Awesome video! It was great getting a chance to learn more about the context of these systems and some of their common uses. Super stoked to have been able to help out!
Same here - so happy to contribute, and to see this old tech being reviewed and the info shared with others. And... that Seiko watch is very interesting!
My dad seriously had every single one of these. He was a nerd. We had toy-Friday at school from time to time. Kids could bring their favorite toys. My friends had Turtle dolls, He-Man and Transformers toys. I took these pocket computers, because of a lack of transformers. If I asked my dad for a transformer, he would say; "Sure, to what voltage?" My dad gave me an olympic class racing boat when I was 8. I couldn't sail it... I was 8. Love the man.
I am from Pakistan. I received PC-4 (CASIO PB-110) as gift from my uncle (who was doing a nice job of programmer in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) in 1985 when I was in school and since then I came into the world of computer & IT. I still have this model and its working properly. I leaned BASIC as my first language on this model. I am IT instructor & at the start of almost every training session I use to show this model to trainlines as my first inspiration to computer world. It was the life changer gift of my life (CASIO PB-110).
Hi Yasir! Thank you for sharing your story; it's remarkably similar to my own. When I was 10, I was gifted a Casio PB-100 (practically the same as the 110) by a family member who couldn't afford to buy me a Commodore 64. I was so disappointed until I opened the BASIC book that came with the Casio, and it drew me into the world of programming and my subsequent engineering career. That tiny computer changed my outlook on life and I'm still coding 39 years later. Peace from a Swede in California.
But of limited usefulness... I took Calculus 3 in college and despite requiring a TI-89 and being multi variable we rarely used graphs except to learn patterns of exponents. What I really need a better understanding of is root locus... Bonus points if you’ve ever used anything besides a self tuning PID.
I mean I went to high school in the early 2000s and I wish I had something like this, no calculator I could reasonably afford could do anything near this impressive, and by then these things were probably being thrown out in the trash or given away.
Sure, having a pocket computer wasn't the "cool thing" in the 1980s, but having a youtube channel in 2021 with over a million subs where you can review them is pretty darned cool in my books
Absolutely cool! 8-Bit Guy seems to be doing pretty well on the knowledge he has accumulated and is his own boss. The guys who bullied him? They're probably cops with their knee pressed to some guy's neck... :-(
I once witnessed an exchange about how some dude's friends from the back row of the school bus were no longer around, and during the exchange he realized the 'cool kids' just didn't make it to college.
If as an adult you're still weighing yourself up against what children in the 80s said to you decades ago it isn't particularly healthy. Try and move on with your life.
The math textbook showing a basic program actually solves a mystery that I had as a kid! I grew up and was in school in the early 2000s and I remember a few years when we had particularly old math books--the basics of algebra and arithmetic don't exactly change much after all so a book that was 10 or 20 years old was still very much useable. Anyway, a lot of us kids were only familiar with computers from maybe Windows 95 and onward so every once in a while we'd find a page like that which says to type out that program "on a computer" and we never understood what that could mean. I think we even once typed it out into notepad on an (actually very new at the time) Windows XP machine and all watched the screen expecting something to happen--and of course, nothing did. We knew the books were old so surely these new school computers were plenty fast and capable of doing whatever the program was meant to do and it was just a matter of finding the magical keyboard shortcut or icon on the screen to make it magically work I still vividly remember thinking those darn basic program pages were just there to tease us--taunting us to think there was some secret way to make a computer do all of our homework for us and the only reason we couldn't use it was because the teachers were all in some evil alliance and didn't want us to get out of doing our homework.
In the 1980's, BASIC was *the* programming language for home computers. It was usually even built into ROM (or at least distributed on a cartridge or disk along with the operating system). This channel did a video about it: ua-cam.com/video/seM9SqTsRG4/v-deo.html BASIC wasn't a particularly *good* programming language, but its ubiquity and convenience introduced a generation of nerds to programming. The loss of BASIC was lamented in the 2006 article "Why Johnny can't code" (www.salon.com/2006/09/14/basic_2/).
@@danielbishop1863 Actually BASIC was the operating system. If you wanted you commands to be stored as part of program you started with a number then printed the command, ergo the confusion. QBASIC wasn't that bad and resembled Pascal in some ways, but of course it didn't do dual duty as an OS.
@@anthonynorton666 It was an interpreted language so you were inside the BASIC program when you typed commands. I'm fairly sure there would have been an actual OS that the BASIC program ran on. What computer are you speaking of here?
Been there, suffered that ... got over it. In my first year of University I discovered that I was a "late bloomer", when I suddenly added 12 kg of weight and reached 182cm height(*). I had outgrown almost all the high school bullies, but by then I couldn't have care less about them. But it would have been nice to be that tall and heavy in high school. ;-) (* For US people: That's an extra 26 pounds and a height of 6 feet)
Thanks for the trip down memory lane with this video. I was working in Indonesia in the early 80's mapping large areas of former tropical forest logging areas. For 2 years I spent nearly all of my working week sitting at a Sharp 1250 (Tandy PC 2) in a shack in the hutan (jungle). I had a dozen survey teams cutting lines through the forest. After they completed each traverse and I got their field books, I did thousands of survey calculations on the 1250 and plotted the traverses out on the 4 pen plotter in full colour. I wrote my own programs as there was none available and it was a fairly simple thing to do so. This little gadget was a true workhorse and saved me a lot of time and drudgery.
Interesting today how pretty that same stuff can be done at the snap of a finger on these modern machines. Doesn't mean that old is bad but they were a workhorse for their time.
That is awesome. Adjacent to the field I find myself in, LiDAR/Geospatial. My boss is a photogrammetrist and surveyor. When I first met him (before the LiDAR company) he used a software called BINGO to solve photogrametry projects that was ancient, but amazing at what it did. He made a killing haha.
and you boast that you were helping loggers destroy the rainforest with a dozen cutting teams?, lol, you monster, were part of the problem in cutting down the rainforests, future generations thank you for that loss i bet LUL
@@Ovalbugmann Your grasp of English is not that strong, is it? I said I worked in FORMER forest logging areas. They were already degraded and trashed areas which contained little timber, just mainly thin, green and thorny regrowth. We were mapping the land to aid the planning for its future use. This was to resettle internal transmigrants from overpopulated Java to the sparsely populated outer islands. It was a massive World Bank funded aid programme. These are now successful agricultural areas, with thriving villages. I didn't boast of anything other than the usefulness of these little pocket computers. Get your targets lined up correctly before you tee off.
I remember in the 80's, in physical science courses the instructors would allow calculators for exams, and then some them got frustrated when they found out some of their students were using pocket computers programmed to do the math for the problems. This caused calculators to be inspected prior to exams.
I’m 29 so my experience with tech go back to using old computers, like macs and then PlayStation 1. But I have always had a fascination with older tech. You and Lazy Game Reviews are honestly my favorite channels for learning about retro hardware.
From one nerdy kid in from the 80s to another, I know what it was like. Look where you've ended up now. I love your videos, dude! Very excited to see episodes out of the new studio. All the best
The last time I was severely bullied (in middle school), I snapped at the guy, shoving him into a metal barrier (thus making a loud noise), and proceeded to tell the guy off. Everyone left me alone after that. When I was in high school, I learned that if you could make the jocks and tough guys laugh, they'd scare off the other idiots in a bullying mood. I soon became a master at "stealth sit-down comedy" and would have them in stitches. The teachers never understood what was so funny.
Very relatable, and I went to elementary school in 2000. Even back then being nerd was uncool, at least in my school. Had to listen allkinds of crap for next 9-10 years.
Well, my bullying mostly came to an end in the 8th grade when I finally punched one of them in the face and we ended up in a drawn out fight before teachers broke it up. I got a few bruises too, but I think once word got around, especially seeing my primary bully walking around school with a black eye, the other bullies immediately left me alone. If I could go back in time, I would have done that in the 6th grade and saved myself 2 extra years of torment.
and when Casio felt that one of their musical instruments (capable of a UK No.2 hit) had to incorporate a calculator ua-cam.com/video/xqTBlft8gQA/v-deo.html The Casio VL1 is heard from the beginning and seen in action after 80 seconds.
Being a nerd and/or geek as a teen in the early 2000's was no cakewalk either. Some days I'd surprised I made it out of that hellhole without snapping under the pressure I had from school and broken homes (divorced parents was bad enough, add on top of that bad blood brewing in between parts of the family that I liked...).
Hearing Dave talk about being bullied resonated with me. Amazing how he built an amazing life for him self and his family dispite the bullying . Good job man. Inspiration to us all.
If you can't get a job and build a family, it's not because someone pushed you in the hallway in school or called you a mean name or something. So him being a normal adult and a functioning member of society isn't a miracle because he got treated bad by some kids in school years ago, or ever tbh.
@@Colt45hatchback Go to a place where it is easy to find a good paying job with no education (ie the oil patch in Alberta) and you'll find those same bullies continue to do all of the same things they always did --being needlessly disrespectful, insulting, and unprofessional with everyone outside their little group. People don't change unless life finds a way to humble them.
