Hi Reese, it would probably be a good idea to get a cassette dump of all the magnetic media before too long. Cassettes have a pretty limited lifespan. Maybe you have a friend with a high quality cassette deck who can rip them into a PC sound card. I would do it before you try to stick them in the Cefucom deck, because it could eat the tapes if the pinch rollers have deteriorated. I am something of a cassette player and media restoration specialist, having been working on the machines for 30 years or so, and I wouldn't stick an important tape in that thing until I made sure it was working with a COPY of the first tape. If you would like more information about what you need to replace in the tape deck and where to get the right parts, feel free to reach out.
I still have my cassettes from the 80s when I was a toddler, some have been lost, but I still have many of them and as far as I know, they're mostly still working. I was quite rough with my tapes as a child, these days I'm more careful. It's so nice to know that my favourite Jams Reyne and Roxette tapes still work. I do have CD versions of those same albums though.
@@Lachlant1984 the main culprit is heat. if tapes are stored badly (even if they are still sealed), they can dry out and/or shed material. tape formulas contain shelf stable lubricants that keep the reels from sticking together as they are played. this can be ruined by heat, and some tape formulas are more susceptible to this than others. sometimes this can be reversed by careful application of special fluids
@@briangoldberg4439 I see. My tapes are generally kept at room temperature. I do remember back in the 90s some of our tapes were exposed direct sunshine and that very adversely affected the sound quality, the sound would become very muffled with no treble and often times a loss of volume. I would never do that to my tapes now if I can help it. It's probably just as well that we no longer use cassettes in our cars, that's where the real danger was if you parked your car in full sunshine on a hot day. Bye bye cassette tape. This happened to my mother's Paul Kelly cassette, I believe the cassette shell actually started to bend and deform.
Thanks DosGamerMan, that's very kind of you to say. Thankfully it seems 99% of them understand what I'm trying to achieve here and I've only managed to get this far thanks to input from the community, so it's all very much appreciated. 😁
I don't know VWestLife; but was just looking through the comments to see if anyone else had recommended Techmoan. First person who comes to my mind for restoring old tape decks.
Techmoan, it's right up his street, weared audio format/sudo, live action video something, and what ever else it does? and UK-based so not out practicable, a real inpersom combo project with Techmoan, as the video displat being messed up, in the comeents it's already sergested, whay looking a black and white dray scale video out? on a colout display, like was never really expected to used with colout VDU display?
Wonderful! Those audio cassettes should definitely be digitized as soon as possible, ideally before trying them in the computer. If you’d like, I could duplicate and digitize them for you. I’ve got some of the best cassette recorders ever made in my studio (Revox, Akai, Nakamichi), though I’m based in Italy, so I’m not sure if you’d want to risk shipping. Another thought I have is that the video output might be in black and white and might look best on a B&W monitor.
I searched for Cefucom on Japanese Wikipedia and found the name in katakana as セフコム (Sefukomu) on the page for Kanayama Nobuo, who seems to have been involved with the production of the learning materials. So there's confirmation of the pronunciation.
The printer port is not an HPIB (GPIB or as it is officially known IEEE488) connector or port. The IEEE488 standard does specify a Centronics-type connector. However, there are a total of 24 conductors consisting of eight data lines, three handshake lines, five bus management lines and eight ground lines. None of them are optional. Since the printer port shown only has 14 conductors, it can't be HPIB. A parallel printer needs 18 conductors at a minimum assuming none of the signals are omitted. I did search to see if there was some pared down version of a parallel printer interface that could use fewer signals but didn't find anything. It is possible that this is a serial printer port, which would have been a low-cost option. But normally that would have used a DB9 or DB25 male connector. It may also be that they offered their own serial printer with a proprietary cable to ensure that they were the only source. It is an interesting question. But regarding the assertion of HPIB, I'm 100% certain that it is not as I was an engineer for a company that originally developed instruments that connected and communicated using that bus.
The printer port to wit has this wiring: 1 Strobe 2-3 D0-D7 respectively 10 Ack 11 Ready 13,14 Ground The code in rom seems to be for a garden-variety parallel printer: Port 00h out is the data latch 40h b3 out is the strobe 40h b6 in is the ready I haven't found the 'ack', but that was often ignored, anyway. I suspect there was a funky cable adapting this "mini centronics"/hpib to the usual connector on the printer side.
The Acoustic coupler DIN connector is situated in proximity to 1488/9 RS-2321 driver ICs so that could have been used for serial printers if required. Crude minimalist parallel printer ports were found here and there before the IBM PC XT popularized their interpretation of the Centronics interface. Many DIY computers would use OEM printer hardware from commercial equipment and they were often intended for simple internal connections while Centronics was selling robust aftermarket printers so needed to have a well defined interface that promoted and supported their products. I recall moving some of their 132 column printers decades ago and they were heavy for one person to lift.
@@ziggurat29 I think the wiring and required cable might be the same as the one on the Casio FA-6 interface for connecting peripherals to Casio programmable calculators and pocket computers, like the FX-850P. It's certainly the same connector.
It looks similar to the printer connector on an MSX computer. My initial thought was that the Sanyo computer was an MSX since Sanyo made similar looking ones.
The overblown brightness suggests that Yes, but also there's probably be a potentiometer where you can dial that down and get better video quality without having to recap it. Only if you're lazy.
