Edit: As pointed out by viewers, the woodgrain on the TVT in the magazine photo does appear to be different from the one I have, lending credence to the idea Grant built more than one TV Typewriter.. or case at least. Whether the guts got swapped around I don't know.. this one had its boards all tossed in there and some parts pillaged. Thanks for your patience on this one! Was a bit more difficult than I thought to produce, and for some reason it took eons to render. It was originally 2 hours but I decided to edit it down a bit and give the extra to my patrons (thank you patrons!). I don't do unscripted videos too often! Sorry for the ums and 'so yeahs'. Bad habit. Might make tshirts out of those two phrases! 😂
Bummer that it's not the one in the Kilobyte article, but it being the prototype for that one is cool. And since your TVT and Mark-8 came from the same auction (iirc) and have exact same Dyno label types, the Kilobyte article helps tie your TVT and the Mark-8 together as made by the same person (especially since Kilobyte has a photo your Mark-8 too). That matched pair makes a really nice historically significant set.
@@soupwizard Yes its quite close.. the placement of the dymo labels and buttons kind of fooled me. To my eye the labels that are there look to be in identical locations, even the special button labels. But the Kilobaud unit is missing a screw on the left side, and the wood/veneer grain is definitely different. He could have rebuilt it I suppose if it got smashed or something but doesn't seem likely. It does seem like he may have built two TVTs from the Micro-8 notes I found, so maybe one of these was the school unit and one was home.
I was just thinking that woodgrain could be compared. Interesting that it looks different. Could the two sides have been simply swapped? They are simply the mirror to one another aren't they? How well does it disassemble? If easy, i can imagine Grant having done so many times and not taken care of putting the sides in the same spot than they were taken from. Or maybe the woodgrain doesn't even match when swapped? Its also entirely possible he needed to replace the side panels at some point. Sadly all is possible.
@@jeremiefaucher-goulet3365 Yeah the 'wood' is just a veneer on the plywood. It's certainly possible sides got swapped or it got sanded down or such. I didn't mention in the video but two of the four standoffs for the motherboard were missing.. so stuff could have been swapped all over. The sides appear to be glued.. so a swap would only have likely happened if it git smashed. Which.. at a school.. who knows..
Speaking as a historian, I agree. The historicity of artifacts shows in their physical condition; if you go out of your way to make them shiny and sparkling, you would take that away from them. The best would to restore their functionality but leave their looks as it is.
I think Grant did build two of the TVT, and the one you have is the first one he built and the one in the Kilobaud photo is the school one. If you stop the video at 24:04, and also zoom in on the TVT image from the Kilobaud article, the left side wood grain doesn't match up to grain of the one in the photo. Zooming in on the photo more I can see the order of the switches is different between the video and the photo too: The video has Local, Back, Cursor, Repeat, Protect, while the Kilobaud photo has Fwd?/Back, Cursor/Off?, Repeat, Write?/Save?, Remote/Local. I think he built your TVT, got it working, used with the Mark-8 that you have, and built a second for the school to access the Nova minicomputer. And since people would see the school one more, he made it look better - professional switch labels, and (just a guess) the metal is unpainted and polished since you can see more reflections in the photo. This is super interesting to me since I used to live in Santa Barbara, and one of my friends there today lives a couple of miles from the Santa Barbara high school (attended there in the 80's). He says the school probably didn't have a DG Nova onsite, but rather they likely rented time on one from a local timeshare company. In the 60's and 70's Goleta (just north of SB) had many defense contracting companies (including Raytheon) and thus a lot of engineers interested in the computing field. PolyMorphic Computers was a startup that made an S100 computer called the Poly-88, there was a software vendor called Pickles & Trout that sold a version of CP/M for the TRS-80 computers - in a way SB/Goleta was a kind of tiny silicon valley tech hub.
Yeah given he called it out as a timeshare system, and that they were interested in offline editing at all, suggested to me it was rented time. If they had their own minicomputer just sitting there, the main use would just be to reduce student downtime as they took turns running their programs. On a timeshare system it's a massive cost saving.
I'd say the note Grant left inside the TVT wasn't for himself, but for its new maintainer! :) Personally, I'd do the minimal required to get it back to safe happy functionality, and perhaps flatten the dents/bends in the cover-panels. But I wouldn't want to lose Grant's hand-worn paintwork or replace the original embossed labels.
Yes I think the intent of the labels was definitely for others' benefit. I'm guessing since we know he used a TVT for his school maybe the note and labels were directed at his students.
Hey Brad, it's John! I am so happy to see this video come out. Just the giddy look you gave in the intro just fills me with joy and I just couldn't wait to finish the video before leaving a comment. I've been waiting in anticipation for this, especially still after the *STEAL* you got these machines for! Edit: Finally finished watching. Seeing the history you found of the original builder was awesome! I cannot wait to see any future videos featuring these projects! It'd be great if they were restored in working order, but I think keeping the cosmetic age of the chassis keeps it truly authentic.
Right?? Thanks so much for the tip off! Now I'm on a quest to see if I can locate the actual one in the Kilobaud photo, which viewers has different woodgrain and other features compared to this one. Would be amazing if he built a few of these!
@@TechTimeTraveller I'm inclined to think it's the same one - if it went anything like my projects, it might have been a "work in progress" for quite a few years, with various parts being taken out and redone
Wow...just, wow. What a haul. Grats to you. That TVT really scratches every itch, doesn't it? The woodwork with the scalloped vent holes, the impossibly clean cutout around the keyboard (how many of these old homebrews have we seen where it looks the panel cutouts were gnawed by a wolverine?). Those fantastic rocker switches. Slot headed screws, and even countersunk on the metal panels. Beautiful, just beautiful. Whatever you do, don't try to repaint it. It'll never look right again.
Thanks!! It is an impressive piece. It's always interesting to me how many hobbyists back then were also good woodworkers and metalsmiths. If there were more than one built, it could be that this TVT was the one that went in for school use, hence the rough exterior.. maybe the one in Kilobaud was his personal unit.
I'm just impressed that people in the 1970s had absolutely no issue with having their home addresses published in a newsletter for all to see... also that someone could afford a house in that neighborhood in Santa Barbara in 1976 on a high school teacher's salary
I don't think it'll help you find anything else about him but the guy that made this thing's full name was Edward Grant Runyan, I found on Google Books his address with the name Runyan, Edward G.was in the California Avocado Society Year Book for several years, it took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize that G could be Grant and Edward wasn't someone else that was related to him.
The town of Carpinteria, just south of Santa Barbara, had many commercial avocado farms in the past, so that checks out. They still have some avocado production, but a lot of land has been turned into housing. afaik they still have a yearly Avocado Festival where you can buy avocado ice cream. (it's good - not great not terrible, just tastes mostly like vanilla with a faint avocado taste)
@@soupwizard He appears to have had several acres the parcel his house was on was actually split in 1987 to create the parcels that all the newer houses on the street were built on. Maybe he had enough space for a little avocado farm.
I still have a whole stack of kilobaud magazine! It was a great publication! I learned the basics of computers, programming, and electronic construction from this mag!
Those embossed labels bring back some memories of gadgets my Grandfather who was a Physics Teacher/Ham Radio guy would make. In the early seventies he made a remote control + guts for a TV. My 5yo self... mind blown. I wonder Grant and him (1912 bday) ever exchanged QSL cards.
@@remigiusznowak7277 whisky 7 devious. I'll let you dissect the puzzle. (I if ever make a cask conditioned beer I will use his sign as the name.) I was a bit surprise the internet has him listed in internet archive ham radio call books and FCC radio licensees.
your tech time capsules are so awesome to hear about. Being in tech as my profession my entire adult life its really cool to hear about the pioneers that paved the way for our modern world. I will be there with you when you restore these to life, it will be great to see them come to life once again. They are in the right persons hands, you will be the best steward of these pieces of history. For what its worth I think you should just get it working, the cosmetics are better left showing the wear, mileage adds character.