My grandpa gave me a PC-3 pocket computer in 1st grade and I spent hours on my bedroom floor going through the owner's manual learning how to program in Basic. I loved that thing! So many fond memories! I remember I especially loved that I could sneak a computer to church in my pocket so I could sit in the back row and play with it instead of paying attention to the sermon lol Such a versatile little machine!
I'm sorry to hear you had a rough time in school. I hope you're doing better now. If it helps, I'm sure there's loads of us out here on the internet who love your videos!
My school, once they found out you were a "nerd", you got put into the advanced classes and helped with all the AV equipment in other classes. There was no hiding from the bullies.
As someone who was relentlessly bullied in school too, I'm sorry you had to go through all that, and can absolutely relate. Best of luck moving to the new studio :)
At the reunion: Adult nerd 1: "Where's your bully nowadays?" Adult nerd 2: "He's incarcerated for first degree murder... And yours?" Adult nerd 1: "Mine is the CEO of Oracle now. He didn't change."
The aside about being a nerd, that shows how behind the times I was when I asked my brother once if he lets his kids take their smartphones to school because my first thought was some jackass is gonna steal them or break them. But all the kids carry their phones everywhere with next to no fear of something happening and it's still a weird thing to me. I was one of the artsy metalheads in high school but I still had an interest in this stuff so the nerds knew they were safe around the guy with long hair wearing ripped jeans and a leather jacket. :-)
Same story here mate! My 7 y/o son is considered as wierdo, 'cause I'm not letting him taking his smartphone to school (here, in Poland, 7 y/o equals 1st grade)... And I'm being called "a dinosaur" (I'm 34 at the moment of writing this post ;) )
That's just crazy if parents are giving their kids smartphones before they are even literate enough to write a coherent sentence. I guess they don't care these days about adult-content internet filtering or preventing their kids from dropping the phone in a toilet.
@SteveEarl I've had my first phone when I was fourteen (It was Motorola Timeport if I remember correctly) - it was year 2000, when I was 1st year in middle school. Back then - I've been treated as a kid with cellphone and it was something wierd. Nowadays, kids are being born with all of this electronic stuff. I must admitt - it has some advantages (my son learned to read when he was three thank to youtube & peepa pig), but there are some disadvantages (he rather prefers playing on a phone or computer than going out and play with other kids on playground). On the other hand - there's noone to play with cause all of the kids are in homes playing on a computer or phone :(
You are all making me feel old. It doesn't seem that long ago when it was a talking point that a relatives 15 year old wanted a mobile phone for Christmas. I didn't get one myself until 1999 and still don't have a Smartphone. There again when at secondary school there was a fellow "nerd" (a term that didn't exist back then) who I only remember as "The Kid with the Digital Watch". Say that to any other kid who went to the electronics club and they all knew who I meant.
I hear you! I always make a snack right before I turn them on! I wish there was one every single day! lol It's like the History class of technology, I wish I had in school!
As you said, it's true that everyone now carries a computer in their pocket. But I'm saddened by the fact that few users care about how their modern pocket computer works or how to program it. Modern pocket computers are designed to actively discourage users from taking them apart and knowing how they work. We gained something in 40 years, but we also lost something.
The reason you are discouraged from opening it up is that it's an incredibly dense piece of advanced technology and opening it would accomplish nothing and ruin it. You are, however, encouraged to write apps for it, and are given all the tools and tutorials to do so for free, which millions do.
@@andreiandrosoff1327 I agree that app development is booming. But about ruining things -- somehow I've been taking apart dense, advanced devices for years without ruining any of them. But I'm just a random college kid, so I don't speak for everyone. I've definitely learned a lot about electronics by seeing how the newest phones and laptops are constructed, so I think there is something to be accomplished. Some friends think I have some sort of magical knowledge about how this stuff works, but I just tell them: the screws are there, all you have to do is not be scared to take them out. Dropping a small, light PCB on the ground usually does less physical damage than dropping a heavier glass-clad device, so your phone is probably farther from ruin while it's taken apart.
It is also true that while some of those are still working 30+ years later, the computers in your pocket will probably not be. Besides the strongly encouraged network connections, the storage media just won't last that many read/write/erase cycles.
Yeah the fact that many own a smart phone is no sign that people are using it for more than sending notes (just switched from paper to electronic) and other stuff "normal" people already did back then, it's not like most people are programming them. Nerds still do nerdy stuff.
@SteveEarl I hate crappy apps too and the lower bar to entry makes those very common. It is a good thing, though, that our devices are orders of magnitude more capable and that more people can write apps that do useful work. And good apps rise to the top and are easy to find. The ideal is not so much intimate knowledge of the hardware, but well-designed layers of abstraction and skillful users of each layer. The fact that computers were the realm of true nerds in the 80s probably did increase average software quality, but the software and hardware were so rudimentary and in the hands of so few that it didn't really matter anyway.
This brought to me heartfelt memories of when my grandfather used to teach me the basics of basic using one of these with its docking station programming a lotto (an Italian lottery) simulation. Thank you for the smile it brought to me :) Ps thanks God my grandfather is still doing great (and still a geek inside)
Interesting video. I was at high school in England in the ‘60s. My “computers” were a slide rule and log tables. The bullies didn’t want those, they just wanted to bully me for bullying’s sake.
As someone who was also bullied for their height (or rather, lack thereof), I'm glad to see you're doing alright these days. Absolutely loving the content, and I wish only the best for your channel!
I didn't have these as a kid, but I remember really wanting them. I thought they would be magical, but in reality, I think I would have gotten bored with them inside of a week.
I think so too, glad i waited till high school with TI graphing calculators like the Ti-83, and learned you could download, and put games, and cheat programs onto them with the serial link cable kit, and I quickly became somewhat popular for also having the Calculator to Calculator link cable to share those programs with kids who did not have access to the internet at home yet, or the link cable software. Tetris, Mario, and Drug Wars where the most popular games around my high school for the TI-83.
It has the same Alps mechanism as a lot of the other small eighties plotters, like the Commodore 1520 (of which I have multiple and also sets of plotter pens) and the Atari 1020. The major problem with these is that the pinion gear splits. Luckily now that there are 3D printers, you can finally replace them. I saved my first plotter for a long time hoping for a solution to come up. It is really cool to watch them in action, it bangs the carousel against the left edge to rotate another pen color into place.
I really appreciated the personal story at the end. I had a similar experience. I remember wearing the my Psygnosis shirts to junior high. I thought they were the sickest things ever, but to bullies I was either into computers or prog rock, either of which made it clear I was there to get bullied and chew bubble gum... And I was all out of bubble gum. 😕
Man, America's seriously weird. That's just not something that happened in Australia - not when I was growing up, anyway; the whole nerds-and-jocks thing is demented. Not to say bullies aren't a thing, of course they are, but sporty kids are as likely to be bullied if they're thick as bookish kids are for being feeble. Generally bullies are considered to be the lowest of the low and wind up as targets for a kicking themselves...
@@bmacpher I'm Canadian, but you're probably right that the nerds and jocks thing is more prevalent in the states. Tho now that the nerds go onto make most of the money, that may have changed. It sounds like the best way to get by down under is to be well rounded, which seems more sensible. And yes, bullies are typically the most insecure of the lot, and probably treated poorly at home, but that took time for me to understand
It'll be fine. I'm sure we'll get used to the new studio pretty quick. And besides, this isn'h the first time he moves to another studio. The first few years he had his "studio" inside a closet.
I want to go back in time and tell that kid that all his quirkiness and computers knowledge will someday make him the coolest dude there is. And I have 1.23M people to back that up
Wow!!!! I still have my CASIO PB-700 right here in my hands, in a pristine looking and still working since Engineering University, back in the 80s - and can still code in BASIC just as before!
My experience with being a “nerd” in school was being put into gifted classes and then students and teachers alike being dumbfounded when I didn’t know the answer to something. “You’re in the smart kid class, why don’t you know this?!” and such. Lots of other bullying went on at my school but it usually didn’t have to do with someone being a “nerd” or not, at least that was how I perceived it.
This happened when I moved from an urban school to a rural one. Being an average kid in the city school, the rural kids thought I was some kind of super-genius because I knew what the word "feces" meant, lol
In the 70's, having a programmable calculator meant that you were so geek that the bullies did not notice you at all. It was like being on a different plane of existence... But you were bullied by the other geeks.
that looks like a usa experience. In the UK we have a mix of textbooks / testbooks that are pitched at different levels of learning acquistion (a term of mine that is better than nerd or gifted), mostly in maths, science and english / languages. Classes that grasped the basics quicky would be grouped (or tables in classes set) appropritate stuff, some was just tough to do and it was rare for anyone to correctly complete everything. ( I could do the number work but not when problems were phrased differently or expected a known solution method to be applied to a particular problem ). PS I still cannot use fx calculators I found them a pain to use. I suppose If I was working in an environment like electronics that used a set of equations to solve for a particular need consistently It could be useful for me.
My dad had a pilot, he find it on a garbage can malfunctioning, he is an electronic engineer so he repaired and used to read a lot of books in the early 00s.