@@leblueawoo The strong level of distain that is directed at people simply for showing appreciation for others of their own gender is...Rather concerning. 🔪🏳🌈🤔
It’s all very well put together as a product and looks great. It must have cost quite a bit new given the hardware inside it. Very impressed with your knowledge and the quality of your research. Damn fine job sir
Haha, Pernod is The Man when it comes to MAME, the second there's a sniff of a new ROM available he's on it, and he also got my Positron 9000 emulated and booting while the actual machine itself is still unwell. Hopefully you'll get to meet him at RetroFest. Excellent progress so far! :D
You could still ask Usagi Electric. If he's interested I'm sure he wouldn't mind flying to the UK as he does to various parts of America. Transporting the product around would be a hassle.
the user interface and such look quite refined for what it is and from when. some folks spent quite a lot of time making it. like the timeout back to loading screen, the alarm system and such.
So this is where the ROM images I found on my hard drive came from. I was a bit drunk when I started to watch the first part, and was very drunk at the end of it. LOL. I looked at the ROMs and found on ROM 3 was the character set for Japanese and English alphabets. (they are 12 bits high by 8 bits wide, which I found odd). ROM 4 seems to have an Assembler program on it. I could be wrong though. ROM 5 seems to be the cassette player controler. It prints the cassette function on screen. I bet you knew this already though.
I found a MUPID computer at a scrap yard once many decades ago in South Africa. I thought the RED case and keyboard was very stylish. I never found any software for it and all it had built in was a cassette loader I think. I have seen passing mention of it on the net and think it was for terminal applications from Europe.
Fascinating! Love this! Everything about this is exciting. Hands-on learning. I can definitely see this used to watch a scroll of a play as well. For kids learning for shapes, colors, matching, etc. I would love to see this used as a prop in a sci-fi movie or TV show...
@ctrl-alt-rees did you consider the idea that the audio tape might have tones in one channel to control the slides in sync with the audio thats on the other channel? if the tape deck is broken there would be no tones to tell the projector to start/ advance slides
@@ctrlaltrees try playing the tape on a stereo cassette deck just to check if there are tones in one channel, that might give you a clue on how the whole thing works....
In the 1970s one format of Overhead Projector presentation was to have a load of pictures on a roll which could be cranked forward. The Apprentice project we were assigned was to automate that. To stop the roll in the right place we used a photocell and markers on at the end of the slide. That was the first thing I thought of when I saw those contacts. Another option would be 8 track style metal strips. As for digitising the paper cartridges could you just wind them manually to the next picture and take a photo of it. There might be some kind of stop that needs overiding like in a VHS cassette. Back to Apprentice Projects another group got the assignment of making one of those illuminated maps that would show you how to get to different buildings on site. Rather amusing that all these projects could now be replaced with some software but this was back in the days when the Apple II was expensive cutting edge technology.
@@ctrlaltrees If I'm understanding the size of those capsules correctly, there's _more_ than ample space in those for a Pi, a suitable LCD panel and a battery to run both off... 😉
15:36 - Is it supposed to have colour video output? It just seems to be as though the "colour" is just how the raw pixels are being interpreted as chroma? A lot like the old CGA graphics cards with Composite output. Or the Apple II. It might make the text easier to read, if you can force the RetroTink to display in B&W?
I just happened to subscribe a week or two before that video heh, you do a good job! (the EGPU on a mac mini popped up in my feed, and I was at home on a work day sick and didnt want to do much so I kind of binge watched your videos)
What an interesting gizmo. Hope you manage to get it up and running properly -- I'm intrigued to see how all the bits work together. I have a bit of computer-and-tape-based language learning experience. The Atari 8-bit played host to a series called "Conversational [Language]", which had tapes that contained both audio and computer data, so you'd load the program, and at various points throughout, it would use the Atari's ability to play back tape audio through the TV speakers to have actual speech. Clever stuff. Je m'appelle Dan Bowers! Bonjour! Je m'appelle Chantal Lamacq!
I know barely anything about programming (or computers), but that machine is a thing of beauty! I would have one just to look at. Though I would be tempted to turn it into an entertainment system by installing some modern additions. 👍
My sugestion is buy a RAM tester & start the tedios proccess of desoldering chips. I recomend usuing desodering gun to get most of the solder out, then a heat gun to get the chip out otherwise you will rip traces & pads. then suck the solder out the holes when the chip pins are not blocking them, best way I have found that works. Make sure you solder in sockets so the chips can be esily changed if they fail again. Due to the issues you are more likely to have a singal chip that has partialy failed/failing probaly on one board.
That green display gives strong TRS Color Computer feelings. As for the abysmal quality of the video output, my bet would be bad caps or a cold solder joint.
It looks like the RetroTink is misinterpreting one-pixel wide features of the characters as colour information for some reason. It might work better with a real analog monitor.
Nearly suggested the sifu observation in the last video too but I seem to remember cefu means something like encylopedia, I can see the overlap and confusion but I speak neither Chinese or Japanese so probably not very reliable
@@ctrlaltrees But then that crash screen seems to have some quite clear coloured characters in it, suggesting that it's meant to be capable of colour output. It would be interesting to see how the green text looks on a monochrome monitor, though. Or can the RetroTink be switched into a monochrome mode?
Potentially you could use one of the cassette / mp3 adaptors to load the software. I think they don't need to motors to work for the signal to be received by the play head. Then you could use a PC to playback to recordings of the tapes.