I remember getting that 1974 Radio Electronics magazine and being so excited by the idea that I could have my own computer. Too young and not enough experience to make it but about 2 years later my dad brought home an Aim-65 single board computer from Rockwell and my love of all things computing took off. After a 40 year career in computers, I am so glad I went down this path. It has always been rewarding and exciting. At least from a technological standpoint. 😊
It can only be original once. I literally felt my chest tightening up when you were talking about painting it lol. Fantastic video, what a treasure you have found!
Thank you. Yes that's kind of my philosophy. I always feel a bit queasy with cosmetic restorations because while they make the thing more visually appealing they demolish some of the history. As it is I can say the TV Typewriter's paint is probably the same that Mr. Runyan applied way back when.
This is so wonderful, it's a reminder that computer history isn't just the machines, it's the stories they tell or hide of their time and the people involved with them.
Amazing pieces of personal computing history. I remember reading the construction articles back in the 70s and dreamed of building them both, but was too poor as I was just a teen back then.
Halfway through. Enjoying this quite a bit! I think you should functionally reatore them. But only minimally visually restore things. Give them a good clean and maybe replace the missing keys if you can, but keep the paint wear that it's accumulated over time.
I think minimally restoring them to functionality would be wonderful. It's not like you don't have a pristine unbuilt Mark 8 and your own beautifully restored TVT + the later modified one. I think this TVT connected to the Mark 8 it was built to talk to would be the best thing you could do for it - It's exactly what Mr. Runyan wanted of it, and while he may be gone his dream does not have to be left so desolate. I hope someday someone will stumble upon this video or later videos in the process and stop to think "That's grandpa's computer!"
It's pretty amazing to get to see the personal project of someone who was truly one of Wozniak's peers. I didnt really even know about computers until four or five years later as a 10 or 11 year old and this era of computing has fascinated me since i was in my late teens.
I think it would be a shame if these machines never worked again, so I think any restoration in the name of functionality is justifiable. Cosmetically you could go either way, but I would try to preserve the original condition wherever reasonable. As a certified vintage keyboard guy I think retrobriting the keycaps on the KBD 1 would be a mistake as these keycaps aren't particularly yellow and retrobrite can go wrong, and from my understanding it is at best a temporary fix.
Many thanks! Yes I've always been a bit hesitant about retrobrite.. some time ago I read something that suggested retrobriting could potentially change the chemical structure of the plastic and make it weaker. I worry the real effects might not be known for years.. after which it would be too late.
Back in the 80s certain people would transmit software ( primary Commodore 64) over ham radio across the world like a phone modem, have a guy that would crack and then other guys to spread it around the world
Really loved this video- I think breaking it up into two sections at that 51 minute mark would have been a better choice. I'm looking forward to seeing more about the TV typewriter modifications. I'm really keen on making one up myself at some point, but the shift registers are a bit of a sticking point for me, I've not found anywhere that does them.
@@TechTimeTravellerThanks! I might hit them up. I finished up making the Tele-tennis project from Popular Electronics around the same era, that was a really challenging project none of the of the values and timings quite came out as they were supposed to in the article. Loved the video by the way! :D
I love the tv typewriter you got. I worked on one as a high school student in electronics class in 1975 ish. It was used in the Newtown pa high school tv studio as a title generator. It got flaky and my teacher had me and an older student to look it over. I remember the delicate stack of boards and wires. It was some mechanical problem and we buttoned it up. But the bug had bitten me. So I began building a 6502 home brew system.. but it all started with that tv typerwriter... fun times... no internet so it was kind of isolated... when you found someone slightly into home brew that was a real treat....
That must have been really cool being involved in the early days of personal computing. Did your school have an actual computer somewhere that the TVT talked to?
How very cool! The Mark-8 Minicomputer is a machine that has fascinated me for a few reasons, partly because it's an 8008 instead of 8080-based machine, and partly because it had so little time to shine. I do hope you are able to restore both machines to working order! After all, computers were meant to compute! And, well, I'd like to see some videos of a Mark-8 in use. 🙂
Correct those electrolytic caps are axial. You don't see those so much anymore. The colorful cap next to the big chip is called a tropical fish cap by pedal builders (guitar effects pedals). Lots of carbon comp resistors which also help date it.
Brad, really nice job on the video ... I think the quality of videos on topics such as this really shines when there is so much personal interest and enthusiasm about the topic! I am sure if Grant were around today, he would be extremely happy that these pieces ended up in your collection and knowing they were in such good hands. On the question of cosmetic restoration I would definitely vote for leaving as is. I have done some retrobriting/repainting of computers that were not as rare as these and, while it's nice to have them look like the did in their hay day, it takes away from the history to some degree. All of the dents and dings are part of the 40+ year history, so I would leave them. Again, nice job on the video and looking forward to see where you go from here with the TVT and Mark 8.
Great video. I followed every step of this era - at the time! mmBYTE,Kilobaud and the others. I learned so much - starting with TTL, stepping through CMOS, into the earliest LSI chips. Built Signetics and Zilog hobby stuff, worked with and for DEC (PDP8 and 11 / VAXen), did driver work for Zilog, stumbled around the computer and TV industry for 30+ years… loved every second of it. Used DG, SGI and other platforms. Wrote some PC software for the TV industry in 2001 that has grown, and is the top product in that vertical market ever since (but my business partner cheated me out after six years) 😔 The whole scene was very small - and personal. We were all learning.
At 6:48, I noticed that one of my old high school teachers was listed. Don Singer from Forest Grove High School. He was a math / typing / computer science teacher back when my brother and I was still in school.
400 board sets for a small PCB fab would have been a *huge* order - It is quite reasonable for them to have multiple providers of PCB stock available that they passed through their processes. Remember, in the early days, there was no CNC - Every hole was hand drilled. with a vertical drill, aligned by using a microscope that zoomed on where the drill would come through. I know, because I was involved in a fab in the 80's, and it was manual then. We couldn't do through hole - That was a telltale between the huge fab houses and the small people.
Thank you for this awesome insight. Yes I figured PCB fabs would have supply from various manufacturers.. certainly makes sense. It's been a pet project of mine figuring out the 'marks' of the various substrate makers.. uop (union oil products), tc (taylorclad), etc. I've been trying to figure out whose mark is W or M - they were used on a lot of SWTPC gear. Knowing these has helped me seek out new old PCB stock to make more authentic looking replicas. There's something about the old translucent green.. I've had people argue they still make it that way today but I've yet to find a modern manufacturer that does. Usually brown or yellow green.
This video is my new favorite thing. I encourage you to go read Don Lancaster books. Buy em’ or find them online but either way you gain a lot of insight into his work. I also have read a lot of other authors from the same time period and it’s very clear a lot of authors based books off his work. Some, just out right cite the book Don Lancaster wrote where they found the information in their own books text.
Love computer history. I have been interested in computers since the late 1970's ( I was born in 1970). First encountered a computer in 1976 or 1977 which was a Tandy TRS 80 Model 1. I used an Apple IIe up to high school graduation in 1989. Great video.
Many thanks for watching!! I regret I missed the TRS-80.. such an interesting machine. Because we had Commodore PETs in our elementary school I insisted we have a Commodore and my parents ultimately bought a VIC-20. I do have a TRS-80 Mod 1, 2 and 3 and I hope to get to get to those soon. I'm working on replacing some pieces on the Model 3 and am gritting my teeth every time I open it because the CRT neck is so close to the back of the case. I never saw Apple IIs except in school settings as a kid.. in our area they were kind of a upper middle class thing because of the cost.. usually teachers, lawyers etc.
Those aluminum plates remind me of the old aluminum photo print used at the local newspaper back when they printed their own papers instead of sending them off to be printed. They used the plates once then tossed them, lost of folk about town had sheds lined with these plates to keep out the cold North Dakota winds.
I look forward to more videos about these machines, I remember both of them from the days when I had a subscription to Radio Electronics. That was a really good magazine I just wish they had not gone out of business.
