Ernie SmithJun 28, 2023

I have waited three months to share this with y’all.

In the fall of 2022, literally thousands of computers flooded eBay, with a brand name few knew, at a rock-bottom price of $59.99 plus shipping. A YouTuber did a video about them and the machines—2,200 in all—went viral.

Where did they come from? Why were there so many? I spent the last few months determining this answer. And well, it’s a story.

For @Motherboard, the story of the NABU Network: https://www.vice.com/en/article/ak3k34/2200-forgotten-vintage-computers-are-being-liberated-from-a-barn-in-massachusetts

2,200 Forgotten Vintage Computers Are Being Liberated From a Barn in Massachusetts

The NABU Network was an obscure, forgotten part of Canadian tech history—until the day the internet noticed that thousands of NABU machines were being sold on eBay at rock-bottom prices.

Show threadErnie SmithJun 28, 2023

How many machines are we talking? Well, let me explain this via an anecdote:

The machines in this photo were sitting on the second floor of a barn. There were so many of them that, combined, they weighed the same as 11 full-size vehicles.

The barn started having structural issues. They had to be removed. It took five weeks. That’s when they appeared on eBay.

The picture below is not all of them.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/ak3k34/2200-forgotten-vintage-computers-are-being-liberated-from-a-barn-in-massachusetts

2,200 Forgotten Vintage Computers Are Being Liberated From a Barn in Massachusetts

The NABU Network was an obscure, forgotten part of Canadian tech history—until the day the internet noticed that thousands of NABU machines were being sold on eBay at rock-bottom prices.

Show threadErnie SmithJun 28, 2023

I want to take a moment to point out the seller of these machines, James Pellegrini. He is an old-school embedded systems hacker, a guy who loves experimenting with hardware. He is an immensely cool dude who got into computers way back in the ’70s.

IMHO he deserves to be known for more than just holding onto these machines. Here’s his website: http://pellmill.com

PellMill, LCC

Show threadenmodo ⚛️ 🧬 🇺🇦 🍉Jun 28, 2023
@ernie the first home computer I used was Z80 based. It was a cool and baroque instruction set and had a neat set of auxiliary chips for things like I/O. I even breadboarded a robot using one plus a Z80 PIO combined with a kids R/C tank and a home brew motor controller. There was a 256 byte static RAM chip that I programmed from another Z80 machine. It had a habit of rebooting due to some electrical interference problem #noshielding. Unfortunately the Z80 itself is not visible in the photo
Show threadErnie SmithJun 28, 2023
@enmodo James seemed really interested in programming it more—it was ironic and interesting that he didn’t really have a background in Z80, despite owning all these machines. He told me he hadn’t programmed much software for the NABU despite having them all this time.
Show threadenmodo ⚛️ 🧬 🇺🇦 🍉

@ernie one of the original Z80 programming books is still available "new": https://www.amazon.com/Assembly-Language-Programming-Lance-Leventhal/dp/0931988217/

I preferred this one though: https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Z80-Rodnay-Zaks/dp/0895880695/

I moved onto 6502 later on thanks mostly to Atari. The Atari home computers were fantastic machines with two additional co-processors handling video and audio. They were way ahead of their time IMO.

You can still pick up a humble Z80 from Jameco for under $5. Looks like there was a Z80B version running at 6Mhz instead of the original 2.5.

Amazon.com

Jun 28, 2023 at 7:56pmWeb