Partway into the video, you may have mentioned this, you may not have, but in the original Ghostbusters, Egon is crunching numbers and statistics on one of these pocket computers (y'know, it may have been a Casio...) after running out of the library, after the library ghost scared them. Harold Ramis, who played Egon, was reportedly fascinated with the thing, and loved playing with it between takes. Edit: Looked it up, it's a PC-4 apparently. ghostbusters.fandom.com/wiki/PC-4_Calculator#:~:text=A%20PC%2D4%20Calculator%20(also,the%20University's%20Paranormal%20Studies%20Laboratory.
Such model is CASIO PB-110 (ps-4) which i was usingin mid 80 during my school days gifted by my uncle from Saudi Arabia (i am from PAKISTAN). It is still working nice.
That part about bulling in school brings up so many bad memories. I still wonder why adults does nothing with that. The whole school was about double standards: teachers told you something and everything was exactly opposite the moment you leave the classroom. Just like a real world, though :)
Oh yes, the number of times I went to the teacher to report something and was told "stay away from them". This after being told to "report a bully" etc. How am I to stay away from them? They actually go looking FOR you.
I had a Brother BP-30 "computer" typewriter that used those same exact pens. You could actually make "full color" pie and bar charts. Used that thing till it died. RIP
Great video! As someone from the UK I was introduced to the Casio computers with my uncle's FX-720P in 1987 where you could play a game that beeped that much you could really annoy everyone around you :) In Christmas 88, aged 13, I got the FX-730P and spent many happy years with it- I wouldn't be the developer I am now without it!
I appreciate these videos. As someone born in 1982 I remember a lot of this tech- but wasn't old enough to understand it in the context I can now. It's somewhat nostalgic to see them- but at the same time it allows me to fill in my memories with understanding I couldn't have realized them. Like fleshing out my own childhood memories with additional lore.
Coincidentally I just featured my HP 100LX on my channel for DOScember, and now David talks about pocket computers. What are the chances? I found mine only a few years ago but I could imagine how great it would have been back in the day!
I was the shortest throughout my schooling, bullied from 5 years old to the day I left as early as I could at 16. The bullies ensured that I couldn't do well and go to university. So I feel for you.
I used to have the PC1 and the PC2...and I had the printer and docking station for the PC2 as well! Unfortunately my car got broken into and it all got stolen! I still have the PC7 and found my data cassette recorder just the other day in a box in my basement! I use it in my garage as a calculator! But I put all that aside when I got my HP calculators...Speaking of calculators, I had an HP-67 in 1978 or there abouts. and portable computers? Epson had an HX20 back in the 80s. It was a competitor to the Tandy Model 100!
I’d love to see the watch powered back on and shown off. Sort of motivates me to check some thrift stores for old tech. Plus this ain’t cheap online. I could buy a iPhone 8 for the price of some of these pocket computers.
I'm sorry you had such a rough time in school, Guy. I hope you're happy now. I love your channel man, and it looks like over a million other people do too.... I want to start working on commodores now. :)
Got a Sharp PC-1401 (IIRC). Nerd of the nerds, in high school I dug out a summary of the CPU machine language and after a lot of trials & errors, eventually POKE-d a procedure to save/load small BASIC programs into/from the unused memory.
Can Confirm: Being into computers or video games in the 80s made you the EXACT OPPOSITE of cool in grade school. I NEVER brought any of my electronic things to school for fear of what might happen to them.
Late 1970s we had one computer in the school - calculators were allowed and there was a certain class difference in what ones parents could afford to buy ! Anyway the computer was a Philips with a cassette input and a dot matrix or similar , as there were some folk that basically (sic) crowded round it I gave up as I could not see much point. By the 1980s schools were being encouraged by the BBC to get computers (either theres or the undelying Acorn computer). But I had left and was using VAX computers to churn out graphs.
@@highpath4776 I'm very fond of my Acorns. By the time I was in school in the 90's it was all Acorns with the odd BBC tucked into a corner forgotten. I spent many lunctimes avoiding the playground and programming the BBC's that "surviced" (I had to convince the german language teacher I was actually running one of the german games ;)
@@highpath4776 You sound to be about the same age as me (58). The advantage of our schools Busicom computer was that it used pre-perf punch cards so you could get on with programming using nothing more than a card and a ball point pen to push the chaffs out. I recall going to a kids house (whose parents certainly weren't rich) to see the top of the range Commodore calculator they had bought him as was so expensive they wouldn't let him take it to school. No such problem with my £10 Prinztronic Mini-Scientific.
@@MrDuncl (aside from please remove that hideous number...!!) . Printz - was that the Dixons cheap own brand stuff. I have a couple of casios somewhere. I have used comptrollers for additons etc, but could not explain how they worked. Other computers for a while were specialist - Xerox print setters and word processors and I think Gestetner did an odd printer linked machine for high speed (relatively) replicated output and storage. I learned principles of punch card , and I could read a bit of punch tape on the Vax inputs and storage.
Thanks for being vulnerable and sharing those personal bits about your experience in school in the 80s. I really do hope some of those bullies see now that you've got over a million subscribers and are making your living embracing the thing they literally bullied you for -- the height of 1980s nerdiness. Kudos.
I had a Psion 3 in the 90's, similar to the Compaq machine. I was amazed, it was like a little laptop. Happy New Studio! Update: I saw, many of us mentioned Psion. If you make an episode on 90's pocket computers, you shouldn't miss them.
Loved my Palm Pilot. Had my contacts, calendar and kept track of my files/tasks in it. Also had a Zaurus but found the PP to be much more useful. They are both downstairs in their original boxes with all the peripherals, and still work.
Great episode! As a young professional, I loved my Palm Pilot! And in high school and college, I loved my Sharp EL-5500-III (PC-1403) pocket computer! It could do matrix math and I wrote a BASIC program to solve quadratic equations and to answer other tough math problems. I just kept adding routines and a main menu to choose between them. My teachers never knew that my calculator was doing all the hard work for me! I still have the pocket computer!
I like this video. Having been born over two decades after the 80s, I obviously have no memory of pocket computers- other than smartphones and such. Learning about the past is interesting, and I wish I could experience life in that time.
I had a PDA that I loved because I could store text on it. It was great for a week’s worth of class notes. I’d delete portions after I’d committed them to memory. I remember wishing I could have, like, 300 pages of notes!
I hadn't thought about this before, but it's amazing that TI only started releasing graphing calculators in 1991, considering how ubiquitous they were in math education by 96 or so. Obviously, not the point of the video, but interesting nonetheless.
There are other videos about that. They dumped a bunch of money into getting their stuff required in schools. Now they have a near monopoly on the educational market. Even regular non-graphing scientific calculators are recommended to be a TI in schools. Not that there is a lot of difference between basic scientific calcs from other companies.
I’m in my 50s now. It turns out that most of the bullies that I knew in childhood are living miserable lives now, and the rest are dead. Karma is real.
@@3dlabs99 All my bullies now have a better life that what I can ever hope for actually. I have been stuck on minimum wage for over 20 years with emotional trauma and loneliness, none of them even started on that.
@@eggcluck Same here lol. Got bullied in the 90s for being the only one having a computer (not even talking pocket computer, full desktop!) and I was the only one of my class who made it through all the 13 years and could have gone to the university (the pro side of being a nerd), but actually then I couldn't because neither my parents nor I myself could afford that. And AFAIK all the others have found jobs, got a better degree afterwards, have married and so on while le me only managed to have an apprenticeship and almost completely lose his eyesight afterwards, resulting in being stuck unemployed and alone... if there's something in life that does _not_ work - it's karma! :D
@@eggcluck Damn.. I was hoping for some kind of justice.. Guess that doesnt really exist. I am probably totally wrong about the nerds getting paid more. I saw other comments about the bullies also get paid more because they are more aggressive when talking about the money... damn...
I remember the good old days of pocket computing. I learned BASIC on a Tandy Pocket Computer PC-1 when I was around 11 years old. My dad got me the cassette adapter which was essential if you wanted to save any programs, because the built-in memory was only around 1k.
Can’t remember the model but my dad got me this “smart watch” back in 1987 or so, might have been a Samsung or Tandy, wish I could remember. It got me through my last year of high school and not a single teacher knew what I had on it. ;-)
Yeah i think i have read about the MK85 before. It was provided as a gift at a communit party gathering i think. Pretty much a Soviet clone of the Casio shown as PC-7.
I just found your channel its wonderful, bullies suck I'm sorry you went through that. I so much love your content. It's hard to find stuff like this.. I live tech history 💗
You summed up my school experience perfectly. As a nerd in the 80's, it wasn't cool to be into computers or anything like that. These little devices always intrigued me, thanks for showing the docking stations, please do a video on the smart watch, THAT is super cool :D
At the risk of getting into a battle over definitions, I'll point out that the Texas Instruments SR-52 was an earlier pocket computer (1975). It was programmable, handled branching logic, and could store and load programs from magnetic strips. Very limited memory and no graphics, but had the key functional elements of a computer and "pocket" form factor size.