@@TechTimeTraveller It might be another Hitachi model that uses the same chassis: the one in the TVT article is a Hitachi P-04, the text says: "the most desirableis the Hitachi P-04 and has the Hitachi SX chassis ... The SX chassis is also used on models P-03, P-05, P-08, P-53, P-63, S-47, and several others." I found a photo of a P-05 and it looks like the one in the Kilobaud TVT article, no model number on front so no way to tell which model the photo has other than by looks.
@TechTimeTraveller AXial leads go through the AXis of the capacitor's cylinder, so they are exactly centered and have to come out opposite ends; RADial leads are distributed around the RADius of the circular footprint of the part (like the pins in a DIN plug or the leads on a vacuum tube), and so they can all come out the same end. It's harder to see the radial nature of the leads when there are only 2, but they're symmetrically off-center so it's technically correct.
Fantastic discoveries and I love the human connection. I come from electronic music and am also fascinated by previous owners of my earlier gear and fascinating to see SSM boards. I am sure Mr Runyan would be surprised to say the least and hopefully pleased. Subscribed :-)
The feeling of this whole video is 10000% relatable, but also one of those things that's probably impossible to put into words for people who don't get it. Finding a one-of-one piece of history that you find incredibly interesting, but also getting this amount of history specific to the very item you have in your ownership that you never thought you'd find in a million years...that's really the thing we're all searching for. Going down a rabbit hole and piecing together a story for an item lost and forgotten by time that is realistically a very important piece of history and a stepping stone to the world we all live an participate in during its "wild west" era. Really just all gives me chills. Have loved your channel ever since I found it way back when and it only gets better and better. Amazing stuff.
Easy enough to tape off the labels instead of removing them if you want to re-paint the case of the TV typewriter. IMO it's more important to preserve the guts untouched rather then the shell, and I would definately re-paint it, and maybe try to seal off or hide the gaps as well although that might be a step too far. Forget retrobriting the keys, they look great, just clean their contacts underneath and paint the case would be my choice. Grats on your amazing score!
Not very long ago, I got lucky and found both of the books Don Lancaster wrote about the TV Typewriter. I don't know if I'll ever do anything with them, but they have made a nice addition to my reference library.
Hi Brad. I also have an original Mark-8 I obtained in 1976 and restored it in 1999. John Titus gave a presentation at VCF that year which I attended, and I had him *sign* my machine! If you need any help or advise let me know. That is an awesome find!!
Much obliged! If you'd like to connect my email is on the main channel page.. feel free to drop me a line! Always happy to run into another Mark-8 owner!
Looks to me like someone tried to pick up or move the Mark-8 while it was still wired into the power supply. No doubt that power supply Grant had was heavy! To me, the Mark-8 is too much of an artefact and too bespoke to get working again without undoing or destroying its originality. Of course it would be *wonderful* to see it humming happily again. Oh, and I remember axial capacitors as being the ones that are arranged like an "axle" on a car (sort of). Fantastic video!
So cool. In 1976 I was 13 y/o. By the time I was 15 I was already very interested in electronics. When I was 17-18 I got interested in computers and bought a TRS-80 Color Computer in late '81. The 70's computers though is uber interesting. However i'll probably only enjoy them through videos like this and software or FPGA emulation.
Yes, axial caps into radial board location. I think of a car axle that comes out each side. Sorry to hear about your dad. I hope you are dealing with the loss ok. Good luck with these two gems.
Definetely please do a restauration! Thanks for sharing this awesome find. My thought on the second jack on the back: maybe its for screen mirroring so that the class could follow what he was doing on a separate screen?
I swear this first era of home computing feels close and personal compared to anything made after. Aside from old companies like IBM, everybody else making these things were new companies or individuals. I don't think there's ever been another era like it since. I was born in the late 90s so I definitely didn't experience what it was like, although you can still find hobbyists making their own devices today and have those same sort of WIP newsletters, so the hobbyist scene never left but rather the industry blew up and advanced rapidly.
Restoring functionality is a given. Though I feel cosmetic repairs is something that should be done for these as well. A lot of the damage has clearly come from storage and not the use of the machine itself, unless Grant Runyan was very careless with his machine which I very much doubt. He seemed to have cared for this project a lot. He made a custom case for it to make it presentable and I'd think that's how he'd want it to be seen. Its a similar thing to what Museums do with restorations. They might get old medieval chainmails that are missing links, and they actually replace them but try to match them as best they possibly can. But they also make sure to document all of this. So the items are preserved in video or photography form in the way they appeared when they got to the museum, and then people doing restoration document what parts were replaced and repaired, should they be wished to remove or alter for the future so that the original parts aren't removed. It would be a process but keeping the original panels with the labels would be an option and then just make a recreation in the same color and same print labels just all new and fresh. Either that or touching up his original parts. But with the risk of damaging labels and restoring of discolored plastics, metals and paints that might be a hard thing to pull off.
In your search for vintage/antique parts/components that are no longer in production and that have been out of production for many many years, you most likely will end up trying to find components that are either electrically the same or can be added to so they function the same as the original components.
I'm probably a bit older than the Tech Time Traveller, so... it was important to IBM to have their PCs called "Personal Computers," in the 80s, as opposed to a "home computer" or "microcomputer". This is going back to the first "DOS" PC, not just Windows, and I think they'd have trademarked the term if they could have. Years before that(1977), the Atari 2600 was a VCS: "Video Computer System" which is funny, looking back, because it didn't have keyboard and was strictly a "game system". Also in the 80s, Apple and Apple owners of Apple I, II, IIe and IIc's and Macs were very proud that their microcomputers were NOT PCs! It wasn't really such a matter of pride for C64s, Sinclairs, old Heathkits, etc. Then the "clones" came starting with Compaq, taking over the market very quickly within a couple of years. IBM wanted people to keep calling these work-a-likes "clones," and not "Personal Computers" or "PCs", but of course people are lazy, and saw no reason to differentiate their clones from "real" PCs. I grew up and went to uni with an Apple IIe. My university had VAX "minicomputers", and I certainly at the time, I and my friends called everything that pre-dated the IBM PC either a "home computer" or a "microcomputer", "personal computer" only got special use beginning with IBM's. We would have discussed the first "microcomputer", if the subject came up. So it's kind of sweet revenge to think IBM lost their battles and now just about every microcomputer system is called a "personal computer". But, it's still hard not to think of "PCs" as anything but 8088 and x86 machines, I go with "microcomputer", myself.
A friend gave me his osi Superboard II and I just fixed it. Comes up with 1977 BASIC prompt. Very similar where I only got the board with a keyboard on it and had to build your own case. He included the case his dad made.
Oh my god! Wow just Fu@&ING wow. I'm 52 and I am feeling out so bad right now and I'm only 4 ish min into it. You have bid wisely. Hahaha. I can't wait to see these beauties running together. Subbed.
Back in the mid 1970's I had bought a 6502 CPU from a MOS Technology display booth at a computer show in Atlantic City. It's possible that the WOZ was there, and also bought the CPU for his Apple I at the same show (such was the time line anyway). I didn't know what to do with the chip, and a year later, at a similar computer show, I bought a set of rather large bare PC boards from OSI for their model 400 computer. The CPU board could be populated with 2 28 pin EPROMs, one or two PIA's, your choice of 6501, 6800, 6502, or 6100 (cmos pdp8!) cpu, and 1 kb or 2102 ram (8 or 12 bit wide). There was an uncommitted 40 pin socket position. I later got a 40pin IO/ROM chip (PIA+ROM) from MOS Technology that contained their TIM monitor (same as the DEMON monitor sold by James Electronics in a single board computer dev system). I also got 4, 4kb ram expansion boards (could be populated 8 or 12 bits wide) with 2102 chips, so I had a total of 13kb rom memory. I bought a single board terminal, I forget who made it, but it had a 32 or 64 character by 16 line display, and came with a keyboard. I found a suitable hard foam plastic cabinet for it, and a used B&W monitor with a good CRT in it. This was my first computer. I had tiny basic for the 6502, and a cassette tape drive (used NRZI encoding, NOT audio based). I never got the cassette drive fully working, it would record and play back, but would have needed a bit of hardware and software interfacing to get a serial file system working on it. I kinda wish I never sold that first hardware, would have been fun to get it fully working the way I envisioned, but I bought a Fugerson 'Big Board' Z80 board, and was gifted a bunch of 8" floppy drives, and I had a fully functioning CP/M system by 1980. I kept it until around 1982-3, when it was replaced by an XT clone.
