Early Kit Computers reviews

I like this video, but its background music got on my nerves after a while.`

Aussie Lad here. Yeah, Al-foil on polystyrene was the standard for me growing up. There was some chips stored on good antistatic foam, but most of the time it just crumbled into a gross dust. Im not sure if it was the climate or they just sent the junk out to the colonies. I’ve found huge panels of chips done this way when digging through storage at work, obviously not original packaging, but re-packed for storage (in the 80’s, I found this in about 2015). But dad had a few boxes of parts from when he worked as a photocopier tech, hes more of a mechanic, but I found enough opamps and 74xx chips to get into mischief.

Electronics Australia has a long and colourful history, but I can blame/thank them for a lot, I got my first copy in ‘95. I could wax lyrical, but to keep on topic, they also got me into the hardware of computing. They had a series of articles, The $100 PC, which pointed out if you didnt need the top of the line $3000 Pentium, a very capable machine could be built from parts for bugger all. A bit of scrounging, troubleshooting, fleamarkets n hand-me-downs. This is pre-internet, so a bunch of articles telling you what to look for and the obvious Gotchya’s was priceless. As a pre-teen, that became my mission. Christmas and birthday money, dumpster diving at my Dad and Uncles work, picking the brain of the local computer shop, I had *MY* pc. There was the family computer, but I was forbidden to take the lid of that. So I built my own. My mates had a Nintendo or a Sega. I had a Computer.

I now collect old electronics magazines, and had I been born a generation before, I 100% would have built myself a S100 system. Im half tempted to now, just for shits and giggles.

This channel is a hidden gem! You’re way more in depth than the 8-Bit Guy, and you’ve discuss BBS which he has yet to do.

I still have my Imsai 8080. Every connection hand soldered. Total spent on it for chassis, boards, 70KB floppy drives, teletype, was about $7000..

Back in the day most people had a TV, yes, but most people also had an assortment of radios, a cassette player, and/or phonographs. A hifi set containing all of the above was extremely common, then people often had portable cassette players, radios, etc.

It all looks pretty hokey today but back in the day this stuff was science fiction.

My dad built a Heath H88/89 back when I was in elementary school (around '79). He still has it and says it should still run if he replaced the power supply in it. I can remember learning BASIC on it and my dad upgrading it from a H88 w/16k to a H89 with 2 floppy drives.

Even though the second drive isn't around anymore, I'd love to get ahold of some hard sector floppies and the OS for that beast and see if I could relive some of my childhood days on it.

16:20 The analog joystick pot must have been inspired by a 4-way audio mixer gadget used in Pink Floyd live shows:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azimuth_Co-ordinator

"COMPUTER!"

4:44 My brother and I built a number of Applied Tech's S100 boards (actually 'S-100' back then) and also the black cardframe. It was a good system and the DGOS ("dee-goss") monitor with hex editor on 2716 was pretty easy to use and could save to tape.

It was all fine until one Saturday we went to Applied Tech's shop in a northern suburb of Sydney only to find not a trace of their S100 machines anymore. They had all gone and been replaced by the Microbee. The CEO of AT told us it was backwards compatible with the S100 system and that Microbee software would run on our machine.

Well of course it wasn't that simple. The Microbee had a different keyboard setup which IIRC used the light pen input on the 6845 and any Microbee software needed patching to use the DGOS calls. I did do it for a few programs. Needless to say we were very annoyed about it all, after having spent a lot of money on building the computer.

I modified the DG680 with a rocker switch on the top edge of the board to switch a 4MHx crystal, and replaced the CPU with a Z80A and it ran really well. Sometimes I could even switch from 2 to 4 MHz and it would continue to run but more often it needed a reset. I think the DG640 VDU was based on the SOL-20 video circuitry, certainly AT sold games such as Missile Defence that displayed 'Processor Technology' on the start screen.

As the supplied MicroWorld BASIC was not very good, I ported TRS-80 LII BASIC to the machine by typing in the 12K of hex digits from the BASIC Decoded book over a few weeks, patched the keyboard and (I think) video start location. I made a replica TRS80 graphics character set for the PCG card and got MS Flight Simulator to run, made a 4 voice music synth speaker for it (from a BYTE article), also started writing a DOS for a Versafloppy II based on another BYTE article. I still have some of these bits of software, the rest went with the machine a long time ago.

Hey. Reseller here. We used to do storage units. We found a partial Altair 8800 kit. It was in a storage unit for nearly a decade.

The storage facility would have likely disposed of it. But we put it up for auction. The market decided a price of $1800.

Resellers provide a service. I guarantee many collectors would not deal with what you may come across in abandoned storage units. It's incredibly hard work. But sometimes it pays off.