The Cefucom seems to closely resemble the design style of the Coomber-brand cassette players used in UK schools in the early 90s. These had a very industrial and unaesthetic design intended to make them unattractive to theft (They genuinely looked like a piece of garage equipment) bu were solid and well-built, as befits a school setting. Perhaps the Cefucom isn't so heavily steered in that direction (It sort of half-is and half isn't) but it's certainly a big piece of kit, clearly designed more for institutional use rather than domestic.
Ecactly. HP-IB / GBIP /IEEE-488 uses a Centronics connector with 24pins (2*12). The connector shown is only 14pin. It could still use the same protocoll, as 14pin is what you need for a printer (omitting the Remote enable and Service Request pins as well as the individual GND pins.). But surely its not standard IEEE-488.
Fun thing is that that connector actually IS a centronics connector. Just not a standard 36pin (following IEEE 1284 / generally known as a typical parallel printer port), but a smaller one. "Centronics" is the the (informal) name of the plugs form factor.
The battery missing mght be a reason for the screen being garbled, I've seen it before with TEC POS computers, when their bios battery died they'd become really erratic.
@@ctrlaltrees This is around the time Minitel 🇫🇷 was getting going as well. Crazy to think that Japan might've been gearing up to become just as connected as France! 🚄🖥🇫🇷😁 The UK was also heading that same way with Prestel, but BT really messed things up; Not only did a Prestel terminal cost more than a months middle-income wages, but the cost of accessing the service (Monthly service fee *and* per-minute/page charges) made it completely unaffordable to at least 80% of the British population. 💸 In direct contrast; In France, PTT were quick to realise that one minitel terminal lasting 10-20 years and having a free directory enquiry service accessible through it was a *lot* cheaper per customer than annual deliveries of phone books across the same 10-year period. Minitel soon took off like a rocket - Predating the modern Internet by at least 15 years - And what started off as a digital phonebook soon became an in-home banking, flight booking, train ticketing service that really catapulted France into being the most advanced country in Europe from the mid 80s right up until the mid 2000s. *Vive le TGV!* 🚄🇫🇷❤🔥🤘💨
@@ctrlaltrees This is around the time Minitel 🇫🇷 was getting going as well. Crazy to think that Japan might've been gearing up to become just as connected as France! 🚄🖥🇫🇷😁 The UK was also heading that same way with Prestel, but BT really messed things up; Not only did a Prestel terminal cost more than a months middle-income wages, but the cost of accessing the service (Monthly service fee *and* per-minute/page charges) made it completely unaffordable to at least 80% of the British population. 💸 In direct contrast; In France, PTT were quick to realise that one minitel terminal lasting 10-20 years and having a free directory enquiry service accessible through it was a *lot* cheaper per customer than annual deliveries of phone books across the same 10-year period. Minitel soon took off like a rocket - Predating the modern Internet by at least 15 years - And what started off as a digital phonebook soon became an in-home banking, flight booking, train ticketing service that really catapulted France into being the most advanced country in Europe from the mid 80s right up until the mid 2000s.
MenditMark might be helpful with the big paper reader gizmo. He is good with odd electronics. Fascinating gizmo that looks like it was for schools with big budgets.
i would be guessing it has bad electrolytic caps the make the video so bad in the same way that old tube type radios normally need their caps replaced. I know that the tandy coco looked way better than this with the same video chip.
Its odd although it looks totally different I was getting a Tandy Color Computer vibe from this then you mentioned the Dragon/Tandy. The silver finish abd the color screen reminds me of it too with green background and cursor. The artwork in the books looks to be same artist that did art for the Tandy Color Computer books. I grew up tinkering on TRS-80/Tandy computers. I am not too techy but was part of the pirate game/software ring for it back in 80s early 90s (laughs). I still own it and lots of software and most of the magazines.
I'm glad this machine ended up with you. It would have been a shame if it had ended up with someone who wasn't a weeb and couldn't understand any Japanese
師父 is also a Japanese word. More than half of Japanese words are borrowed from Chinese, though often they end up sounding different, unlike this one. Wiktionary says it means a: teacher and father 2: (honorific) teacher, master
I know a decent amount of Japanese as well, but nothing that would get me through the weeds of any technical grammar. It would be tedious, but if you took pictures and uploaded those somewhere you might get a bite from someone.
If you can figure out what ports and/or memory addresses on z80's busses mapped to which device that would solve many problems. Heck, I interfaced an apple ][ with a c64 with biderectional i/o in real time. Could access ALL the c64 from the Apple ][. Was working on porting a program from the apple ][ to the 64 . And Merlin assembler and the apple ][ 'monitor' made development on the c64 a breeze compared with anything native to the c64. If you solve your hardware problems you could probably do wonders on that machine even w/o an emulator. Granted all the hardware mapping will need to be figured out for an emulator too (: Just my 2 cents as an ancient hacker.
Given C-A-R is located in the UK, I think the root of the problem is that he's producing an _NTSC-J_ signal in a _PAL_ region. Because of this the video output has to be converted _back_ to NTSC again, which UA-cam does automatically for many regions. But because I also live in the UK I only see the PALised NTSC output, and have to provide my own filtration if I want to see a legible video signal. 🙃 (Thank Odin for ffmpeg! 👍)
Yeh... Please don't commit this artifact to the chances of postage and shipping. If you cant find any local Japanese speakers, you can always do virtual exchange. My Japanese is fluent and I'd happily do 10 - 20 pages of the text at a time - which I've no doubt another half a hundred more capable folk will surely do.
Sorry did I miss the part where you talked about what was actually wrong with the machine from the first video? While you gained me as a new sub in the original I think the first section, before the software unboxing should’ve been a recap and resolution recap as to how it’s working now.