Awesome story! I have a 400 bare board from OSI I hope to build one day. One 6502 machine I'd love to find from the early days is the JOLT, which used the TIM monitor I think. Super crazy rare though. I wonder if your TV Typewriter was the Bay Area TVT by electronics systems? I have one of those thanks to a really generous viewer.
@@TechTimeTraveller No, it was a rather professional looking thing, cost me about $200-300 for the terminal and keyboard PCB's already built and ready to put in a box. I'm familiar with the TVTs, and this was a generation or two ahead of them. I used that terminal for awhile with a basket case LSI-11 (PDP11/03) I got out of salvage piece by piece, when I worked at DEC in the late 1970's.
I'm partial to that way of thinking too. When I was into vintage cars I preferred vehicles that had perhaps faded or scratched paint that was original vs new. Something about looking at the original thing just works for me.
@@TechTimeTraveller The market agrees with you; it may not have occurred to you that what applies to antiques on the Antiques Roadshow would also apply to cars and old electronic equipment, but certainly a fresh coat of paint has ruined the value of many an antique.
I think it would be best if the missing chips would be replaced by same chips, but NOT missing. The broken connector replaced, and then make a nice wooden cabinet for it. Give this Mark 8 a home he could never dream of. This leaves us in a philosophical dilemma: can computers dream in their free time. I can give you an answer on that, It is my theory that all logical chips are made out of metals, semiconducting materials, isolators and something special: pieces of wondering souls. How else could stupid machines have made a decision, committed logic to questions. And since we never are certain about the originals of the souls that were used for the logic chips, it could have been the old souls of Chinese factory workers or loved ones closer by. Every computer is a new home for an old soul, and therefore every cabinet for a computer must be made with beauty, because every computer with logic chips is some sort of a temple, it is a shrine! That is why I am personally working on a nice wooden cabinet for my replica 6502 computer. Sanding it, painting it, and polishing it till it shines. You never know who's souls is in it!
Plywood and sheet metal just screams the 1970s. A visit to the local hardware store (no Home Depot or Lowe's yet) for supplies and a few hours of sawing, drilling and soldering. Hehehe... Nowadays you would 3D print a case. While awesome (and easy), it just doesn't have the same coolness factor as a case like this one.
On the TYT, i'd leave the paint alone (other than a gentle clean), but carefully hammer/flatten out the dents, as those appear to be from poor storage or an accident, not from personal use.
Wane Green was founder and editor of 73 magazine so it makes sense that some of the contributors to Kilobaud would also be contributors to 73 magazine.
Could you add "#shorts" to the title of your shorts, please? My, and others, interaction with UA-cam is through notifications, and the only way to tell the shorts apart is either the title or the thumbnail, which is not always clear 🙂 And in other news, I'll watch whis one later, can't wait to hear those sexy red levers click!
I saw a plan written up from an IBM employee in the 70s proposing they sell APL terminals (with the special keyboards of course) and charge people for time connected to a single mainframe in each city/town, like a "utility". It was a sort of dystopian version of what became the "internet", well, dystopian in the sense that IBM would own every second of computer time and resources.
@@squirlmy It wasn't dystopian, it was what EVERY computer company did with the limited technology of the time. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymnet I have news for you - big companies still own everything. Who hosts this video? APL is too difficult for home users, by the way.
Edward Grant Runyon was born October 25th, 1914 in Kentucky and died July 24, 1984 in Fresno. He married Elizabeth Norris Headley in 1953 in Santa Barbara. She was also a teacher, but for Harding Elementary School in Santa Barbara. At the time he built this machine, he lived at 1146 Nirvana Rd. It looks like Elizabeth had been previously married and had a son, Richard Norris Headley.
I find half my problem with finding stuff like that is just knowing the right name to use. Even that isn't enough sometimes.. 'soldercon' doesn't really bring up anything useful.
Thanks for sharing. I did not expect to watch it all. But it was fascinating. Nice to have so much documentation. I hope it is worth a fortune for you.
Yeah, that's the same computer as in the newsletter, back in those days you did not have the resources to build... two computers. Sourcing the parts and just getting one was enough. You can be pretty sure it's the same computer. Once you got your hands on one computer, you were on it full time... it's like getting your first sportscar, you're going to drive it and love it... you have no time or interest to build a second one... at least not that soon. Only when it starts to show it's age and become obsolete and you're forced to move on... or upgrade... or build something new... or buy something new. The 1976 references not when he first got it working or demoed or used, but when he built a case for it and finally considered it "finished" and presentable by building a case for it and clicking out the labels at the same time to label the switches. The 1976 is the year he was clicking the Dymo labeler to make the labels. It's not like he would of remembered the first date he first read the article, bought the parts, soldered it up, or first got it working... so.. 1976 right then and there he could be sure of so klack it out on the labeler. It's close enough. It as so fringe, we didn't think any of it was ever going... anywhere. We were just freaks and electronic nerds. Pretty much the weirdos and loners in your local high school off in their own world. It wasn't a special time, it swwcked. We wanted a real computer and had hungry brains and were hungry for information. We would of traded it all in an instance to have anything available today off the shelf or any tiny slice of the internet even though a line webbrowser, never mind the ability to display video... across the internet.
Great video! I remember these articles in PE but i had access to the PDP-10 at ohio state .. i thought who would actualy play with these toys .. a failure of vision!
Edit: As pointed out by viewers, the woodgrain on the TVT in the magazine photo does appear to be different from the one I have, lending credence to the idea Grant built more than one TV Typewriter.. or case at least. Whether the guts got swapped around I don't know.. this one had its boards all tossed in there and some parts pillaged.
Thanks for your patience on this one! Was a bit more difficult than I thought to produce, and for some reason it took eons to render. It was originally 2 hours but I decided to edit it down a bit and give the extra to my patrons (thank you patrons!). I don't do unscripted videos too often! Sorry for the ums and 'so yeahs'. Bad habit. Might make tshirts out of those two phrases! 😂
Bummer that it's not the one in the Kilobyte article, but it being the prototype for that one is cool. And since your TVT and Mark-8 came from the same auction (iirc) and have exact same Dyno label types, the Kilobyte article helps tie your TVT and the Mark-8 together as made by the same person (especially since Kilobyte has a photo your Mark-8 too). That matched pair makes a really nice historically significant set.
@@soupwizard Yes its quite close.. the placement of the dymo labels and buttons kind of fooled me. To my eye the labels that are there look to be in identical locations, even the special button labels. But the Kilobaud unit is missing a screw on the left side, and the wood/veneer grain is definitely different. He could have rebuilt it I suppose if it got smashed or something but doesn't seem likely. It does seem like he may have built two TVTs from the Micro-8 notes I found, so maybe one of these was the school unit and one was home.
I was just thinking that woodgrain could be compared.
Interesting that it looks different. Could the two sides have been simply swapped? They are simply the mirror to one another aren't they? How well does it disassemble? If easy, i can imagine Grant having done so many times and not taken care of putting the sides in the same spot than they were taken from.
Or maybe the woodgrain doesn't even match when swapped?
Its also entirely possible he needed to replace the side panels at some point.
Sadly all is possible.
@@jeremiefaucher-goulet3365 Yeah the 'wood' is just a veneer on the plywood. It's certainly possible sides got swapped or it got sanded down or such. I didn't mention in the video but two of the four standoffs for the motherboard were missing.. so stuff could have been swapped all over. The sides appear to be glued.. so a swap would only have likely happened if it git smashed. Which.. at a school.. who knows..
