Homebrew Z80 Computer from 1977 !! - 8BitBites
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 พ.ค. 2020
- #vintagecomputer #z80 #homebrew
This short '8BitBites' video will take you on a quick tour of a very homebrew / homemade Z80 based computer from (I think) around 1977 or so. Everything about this computer screams 'built in my basement', from the custom metal frame, scavenged keyboard and... WOOODGRAIN.
If you enjoy this video, please feel free to subscribe and you'll be notified of future releases, which tend to happen every couple of weeks.
I also have several other videos for your perusal, including the History of Computerland, 1970s Unbuilt Kit Computers and more!
Thanks again for watching! - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Note: No Sinclair ZX81 / Timex Sinclair 1000s were harmed during the making of this video. The unit you see being used as a doorstop is a digital recreation. Really!
Commodore employees were known to use them as doorstops because they got a ton of them on trade ins on C64 computers.
i guess Im asking the wrong place but does anyone know of a way to log back into an instagram account..?
I somehow lost the password. I would love any tips you can offer me
@Killian Kairo instablaster =)
@Draven Edwin thanks for your reply. I got to the site on google and im in the hacking process atm.
Looks like it's gonna take quite some time so I will get back to you later with my results.
@Draven Edwin it did the trick and I actually got access to my account again. I am so happy!
Thank you so much you saved my ass !
This video and quirky computer inspired me to make my own homebrew Z80 computer last year and it's been my favorite project during COVID times. As well documented as the subject is now, it's hard not to have respect for the people who took the DIY approach at a time when the technology was new. Thanks very much for sharing your insight and explorations of the early microcomputing era.
Cool item.. sure the ghost of the owner is glad you picked it up
I really hope you can follow through with adding more RAM and a way to save programs. It's a weird but very interesting little computer!
So COOL! I love that it still WORKS!
man i do not miss that crt whine.
What if he made the computer to program ROMS to be used in the computer?
Similar to how some people buy the bare minimum for a DIY 3D printer and print the remainder of parts themselves.
That's interesting.
the wood computer preformed better than I expected
i watch aloot of old computer stuff, and i must say you cover these old uninteresting machines and really make it entertaining
I seriously love these home made cases. :)
I've been addicted to your channel recently because you go super in-depth about the DIY stuff like this, that very few people seem to touch on. All of the DIY home computer stuff is sadly before my time, so seeing someone talk about them and show them off is really cool. I love seeing the ingenuity, backyard creativity, and emergency hacks and mods people did to their daily driver systems like this to get the most out of them.
That’s a lovely piece of machinery! 😍
wow this brings back memories when I used to do wire wrapping on my own homebrew z80 computer. What a nice find. Dont get shocked :)
I’m loving all these videos! I didn’t realize the sheer variety of homebrew systems that were on the market... mostly because my introduction to PCs was a 486 Packard Bell.
I dunno if you'd call homebrew computers "on the market", especially back when this seems to have been built. There were kits, like the Altair and the Apple 1, but homebrew was built from the ground up with generic components that were on offer.
That's so cool. I love the veneer look. I'm currently building a single board Z80 computer with built in BASIC. It's point to point wireing on veroboard using a lot of spare parts I've gathered over the years. Fun, but hard work. I got a ZX81 when I was about 12 and been hooked on 8 bits ever since. I'm 52 and still programimg and fixing them. LOL.
Loving the content of your channel, Subbed.
Amazing!
If you expand it with RAM, also add a ROM with with a Basic interpreter
For the BASIC you can use the Microsoft BASIC for NASCOM which has a small footprint and it's suited for such small Z80 computers. If you tell me about the keyboard and video I can cook you a ROM file
@@ninoporcino5790 grande Nino!
That Timex Sinclair you kicked across the floor was the very first computer I ever laid fingers on. A friend of mine's Dad received one as a gift for looking at some land for an investment deal (door prize, 1982-83) Yeah the worst part about that to me was the keyboard.
Cool! Would be nice to see the red led display doing something nerdy. :)
This was incredibly interesting. Any info on who built it? Must have been pretty good, with no internet back then. Probably worked in the field of computer design.
No, unfortunately it came from an estate sale, IIRC. I would have loved to ask the owner questions about it for sure. We think he had some serious electronics experience; even the monitor program appears to be a one off.
EPROM programmer is a good guess. That was all the rage back in the early days of computer tinkering.
Now run cp/m and play Zork with it
Heeeyyyy I loved my ZX81! OK there were issues, but it still kicked this homebrew Fanky monster's butt.
That "wood" looks a bit like Formica laminate. I remember a lot of cheap furniture was made with that stuff on particle board.
Lazy Game Reviews (LGR) would love this..
21
Tugas akhir gw ember komputer, eta oge!!