At 13:50, he explains that it's not currently working because of a drive belt that was so old and dry it had essentially disintegrated inside the machine and some bits might still be in there rattling and buzzing.
Apologies for disappointment, I did try to make it clear from the get go that it isn't fully functional yet. The only reason I've got as far as I have is because of feedback from the community, hence the progress updates.
@ I understand, when you said it wasn’t fully functional I just thought you were talking about the display connection on the TV screen isn’t too good. I didn’t realise you were talking about other parts too. Thank you very much for replying though.
@@hugodesrosiers-plaisance3156 I will feedback that this came across to me as applying to the cassette deck only, so I was still hoping/expecting to see the capsule „screen“ working to at least some degree. 😇
@@ctrlaltrees if and when you get around to it, it would be interesting to have scans of the roll images for the emulator efforts. don't break anything, of course.. it does seem that perhaps the rollers could be manually turned. also, since it seems there are three electrical contacts on the cartridge, perhaps measuring resistance might be useful. Given the era, it seems there likely is incandescent backlighting, which should show as a low resistance. A possible arrangement is: * gnd * backlight * start of roll Where upon boot the unit is rewound to start to sync up, and then the computer can know where it is during presentation. Just a guess, of course. Aside from hardware, maybe looking in the manual to just know how many slides are in a cartridge roll would be interesting.
Hi Reese, it would probably be a good idea to get a cassette dump of all the magnetic media before too long. Cassettes have a pretty limited lifespan. Maybe you have a friend with a high quality cassette deck who can rip them into a PC sound card. I would do it before you try to stick them in the Cefucom deck, because it could eat the tapes if the pinch rollers have deteriorated. I am something of a cassette player and media restoration specialist, having been working on the machines for 30 years or so, and I wouldn't stick an important tape in that thing until I made sure it was working with a COPY of the first tape. If you would like more information about what you need to replace in the tape deck and where to get the right parts, feel free to reach out.
Indeed, top priority for the next few weeks is to get everything archived 👍
I still have my cassettes from the 80s when I was a toddler, some have been lost, but I still have many of them and as far as I know, they're mostly still working. I was quite rough with my tapes as a child, these days I'm more careful. It's so nice to know that my favourite Jams Reyne and Roxette tapes still work. I do have CD versions of those same albums though.
@@ctrlaltrees I would actually be curious to hear what the data track on those cassettes sounds like.
@@Lachlant1984 the main culprit is heat. if tapes are stored badly (even if they are still sealed), they can dry out and/or shed material. tape formulas contain shelf stable lubricants that keep the reels from sticking together as they are played. this can be ruined by heat, and some tape formulas are more susceptible to this than others. sometimes this can be reversed by careful application of special fluids
@@briangoldberg4439 I see. My tapes are generally kept at room temperature. I do remember back in the 90s some of our tapes were exposed direct sunshine and that very adversely affected the sound quality, the sound would become very muffled with no treble and often times a loss of volume. I would never do that to my tapes now if I can help it. It's probably just as well that we no longer use cassettes in our cars, that's where the real danger was if you parked your car in full sunshine on a hot day. Bye bye cassette tape. This happened to my mother's Paul Kelly cassette, I believe the cassette shell actually started to bend and deform.
I hope all the new subscribers check out your back catalogue. So many good videos and great old systems.
Very true!
This! ☝️☝️☝️
Pin this comment, Rees.
Thanks DosGamerMan, that's very kind of you to say. Thankfully it seems 99% of them understand what I'm trying to achieve here and I've only managed to get this far thanks to input from the community, so it's all very much appreciated. 😁
will definitely do!
What I love about your channel and this family of creators is 1. Weird electronics stuff. 2. New in box means let's open it!
This stuff was made to be used!
You need Adrian's Digital Basement to fix that colour incompatibility, and Techmoan or VWestLife on those tapes and tape mechs.
"If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them...."
@@ctrlaltrees"...maybe you can hire...the 8-bit Team"
(Insert Adrians 8-bit dance party tune)
I don't know VWestLife; but was just looking through the comments to see if anyone else had recommended Techmoan. First person who comes to my mind for restoring old tape decks.
Techmoan, it's right up his street, weared audio format/sudo, live action video something, and what ever else it does? and UK-based so not out practicable, a real inpersom combo project with Techmoan, as the video displat being messed up, in the comeents it's already sergested, whay looking a black and white dray scale video out? on a colout display, like was never really expected to used with colout VDU display?
Wonderful! Those audio cassettes should definitely be digitized as soon as possible, ideally before trying them in the computer. If you’d like, I could duplicate and digitize them for you. I’ve got some of the best cassette recorders ever made in my studio (Revox, Akai, Nakamichi), though I’m based in Italy, so I’m not sure if you’d want to risk shipping. Another thought I have is that the video output might be in black and white and might look best on a B&W monitor.
Dai Marco vedi di procurartene uno anche tu!
@DamianoRagozzino huh
Aargh! Rees don't put those precious cassettes into that dodgy deck. That's a recipe for chewed up or blanked tapes.
Yea, make copies and feed it those.
You just got yourself a new subscriber. This is more exiting than any crime drama on TV. Can't wait till the next episode - What a cliff hanger.
Another vote for getting Dave at Usagi involved.
I searched for Cefucom on Japanese Wikipedia and found the name in katakana as セフコム (Sefukomu) on the page for Kanayama Nobuo, who seems to have been involved with the production of the learning materials. So there's confirmation of the pronunciation.