He may have repaired or modified the case at some point.
I think you should restore them to functionality, but leave the cosmetic damage alone
I was gonna comment the same thing. Definitely the best of both worlds
Totally agree.
Speaking as a historian, I agree. The historicity of artifacts shows in their physical condition; if you go out of your way to make them shiny and sparkling, you would take that away from them. The best would to restore their functionality but leave their looks as it is.
should be in a museum
@@Neodestro Insert the sound effect of the crack of a bullwhip and an epic movie soundtrack...
" you never truly die until the last time someone remembers (or researches) you"
That hits me in so many ways right now!
I think Grant did build two of the TVT, and the one you have is the first one he built and the one in the Kilobaud photo is the school one. If you stop the video at 24:04, and also zoom in on the TVT image from the Kilobaud article, the left side wood grain doesn't match up to grain of the one in the photo. Zooming in on the photo more I can see the order of the switches is different between the video and the photo too: The video has Local, Back, Cursor, Repeat, Protect, while the Kilobaud photo has Fwd?/Back, Cursor/Off?, Repeat, Write?/Save?, Remote/Local.
I think he built your TVT, got it working, used with the Mark-8 that you have, and built a second for the school to access the Nova minicomputer. And since people would see the school one more, he made it look better - professional switch labels, and (just a guess) the metal is unpainted and polished since you can see more reflections in the photo.
This is super interesting to me since I used to live in Santa Barbara, and one of my friends there today lives a couple of miles from the Santa Barbara high school (attended there in the 80's). He says the school probably didn't have a DG Nova onsite, but rather they likely rented time on one from a local timeshare company. In the 60's and 70's Goleta (just north of SB) had many defense contracting companies (including Raytheon) and thus a lot of engineers interested in the computing field. PolyMorphic Computers was a startup that made an S100 computer called the Poly-88, there was a software vendor called Pickles & Trout that sold a version of CP/M for the TRS-80 computers - in a way SB/Goleta was a kind of tiny silicon valley tech hub.
Good job seeing that the wood grain did not match. I was going to bring that up.
Also, the screw placement, and the types used.
Yeah given he called it out as a timeshare system, and that they were interested in offline editing at all, suggested to me it was rented time. If they had their own minicomputer just sitting there, the main use would just be to reduce student downtime as they took turns running their programs. On a timeshare system it's a massive cost saving.
The difgerent wood grain caught my eye too. Didn't see the different labels though.
I'd say the note Grant left inside the TVT wasn't for himself, but for its new maintainer! :)
Personally, I'd do the minimal required to get it back to safe happy functionality, and perhaps flatten the dents/bends in the cover-panels. But I wouldn't want to lose Grant's hand-worn paintwork or replace the original embossed labels.
Yes I think the intent of the labels was definitely for others' benefit. I'm guessing since we know he used a TVT for his school maybe the note and labels were directed at his students.
Hey Brad, it's John!
I am so happy to see this video come out. Just the giddy look you gave in the intro just fills me with joy and I just couldn't wait to finish the video before leaving a comment. I've been waiting in anticipation for this, especially still after the *STEAL* you got these machines for!
Edit: Finally finished watching. Seeing the history you found of the original builder was awesome! I cannot wait to see any future videos featuring these projects! It'd be great if they were restored in working order, but I think keeping the cosmetic age of the chassis keeps it truly authentic.
Right?? Thanks so much for the tip off! Now I'm on a quest to see if I can locate the actual one in the Kilobaud photo, which viewers has different woodgrain and other features compared to this one. Would be amazing if he built a few of these!
@@TechTimeTraveller I'm inclined to think it's the same one - if it went anything like my projects, it might have been a "work in progress" for quite a few years, with various parts being taken out and redone
Wow...just, wow. What a haul. Grats to you.
That TVT really scratches every itch, doesn't it? The woodwork with the scalloped vent holes, the impossibly clean cutout around the keyboard (how many of these old homebrews have we seen where it looks the panel cutouts were gnawed by a wolverine?). Those fantastic rocker switches. Slot headed screws, and even countersunk on the metal panels. Beautiful, just beautiful.
Whatever you do, don't try to repaint it. It'll never look right again.
Thanks!! It is an impressive piece. It's always interesting to me how many hobbyists back then were also good woodworkers and metalsmiths. If there were more than one built, it could be that this TVT was the one that went in for school use, hence the rough exterior.. maybe the one in Kilobaud was his personal unit.
A very touching tribute to one of thousands of unsung heroes at the dawn of home computers
I'm just impressed that people in the 1970s had absolutely no issue with having their home addresses published in a newsletter for all to see... also that someone could afford a house in that neighborhood in Santa Barbara in 1976 on a high school teacher's salary
I don't think it'll help you find anything else about him but the guy that made this thing's full name was Edward Grant Runyan, I found on Google Books his address with the name Runyan, Edward G.was in the California Avocado Society Year Book for several years, it took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize that G could be Grant and Edward wasn't someone else that was related to him.
The town of Carpinteria, just south of Santa Barbara, had many commercial avocado farms in the past, so that checks out. They still have some avocado production, but a lot of land has been turned into housing. afaik they still have a yearly Avocado Festival where you can buy avocado ice cream. (it's good - not great not terrible, just tastes mostly like vanilla with a faint avocado taste)
@@soupwizard He appears to have had several acres the parcel his house was on was actually split in 1987 to create the parcels that all the newer houses on the street were built on. Maybe he had enough space for a little avocado farm.
I still have a whole stack of kilobaud magazine! It was a great publication! I learned the basics of computers, programming, and electronic construction from this mag!
You are truly a Tech Time Traveller. Thank you for this wonderful insight into personal computer history.
Those embossed labels bring back some memories of gadgets my Grandfather who was a Physics Teacher/Ham Radio guy would make. In the early seventies he made a remote control + guts for a TV. My 5yo self... mind blown. I wonder Grant and him (1912 bday) ever exchanged QSL cards.
What was your grandpa's callsign was? I am always happy when i see ham radio mentioned
@@remigiusznowak7277 whisky 7 devious. I'll let you dissect the puzzle. (I if ever make a cask conditioned beer I will use his sign as the name.) I was a bit surprise the internet has him listed in internet archive ham radio call books and FCC radio licensees.
Labels save my life for things I make and use, if anything ive made survives the years I hope they are appreciated and used well.
your tech time capsules are so awesome to hear about. Being in tech as my profession my entire adult life its really cool to hear about the pioneers that paved the way for our modern world. I will be there with you when you restore these to life, it will be great to see them come to life once again. They are in the right persons hands, you will be the best steward of these pieces of history. For what its worth I think you should just get it working, the cosmetics are better left showing the wear, mileage adds character.
So sorry to hear about your dad, My deepest sympathies.
Thank you! Much appreciated.
I remember getting that 1974 Radio Electronics magazine and being so excited by the idea that I could have my own computer. Too young and not enough experience to make it but about 2 years later my dad brought home an Aim-65 single board computer from Rockwell and my love of all things computing took off. After a 40 year career in computers, I am so glad I went down this path. It has always been rewarding and exciting. At least from a technological standpoint. 😊
What cool pieces of history, thank you!
It can only be original once. I literally felt my chest tightening up when you were talking about painting it lol. Fantastic video, what a treasure you have found!
Thank you. Yes that's kind of my philosophy. I always feel a bit queasy with cosmetic restorations because while they make the thing more visually appealing they demolish some of the history. As it is I can say the TV Typewriter's paint is probably the same that Mr. Runyan applied way back when.
This is so wonderful, it's a reminder that computer history isn't just the machines, it's the stories they tell or hide of their time and the people involved with them.
Amazing pieces of personal computing history. I remember reading the construction articles back in the 70s and dreamed of building them both, but was too poor as I was just a teen back then.
Halfway through. Enjoying this quite a bit! I think you should functionally reatore them. But only minimally visually restore things. Give them a good clean and maybe replace the missing keys if you can, but keep the paint wear that it's accumulated over time.
