FINALLY!!! A video on the NABU Personal Computer that makes the appropriate Phantom Menace references

It's a great time to be a NABU owner.

This is some next level elite geek material. Well done. Kind of regret not buying one after Adrian's DB episode but I already have a huge pile of retro computers I don't use.

I can't wait for my NABU to arrive. It was a total impulse buy, on speculation that it'd be useful at some point, and sure enough the software became available within a couple of weeks. So cool. I'm looking forward to the MSX emulation and running CP/M on it. What a thing, for this super obscure and defunct system to become an overnight sensation like this.

I vividly remember seeing this system running new at the time in 1983, in Ottawa Canada here, was just amazing, and so ahead of it's time, the only other system, I can think of that kind of used a cable modem, was the Mattel Intellivision's Play Cable system, early 80's

being packed away in the box it's as though these have time traveled to a time when they can be appreciated and brought to life

I am so impressed with this and its only been a week !!!

Just discovered this channel. Loving it!

Wow, big promotion! Lotsa detail in one spot!

Some decent emulation of it would be amazing, especially for us pal/230v people

Wish I could have been a part of the early NABU hacking. Unfortunately I couldn't buy one when I first heard of them because it was late in the month and I was short on funds. But by the time i had money to spend (had to wait until I got paid) the Ebay listing had ended. I was able to get in touch with the guy, and as it turns out, he had to temporarily suspend sales while he caught up with the huge deluge of orders he got, which is what I suspected was going on. (I can only imagine what his reaction was when he woke up one day to find his inbox on fire ;-) ) Unfortunately as of the time I am writing this, the Ebay listing is still down. I suspect that because of how busy we all get during the Christmas holiday, he may not be able to get through his order backlog until after the holidays. So there is hope.

I paused at 10:38. I took a screen shot of the pinout diagram. I referred to it multiple times while assembling my cable. And I still wired it backwards, because I had forgotten that what you showed early in the video was wrong. The cutting room floor is a handy tool sometimes.

Cool!

The NABU has almost exactly the same architecture as the first generation of MSX computers, so it should be possible to easily port games for it.

The games are amazing. The system resolution is really high. The hardware is really good.

I can't wait for the entire thing to run on a RPI and I will absolutely poke at it once it gets to that level.

Very interesting NABU... 😲

Hey, man! Thanks for the long and detailed video! … and what about that PDP-11 front panel emulation lying on the desk (the one with the white and yellow switches)? Is there a new video planned? ;)

Nabu could have been the French Minitel for North America - Internet-like capabilities a decade before Internet becomes a thing for the general public

both my brothers in law worked on this thing. One did coding, the other did graphics.

@Retro Hack Shack, I just received a Nabu on aloan and I'll make a short video on it, but your video really does it the most justice, so I can't possibly do better! I'll link to this video in the description if that's OK!?

20:38 - I've seen that so many times over the years, where the diagrams online are reversed, or just plain wrong. lol I know this is probably stating the obvious, but now whenever I get a problem like that, and have the lid off a machine, I would recommend doing a continuity check (with the machine powered OFF) between the "TX" pins of the RS485 adapter, and the "RX" pins on the serial chip inside the NABU. That's often a good "sanity check", or at least a starting point to figure out some other issues. I've seen a few KZfaqrs buying these machines now. It's amazing how quickly people have managed to get them running, including with disk drives etc.

The controller looks like an F Jet, a later model based off the Channel F sold by Zircon who took over from Fairchild. There are some magazine ads out there somewhere.

For an 1983 home computer system, the games actually look pretty good.

The chassis ground helps with signal integrity.

I have one of those i got from Grafton Fleamarket in MA USA

Is there already a way to mod MSX1 games to run on the Nabu ? That would be so great !

Very cool video, kinda knocked sideways as to how fast the software appeared!

There's an odd thing in the video: at 41:59 there's a jump cut back to talking again about Leo not wanting the software to get out.

Amazon has solderless DB8 connectors that can give it that pro look. The way the ports are oriented in diagrams vs reality drove me nuts

RPI has built-in UART that can be converted to RS422 directly, although it requires soldering the pinheader to RPI-zero. There are dedicated RS422 hardware for RPI specifically. Actually I'm pretty sure rs422 can be bit-banged in software, although with no actual isolation, but it shouldn't be a problem in this case if the ground IS actually connected.

You think you no better then the Gungans? Mesa like XD

RS 422 is differential, it's (TX+ TX-) and (RX+ RX-). It's a pair of wires each way similar to CAT5.

I'm guessing all the NABU computers have sold since they're no longer on eBay.

I really need to reverse engineer the keyboard some day. I got one of the ones without a keyboard in the box. Seem pretty stuck getting it up and going even.

I bought one, the seller still hasn't shipped it but I'm still hopeful.

pro tip: use manual focus when filming a CRT and you are waving your arm around. :)

Just an observation if the designers/creators had gone with the ZILOG Z800 they would been able to create a machine that could run all ZILOG Z80 programs as well as the ZILOG Z80A programs and could have had the ZEUS OS which was UNIX that was created for the ZILOG Z800 chip why didn't they or they could gone with a TMS99105A processor which would have allowed you to do the Home accounts as the TMS99105A had IEEE754 floating point.