The printer port is not an HPIB (GPIB or as it is officially known IEEE488) connector or port. The IEEE488 standard does specify a Centronics-type connector. However, there are a total of 24 conductors consisting of eight data lines, three handshake lines, five bus management lines and eight ground lines. None of them are optional.
Since the printer port shown only has 14 conductors, it can't be HPIB.
A parallel printer needs 18 conductors at a minimum assuming none of the signals are omitted. I did search to see if there was some pared down version of a parallel printer interface that could use fewer signals but didn't find anything. It is possible that this is a serial printer port, which would have been a low-cost option. But normally that would have used a DB9 or DB25 male connector.
It may also be that they offered their own serial printer with a proprietary cable to ensure that they were the only source. It is an interesting question. But regarding the assertion of HPIB, I'm 100% certain that it is not as I was an engineer for a company that originally developed instruments that connected and communicated using that bus.
The printer port to wit has this wiring:
1 Strobe
2-3 D0-D7 respectively
10 Ack
11 Ready
13,14 Ground
The code in rom seems to be for a garden-variety parallel printer:
Port 00h out is the data latch
40h b3 out is the strobe
40h b6 in is the ready
I haven't found the 'ack', but that was often ignored, anyway.
I suspect there was a funky cable adapting this "mini centronics"/hpib to the usual connector on the printer side.
The Acoustic coupler DIN connector is situated in proximity to 1488/9 RS-2321 driver ICs so that could have been used for serial printers if required.
Crude minimalist parallel printer ports were found here and there before the IBM PC XT popularized their interpretation of the Centronics interface. Many DIY computers would use OEM printer hardware from commercial equipment and they were often intended for simple internal connections while Centronics was selling robust aftermarket printers so needed to have a well defined interface that promoted and supported their products. I recall moving some of their 132 column printers decades ago and they were heavy for one person to lift.
@@ziggurat29 I think the wiring and required cable might be the same as the one on the Casio FA-6 interface for connecting peripherals to Casio programmable calculators and pocket computers, like the FX-850P. It's certainly the same connector.
It looks similar to the printer connector on an MSX computer. My initial thought was that the Sanyo computer was an MSX since Sanyo made similar looking ones.
The history and suspense is killing me. 😆
Congrats for making it this far!!!
Video output quality might get better after recapping.
The overblown brightness suggests that Yes, but also there's probably be a potentiometer where you can dial that down and get better video quality without having to recap it. Only if you're lazy.
The caps from that part of the 80s are usualy rock solid.
I am indeed lazy. But I also love recapping. So we'll see 😅
@@ctrlaltrees the fuzzyness and whatnot implies the caps are getting leaky and their ESR is high. recap time.
I love the utmost quality of your work. It is a rare find on YT nowadays. Top work!
I recommend Usagi Electric to help you out on this. he speaks Fluent Japanese.
I certainly wouldn't mind Usagi helping _me_ out... 😍
@@dieseldragon6756 Um, what?
@@dieseldragon6756 I'm going to pretend I never read this comment.
@@leblueawoo The strong level of distain that is directed at people simply for showing appreciation for others of their own gender is...Rather concerning. 🔪🏳🌈🤔
@@dieseldragon6756 Dude, I'm in a gay relationship. The distain was towards the unsolicited hornyposting.
It’s all very well put together as a product and looks great. It must have cost quite a bit new given the hardware inside it. Very impressed with your knowledge and the quality of your research. Damn fine job sir
Haha, Pernod is The Man when it comes to MAME, the second there's a sniff of a new ROM available he's on it, and he also got my Positron 9000 emulated and booting while the actual machine itself is still unwell. Hopefully you'll get to meet him at RetroFest. Excellent progress so far! :D
You could still ask Usagi Electric. If he's interested I'm sure he wouldn't mind flying to the UK as he does to various parts of America.
Transporting the product around would be a hassle.
the user interface and such look quite refined for what it is and from when. some folks spent quite a lot of time making it. like the timeout back to loading screen, the alarm system and such.
super interesting project! your narration is vert calm and consistent. pleasant to listen to. thank you
That printer port is a centronics printer port with the standard connector used by MSX computers.
The MSX port is 14 pin and was used on other Japanese computers like the NEC
So this is where the ROM images I found on my hard drive came from. I was a bit drunk when I started to watch the first part, and was very drunk at the end of it. LOL.
I looked at the ROMs and found on ROM 3 was the character set for Japanese and English alphabets. (they are 12 bits high by 8 bits wide, which I found odd).
ROM 4 seems to have an Assembler program on it. I could be wrong though.
ROM 5 seems to be the cassette player controler. It prints the cassette function on screen.
I bet you knew this already though.
Brilliant video! Love seeing videos on obscure computers, the more obscure the better.
I found a MUPID computer at a scrap yard once many decades ago in South Africa. I thought the RED case and keyboard was very stylish. I never found any software for it and all it had built in was a cassette loader I think.
I have seen passing mention of it on the net and think it was for terminal applications from Europe.
Fascinating! Love this! Everything about this is exciting. Hands-on learning. I can definitely see this used to watch a scroll of a play as well. For kids learning for shapes, colors, matching, etc.
I would love to see this used as a prop in a sci-fi movie or TV show...
Great follow up Rees. It's always a treat when you dip into the truly obscure stuff!
I'm really happy to have found your channel and to hear others have too. Very interesting videos and you're an awesome presenter too!