I think minimally restoring them to functionality would be wonderful. It's not like you don't have a pristine unbuilt Mark 8 and your own beautifully restored TVT + the later modified one. I think this TVT connected to the Mark 8 it was built to talk to would be the best thing you could do for it - It's exactly what Mr. Runyan wanted of it, and while he may be gone his dream does not have to be left so desolate.
I hope someday someone will stumble upon this video or later videos in the process and stop to think "That's grandpa's computer!"
It's pretty amazing to get to see the personal project of someone who was truly one of Wozniak's peers. I didnt really even know about computers until four or five years later as a 10 or 11 year old and this era of computing has fascinated me since i was in my late teens.
I think it would be a shame if these machines never worked again, so I think any restoration in the name of functionality is justifiable. Cosmetically you could go either way, but I would try to preserve the original condition wherever reasonable. As a certified vintage keyboard guy I think retrobriting the keycaps on the KBD 1 would be a mistake as these keycaps aren't particularly yellow and retrobrite can go wrong, and from my understanding it is at best a temporary fix.
Many thanks! Yes I've always been a bit hesitant about retrobrite.. some time ago I read something that suggested retrobriting could potentially change the chemical structure of the plastic and make it weaker. I worry the real effects might not be known for years.. after which it would be too late.
Back in the 80s certain people would transmit software ( primary Commodore 64) over ham radio across the world like a phone modem, have a guy that would crack and then other guys to spread it around the world
The Mark 8 is georgeous. It's going to take a lot to work it all out, (I have faith in you), but it will be worth it.
73 was Wayne Green's best publication. It is a lasting legacy to his dedication to sharing his electronics hobby.
Also seems to be uncommon as far as finding back issues goes. I really want to find the Holiday 1976 one that has the Mark-8 in there but no luck yet.
That, sir, was a tremendously interesting video. Thank you very much!👍
Thank Grant!!!😊
Really loved this video- I think breaking it up into two sections at that 51 minute mark would have been a better choice.
I'm looking forward to seeing more about the TV typewriter modifications. I'm really keen on making one up myself at some point, but the shift registers are a bit of a sticking point for me, I've not found anywhere that does them.
Try Electronics Expediters. That's where I got mine from years ago.
@@TechTimeTravellerThanks! I might hit them up. I finished up making the Tele-tennis project from Popular Electronics around the same era, that was a really challenging project none of the of the values and timings quite came out as they were supposed to in the article.
Loved the video by the way! :D
I love the tv typewriter you got. I worked on one as a high school student in electronics class in 1975 ish. It was used in the Newtown pa high school tv studio as a title generator. It got flaky and my teacher had me and an older student to look it over. I remember the delicate stack of boards and wires. It was some mechanical problem and we buttoned it up. But the bug had bitten me. So I began building a 6502 home brew system.. but it all started with that tv typerwriter... fun times... no internet so it was kind of isolated... when you found someone slightly into home brew that was a real treat....
That must have been really cool being involved in the early days of personal computing. Did your school have an actual computer somewhere that the TVT talked to?
Fantastic work!
What a journey! This could easily be a feature exhibit in a "early days of computing" type museum.
I really need to get them running again. So many projects..
I wouldn't repaint, remember some of those wear marks were likely made by Mr Runyan himself.
That's kind of what I'm thinking. Or if this was the one that went to the school, might be the palm prints of many 1970s students. Either way..
How very cool! The Mark-8 Minicomputer is a machine that has fascinated me for a few reasons, partly because it's an 8008 instead of 8080-based machine, and partly because it had so little time to shine. I do hope you are able to restore both machines to working order! After all, computers were meant to compute! And, well, I'd like to see some videos of a Mark-8 in use. 🙂
Correct those electrolytic caps are axial. You don't see those so much anymore. The colorful cap next to the big chip is called a tropical fish cap by pedal builders (guitar effects pedals). Lots of carbon comp resistors which also help date it.
I was late watching this one but I really enjoyed your enthusiasm when going over the human links to the machines!
Brad, really nice job on the video ... I think the quality of videos on topics such as this really shines when there is so much personal interest and enthusiasm about the topic! I am sure if Grant were around today, he would be extremely happy that these pieces ended up in your collection and knowing they were in such good hands. On the question of cosmetic restoration I would definitely vote for leaving as is. I have done some retrobriting/repainting of computers that were not as rare as these and, while it's nice to have them look like the did in their hay day, it takes away from the history to some degree. All of the dents and dings are part of the 40+ year history, so I would leave them. Again, nice job on the video and looking forward to see where you go from here with the TVT and Mark 8.
This is amazing history and historical documentation.
Get them working but keep the appearance original!
Great video.
I followed every step of this era - at the time! mmBYTE,Kilobaud and the others.
I learned so much - starting with TTL, stepping through CMOS, into the earliest LSI chips.
Built Signetics and Zilog hobby stuff, worked with and for DEC (PDP8 and 11 / VAXen), did driver work for Zilog, stumbled around the computer and TV industry for 30+ years… loved every second of it. Used DG, SGI and other platforms.
Wrote some PC software for the TV industry in 2001 that has grown, and is the top product in that vertical market ever since (but my business partner cheated me out after six years) 😔
The whole scene was very small - and personal. We were all learning.
Really cool how much you appreciate someone’s work, frustration, love and craftsmanship within a metal box thumbs up
At 6:48, I noticed that one of my old high school teachers was listed. Don Singer from Forest Grove High School. He was a math / typing / computer science teacher back when my brother and I was still in school.
What a find. Thank you so much for researching this history
400 board sets for a small PCB fab would have been a *huge* order - It is quite reasonable for them to have multiple providers of PCB stock available that they passed through their processes. Remember, in the early days, there was no CNC - Every hole was hand drilled. with a vertical drill, aligned by using a microscope that zoomed on where the drill would come through. I know, because I was involved in a fab in the 80's, and it was manual then. We couldn't do through hole - That was a telltale between the huge fab houses and the small people.
Thank you for this awesome insight. Yes I figured PCB fabs would have supply from various manufacturers.. certainly makes sense. It's been a pet project of mine figuring out the 'marks' of the various substrate makers.. uop (union oil products), tc (taylorclad), etc. I've been trying to figure out whose mark is W or M - they were used on a lot of SWTPC gear. Knowing these has helped me seek out new old PCB stock to make more authentic looking replicas. There's something about the old translucent green.. I've had people argue they still make it that way today but I've yet to find a modern manufacturer that does. Usually brown or yellow green.
This video is my new favorite thing. I encourage you to go read Don Lancaster books. Buy em’ or find them online but either way you gain a lot of insight into his work. I also have read a lot of other authors from the same time period and it’s very clear a lot of authors based books off his work. Some, just out right cite the book Don Lancaster wrote where they found the information in their own books text.
Definitely a full restoration would be a great resource that I'm not the only one who would love to see, I think
Love computer history. I have been interested in computers since the late 1970's ( I was born in 1970). First encountered a computer in 1976 or 1977 which was a Tandy TRS 80 Model 1. I used an Apple IIe up to high school graduation in 1989. Great video.
Many thanks for watching!! I regret I missed the TRS-80.. such an interesting machine. Because we had Commodore PETs in our elementary school I insisted we have a Commodore and my parents ultimately bought a VIC-20. I do have a TRS-80 Mod 1, 2 and 3 and I hope to get to get to those soon. I'm working on replacing some pieces on the Model 3 and am gritting my teeth every time I open it because the CRT neck is so close to the back of the case. I never saw Apple IIs except in school settings as a kid.. in our area they were kind of a upper middle class thing because of the cost.. usually teachers, lawyers etc.
Those aluminum plates remind me of the old aluminum photo print used at the local newspaper back when they printed their own papers instead of sending them off to be printed. They used the plates once then tossed them, lost of folk about town had sheds lined with these plates to keep out the cold North Dakota winds.
I look forward to more videos about these machines, I remember both of them from the days when I had a subscription to Radio Electronics. That was a really good magazine I just wish they had not gone out of business.
