Mastodawn

cirdan12 Oct 16, 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.

Ernie Smith Jun 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.

Ernie Smith Jun 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

Jon Henshaw Jun 28, 2023

@ernie now that’s a website!

James Britt Jun 28, 2023

So old-school, it lacks ssl.

Jon Henshaw Jun 28, 2023

@jamesbritt @ernie heh, it has it, and the cert is valid, it just doesn't have a redirect to it: https://pellmill.com

PellMill, LCC

erol_foret Jun 28, 2023

@ernie Adrian Black is a nice guy, who does awesome work. I'm really pleased, you boost his visibility. He deserves it. Thank you.

(disclaimer: I'm not related to him. I just watch his weekly feed)

WaterBrick Jun 28, 2023

@ernie This guy sounds cool and all, but IPTV boxes? Really? A man of his talents would probably be better off in a legitimate venture, but who am I to judge.

enmodo ⚛️ 🧬 🇺🇦 🍉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

Ernie Smith Jun 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.

enmodo ⚛️ 🧬 🇺🇦 🍉Jun 28, 2023

@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

Kristoffer Garshol Jun 28, 2023

@ernie thanks for sharing this gem.

Chris Ainsworth Jun 29, 2023

@ernie great history, thank you for researching and sharing this!

And the important question, did you order a NABU for yourself?

Stewart Russell Jun 28, 2023

@ernie @Motherboard

Good, but needs more Zbigniew Stachniak. Without his knowledge and NABU network he's been running at York University Computer Museum for more than a decade, there'd be no story but lots of landfill.

Ernie Smith Jun 28, 2023

@scruss @Motherboard He’s in there—we talked at length for this.

thatdosbox Jun 28, 2023

@ernie @Motherboard @leigh may be interested in this given the #Ottawa connection

Bytebro 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 🇬🇱Jun 28, 2023

@ernie @Motherboard Great story!

neville park Jun 28, 2023

@ernie "I got share certificates, I’m wearing the toque…" priceless

voltaic Jun 28, 2023

@ernie @Motherboard kinda confused about the story, headline seems a little confusing and doesnt make me want to read... can someone tldr what any of this is even about? one guy had a bunch of weird computers for sale? lol

Ernie Smith Jun 28, 2023

@eroadlane @Motherboard Read the story. I worked hard on it. A click doesn’t cost that much.

Carrie Jun 28, 2023

@ernie @Motherboard Fascinating story. Thank you for bringing it into the world!

Ccollet Jun 28, 2023

@ernie @Motherboard what I've never understood about this story is why didn't find out until *after* they launched the network that it wouldn't work bidirectionally unless cable providers upgraded their equipment (which they were unwilling to do). Did they think they were going to be more successful and have leverage to force them to upgrade?

Ernie Smith Jun 28, 2023

@Ccollet @Motherboard Yes, that was exactly the idea.

@ernie @Motherboard Cloud computing 1983! :)

Andrew Mackie Jun 28, 2023

@ernie @Motherboard Thanks for the article! These things are near bulletproof, very high quality, and easy to hack. Proud of this #Ottawa innovation.

Stuck Here Jun 28, 2023

@ernie @Motherboard
Very cool read. I appreciate when people express their unbound joy at discovery and learning. Great history for these machines.

@ernie @Motherboard
What a great article and story this is!

I got me one of these for my museum in Sweden and is currently getting it connected to the NABUnet and it would be interesting to find out how many countries have nodes on the network now in 2023!

I will probably get another one to have as a spare/backup as the plan is to have it as an interactive display!

Erik Ableson Jun 28, 2023

@ernie @Motherboard @lisamelton I came so close to working for Nabu back in the day. This is a wild story 30 years later

AGMS Jun 28, 2023

@erik I worked at #Artech Digital Entertainments, which turns out had originally done #Nabu games (some sort of programmer sharing or split or subcontracting resulted in Artech - a mystery).

They continued on with Commodore #C64 games (B.C.’s Quest for Tires was famous). Though I joined in the 80386 MS-DOS era, with Super VGA and 640x400 graphics.

x0 Jun 28, 2023

ⓝⓞ🅞🅝🅔 Jun 29, 2023

@ernie
I really enjoyed that you tube video. Thanks for the share!

Brendan Jones Jun 29, 2023

@ernie @Motherboard really lovely story, thanks for taking the time to investigate and share it.

Ernie Smith Jun 29, 2023

@Brendanjones @Motherboard Thanks. This was my first big thing after going full-time freelance, and I'm glad I took the chance.

Dorsho Jun 29, 2023

@ernie @Motherboard This is basically a real-life version of Halt and Catch Fire’s Mutiny except instead of being from Texas it’s from Ottawa

Ernie Smith Jun 29, 2023

@dorsho @Motherboard I literally thought about framing it that way and said that to Leo in an interview.

Avi Rappoport (avirr)Jun 29, 2023

@ernie @Motherboard @ernie @Motherboard Those were the days when they were making it all up! I guess parts of Halt and Catch Fire were inspired by NABU, I had no idea.

Ernie Smith Jun 29, 2023

@avirr @Motherboard There were a lot of networks like this, but yeah, early on it really was reminding me of Mutiny

E. Schneider 🇪🇺Jul 1, 2023

@ernie @Motherboard err... @flobo and @tossnet oh! At first I thought about the C=64!