It has a timer that makes it wake up and beep at you to do your language lesson? This thing is the original duolingo!
At least we now *know* where the app got that idea... 😉
It can probably start loading the tape as well, so you don't sit there waiting for another 5 minutes.
@ctrl-alt-rees did you consider the idea that the audio tape might have tones in one channel to control the slides in sync with the audio thats on the other channel? if the tape deck is broken there would be no tones to tell the projector to start/ advance slides
Interesting thought! Hopefully it's just a faulty tape deck which should be an easy fix.
@@ctrlaltrees try playing the tape on a stereo cassette deck just to check if there are tones in one channel, that might give you a clue on how the whole thing works....
In the 1970s one format of Overhead Projector presentation was to have a load of pictures on a roll which could be cranked forward. The Apprentice project we were assigned was to automate that. To stop the roll in the right place we used a photocell and markers on at the end of the slide. That was the first thing I thought of when I saw those contacts. Another option would be 8 track style metal strips.
As for digitising the paper cartridges could you just wind them manually to the next picture and take a photo of it. There might be some kind of stop that needs overiding like in a VHS cassette.
Back to Apprentice Projects another group got the assignment of making one of those illuminated maps that would show you how to get to different buildings on site. Rather amusing that all these projects could now be replaced with some software but this was back in the days when the Apple II was expensive cutting edge technology.
this is completely insane. Thank you so much for doing this.
Amazing video! This is one interesting system. Hope you get it fully working!
Extremely obscure machine! Love it!
Great progress, love the vid. Can't wait for more
Doesn't look powerful enough for 3D graphics, but I bet someone will create a DOOM capsule and play it in emulation :p
One page at a time 😅
@@ctrlaltrees with the music on cassette
@@ctrlaltrees If I'm understanding the size of those capsules correctly, there's _more_ than ample space in those for a Pi, a suitable LCD panel and a battery to run both off... 😉
@@dieseldragon6756 Or if it is back lit then the contacts could power the internal device.
15:36 - Is it supposed to have colour video output?
It just seems to be as though the "colour" is just how the raw pixels are being interpreted as chroma?
A lot like the old CGA graphics cards with Composite output. Or the Apple II.
It might make the text easier to read, if you can force the RetroTink to display in B&W?
I just happened to subscribe a week or two before that video heh, you do a good job! (the EGPU on a mac mini popped up in my feed, and I was at home on a work day sick and didnt want to do much so I kind of binge watched your videos)
What an interesting gizmo. Hope you manage to get it up and running properly -- I'm intrigued to see how all the bits work together.
I have a bit of computer-and-tape-based language learning experience. The Atari 8-bit played host to a series called "Conversational [Language]", which had tapes that contained both audio and computer data, so you'd load the program, and at various points throughout, it would use the Atari's ability to play back tape audio through the TV speakers to have actual speech. Clever stuff. Je m'appelle Dan Bowers! Bonjour! Je m'appelle Chantal Lamacq!
I know barely anything about programming (or computers), but that machine is a thing of beauty! I would have one just to look at. Though I would be tempted to turn it into an entertainment system by installing some modern additions. 👍
Wow, that thing hits all the aesthetic high points for me. I'm getting ideas.
23:28 that's quite the colorful language it teaches!
ba-dum tss
And predates my patent use of the 🇬🇧 emoji in certain four-letter words by at least thirty years! 🙃
My sugestion is buy a RAM tester & start the tedios proccess of desoldering chips. I recomend usuing desodering gun to get most of the solder out, then a heat gun to get the chip out otherwise you will rip traces & pads. then suck the solder out the holes when the chip pins are not blocking them, best way I have found that works. Make sure you solder in sockets so the chips can be esily changed if they fail again.
Due to the issues you are more likely to have a singal chip that has partialy failed/failing probaly on one board.
22:11 I'm guessing that'll be the reason for the contacts on the cartridge. They probably power a lamp contained in the cartridge itself.
That green display gives strong TRS Color Computer feelings. As for the abysmal quality of the video output, my bet would be bad caps or a cold solder joint.
The coco did to wit use the same display controller chip
Misread the title as 'It's back in Boots!' and had flashbacks to the odd decade or so when Boots were a chemist ..... and computer/game retailer ?!?
It looks like the RetroTink is misinterpreting one-pixel wide features of the characters as colour information for some reason. It might work better with a real analog monitor.
That is quite a nice looking system, sort of MSX meets 80's Hi-Fi, it's a lovely design. 😊
Nearly suggested the sifu observation in the last video too but I seem to remember cefu means something like encylopedia, I can see the overlap and confusion but I speak neither Chinese or Japanese so probably not very reliable
Looks like there might be some NTSC color artifacting going on there... I bet the picture would be a lot clearer on a monochrome monitor
You know what? I hadn't even considered that the original monitor might have been monochrome. I'll give it a go. Thanks!
@@ctrlaltrees But then that crash screen seems to have some quite clear coloured characters in it, suggesting that it's meant to be capable of colour output. It would be interesting to see how the green text looks on a monochrome monitor, though. Or can the RetroTink be switched into a monochrome mode?
It looks like some computer from an alternative universe, really interesting thing to look at and learn about
It is a beautiful machine. Those function buttons look like they have a lot of mass
They're certainly very tactile
Potentially you could use one of the cassette / mp3 adaptors to load the software. I think they don't need to motors to work for the signal to be received by the play head. Then you could use a PC to playback to recordings of the tapes.