Great find! I think that a not too invasive repair is a good thing. I would leave the cosmetics alone, they add a lot to the machine!
You should absolutely attempt to track down the same model TV as shown in that magazine photo with the TVT.
I might just do that.. I think he mentioned the make in the article.. hard to see from photo.
@@TechTimeTraveller It might be another Hitachi model that uses the same chassis: the one in the TVT article is a Hitachi P-04, the text says: "the most desirableis the Hitachi P-04 and has the Hitachi SX chassis ... The SX chassis is also used on models P-03, P-05, P-08, P-53, P-63, S-47, and several others." I found a photo of a P-05 and it looks like the one in the Kilobaud TVT article, no model number on front so no way to tell which model the photo has other than by looks.
You have a knack for finding the rarest of the rare.
Hella awesome video as always. Thanks for the entertainment and good luck with the restoration!
And my condolences about your father - as someone who's had that experience, a project you enjoy to keep yourself busy is an excellent idea.
Incredibly informative video, Brad! 👍👍
@TechTimeTraveller AXial leads go through the AXis of the capacitor's cylinder, so they are exactly centered and have to come out opposite ends; RADial leads are distributed around the RADius of the circular footprint of the part (like the pins in a DIN plug or the leads on a vacuum tube), and so they can all come out the same end. It's harder to see the radial nature of the leads when there are only 2, but they're symmetrically off-center so it's technically correct.
Epic work! Thanks for sharing!
So this device was the real apple 1 ;) by Steve Wozniak?
Fantastic discoveries and I love the human connection. I come from electronic music and am also fascinated by previous owners of my earlier gear and fascinating to see SSM boards. I am sure Mr Runyan would be surprised to say the least and hopefully pleased. Subscribed :-)
Amazing. Real museum pieces.
Great find, grtz. Nice piece of history and someones life. Can't wait to see it being restored.
The feeling of this whole video is 10000% relatable, but also one of those things that's probably impossible to put into words for people who don't get it. Finding a one-of-one piece of history that you find incredibly interesting, but also getting this amount of history specific to the very item you have in your ownership that you never thought you'd find in a million years...that's really the thing we're all searching for. Going down a rabbit hole and piecing together a story for an item lost and forgotten by time that is realistically a very important piece of history and a stepping stone to the world we all live an participate in during its "wild west" era. Really just all gives me chills. Have loved your channel ever since I found it way back when and it only gets better and better. Amazing stuff.
Easy enough to tape off the labels instead of removing them if you want to re-paint the case of the TV typewriter. IMO it's more important to preserve the guts untouched rather then the shell, and I would definately re-paint it, and maybe try to seal off or hide the gaps as well although that might be a step too far. Forget retrobriting the keys, they look great, just clean their contacts underneath and paint the case would be my choice. Grats on your amazing score!
Not very long ago, I got lucky and found both of the books Don Lancaster wrote about the TV Typewriter. I don't know if I'll ever do anything with them, but they have made a nice addition to my reference library.
Hi Brad. I also have an original Mark-8 I obtained in 1976 and restored it in 1999. John Titus gave a presentation at VCF that year which I attended, and I had him *sign* my machine! If you need any help or advise let me know. That is an awesome find!!
Much obliged! If you'd like to connect my email is on the main channel page.. feel free to drop me a line! Always happy to run into another Mark-8 owner!
Looks to me like someone tried to pick up or move the Mark-8 while it was still wired into the power supply. No doubt that power supply Grant had was heavy!
To me, the Mark-8 is too much of an artefact and too bespoke to get working again without undoing or destroying its originality. Of course it would be *wonderful* to see it humming happily again.
Oh, and I remember axial capacitors as being the ones that are arranged like an "axle" on a car (sort of). Fantastic video!
So cool. In 1976 I was 13 y/o. By the time I was 15 I was already very interested in electronics. When I was 17-18 I got interested in computers and bought a TRS-80 Color Computer in late '81. The 70's computers though is uber interesting. However i'll probably only enjoy them through videos like this and software or FPGA emulation.
They are getting kinda scarce these days!
I was 2. 😂
Yes, axial caps into radial board location. I think of a car axle that comes out each side. Sorry to hear about your dad. I hope you are dealing with the loss ok. Good luck with these two gems.
Thank you! Much appreciated.
Amazing!!! These are in the best hands now! Excellent job on the video! Thanks for sharing
Definetely please do a restauration! Thanks for sharing this awesome find. My thought on the second jack on the back: maybe its for screen mirroring so that the class could follow what he was doing on a separate screen?
I swear this first era of home computing feels close and personal compared to anything made after. Aside from old companies like IBM, everybody else making these things were new companies or individuals. I don't think there's ever been another era like it since. I was born in the late 90s so I definitely didn't experience what it was like, although you can still find hobbyists making their own devices today and have those same sort of WIP newsletters, so the hobbyist scene never left but rather the industry blew up and advanced rapidly.
Restoring functionality is a given.
Though I feel cosmetic repairs is something that should be done for these as well. A lot of the damage has clearly come from storage and not the use of the machine itself, unless Grant Runyan was very careless with his machine which I very much doubt. He seemed to have cared for this project a lot.
He made a custom case for it to make it presentable and I'd think that's how he'd want it to be seen.
Its a similar thing to what Museums do with restorations. They might get old medieval chainmails that are missing links, and they actually replace them but try to match them as best they possibly can. But they also make sure to document all of this.
So the items are preserved in video or photography form in the way they appeared when they got to the museum, and then people doing restoration document what parts were replaced and repaired, should they be wished to remove or alter for the future so that the original parts aren't removed.
It would be a process but keeping the original panels with the labels would be an option and then just make a recreation in the same color and same print labels just all new and fresh.
Either that or touching up his original parts. But with the risk of damaging labels and restoring of discolored plastics, metals and paints that might be a hard thing to pull off.
In your search for vintage/antique parts/components that are no longer in production and that have been out of production for many many years, you most likely will end up trying to find components that are either electrically the same or can be added to so they function the same as the original components.
I'm probably a bit older than the Tech Time Traveller, so... it was important to IBM to have their PCs called "Personal Computers," in the 80s, as opposed to a "home computer" or "microcomputer". This is going back to the first "DOS" PC, not just Windows, and I think they'd have trademarked the term if they could have. Years before that(1977), the Atari 2600 was a VCS: "Video Computer System" which is funny, looking back, because it didn't have keyboard and was strictly a "game system".
Also in the 80s, Apple and Apple owners of Apple I, II, IIe and IIc's and Macs were very proud that their microcomputers were NOT PCs! It wasn't really such a matter of pride for C64s, Sinclairs, old Heathkits, etc. Then the "clones" came starting with Compaq, taking over the market very quickly within a couple of years. IBM wanted people to keep calling these work-a-likes "clones," and not "Personal Computers" or "PCs", but of course people are lazy, and saw no reason to differentiate their clones from "real" PCs.
I grew up and went to uni with an Apple IIe. My university had VAX "minicomputers", and I certainly at the time, I and my friends called everything that pre-dated the IBM PC either a "home computer" or a "microcomputer", "personal computer" only got special use beginning with IBM's. We would have discussed the first "microcomputer", if the subject came up. So it's kind of sweet revenge to think IBM lost their battles and now just about every microcomputer system is called a "personal computer". But, it's still hard not to think of "PCs" as anything but 8088 and x86 machines, I go with "microcomputer", myself.
Now you need to buy that TV and convert it for the complete package!
So I guess you need to find that exact Television set now...
The idea of there being Tears in Rain computers is strangely romantic.
I hope I will be building cutting-edge, history-worthy hardware when I’m 60-something, too.
A friend gave me his osi Superboard II and I just fixed it. Comes up with 1977 BASIC prompt. Very similar where I only got the board with a keyboard on it and had to build your own case. He included the case his dad made.