Looks cool. i'd litterally would to attempt to write a 10,000 word story fantasy adventure novel with it, though. though, it probably needs a fan to keep those chips cool. And maybe a floppy drive expansion.
The frame is nice. Imagine the thing in brushed alu... Doing that would void warranty though.
WHAT?
LOOK AT THAT CHEAP VANEER!!!
I want one!
The skin appears to be a wood grain Formica. Clever on the builder's part. :)
Oh gawd, thats the stuff with the kinda.. grid-like moulded back and smooth front, right?
@@jonathan_herr I've never seen it with a grid molded into it. It's typically just a rough surface for the adhesive to grab on to.
@@f15sim well maybe not a grid per-se, but a rough repetitively patterned rear surface..
An interesting computer, would be nice to look in the ROM, maybe there is some resemblance with others from that time. Then maybe some schematics can be retrieved, and extension boards. Next CP/M and then a Bitcoin programme that will search for lost Bitcoins that became orphans after being abandoned by a cruel and heartless owner.
one day, someone may find my spaghetti-mess homebrew Z80 computer and will have even less luck than you did here
Can you share a link to the VC Fed thread you made on this machine?
For some reason youtube won't let me link it, but if you search Homebrew Z80, vcfed and falter.. google should produce the link.
Z 80 microchip set into 1980's
Can it play River Raid ? 🤪
10k
Apa persamaan antara perasaan Dan instinct?
It would be really nice if you could notch out 15KHz from the audio when you're recording a monitor. It's really hard to listen to.
Hmm.. this is an older vid before I had my lav mic. I don't notice the sound but hopefully the later videos have eliminated that.
You should post the code from the ROM so others can see it.
This is an odd device. I cannot imagine going to the difficulty of designing and building a computer from scratch, but with such very limited functionality. With only 1K of RAM and no external storage it is nearly useless. I wonder if the creator never finished the project (or if this was just a prototype for a later model).
I suspect the mystery card and empty slot might hold the key. I kind of wonder if one might hold more RAM and the other some sort of tape encoding system. Unfortunately if there was another card it is long lost. But sometime I might trace the wiring on the mystery card and try to deduce what it does. The only thing I can say for sure about it is that the machine will not operate with it installed.
@@TechTimeTraveller You mentioned a place you sent the rom to to get it dumped and figured out. What was that website? (You don't mention it in the info-below-the video (video description) Such a place might be somewhere new I might want to take a look at?
Com-POS-it!
Neat! Though apparently I *can* still hear CRT whine, oof. I wonder if it was based on some plans or totally self designed.
10k
Apa seandainya bukan bikin atas berdasarkan insting?
Russian clone computers have the same parts was a clone of zx spectrum 48 or 128 k
I really don’t understand the dumb hello world thing. I mean why, it’s so stupid. It really is something that annoys me on a personal level for some reason
ugh, wire wrap
Holy monitor squeal Batman. Please filter the 15khz tone out of your videos.
Learning curve. I literally cannot hear it and didn't even know it was a thing when I filmed that. I'll be on guard for it in future.
@@TechTimeTraveller Thanks, I didn't mean to be snarky. Older folks don't hear sounds with a frequency that high, so no worries. It was just ridiculously loud and distracting, and I know you wouldn't include that in your videos if you could hear it. Thanks for looking out in the future.
Back in the day, I not only heard it, but it was _loud_ and headace-inducing. I could tell there was a monitor left on in a cubicle as I passed by.
The fact that you hate on the ZX81 so much really annoys me. It's undeserved and comes across as elitist.
Nah... it's all in jest. My MK14 video makes clear I appreciate what Sinclair tried to do. Over here growing up they weren't appreciated because we didn't understand the UK market context. And the jokes about using them as doorstops.. that comes from Commodore.
@@TechTimeTraveller Not everybody was rich in the 1980s, able to afford an apple computer or even a commodore with a fancy disk drive, the ZX81 and others in Sinclair's range were where most devs started because it was cheap and simple, which was Sinclair's design philosophy, they are still cheap today, usually selling for around their original price back 40 years ago. I don't know how anybody could hate on it just because you had fancier stuff.
@@hypnotised-clover Because most people in pre-internet North America were blissfully unaware that the purchasing power of the average British household was only 2/3 what they had. To them a Commodore 64 was a cheap computer, and they didn't get why you'd want something like a ZX80/81.
@@TechTimeTraveller I'm not talking about people from pre internet times. You don't seem to realise that even now, in Europe, it is hard to get anything more than a C64 and most vintage computer collectors can only get these "cheap" computers because that is all anybody had. You show off your fancy and expensive computers while dumping on what is not only a very important computer, but to this day what many collectors have and love, like I said, it comes across as elitist. I bloody wish I could get the fancy crap like you have, even these amazing home made "junk" computers, but they simply do not exist where I live and a ZX range computer is what I have to happily settle for. You get my point at least, right?