This is a great idea. Preserve the tapes on known good equipment first then test them on vintage hardware or feed directly as you say.
The Cefucom seems to closely resemble the design style of the Coomber-brand cassette players used in UK schools in the early 90s. These had a very industrial and unaesthetic design intended to make them unattractive to theft (They genuinely looked like a piece of garage equipment) bu were solid and well-built, as befits a school setting.
Perhaps the Cefucom isn't so heavily steered in that direction (It sort of half-is and half isn't) but it's certainly a big piece of kit, clearly designed more for institutional use rather than domestic.
It would be a simple task to hardwire a cassette player speaker output to the built in cassette player to facilitate loading of the programs.
I was wondering what the grey / blue keyboard colour-scheme reminded me of - it's an IBM 029 / 129 keypunch...
13:27 that connector is too short to be HPGIB. Right family, just fewer pins.
Ecactly. HP-IB / GBIP /IEEE-488 uses a Centronics connector with 24pins (2*12). The connector shown is only 14pin. It could still use the same protocoll, as 14pin is what you need for a printer (omitting the Remote enable and Service Request pins as well as the individual GND pins.). But surely its not standard IEEE-488.
Fun thing is that that connector actually IS a centronics connector. Just not a standard 36pin (following IEEE 1284 / generally known as a typical parallel printer port), but a smaller one. "Centronics" is the the (informal) name of the plugs form factor.
We love you Reese 🌱🌱
Aww, I love you too SproutyPottedPlant 🪴
The 'memory' crash at the end
could be temperature related. My Dragon 32 used to end up looking like that if it had been on for a long time
Really reminds me of the Tandy CoCo in action, mainly the green background.
Yes, it probably also uses the Motorola MC6847 Video chip, the colourful crash screen also seems to point to that video generator.
Bingo! It's an MC6847.
Did Ashens visit you? The Game child in the background screams his name!😅 Nice video!❤
The name of the computer somehow reminds me of another brilliant branding idea from Japan - Fukuppy.
The bad graphics is probaly down to a bad RAM IC, normaly you would get random charictors.
The battery missing mght be a reason for the screen being garbled, I've seen it before with TEC POS computers, when their bios battery died they'd become really erratic.
How long before someone ports doom to this thing?
There's a chance that cellophane bag was never sealed in the first place, just folded to keep dust out.
Pronounced "Kah Mee Shee Bye."
Also the video output circuity needs going over. That's basically unusuable.
Check for solder cracks. ☝
Haha, funny seeing ChipGuy in the comments section on the video! Hello from your old friend Electricguy/EG.
This computer SLAPS!
Epico!
This is the only computer officially endorsed by Will Smith.
Mode 5 Information
To extract information, please key in your regional data rate and press return.
Whatever that means.
The damn thing was internet-ready!
In 1983!
@@ctrlaltrees This is around the time Minitel 🇫🇷 was getting going as well. Crazy to think that Japan might've been gearing up to become just as connected as France! 🚄🖥🇫🇷😁
The UK was also heading that same way with Prestel, but BT really messed things up; Not only did a Prestel terminal cost more than a months middle-income wages, but the cost of accessing the service (Monthly service fee *and* per-minute/page charges) made it completely unaffordable to at least 80% of the British population. 💸
In direct contrast; In France, PTT were quick to realise that one minitel terminal lasting 10-20 years and having a free directory enquiry service accessible through it was a *lot* cheaper per customer than annual deliveries of phone books across the same 10-year period. Minitel soon took off like a rocket - Predating the modern Internet by at least 15 years - And what started off as a digital phonebook soon became an in-home banking, flight booking, train ticketing service that really catapulted France into being the most advanced country in Europe from the mid 80s right up until the mid 2000s.
*Vive le TGV!* 🚄🇫🇷❤🔥🤘💨
@@ctrlaltrees This is around the time Minitel 🇫🇷 was getting going as well. Crazy to think that Japan might've been gearing up to become just as connected as France! 🚄🖥🇫🇷😁
The UK was also heading that same way with Prestel, but BT really messed things up; Not only did a Prestel terminal cost more than a months middle-income wages, but the cost of accessing the service (Monthly service fee *and* per-minute/page charges) made it completely unaffordable to at least 80% of the British population. 💸
In direct contrast; In France, PTT were quick to realise that one minitel terminal lasting 10-20 years and having a free directory enquiry service accessible through it was a *lot* cheaper per customer than annual deliveries of phone books across the same 10-year period. Minitel soon took off like a rocket - Predating the modern Internet by at least 15 years - And what started off as a digital phonebook soon became an in-home banking, flight booking, train ticketing service that really catapulted France into being the most advanced country in Europe from the mid 80s right up until the mid 2000s.
I thought SLAP was about how if one is slapped hard enough, they will quickly learn the language of whatever country they happen to be in.
Probably cold solder joints. They disconnect when heats up. If you have a friend with a hot air gun they can reflow the solder for you.
MenditMark might be helpful with the big paper reader gizmo. He is good with odd electronics. Fascinating gizmo that looks like it was for schools with big budgets.
What a weird machine. I wonder how many of these were sold?
I’m suspecting the time date IC runs off the battery and because it isn’t powered the IO is just reading floating inputs hence the garbage
I like the cassette mode, reminds me of when I bought my PS1 and used it as a CD player
It's a Cubist random art generator
i would be guessing it has bad electrolytic caps the make the video so bad in the same way that old tube type radios normally need their caps replaced. I know that the tandy coco looked way better than this with the same video chip.