I spenr hundreds of hours building S100 boards and designing optically isolated serial interface cards, There was no standard interface available. I have a Cromemco computer sitting in the floor next to my desk; Unfinished and non working! I also have a number of unassembled card kits, including a music synthesiser. A Fairchild F8 development board and a book on how to use an F8 Microprocessor to make a Microcomputer!

Forgive me, because I really don't want to come off a being vitriol [__] That said; I have to ask: Priceless, Museum, Family heirloom, not gonna build a Kit? My question is; who in that future will end up with the what you and I, Feel right now about these sort of what you call them 'Gems?' {These guys are pushing mid to late 40's. Clint from LGR, 8-but Guy, Nostalgia Nerd, RMC… etc.}
I am certain that 99% of everyone that had a part in the development and manufacture of these kits have all sadly passed by now, or will soon be. What future are you thinking of, or what past are you holding on to?

Let me tell you about the Future — But first let's start with the Past. Less than 15 years ago like YouTube and their ads all over the blasted web for 5 years [broadcast yourself and make money] touch screens and camera phones were just starting to become just idle talk. 15 years later here we are.

In less than twenty years the Mark 1 fully capable humanoid robot for household help with be available for purchase by at least the middle class household, all remotely controlled by acres of quantum super computers [what did you think the 5G spectrum was about] not to mention, they will readily be able to determine what waste of space and resources are, they will not be sentient like you and I are but will know the difference between, useless and archaic.

And how many museums on vintage machines do you think will there be? Hint: In the future the museums are all holographic, and that just 40 years from now. Remember when you once believed that there was nothing you could not learn about without the library – What are you thoughts about that now?

The is only so much we can pass to our kids, and the world is changing faster, and faster every passing day, and every day the is a new break through, and that is just the tech you and I know about, actually… it's you alone.
And speaking of kids just look around, look just hand a psp 1 or a gameboy color to a five year old, and watch what happens. On second thought better not, they may break a finger.

Sorry, I thought all of this in one minute, and took two minutes to type it, and less than a minute to check for errors.
But my point is, most of us I am sure; are dying to see some of these kits built if not the originals, get the pcbs made and build the damn thing, and forget being period correct with parts. those pics you've shown in the video, are so fascinating to me, and others I am sure. I really enjoy you videos and narrations. Thanks for the hard work you put into these videos for sharing.

SO impressed by this. I'm honored to be your 1000th "like" on this video, and you have most decidedly won me over! This mirrors so well what I like to do on my channel "Forgotten Machines". Thank you for preserving and documenting these systems so well!

Hit me up if you ever want to replicate those PCBs. It's something I'd love to play with and these days professional PCBs are cheap.

I absolutely adore your skits, sir~! It gets so old watching all these kids on yt using the same stock footage over and over while doing monologues.. Your Style is Remarkably Refreshing and You put out such Fun content!!! I'm learning so much! Thank You!

I'm so pleased I found this channel, content that's right up my street produced in an enjoyable way. Splendid stuff!

What a fascinating collection! I started building (mostly) retro kit computers last year, and I just finished a slightly-updated reproduction of the "78up5" Signetics 2650 Mini System (also published in Electronics Australia as an update to the slightly older one you showed, I believe) a couple days ago. Having proved that it works as advertised (I can enter machine code into the PIPBUG system monitor via serial terminal, then execute that code and see the output), I'm please with the result but not sure what else to do with it now, hehe. Documentation I've found suggests that, at one time, there was commercial software available for it, as well as upgrade projects, but I haven't found the binaries for any of the software yet, and the old magazine articles that describe projects are not in the greatest, most readable state. Oh, well. It was fun, just the same, and there's always the future!

Other kits I've built use the RCA COSMAC 1802, Zilog Z80 and Z180, Intel 8080A and 8085, MOS 65C02, and Rockwell 6501Q. I even just today looked at websites offering kits of boards to build your own reproduction Schelbi-8H or 8B and Mark 8, but the prices, just for the boards, are a little eye watering, so I think I'll have to skip those. :-O

Thank you so much for showing us your fine collection of original, vintage kits! 🙂

Wonderful nerd-p0rn !!

I’m waiting to find an old box in an old barn or attic filled with New Old Stock. It’s already happened just waiting on time to catch up.
Nice informative Video.
Even Nicer “Junk”.
As my wife says.

1 k SRAM ~98$ ::-{}

Hi. I am the David Griffiths who designed the DG680. Thanks for the nice review.
In answer to your question about the numbering, the VDU was first described in Electronics Today magazine and they assigned it project number 640. When I wrote the article about the CPU they called it 680. I am not sure whether that was the next number in their sequence or whether they jumped to 680 in a nod to the Z80. Applied Technology, the company that sold the kits, tended to brand it as DG-Z80.
I don't remember what the selling price was but I think you are in the right ball park.
You are right about the DG initials but I later formed a company called Digital Graphics Pty Ltd – what an amazing co-incidence about the initials 😉