Oh my god! Wow just Fu@&ING wow. I'm 52 and I am feeling out so bad right now and I'm only 4 ish min into it. You have bid wisely. Hahaha. I can't wait to see these beauties running together. Subbed.
This was awesome, thanks!
Back in the mid 1970's I had bought a 6502 CPU from a MOS Technology display booth at a computer show in Atlantic City. It's possible that the WOZ was there, and also bought the CPU for his Apple I at the same show (such was the time line anyway). I didn't know what to do with the chip, and a year later, at a similar computer show, I bought a set of rather large bare PC boards from OSI for their model 400 computer. The CPU board could be populated with 2 28 pin EPROMs, one or two PIA's, your choice of 6501, 6800, 6502, or 6100 (cmos pdp8!) cpu, and 1 kb or 2102 ram (8 or 12 bit wide). There was an uncommitted 40 pin socket position. I later got a 40pin IO/ROM chip (PIA+ROM) from MOS Technology that contained their TIM monitor (same as the DEMON monitor sold by James Electronics in a single board computer dev system). I also got 4, 4kb ram expansion boards (could be populated 8 or 12 bits wide) with 2102 chips, so I had a total of 13kb rom memory. I bought a single board terminal, I forget who made it, but it had a 32 or 64 character by 16 line display, and came with a keyboard. I found a suitable hard foam plastic cabinet for it, and a used B&W monitor with a good CRT in it. This was my first computer. I had tiny basic for the 6502, and a cassette tape drive (used NRZI encoding, NOT audio based). I never got the cassette drive fully working, it would record and play back, but would have needed a bit of hardware and software interfacing to get a serial file system working on it. I kinda wish I never sold that first hardware, would have been fun to get it fully working the way I envisioned, but I bought a Fugerson 'Big Board' Z80 board, and was gifted a bunch of 8" floppy drives, and I had a fully functioning CP/M system by 1980. I kept it until around 1982-3, when it was replaced by an XT clone.
Awesome story! I have a 400 bare board from OSI I hope to build one day. One 6502 machine I'd love to find from the early days is the JOLT, which used the TIM monitor I think. Super crazy rare though. I wonder if your TV Typewriter was the Bay Area TVT by electronics systems? I have one of those thanks to a really generous viewer.
@@TechTimeTraveller No, it was a rather professional looking thing, cost me about $200-300 for the terminal and keyboard PCB's already built and ready to put in a box. I'm familiar with the TVTs, and this was a generation or two ahead of them. I used that terminal for awhile with a basket case LSI-11 (PDP11/03) I got out of salvage piece by piece, when I worked at DEC in the late 1970's.
I typically don't bother with cosmetic restoration save for case parts that are completely missing
I'm partial to that way of thinking too. When I was into vintage cars I preferred vehicles that had perhaps faded or scratched paint that was original vs new. Something about looking at the original thing just works for me.
@@TechTimeTraveller The market agrees with you; it may not have occurred to you that what applies to antiques on the Antiques Roadshow would also apply to cars and old electronic equipment, but certainly a fresh coat of paint has ruined the value of many an antique.
I think it would be best if the missing chips would be replaced by same chips, but NOT missing. The broken connector replaced, and then make a nice wooden cabinet for it. Give this Mark 8 a home he could never dream of. This leaves us in a philosophical dilemma: can computers dream in their free time.
I can give you an answer on that, It is my theory that all logical chips are made out of metals, semiconducting materials, isolators and something special: pieces of wondering souls. How else could stupid machines have made a decision, committed logic to questions. And since we never are certain about the originals of the souls that were used for the logic chips, it could have been the old souls of Chinese factory workers or loved ones closer by. Every computer is a new home for an old soul, and therefore every cabinet for a computer must be made with beauty, because every computer with logic chips is some sort of a temple, it is a shrine!
That is why I am personally working on a nice wooden cabinet for my replica 6502 computer. Sanding it, painting it, and polishing it till it shines. You never know who's souls is in it!
Plywood and sheet metal just screams the 1970s. A visit to the local hardware store (no Home Depot or Lowe's yet) for supplies and a few hours of sawing, drilling and soldering. Hehehe... Nowadays you would 3D print a case. While awesome (and easy), it just doesn't have the same coolness factor as a case like this one.
On the TYT, i'd leave the paint alone (other than a gentle clean), but carefully hammer/flatten out the dents, as those appear to be from poor storage or an accident, not from personal use.
As I recall, there was a certain model black and white TV that was easy to convert to a monitor
so so so so so cool!
Wane Green was founder and editor of 73 magazine so it makes sense that some of the contributors to Kilobaud would also be contributors to 73 magazine.
This is WAY cooler than an Apple I.
"Don't get it right just get it running" car grur David Frieburger
For the TVT repair it to function but leave the patina.
Roadkill is one of my favourite shows ever.
This just broke my history. Wow!
Could you add "#shorts" to the title of your shorts, please? My, and others, interaction with UA-cam is through notifications, and the only way to tell the shorts apart is either the title or the thumbnail, which is not always clear 🙂
And in other news, I'll watch whis one later, can't wait to hear those sexy red levers click!
Done! I forgot to add it to the last couple.
The MCM-70 had an APL keyboard! I never knew there was an micro APL PC [aside from the IBM 5100].
I saw a plan written up from an IBM employee in the 70s proposing they sell APL terminals (with the special keyboards of course) and charge people for time connected to a single mainframe in each city/town, like a "utility". It was a sort of dystopian version of what became the "internet", well, dystopian in the sense that IBM would own every second of computer time and resources.
@@squirlmy It wasn't dystopian, it was what EVERY computer company did with the limited technology of the time.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymnet
I have news for you - big companies still own everything. Who hosts this video?
APL is too difficult for home users, by the way.
Edward Grant Runyon was born October 25th, 1914 in Kentucky and died July 24, 1984 in Fresno. He married Elizabeth Norris Headley in 1953 in Santa Barbara. She was also a teacher, but for Harding Elementary School in Santa Barbara. At the time he built this machine, he lived at 1146 Nirvana Rd. It looks like Elizabeth had been previously married and had a son, Richard Norris Headley.
I was seeing the same on Ancestry websites. We was also a WWII veteran.
I wish I could find a source for those cut-to-fit metal IC headers, they look so wonderful!
I find half my problem with finding stuff like that is just knowing the right name to use. Even that isn't enough sometimes.. 'soldercon' doesn't really bring up anything useful.
Thanks for sharing. I did not expect to watch it all. But it was fascinating. Nice to have so much documentation. I hope it is worth a fortune for you.
50:50 no leave its current cosmetic condition (maybe fix the broken keys if possible) but at this point its a artifact
Props to Grant; RIP
Yeah, that's the same computer as in the newsletter, back in those days you did not have the resources to build... two computers. Sourcing the parts and just getting one was enough. You can be pretty sure it's the same computer. Once you got your hands on one computer, you were on it full time... it's like getting your first sportscar, you're going to drive it and love it... you have no time or interest to build a second one... at least not that soon. Only when it starts to show it's age and become obsolete and you're forced to move on... or upgrade... or build something new... or buy something new.
The 1976 references not when he first got it working or demoed or used, but when he built a case for it and finally considered it "finished" and presentable by building a case for it and clicking out the labels at the same time to label the switches. The 1976 is the year he was clicking the Dymo labeler to make the labels.
It's not like he would of remembered the first date he first read the article, bought the parts, soldered it up, or first got it working... so.. 1976 right then and there he could be sure of so klack it out on the labeler. It's close enough. It as so fringe, we didn't think any of it was ever going... anywhere. We were just freaks and electronic nerds. Pretty much the weirdos and loners in your local high school off in their own world.
It wasn't a special time, it swwcked. We wanted a real computer and had hungry brains and were hungry for information. We would of traded it all in an instance to have anything available today off the shelf or any tiny slice of the internet even though a line webbrowser, never mind the ability to display video... across the internet.
Great video! I remember these articles in PE but i had access to the PDP-10 at ohio state .. i thought who would actualy play with these toys .. a failure of vision!
you weren't alone!