While technically you are right, what made the PC-1211/TRS-80 PC (that was its name, P was still pocket and not personal) seem more "computerish" than a calculator was its BASIC. Calculations were also made via an expression parser, not via AOS (TI) or RPN (HP). This said, when looking at the press of that time, the categories were: pocket computer/programmabkle calculators on one side and home and personnal computers on the other side. Magazines would talk about HP-41, TI-59, Sharp PC-1211 and Casio FX-702P as being in the same market.
@@galier2 Yes, glad you mentioned HP's RPN. My college roomie had an HP-65 in 1975. It had an input language (pretty much just a buffer for HP-65 commands in RPN), storage registers, logic functions, most of the standard scientific calculator functions, and a built-in magnetic "card" reader that could store short programs to magnetic strips roughly the size of the stripe on the back of a credit card now. The only thing it really lacked compared to these items described above was that it only had the single row of red LED's for output. It did lack "affordability", costing about 4-1/2 times the cost of a month's room and board for a student! That would be just about US$4000 today. Per the Wikipedia article, an HP-65 was taken into orbit by the Apollo crew during the Apollo-Soyuz test project as a backup for the onboard computer.
I had one and i would consider a device which only capabilities to calculate numbers without text an electronic 'slide rule', but not a computer. Sadly it got defect :( The TI-59 i have as successor has very limited text-capabilities (Text-prompts for Input when used with the printer device) so together with the HP-49 it marks the transition from calculator to computer
I remember seeing one of these in a store that sold Atari computers. My friend got me into buying an Atari ST in 1987 because I could not afford a real Mac. Then I bought a real Mac in 1991 and now I have hundreds of Macs. Should have bought one of those portable Atari's.
At age 13 I remember seeing Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters using Radio Shack PC-4 (I didn't know exactly what model it was at the time) - I wanted one so much.
When I was a young man in the 1980's I bought my girlfriend a PC-1 (Well the Sharp branded version, I'm in the UK). I thought it was a fantastic throughtful gift, and really I wanted one myself, but she was less impressed and we didn't last long after that.
Great video! I had a Sharp PC-1211 in the eighties and kept it with me for about 20 years. Unfortunately, the LCD screen leaked and the pocket computer became useless. If I could have found a replacement LCD I would certainly get it. I loved that machine. Programming in BASIC was fun. I know these machines don't appeal to kids today, but they were part of our school or university days.
The Psion Organiser I came out in 1984 with the II in 1986. The II had a basic like language called OPL, both supported rom cartridges for third party software. I assume that they were not readily available in the USA being made by a British company.
Oh crap. Taking the back off that watch, brought up memories. That's what happened to my Casio Space Warrior. I tried to repair it. I cried and my brother bought me a new one. 😊😊😊💪📙
20:00 - Similar story: In grade 10, I took a typing class and got harassed by bullies for "taking a girl's class", homophobic, insults, etc. But come grade 11 when the school got Apple II+ computers, I was typing in programs quickly. The bullies whined, "can you help us?" to which I said, "you should take a typing class."
Same here. I’m not a sporty guy in school. While choosing my subjects, I had choose either sewing or football. Naturally, I choose sewing, and later became an expert. Even the teacher and the girls were impressed. I’ve told them that the sewing machine is just another tool.
@@thorable530 You're so proud of your ignorance that you're willing to display it. www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/03/meet-historys-most-brilliant-female-coders/
@@guessundheit6494 That's interesting! In the 2000s and 2010s, gaming and electronics in general were associated with guys. I was weird for being a girl who could type quickly and enjoyed games which weren't specifically "girls games". Wasn't bullied at all for it though, in fact it was the only thing that made me cool.
love these! growing up in the 90s during the window where basic died and nothing replaced it in our school discovering these and following examples from books in the library were my first steps. Also loving T2
I was in the Tandy store with my dad back in 1987 and ready to buy a pocket TRS80 or whatever due to scoring all As on my report card, enthralled by computers and programming, but being so poor as to not have electricity connected, nor being able to afford a "proper" computer. As fate would have it my 5th grade teacher was in the store that afternoon and convinced my father to buy a Tandy 1400LT instead. A wise decision. I taught myself BASIC, Pascal (Turbo) and Assembly (TASM/MASM) on that thing, all during high school, until I was able to buy my own 486 in 1995 and enrol in uni. I am now a software engineer, and very grateful that my teacher was in the store that day. I still have the 1400LT, and it still works.
Awesome video! It was great getting a chance to learn more about the context of these systems and some of their common uses. Super stoked to have been able to help out!
Same here - so happy to contribute, and to see this old tech being reviewed and the info shared with others. And... that Seiko watch is very interesting!
Yea same
😊
this is for you: ⭐
@@onedeadsaint 😈
Bullies then: Haha you have a pocket computer
Bullies now: Haha you don't have a pocket computer
Well... its a laptop now
Ha-ha !
@@DigitalHandle shell phones
@@AsbestosMuffins Cell phones, but yeah
@@GuyHayardeny r/whoosh
My dad seriously had every single one of these. He was a nerd.
We had toy-Friday at school from time to time.
Kids could bring their favorite toys.
My friends had Turtle dolls, He-Man and Transformers toys.
I took these pocket computers, because of a lack of transformers.
If I asked my dad for a transformer, he would say; "Sure, to what voltage?"
My dad gave me an olympic class racing boat when I was 8.
I couldn't sail it... I was 8.
Love the man.
I still have a PC-7 on my desk to this day! (still works 32 years later) (oh and DID take mine to school every day cuz I don't give no f's)
I still have my PC-2 with the cassette/plotter docking station. :-)
The biggest flex at school
Oh hello good sir. Give my greetings to Bud! :D
The PC-2 was my constant companion in high school.
I like you Ben.
I am from Pakistan. I received PC-4 (CASIO PB-110) as gift from my uncle (who was doing a nice job of programmer in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) in 1985 when I was in school and since then I came into the world of computer & IT. I still have this model and its working properly. I leaned BASIC as my first language on this model. I am IT instructor & at the start of almost every training session I use to show this model to trainlines as my first inspiration to computer world. It was the life changer gift of my life (CASIO PB-110).
Beautiful story brother.
Hi Yasir! Thank you for sharing your story; it's remarkably similar to my own. When I was 10, I was gifted a Casio PB-100 (practically the same as the 110) by a family member who couldn't afford to buy me a Commodore 64. I was so disappointed until I opened the BASIC book that came with the Casio, and it drew me into the world of programming and my subsequent engineering career. That tiny computer changed my outlook on life and I'm still coding 39 years later. Peace from a Swede in California.
Being able to correctly plot 3D graphs with a pocket computer back in the early '80s is very impressive, especially in multiple colours.
But of limited usefulness... I took Calculus 3 in college and despite requiring a TI-89 and being multi variable we rarely used graphs except to learn patterns of exponents.
What I really need a better understanding of is root locus... Bonus points if you’ve ever used anything besides a self tuning PID.
@@peterg.8245 You mean you don't just put in a guess and then adjust from the response in the simulation?
I mean I went to high school in the early 2000s and I wish I had something like this, no calculator I could reasonably afford could do anything near this impressive, and by then these things were probably being thrown out in the trash or given away.
Sure, having a pocket computer wasn't the "cool thing" in the 1980s, but having a youtube channel in 2021 with over a million subs where you can review them is pretty darned cool in my books
He also writes games and software that people pay for, which is also incredibly cool.
in the mid to late 70's, me and my friends had our slim pocket calculators and 110 format slim cameras!
Pocket computers in the 80s were much cooler than they are now. Now, they're just a fact of life.
Absolutely cool! 8-Bit Guy seems to be doing pretty well on the knowledge he has accumulated and is his own boss.
The guys who bullied him? They're probably cops with their knee pressed to some guy's neck... :-(
@@if66was99 that went from 0 to 100 real fast
The good thing about being a nerd in the 80's is that you actually knew all those bullies were dumb and history has proven you right.
I once witnessed an exchange about how some dude's friends from the back row of the school bus were no longer around, and during the exchange he realized the 'cool kids' just didn't make it to college.
Yep !
@@shiftedphase keep telling yourself that. They’re enjoying having a great social life a million times more than you’re enjoying your job
Yes, says Bill Gates.
If as an adult you're still weighing yourself up against what children in the 80s said to you decades ago it isn't particularly healthy. Try and move on with your life.
The math textbook showing a basic program actually solves a mystery that I had as a kid! I grew up and was in school in the early 2000s and I remember a few years when we had particularly old math books--the basics of algebra and arithmetic don't exactly change much after all so a book that was 10 or 20 years old was still very much useable. Anyway, a lot of us kids were only familiar with computers from maybe Windows 95 and onward so every once in a while we'd find a page like that which says to type out that program "on a computer" and we never understood what that could mean.
I think we even once typed it out into notepad on an (actually very new at the time) Windows XP machine and all watched the screen expecting something to happen--and of course, nothing did. We knew the books were old so surely these new school computers were plenty fast and capable of doing whatever the program was meant to do and it was just a matter of finding the magical keyboard shortcut or icon on the screen to make it magically work
I still vividly remember thinking those darn basic program pages were just there to tease us--taunting us to think there was some secret way to make a computer do all of our homework for us and the only reason we couldn't use it was because the teachers were all in some evil alliance and didn't want us to get out of doing our homework.