Its odd although it looks totally different I was getting a Tandy Color Computer vibe from this then you mentioned the Dragon/Tandy. The silver finish abd the color screen reminds me of it too with green background and cursor. The artwork in the books looks to be same artist that did art for the Tandy Color Computer books. I grew up tinkering on TRS-80/Tandy computers. I am not too techy but was part of the pirate game/software ring for it back in 80s early 90s (laughs). I still own it and lots of software and most of the magazines.
I'm looking for a 5 1/4 floopy disk drive. Any places where I can buy one?
Could that be a centronics 14 pin connector instead of a centronics 36 pin?
I'm glad this machine ended up with you. It would have been a shame if it had ended up with someone who wasn't a weeb and couldn't understand any Japanese
師父 is also a Japanese word. More than half of Japanese words are borrowed from Chinese, though often they end up sounding different, unlike this one. Wiktionary says it means a: teacher and father 2: (honorific) teacher, master
10:08 This is the internet as it could be. Not this AI hellscape. But interested people finding each other across the world.
That's too small to be an GPIB/HPIB/IEEE488.2 connector, it doesn't have nearly enough pins
It looks like a giant demented digital alarm clock / radio
Printer connector is not HPIB. Too short.
I know a decent amount of Japanese as well, but nothing that would get me through the weeds of any technical grammar. It would be tedious, but if you took pictures and uploaded those somewhere you might get a bite from someone.
Not that he does any better with Japanese but Techmoan may be able to provide some kind of help. Regardless this system seems up his alley of oddware.
If you can figure out what ports and/or memory addresses on z80's busses mapped to which device that would solve many problems. Heck, I interfaced an apple ][ with a c64 with biderectional i/o in real time. Could access ALL the c64 from the Apple ][. Was working on porting a program from the apple ][ to the 64 . And Merlin assembler and the apple ][ 'monitor' made development on the c64 a breeze compared with anything native to the c64. If you solve your hardware problems you could probably do wonders on that machine even w/o an emulator.
Granted all the hardware mapping will need to be figured out for an emulator too (:
Just my 2 cents as an ancient hacker.
Youd thimk they would produce these as general education computers, not just for language.
Video output looks like a tandy coco. Which yeah generally bad but this is extra bad haha.
Given C-A-R is located in the UK, I think the root of the problem is that he's producing an _NTSC-J_ signal in a _PAL_ region. Because of this the video output has to be converted _back_ to NTSC again, which UA-cam does automatically for many regions. But because I also live in the UK I only see the PALised NTSC output, and have to provide my own filtration if I want to see a legible video signal. 🙃
(Thank Odin for ffmpeg! 👍)
7:40 it looks so worried
Yeh... Please don't commit this artifact to the chances of postage and shipping. If you cant find any local Japanese speakers, you can always do virtual exchange. My Japanese is fluent and I'd happily do 10 - 20 pages of the text at a time - which I've no doubt another half a hundred more capable folk will surely do.
Perhaps the MAME team could help in emulating that machine.
I hope this thing is not going to launch the nukes, lol
Sorry did I miss the part where you talked about what was actually wrong with the machine from the first video? While you gained me as a new sub in the original I think the first section, before the software unboxing should’ve been a recap and resolution recap as to how it’s working now.
besides the cartridges,is this a normal pc? can you load dos/windows? can it be upgraded?
No, its an 8-bit (dual) Z80 based machine. It is NOT in any sense a PC.
Heh heh, the video output looks better when the computer crashes.
Yes and no. If you look carefully, some of the green characters have artifacts similar to the way they appeared in the green text screens.
How did you get it to power up? No explanation as to why in your last video it wouldn’t power on..
if you watch all the video it is explained.
Yeah, it's a bit buried later on because it's not very interesting. Basically user error 🙈
This video makes me want to use PCBWAY! As well as that, it is an interesting and enjoyable video about a delightfully esoteric piece of old junk.
Rude! Rees isn't old 😂
What about the built in display thing? Aren’t you going to show us how that works? That’s why I clicked on this video.
At 13:50, he explains that it's not currently working because of a drive belt that was so old and dry it had essentially disintegrated inside the machine and some bits might still be in there rattling and buzzing.
Apologies for disappointment, I did try to make it clear from the get go that it isn't fully functional yet. The only reason I've got as far as I have is because of feedback from the community, hence the progress updates.
@ I understand, when you said it wasn’t fully functional I just thought you were talking about the display connection on the TV screen isn’t too good. I didn’t realise you were talking about other parts too. Thank you very much for replying though.
@@hugodesrosiers-plaisance3156 I will feedback that this came across to me as applying to the cassette deck only, so I was still hoping/expecting to see the capsule „screen“ working to at least some degree. 😇
@@ctrlaltrees if and when you get around to it, it would be interesting to have scans of the roll images for the emulator efforts. don't break anything, of course.. it does seem that perhaps the rollers could be manually turned.
also, since it seems there are three electrical contacts on the cartridge, perhaps measuring resistance might be useful. Given the era, it seems there likely is incandescent backlighting, which should show as a low resistance. A possible arrangement is:
* gnd
* backlight
* start of roll
Where upon boot the unit is rewound to start to sync up, and then the computer can know where it is during presentation. Just a guess, of course.
Aside from hardware, maybe looking in the manual to just know how many slides are in a cartridge roll would be interesting.
Blá blá blá = 99% but run the machine ????