York University is actually in Toronto. :)

This must have been Amidala's computer.

Is it me, or did a couple of minutes of the conversation repeat at the end? Great video anyways.

What sound chip is that?

Any information on how it achieved those arcade quality graphics? Not monochrome like the Spectrum or chunky like the C64. Smooth movement too.

"Hackerman"has one

As more stuff is released, it will allow more stuff to be produced... A lot of the games shown in the menu seem to be MSX ports (esp. from Konami), so I bet the MSX might be a good place to start for porting new games over. I bet the Nabu could theoretically play a killer game of Galaga or Bosconian...

I bought them in 1989.

Was it designed by NAD designers?

I wish you would have shown us what the cable looks like after the modification. I did the same thing and I just keep getting FF as a response.

Is that made in Canada? And what is the sound system based on?

York University is in Toronto, not Ottawa.

The "Antarctic Venture" is a direct port of Antarctic Adventure from MSX (see the S. Pole written in Japanese, the ColecoVision version has it in English). But all Konami intro/copyrights have been stripped off. There is only a Konami logo left on the map. I wonder if they paid the license for these ripped-off games or it was just plain piracy...

I did find a link for a seller on ebay, but it ended with 70 odd sold, so not sure what's going on with the 1000 odd reported by some. Anyway, I'm on the wrong side of the planet, transport is like twice the price of the Nabu (assuming I can find one) so it looks like I'm our of luck and will have to wait for an emulator etc.

I really need the Nabu emulated. As much as I'd love to own one of these, it's an old device. If it would break, I couldn't do anything. I'd have to convert power from 240V/50Hz and I still don't know if my TV/monitors support NTSC composite. So an emulator would come up handy.

Can it print "Crysis" 60 times per second? 😮😅😊

How can you use a mouse and keyboard if they aren't connected?

Everything looks like a C64 to me

Too bad you didn't try for the Easter Egg in Pac-Man.

Those Fairchild Channel F controllers are considered by many to be the worst controllers of all time. Real wrist killers. Anyway, I saw this on Adrian's Digital Basement a few days ago and he mentioned that some groups of people have been making efforts to get it working like it did in the eighties via the NABU network.

I saw these pop up on ebay and almost impulse bought one myself (also knowing nothing about them). I figured it'd just end up sitting in a closet collecting dust so I passed. Kinda wish I had bought one now. XD

ebay is sold out. i checked. :(

The Star Wars snippets soon become tiresome, but an interesting video nonetheless.

Suddenly Nabu is the new black:…:) or Nabu fever… Ton’s of video on this system, not sure I can't share the excitement about it…. (edited so some people are less unhappy about my dissenting opinion )

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. And have a Happy New Year. My NABU Saga: I haven’t been able to keep up with or appreciate “NABU Fever”. For the past 6 weeks my life has been hijacked. The reason is simple, my life was consumed by handling, testing, and shipping NABU items. This includes countless hours of warehouse management (of my NABU Stack). In that time period I shipped 578 orders (671 packages). I dedicated all my time to getting all the orders out as soon as possible. (I apologize for the delays.) I shipped on average over 100 items a week. I could do no more. My account had been suspended by eBay because of the (unusual?) circumstances surrounding it. So currently I cannot list my items on eBay and eBay owes me a lot of money. I shipped the last of the orders (from Adrian’s 2-day order surge) on Friday (12/30/22). That was the highlight of the day. A day to celebrate - so I thought. So that Friday I called eBay to see when I can relist my NABU items and when I can get the money that they owe me. eBay’s Response: My account will be suspended until “all” the orders have been “delivered”. Wow! Approximately 35% of my sales are out of the country (USA). So, it will be weeks before all those orders are delivered. So, it looks like I am going to be in "eBay Jail" for a while. Oh yes, so for the rest of that Friday, I was outside from 8:00 PM to 4:00 AM on “warehouse management duties”. And I moved 125 NABU Computers and 20 Adaptors into the house. (Ready for testing.) Hopefully, I don’t sound like I’m complaining. I just wanted to explain why you haven’t heard from me. I am very happy that the NABU Computers are selling and all the activity (read enjoyment) that is surrounding them. Also, this was a test, and my 68-year-old body has passed it with flying colors. Tired - yes; sore - yes; but 8 lbs. lighter and stronger than last year. Ha! Epilogue: Don’t worry. When my account is restored, I will have plenty of NABU Computers to sell. At that point I will moderate the listed amounts so I can process the orders in a timely manner. Now excuse me, I have to catch up with 6-weeks of phone calls and emails. There will be many apologies. In the meantime, I am considering selling the NABU Computers on another platform. I feel that I am being treated unfairly by eBay. I am open to suggestions for alternate selling platforms. Any ideas? PellMill, LLC