In the 1980's, BASIC was *the* programming language for home computers. It was usually even built into ROM (or at least distributed on a cartridge or disk along with the operating system). This channel did a video about it: ua-cam.com/video/seM9SqTsRG4/v-deo.html
BASIC wasn't a particularly *good* programming language, but its ubiquity and convenience introduced a generation of nerds to programming. The loss of BASIC was lamented in the 2006 article "Why Johnny can't code" (www.salon.com/2006/09/14/basic_2/).
@@danielbishop1863 Actually BASIC was the operating system. If you wanted you commands to be stored as part of program you started with a number then printed the command, ergo the confusion. QBASIC wasn't that bad and resembled Pascal in some ways, but of course it didn't do dual duty as an OS.
haha i remember finding out that one could use qbasic in windows 98. suddenly lots of old computer books were usable.
@@anthonynorton666 It was an interpreted language so you were inside the BASIC program when you typed commands. I'm fairly sure there would have been an actual OS that the BASIC program ran on.
What computer are you speaking of here?
@@andrina118 Tandy line of TRS-80s including the Color Computers, and aren't all OS commands interpreted, since they aren't compiled?
Great non-pocket sized video! And may we all wish your old studio a happy retirement 🍾
Any future plans for a Retro Recipes kitchen addition?
@@JohnSmith-xq1pz Right now just hunkerng down and cooking up recipodes! 👍🕹
@@RetroRecipes Sounds good. I look forward to sampling them when there served up
Did anyone else’s heart really go out to him when he was describing about his times getting bullied?
Oh yeah.
More than "heart" ... My nerve system collapsed for a moment.
Yeah, I could feel my latent PTSD twitching.
I know his pain, far too well to be comfortable talking about it.
Been there, suffered that ... got over it.
In my first year of University I discovered that I was a "late bloomer", when I suddenly added 12 kg of weight and reached 182cm height(*). I had outgrown almost all the high school bullies, but by then I couldn't have care less about them. But it would have been nice to be that tall and heavy in high school. ;-)
(* For US people: That's an extra 26 pounds and a height of 6 feet)
"Now, Matteo asked me not to open these since they were still factory sealed, but....." *i panic* "....at least you can get a look at them"
yeah that was a very intense moment (:
"Now, Matteo asked me not to open these since they were still factory sealed, but..... I went ahead and shorted the pens with a paper clip"
Thought we were about to have a paper clip situation
Perifractic would have made us think he had opened it and thrown away the packaging.
@@raggededge82 Oof. Yeah, that was... something.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane with this video. I was working in Indonesia in the early 80's mapping large areas of former tropical forest logging areas. For 2 years I spent nearly all of my working week sitting at a Sharp 1250 (Tandy PC 2) in a shack in the hutan (jungle). I had a dozen survey teams cutting lines through the forest. After they completed each traverse and I got their field books, I did thousands of survey calculations on the 1250 and plotted the traverses out on the 4 pen plotter in full colour. I wrote my own programs as there was none available and it was a fairly simple thing to do so. This little gadget was a true workhorse and saved me a lot of time and drudgery.
Interesting today how pretty that same stuff can be done at the snap of a finger on these modern machines. Doesn't mean that old is bad but they were a workhorse for their time.
That is awesome. Adjacent to the field I find myself in, LiDAR/Geospatial. My boss is a photogrammetrist and surveyor. When I first met him (before the LiDAR company) he used a software called BINGO to solve photogrametry projects that was ancient, but amazing at what it did. He made a killing haha.
and i was born in that's era (end of 80's), in that's country too (indonesia)..
and you boast that you were helping loggers destroy the rainforest with a dozen cutting teams?, lol, you monster, were part of the problem in cutting down the rainforests, future generations thank you for that loss i bet LUL
@@Ovalbugmann Your grasp of English is not that strong, is it? I said I worked in FORMER forest logging areas. They were already degraded and trashed areas which contained little timber, just mainly thin, green and thorny regrowth. We were mapping the land to aid the planning for its future use. This was to resettle internal transmigrants from overpopulated Java to the sparsely populated outer islands. It was a massive World Bank funded aid programme. These are now successful agricultural areas, with thriving villages.
I didn't boast of anything other than the usefulness of these little pocket computers. Get your targets lined up correctly before you tee off.
I remember in the 80's, in physical science courses the instructors would allow calculators for exams, and then some them got frustrated when they found out some of their students were using pocket computers programmed to do the math for the problems. This caused calculators to be inspected prior to exams.
What a great problem to have
I was one of those students who used my pc-1 in physics class back in 1982. The teacher was clueless.
My profs started requiring you to show all work, including explanation of derivatives etc. As a result, an hour long exam had like 4 problems on it.
When you confided in us about the bullying you experienced, it was sincerely moving. Thank you for being so generous with us. You got the last laugh!
I’m 29 so my experience with tech go back to using old computers, like macs and then PlayStation 1. But I have always had a fascination with older tech. You and Lazy Game Reviews are honestly my favorite channels for learning about retro hardware.
From one nerdy kid in from the 80s to another, I know what it was like. Look where you've ended up now. I love your videos, dude! Very excited to see episodes out of the new studio. All the best
Same here...was really nice to have the bullies pump my gas later in life.
Yeah look at him where he ended up, walking on the street with the rifle...
21:34 damn, dude! sorry you went through that!
The last time I was severely bullied (in middle school), I snapped at the guy, shoving him into a metal barrier (thus making a loud noise), and proceeded to tell the guy off. Everyone left me alone after that. When I was in high school, I learned that if you could make the jocks and tough guys laugh, they'd scare off the other idiots in a bullying mood. I soon became a master at "stealth sit-down comedy" and would have them in stitches. The teachers never understood what was so funny.
Very relatable, and I went to elementary school in 2000. Even back then being nerd was uncool, at least in my school. Had to listen allkinds of crap for next 9-10 years.
David is now 100x more famous than all those losers that bullied him.
Well, my bullying mostly came to an end in the 8th grade when I finally punched one of them in the face and we ended up in a drawn out fight before teachers broke it up. I got a few bruises too, but I think once word got around, especially seeing my primary bully walking around school with a black eye, the other bullies immediately left me alone. If I could go back in time, I would have done that in the 6th grade and saved myself 2 extra years of torment.
@@The8BitGuy kick his ass, seabass
"I'm the operator with my pocket calculator"
- Kraftwerk
When I press a special key it plays a little melody
Je suis l'opérateur du mini calculateur
ua-cam.com/video/N1k-Z-cg5ro/v-deo.html
"Ich bin der Musikant mit Taschenrechner in der Hand."
Know the original guys ;)
and when Casio felt that one of their musical instruments (capable of a UK No.2 hit) had to incorporate a calculator ua-cam.com/video/xqTBlft8gQA/v-deo.html The Casio VL1 is heard from the beginning and seen in action after 80 seconds.
Bokuwa ongakuka Dentaku katateni.
That Seiko UC-2200 watch was way ahead of its time! It's basically the 80s equivalent of a smartwatch!
21:00 - I know that feeling, all too well... Being 45 years old, it was not easy being a nerd in the 1980s, the bullies were brutal.
Being a nerd and/or geek as a teen in the early 2000's was no cakewalk either. Some days I'd surprised I made it out of that hellhole without snapping under the pressure I had from school and broken homes (divorced parents was bad enough, add on top of that bad blood brewing in between parts of the family that I liked...).
Every day on the bus I got my ass kicked in the 80s. Every day.
I'm 54. You just had to be the nerd in school that was getting more "dates" than the bullies. :)
Being born after 2001, being nerdy was easier, especially when half your school is also nerdy. Printing memes on every printer in the school is fun.
I had a calculator watch. I don't know how I am still alive!
Hearing Dave talk about being bullied resonated with me. Amazing how he built an amazing life for him self and his family dispite the bullying . Good job man. Inspiration to us all.
In my experience, all the bullies from school ended up junkies... Most likely just like their parents, hence why they were bullies in the first place.
If you can't get a job and build a family, it's not because someone pushed you in the hallway in school or called you a mean name or something. So him being a normal adult and a functioning member of society isn't a miracle because he got treated bad by some kids in school years ago, or ever tbh.
@@Colt45hatchback puum
@@Colt45hatchback Go to a place where it is easy to find a good paying job with no education (ie the oil patch in Alberta) and you'll find those same bullies continue to do all of the same things they always did --being needlessly disrespectful, insulting, and unprofessional with everyone outside their little group. People don't change unless life finds a way to humble them.
My grandpa gave me a PC-3 pocket computer in 1st grade and I spent hours on my bedroom floor going through the owner's manual learning how to program in Basic. I loved that thing! So many fond memories! I remember I especially loved that I could sneak a computer to church in my pocket so I could sit in the back row and play with it instead of paying attention to the sermon lol Such a versatile little machine!
I'm sorry to hear you had a rough time in school. I hope you're doing better now. If it helps, I'm sure there's loads of us out here on the internet who love your videos!
imagine if Casio had made a pocket computer with modern parts what would it be like would it use basic or visual basic what else would it have.🤔
My school, once they found out you were a "nerd", you got put into the advanced classes and helped with all the AV equipment in other classes. There was no hiding from the bullies.
should have gotten a mohawk!
