copter is ruthless!
The point of sale computer board is definitely point-of-sale! Those weird connectors on one side are what POS people use so that end users can’t really connect any random cable into those ports. You’ll still see those kind of oddball connectors on older POS terminals still in use. That one must have been a beast - the 512k of RAM must have held a local copy of the transaction log and perhaps the PLU lookup table. A wonderful bit of history there!
Manty thanks! I wondered what the unusual looking ports were about. This makes sense. Now if only I could find the production machine that evolved from this!
That giant port on the back is an IDE port.
We had one of the external "hard drives" at 1:22:23 back around 1990, and 2(?) cartridges for it. The carts (basically large floppies) died before long, probably of bad blocks or flaky magnetic material, and replacements were in the $60+ range which was too rich for my blood as a starving college student. It ran through the serial port (no SCSI on the 128). IIRC you could use part of its capacity as a print spool, which really helped.
A friend of mine had a Syquest drive for his Amiga and it was faster and more reliable than the Iomega Zip and Jaz drives that knocked Syquest out of the market.
@timlocke3159 I'm sure. We had a SQ 88 for work, and I had a Zip 100 at home, and the Syquest was miles better because it was a hard drive. I bet the SQ 250(?) was even better.
1:01:30 proto- IBM Stinkpad
I find your videos interesting.
I have enjoyed this 😊
You've got a big fridge! 🤣
49:00 wtd inc computer. Dump out the EEPROM would be able to find out what this does.
No link to the Microcomputer Design book? :(
Whoops. Missed that. Put it there now.
@@TechTimeTraveller Thanks :D
even the Soviets knew that keyboard was just wrong
I really enjoy seeing whatever piece of old tech you've managed to get your hands on in these unfridging videos and I found the Unsolved Mysteries inclusion to be hilarious!
Thank you! I spent two hours on the soundboard101 site trying to get its AI Robert Stack voice to pronounce the words properly. 😀
Love your vids
Thank you!
@27:30: Mail still has multiple classes in the US as far as I am aware :)
I don't know if we have that in Canada anymore. It's been a long time since I've seen 1st class stamped on anything.
Canada Post still has first and standard class. They however have made it so it refers to size and type of mail rather than speed of delivery or priority. I think first class is now only for personalised letter mail, which most people don't receive these days.
when is the next sol prototype video?
Hopefully in another month. Trying to get the PCB made.
@@TechTimeTraveller I was just asking because I feared you had abandoned it.
@otters-vintage-all-sorts No. It's just a complex project - a bit more than what I was dealing with with the TVT. Also trying to acquire parts can be a challenge sometimes.
It’s refreshing how the newsletter said Merry Christmas and not Happy Holidays.
That is because an individual sent it, stores have to "play it safe" rather than cater to one minority worshiping pagan gods in December.
Its infuriating that you felt that was something anyone wanted you to point out.
It is refreshing that times have changed. Maybe with a bit more time the mental illness known as religion is extinguished.
Mail still has classes ;)
i like pooter. bleep bleep..!!!