As someone who was relentlessly bullied in school too, I'm sorry you had to go through all that, and can absolutely relate.
Best of luck moving to the new studio :)
At the reunion:
Adult nerd 1: "Where's your bully nowadays?"
Adult nerd 2: "He's incarcerated for first degree murder... And yours?"
Adult nerd 1: "Mine is the CEO of Oracle now. He didn't change."
@Allan Reford I think you may have missed the joke...
Who is the CEO of Oracle??!?!?!
@Allan Reford good on you for owning up to it, even if everyone else already knew that it was true.
:)
I love you and I hope you are well.
Before eBay was big I remember seeing all these calculators in thrift stores and at swap meets selling for $1-$3!
The Seiko watch that does BASIC. O M G I am having a histogasm. That is the coolest thing I have seen in 2021.
The wireless tech is very interesting considering how old it is lol
The aside about being a nerd, that shows how behind the times I was when I asked my brother once if he lets his kids take their smartphones to school because my first thought was some jackass is gonna steal them or break them. But all the kids carry their phones everywhere with next to no fear of something happening and it's still a weird thing to me. I was one of the artsy metalheads in high school but I still had an interest in this stuff so the nerds knew they were safe around the guy with long hair wearing ripped jeans and a leather jacket. :-)
Same story here mate! My 7 y/o son is considered as wierdo, 'cause I'm not letting him taking his smartphone to school (here, in Poland, 7 y/o equals 1st grade)... And I'm being called "a dinosaur" (I'm 34 at the moment of writing this post ;) )
That's just crazy if parents are giving their kids smartphones before they are even literate enough to write a coherent sentence. I guess they don't care these days about adult-content internet filtering or preventing their kids from dropping the phone in a toilet.
i remember a world star video where the kid threw his cell phone to the ground before getting into it, no ****s given.
@SteveEarl I've had my first phone when I was fourteen (It was Motorola Timeport if I remember correctly) - it was year 2000, when I was 1st year in middle school. Back then - I've been treated as a kid with cellphone and it was something wierd. Nowadays, kids are being born with all of this electronic stuff. I must admitt - it has some advantages (my son learned to read when he was three thank to youtube & peepa pig), but there are some disadvantages (he rather prefers playing on a phone or computer than going out and play with other kids on playground).
On the other hand - there's noone to play with cause all of the kids are in homes playing on a computer or phone :(
You are all making me feel old. It doesn't seem that long ago when it was a talking point that a relatives 15 year old wanted a mobile phone for Christmas. I didn't get one myself until 1999 and still don't have a Smartphone. There again when at secondary school there was a fellow "nerd" (a term that didn't exist back then) who I only remember as "The Kid with the Digital Watch". Say that to any other kid who went to the electronics club and they all knew who I meant.
That room, and specifically the desk, inspired me to build my own furniture. Thank you for your service, room.
Got my popcorn and am ready to watch! Love these videos :)
I think I ate popcorn faster watching this
@@Epimetheus-- p
I hear you! I always make a snack right before I turn them on! I wish there was one every single day! lol It's like the History class of technology, I wish I had in school!
My two favourite channels! Nice!!
U know what I'll join you
As you said, it's true that everyone now carries a computer in their pocket. But I'm saddened by the fact that few users care about how their modern pocket computer works or how to program it. Modern pocket computers are designed to actively discourage users from taking them apart and knowing how they work. We gained something in 40 years, but we also lost something.
The reason you are discouraged from opening it up is that it's an incredibly dense piece of advanced technology and opening it would accomplish nothing and ruin it. You are, however, encouraged to write apps for it, and are given all the tools and tutorials to do so for free, which millions do.
@@andreiandrosoff1327 I agree that app development is booming. But about ruining things -- somehow I've been taking apart dense, advanced devices for years without ruining any of them. But I'm just a random college kid, so I don't speak for everyone. I've definitely learned a lot about electronics by seeing how the newest phones and laptops are constructed, so I think there is something to be accomplished. Some friends think I have some sort of magical knowledge about how this stuff works, but I just tell them: the screws are there, all you have to do is not be scared to take them out. Dropping a small, light PCB on the ground usually does less physical damage than dropping a heavier glass-clad device, so your phone is probably farther from ruin while it's taken apart.
It is also true that while some of those are still working 30+ years later, the computers in your pocket will probably not be. Besides the strongly encouraged network connections, the storage media just won't last that many read/write/erase cycles.
Yeah the fact that many own a smart phone is no sign that people are using it for more than sending notes (just switched from paper to electronic) and other stuff "normal" people already did back then, it's not like most people are programming them. Nerds still do nerdy stuff.
@SteveEarl I hate crappy apps too and the lower bar to entry makes those very common. It is a good thing, though, that our devices are orders of magnitude more capable and that more people can write apps that do useful work. And good apps rise to the top and are easy to find. The ideal is not so much intimate knowledge of the hardware, but well-designed layers of abstraction and skillful users of each layer. The fact that computers were the realm of true nerds in the 80s probably did increase average software quality, but the software and hardware were so rudimentary and in the hands of so few that it didn't really matter anyway.
This brought to me heartfelt memories of when my grandfather used to teach me the basics of basic using one of these with its docking station programming a lotto (an Italian lottery) simulation. Thank you for the smile it brought to me :)
Ps thanks God my grandfather is still doing great (and still a geek inside)
Interesting video. I was at high school in England in the ‘60s. My “computers” were a slide rule and log tables. The bullies didn’t want those, they just wanted to bully me for bullying’s sake.
Collect all eight Tandy Mini-Computers!
As someone who was also bullied for their height (or rather, lack thereof), I'm glad to see you're doing alright these days. Absolutely loving the content, and I wish only the best for your channel!
That room has seen a lot of things. Didn't you build that table when you where still called the ibook guy?
I didn't have these as a kid, but I remember really wanting them. I thought they would be magical, but in reality, I think I would have gotten bored with them inside of a week.
I think so too, glad i waited till high school with TI graphing calculators like the Ti-83, and learned you could download, and put games, and cheat programs onto them with the serial link cable kit, and I quickly became somewhat popular for also having the Calculator to Calculator link cable to share those programs with kids who did not have access to the internet at home yet, or the link cable software. Tetris, Mario, and Drug Wars where the most popular games around my high school for the TI-83.
That tiny plotter is so freakin' cool!
Right! Now imagine them with color!!!!
Yeah, very cool!
It has the same Alps mechanism as a lot of the other small eighties plotters, like the Commodore 1520 (of which I have multiple and also sets of plotter pens) and the Atari 1020. The major problem with these is that the pinion gear splits. Luckily now that there are 3D printers, you can finally replace them. I saved my first plotter for a long time hoping for a solution to come up.
It is really cool to watch them in action, it bangs the carousel against the left edge to rotate another pen color into place.
ik!!! so satisfying to watch and listen to, i would kill for an attachment like that for a TI 84 or something
@@VectrexForever Thanks for the info, I'm going to scour ebay for one now ;)
I really appreciated the personal story at the end. I had a similar experience. I remember wearing the my Psygnosis shirts to junior high. I thought they were the sickest things ever, but to bullies I was either into computers or prog rock, either of which made it clear I was there to get bullied and chew bubble gum... And I was all out of bubble gum. 😕
Man, America's seriously weird. That's just not something that happened in Australia - not when I was growing up, anyway; the whole nerds-and-jocks thing is demented. Not to say bullies aren't a thing, of course they are, but sporty kids are as likely to be bullied if they're thick as bookish kids are for being feeble. Generally bullies are considered to be the lowest of the low and wind up as targets for a kicking themselves...
@@bmacpher I'm Canadian, but you're probably right that the nerds and jocks thing is more prevalent in the states. Tho now that the nerds go onto make most of the money, that may have changed. It sounds like the best way to get by down under is to be well rounded, which seems more sensible.
And yes, bullies are typically the most insecure of the lot, and probably treated poorly at home, but that took time for me to understand
@@bmacpher Bullies can be tamed by numbers...
Video: Almost finished
Me: Ah, now I can eat some popco-
David: This is the last video ever filmed in this room
Me: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-
that just mean's he's moving studios.
I am really happy for him. Finally the new studio.
*brain BSoD*
The end of an era
It'll be fine. I'm sure we'll get used to the new studio pretty quick. And besides, this isn'h the first time he moves to another studio. The first few years he had his "studio" inside a closet.
I’m glad the Atari Portfolio at least got an honorable mention. Hopefully there’s more Atari computer videos in the future.
When the world needed him he uploaded
edit: thanks for likes :)
A fascinating watch, and such a natural segue into the Psion Palmtop range from the 90s.
I want to go back in time and tell that kid that all his quirkiness and computers knowledge will someday make him the coolest dude there is.
And I have 1.23M people to back that up
Coolest? Is there global cooling in the future?
"Is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull in 1985?"
Wow!!!! I still have my CASIO PB-700 right here in my hands, in a pristine looking and still working since Engineering University, back in the 80s - and can still code in BASIC just as before!
"Don't throw your X-Box or Play Station just yet" Quote from famous thinker/philosopher.
So true on the batteries being expensive in the 80's! I remember a 4 pack of AA's being almost $10!
and they didn't last as long as the modern alkaline ones
My classmate uses the PC-3 as his main calculator. I had no idea it was this old and neither did he. We use it to pass messages during math.
In what year exactly?
Also it's curious that modern scientific computers are probably more powerful than this things (they are fucking expensive thou)
My experience with being a “nerd” in school was being put into gifted classes and then students and teachers alike being dumbfounded when I didn’t know the answer to something. “You’re in the smart kid class, why don’t you know this?!” and such. Lots of other bullying went on at my school but it usually didn’t have to do with someone being a “nerd” or not, at least that was how I perceived it.
Nice name.
This happened when I moved from an urban school to a rural one. Being an average kid in the city school, the rural kids thought I was some kind of super-genius because I knew what the word "feces" meant, lol
I had the same experience too.
In the 70's, having a programmable calculator meant that you were so geek that the bullies did not notice you at all. It was like being on a different plane of existence...
But you were bullied by the other geeks.
that looks like a usa experience. In the UK we have a mix of textbooks / testbooks that are pitched at different levels of learning acquistion (a term of mine that is better than nerd or gifted), mostly in maths, science and english / languages. Classes that grasped the basics quicky would be grouped (or tables in classes set) appropritate stuff, some was just tough to do and it was rare for anyone to correctly complete everything. ( I could do the number work but not when problems were phrased differently or expected a known solution method to be applied to a particular problem ). PS I still cannot use fx calculators I found them a pain to use. I suppose If I was working in an environment like electronics that used a set of equations to solve for a particular need consistently It could be useful for me.
will look back to this video and the old room with nostalgia.
My dad had a pilot, he find it on a garbage can malfunctioning, he is an electronic engineer so he repaired and used to read a lot of books in the early 00s.
Partway into the video, you may have mentioned this, you may not have, but in the original Ghostbusters, Egon is crunching numbers and statistics on one of these pocket computers (y'know, it may have been a Casio...) after running out of the library, after the library ghost scared them. Harold Ramis, who played Egon, was reportedly fascinated with the thing, and loved playing with it between takes.
Edit: Looked it up, it's a PC-4 apparently.
ghostbusters.fandom.com/wiki/PC-4_Calculator#:~:text=A%20PC%2D4%20Calculator%20(also,the%20University's%20Paranormal%20Studies%20Laboratory.
Nice find!
Such model is CASIO PB-110 (ps-4) which i was usingin mid 80 during my school days gifted by my uncle from Saudi Arabia (i am from PAKISTAN). It is still working nice.
That part about bulling in school brings up so many bad memories. I still wonder why adults does nothing with that. The whole school was about double standards: teachers told you something and everything was exactly opposite the moment you leave the classroom. Just like a real world, though :)
Oh yes, the number of times I went to the teacher to report something and was told "stay away from them". This after being told to "report a bully" etc. How am I to stay away from them? They actually go looking FOR you.
My school it happened in the classrooms and teachers ignored it.
I had a Brother BP-30 "computer" typewriter that used those same exact pens. You could actually make "full color" pie and bar charts. Used that thing till it died. RIP
Great video! As someone from the UK I was introduced to the Casio computers with my uncle's FX-720P in 1987 where you could play a game that beeped that much you could really annoy everyone around you :) In Christmas 88, aged 13, I got the FX-730P and spent many happy years with it- I wouldn't be the developer I am now without it!
I appreciate these videos. As someone born in 1982 I remember a lot of this tech- but wasn't old enough to understand it in the context I can now. It's somewhat nostalgic to see them- but at the same time it allows me to fill in my memories with understanding I couldn't have realized them. Like fleshing out my own childhood memories with additional lore.
Love it! An MS-DOS computer that I can carry in my pocket? Sign me up!!
It’s an oddly sized screen tho
Coincidentally I just featured my HP 100LX on my channel for DOScember, and now David talks about pocket computers. What are the chances? I found mine only a few years ago but I could imagine how great it would have been back in the day!
I was the shortest throughout my schooling, bullied from 5 years old to the day I left as early as I could at 16. The bullies ensured that I couldn't do well and go to university. So I feel for you.
I used to have the PC1 and the PC2...and I had the printer and docking station for the PC2 as well! Unfortunately my car got broken into and it all got stolen! I still have the PC7 and found my data cassette recorder just the other day in a box in my basement! I use it in my garage as a calculator! But I put all that aside when I got my HP calculators...Speaking of calculators, I had an HP-67 in 1978 or there abouts. and portable computers? Epson had an HX20 back in the 80s. It was a competitor to the Tandy Model 100!
I feel like Planet X3 is the Doom of DOS computers. It runs on everything,
Isn't Doom the Doom of DOS computers though?
@SuperWaffle64: Ummm...
@@Slay1337pl okay, the modern DooM of DOS computers.
@@Slay1337pl Doom of the pre-486 era
Lol yeah
I’d love to see the watch powered back on and shown off. Sort of motivates me to check some thrift stores for old tech. Plus this ain’t cheap online. I could buy a iPhone 8 for the price of some of these pocket computers.
Rest in Peace old Studio. you will be missed! August 20, 2013 - January 21, 2021
@Jake P yet
@Jake P I mean not yet - but the studio will be changing in the future, as he explained that was the last video to be filmed in this studio 22:46
I'm sorry you had such a rough time in school, Guy. I hope you're happy now. I love your channel man, and it looks like over a million other people do too.... I want to start working on commodores now. :)
Last video in the old studio! Can't wait to see the new one 😀
p.s Bullies suck!
lol
i have the Sharp version of the pc-1, it was very handy to be able to write small programs mostly iterative math
Got a Sharp PC-1401 (IIRC).
Nerd of the nerds, in high school I dug out a summary of the CPU machine language and after a lot of trials & errors, eventually POKE-d a procedure to save/load small BASIC programs into/from the unused memory.
it's the famed yeti dynamics :o
I had the Tandy/Radio Shack PC-1 rebrand of the Sharp. Later I got a Sharp "calculator" that out performed the PC-1 by many times.
Can Confirm: Being into computers or video games in the 80s made you the EXACT OPPOSITE of cool in grade school. I NEVER brought any of my electronic things to school for fear of what might happen to them.
It was the same in the 90s. Perhaps a little less, as computers were becoming more common.
Late 1970s we had one computer in the school - calculators were allowed and there was a certain class difference in what ones parents could afford to buy ! Anyway the computer was a Philips with a cassette input and a dot matrix or similar , as there were some folk that basically (sic) crowded round it I gave up as I could not see much point. By the 1980s schools were being encouraged by the BBC to get computers (either theres or the undelying Acorn computer). But I had left and was using VAX computers to churn out graphs.
@@highpath4776 I'm very fond of my Acorns. By the time I was in school in the 90's it was all Acorns with the odd BBC tucked into a corner forgotten. I spent many lunctimes avoiding the playground and programming the BBC's that "surviced" (I had to convince the german language teacher I was actually running one of the german games ;)
@@highpath4776 You sound to be about the same age as me (58). The advantage of our schools Busicom computer was that it used pre-perf punch cards so you could get on with programming using nothing more than a card and a ball point pen to push the chaffs out. I recall going to a kids house (whose parents certainly weren't rich) to see the top of the range Commodore calculator they had bought him as was so expensive they wouldn't let him take it to school. No such problem with my £10 Prinztronic Mini-Scientific.
@@MrDuncl (aside from please remove that hideous number...!!) . Printz - was that the Dixons cheap own brand stuff. I have a couple of casios somewhere. I have used comptrollers for additons etc, but could not explain how they worked. Other computers for a while were specialist - Xerox print setters and word processors and I think Gestetner did an odd printer linked machine for high speed (relatively) replicated output and storage. I learned principles of punch card , and I could read a bit of punch tape on the Vax inputs and storage.
Thank you. I really enjoyed your show from Seoul.
Thanks for being vulnerable and sharing those personal bits about your experience in school in the 80s. I really do hope some of those bullies see now that you've got over a million subscribers and are making your living embracing the thing they literally bullied you for -- the height of 1980s nerdiness. Kudos.
I had a Psion 3 in the 90's, similar to the Compaq machine. I was amazed, it was like a little laptop.
Happy New Studio!
Update: I saw, many of us mentioned Psion. If you make an episode on 90's pocket computers, you shouldn't miss them.
Loved my Palm Pilot. Had my contacts, calendar and kept track of my files/tasks in it. Also had a Zaurus but found the PP to be much more useful. They are both downstairs in their original boxes with all the peripherals, and still work.
Great episode! As a young professional, I loved my Palm Pilot! And in high school and college, I loved my Sharp EL-5500-III (PC-1403) pocket computer! It could do matrix math and I wrote a BASIC program to solve quadratic equations and to answer other tough math problems. I just kept adding routines and a main menu to choose between them. My teachers never knew that my calculator was doing all the hard work for me! I still have the pocket computer!
I really like that thumbnail, the left greyed out makes the lettering stand out
Just noticed it, it’s like a hint at the retirement of this studio
Yeah, like it’s fading away
I like this video.
Having been born over two decades after the 80s, I obviously have no memory of pocket computers- other than smartphones and such. Learning about the past is interesting, and I wish I could experience life in that time.
same
Can we all acknowledge the courage it took for that dude to loan this guy his beloved computers?
To the contrary... David is an awesome friend and he's welcome to any of my gear in order to share it with his audience. 🤓
he beeg and good boii
I had a PDA that I loved because I could store text on it. It was great for a week’s worth of class notes. I’d delete portions after I’d committed them to memory. I remember wishing I could have, like, 300 pages of notes!
I am mega interested in that watch, its almost like the smart watches of today
must of been a bitch to use tho
Looks way cooler than the Casio calculator watch I had
Imagine actually trying to check the time on that.
@@AgentM124 imagine having access to a battery that works XD
I hadn't thought about this before, but it's amazing that TI only started releasing graphing calculators in 1991, considering how ubiquitous they were in math education by 96 or so. Obviously, not the point of the video, but interesting nonetheless.
There are other videos about that. They dumped a bunch of money into getting their stuff required in schools. Now they have a near monopoly on the educational market. Even regular non-graphing scientific calculators are recommended to be a TI in schools. Not that there is a lot of difference between basic scientific calcs from other companies.
@@harrkev The pity is, these calculators are so specialized for school, they are of no use for an engineer anymore.
I’m in my 50s now. It turns out that most of the bullies that I knew in childhood are living miserable lives now, and the rest are dead. Karma is real.
Yeah ... who is making more money now? Hah take that bullies!
@@3dlabs99 All my bullies now have a better life that what I can ever hope for actually. I have been stuck on minimum wage for over 20 years with emotional trauma and loneliness, none of them even started on that.
@@eggcluck Same here lol. Got bullied in the 90s for being the only one having a computer (not even talking pocket computer, full desktop!) and I was the only one of my class who made it through all the 13 years and could have gone to the university (the pro side of being a nerd), but actually then I couldn't because neither my parents nor I myself could afford that. And AFAIK all the others have found jobs, got a better degree afterwards, have married and so on while le me only managed to have an apprenticeship and almost completely lose his eyesight afterwards, resulting in being stuck unemployed and alone... if there's something in life that does _not_ work - it's karma! :D
@@CakePrincessCelestia yeah i feel you bro. Destiny is a bitch.
@@eggcluck Damn.. I was hoping for some kind of justice.. Guess that doesnt really exist. I am probably totally wrong about the nerds getting paid more. I saw other comments about the bullies also get paid more because they are more aggressive when talking about the money... damn...
I remember the good old days of pocket computing. I learned BASIC on a Tandy Pocket Computer PC-1 when I was around 11 years old. My dad got me the cassette adapter which was essential if you wanted to save any programs, because the built-in memory was only around 1k.
Can’t remember the model but my dad got me this “smart watch” back in 1987 or so, might have been a Samsung or Tandy, wish I could remember. It got me through my last year of high school and not a single teacher knew what I had on it. ;-)
Wow, and I remember such things, produced by "Electronica", my dad had a similar computer of the Soviet model "Электроника МК85" seemed to be called
Yeah i think i have read about the MK85 before. It was provided as a gift at a communit party gathering i think. Pretty much a Soviet clone of the Casio shown as PC-7.
I still have my Casio pocket computer. Complete with a 2” square removable memory card of 1K capacity that needs its own battery.
I just found your channel its wonderful, bullies suck I'm sorry you went through that. I so much love your content. It's hard to find stuff like this.. I live tech history 💗
You summed up my school experience perfectly. As a nerd in the 80's, it wasn't cool to be into computers or anything like that. These little devices always intrigued me, thanks for showing the docking stations, please do a video on the smart watch, THAT is super cool :D
At the risk of getting into a battle over definitions, I'll point out that the Texas Instruments SR-52 was an earlier pocket computer (1975). It was programmable, handled branching logic, and could store and load programs from magnetic strips. Very limited memory and no graphics, but had the key functional elements of a computer and "pocket" form factor size.
While technically you are right, what made the PC-1211/TRS-80 PC (that was its name, P was still pocket and not personal) seem more "computerish" than a calculator was its BASIC. Calculations were also made via an expression parser, not via AOS (TI) or RPN (HP).
This said, when looking at the press of that time, the categories were: pocket computer/programmabkle calculators on one side and home and personnal computers on the other side. Magazines would talk about HP-41, TI-59, Sharp PC-1211 and Casio FX-702P as being in the same market.
@@galier2 Yes, glad you mentioned HP's RPN. My college roomie had an HP-65 in 1975. It had an input language (pretty much just a buffer for HP-65 commands in RPN), storage registers, logic functions, most of the standard scientific calculator functions, and a built-in magnetic "card" reader that could store short programs to magnetic strips roughly the size of the stripe on the back of a credit card now. The only thing it really lacked compared to these items described above was that it only had the single row of red LED's for output. It did lack "affordability", costing about 4-1/2 times the cost of a month's room and board for a student! That would be just about US$4000 today. Per the Wikipedia article, an HP-65 was taken into orbit by the Apollo crew during the Apollo-Soyuz test project as a backup for the onboard computer.
I had one and i would consider a device which only capabilities to calculate numbers without text an electronic 'slide rule', but not a computer.
Sadly it got defect :(
The TI-59 i have as successor has very limited text-capabilities (Text-prompts for Input when used with the printer device) so together with the HP-49 it marks the transition from calculator to computer
2:58 OMG, I never knew that was a real computer. I thought it was just a prop for the movie.
I remember seeing one of these in a store that sold Atari computers. My friend got me into buying an Atari ST in 1987 because I could not afford a real Mac. Then I bought a real Mac in 1991 and now I have hundreds of Macs. Should have bought one of those portable Atari's.
I've still got mine kicking around in my pile of Nerd stuff along with my US Robotics Pilot. My Sharp PC-1247 and my HP 200LX.
Brought back memories
At age 13 I remember seeing
Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters using Radio Shack PC-4 (I didn't know exactly what model it was at the time) - I wanted one so much.
When I was a young man in the 1980's I bought my girlfriend a PC-1 (Well the Sharp branded version, I'm in the UK). I thought it was a fantastic throughtful gift, and really I wanted one myself, but she was less impressed and we didn't last long after that.
I find older tech MUCH more interesting than modern. Thanks for awesome reviews:)
Nothing like a whopping 10 scanlines!
Great video! I had a Sharp PC-1211 in the eighties and kept it with me for about 20 years. Unfortunately, the LCD screen leaked and the pocket computer became useless. If I could have found a replacement LCD I would certainly get it. I loved that machine. Programming in BASIC was fun. I know these machines don't appeal to kids today, but they were part of our school or university days.
I was quite surprised to see no mention of the Psion organizers.
Or the Apple Newton.
Isn't psion is in nineties ?
The Psion Organiser I came out in 1984 with the II in 1986. The II had a basic like language called OPL, both supported rom cartridges for third party software. I assume that they were not readily available in the USA being made by a British company.
Oh crap. Taking the back off that watch, brought up memories. That's what happened to my Casio Space Warrior. I tried to repair it. I cried and my brother bought me a new one. 😊😊😊💪📙
20:00 - Similar story: In grade 10, I took a typing class and got harassed by bullies for "taking a girl's class", homophobic, insults, etc. But come grade 11 when the school got Apple II+ computers, I was typing in programs quickly. The bullies whined, "can you help us?" to which I said, "you should take a typing class."
Same here. I’m not a sporty guy in school. While choosing my subjects, I had choose either sewing or football. Naturally, I choose sewing, and later became an expert. Even the teacher and the girls were impressed.
I’ve told them that the sewing machine is just another tool.
The hole in your story is that the girls never learned to code.
@@thorable530 You're so proud of your ignorance that you're willing to display it.
www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/03/meet-historys-most-brilliant-female-coders/
@@guessundheit6494 That's interesting! In the 2000s and 2010s, gaming and electronics in general were associated with guys. I was weird for being a girl who could type quickly and enjoyed games which weren't specifically "girls games". Wasn't bullied at all for it though, in fact it was the only thing that made me cool.
love these! growing up in the 90s during the window where basic died and nothing replaced it in our school discovering these and following examples from books in the library were my first steps. Also loving T2
You talking about getting bullied in school got me right in the feels! Ouch!
i lost it at "apparently it existed and i can't show it to you"
I grew up in the '90s and still got bullied for being into computers, and generally being a "nerd," all the way up to high school.
I was in the Tandy store with my dad back in 1987 and ready to buy a pocket TRS80 or whatever due to scoring all As on my report card, enthralled by computers and programming, but being so poor as to not have electricity connected, nor being able to afford a "proper" computer. As fate would have it my 5th grade teacher was in the store that afternoon and convinced my father to buy a Tandy 1400LT instead. A wise decision. I taught myself BASIC, Pascal (Turbo) and Assembly (TASM/MASM) on that thing, all during high school, until I was able to buy my own 486 in 1995 and enrol in uni. I am now a software engineer, and very grateful that my teacher was in the store that day. I still have the 1400LT, and it still works.