Somebody casually reverse engineered an entire board so somebody else could casually probe it to determine, oh, it's this chip. Some rabbits may have been involved.
This was was a particularly interesting video because I watched it with my dad who , in the late 70s (before I came along), he worked in a clean room assembling massive platter HDDs for Hewlett-Packard. At the time he had just been accepted to Washington State University's College of Veterinary Medicine. A few years later I was born and of course his DVM program took more and more of his time. Can't remember exactly how long he worked in assembly, but he started in the shipping department and was pulled aside by a supervisor and asked if he'd be interested in the new position, which paid much better. I believe they were using 14" platters at the time. Low and behold, he could never imagined that 44 years later he'd be watching TH-cam with his son and sharing memories of building these massive drives. Ironically, dad's not a "computer guy" at all and has been a dedicated vet for nearly 40 years. It was just a transitional job for him, but one he brings up often.
Thank you! I'm honestly blown away that the machine was capable of coming back as far as it has. When I first saw the pile of bits and bobs I got from Oklahoma, I thought there was no way it'd ever run again. Now, I don't even hesitate to spin it up and do some work on it!
Congratulations David (and team). Big day to get a fully-working Centurion system finally up and running as designed. Seeing the Finch reading and writing without error was something I wasn't sure we'd see. Looking forward to doing the same with the Phoenix. Well done!
Oh man, I was almost certain the Finch would never come back, it was an absolute joy to see it spin up and read out its contents! The Centurion has been a roller coaster of a ride, but I'm really happy with how its shaping up. No clue how successful we'll be with the Phoenix, but we'll definitely give it the old college try!
Amazing to see this thing being close to fully operational. You're either incredibly lucky or these old machines are extremely resilient for age. Having knowledgeable people definitely goes a long way.
Definitely! Still have one more Finch drive to repair, the printer, the Phoenix, a custom paper tape interface, and much, much more. It's going to be a wild machine!
@@danaeckel5523 The printer is going to be an interesting battle for sure! We don't have a tape interface for the machine, but Centurion did actually use a Sykes magnetic tape drive with some machines. We unfortunately, don't have any further information than that. I do hope to build a paper tape interface for the Centurion someday so it can read in an store old Litton paper tape data. Centurion also had one of these, but it was for internal use only, so there were maybe only a handful ever built. It should be fairly easy to replicate though!
That sort of thing is a sign of the absolute lack of meaningful serious retro-tech channels on TH-cam rather than any kind of ~voluntary~ congregation.
Just discovered you and watched Centurion episodes 1-14 in pretty much one sitting. ep 15 is next, but thought I'd put a comment on this one so you might see it amoungst the 100s. I have always loved seeing old computers being saved (similar with old cars, like I see you also have), but I'm especially loving seeing you going a level further and trying to bring the mini computer back to life (with astonishing dedication). I'm "1977" and "cut my teeth" on an Acorn Electron 32k in the early-mid 1980's (think I spotted one on the shelf in the background of two of your vids?). Back then your Centurion would have blown my mind with it's whopping 256k of RAM, and hard drives when all I had was cassettes, and I had barely heard of a floppy never mind a hard drive... One of the best things about what you're doing is not only about saving the hardware, or even bringing the thing back to life and even more - saving the soft OS , - it's that you're documenting it all, AND doing it on video (is video an archaic term yet?). This footage could possibly now last for the future of the human race, - and it's great material for future generations. Also, (and I don't want to give you a big head here), but you do present well and are easy to watch and listen to (when you have your "Ed China" hair trimmed down a bit at least!) You are also enguaging with current interested proper "boffins" which is also great for everyone, and big kudos to them too for getting involved and sharing their magic. Wish I had your level of knowledge and expertise in the electronic area. I've soldered up a few projects in my teens for my various Amigas, but I was just following schematics and never had much clue about how they worked. Still, I'm learning a few bits and pieces from you and different ways of looking at things from your vids so thank you for sharing the love and knowledge, - looking forward to catching up on the rest of the series. ETX (0x03)
Thank you for the kind words! And kudos for the Ed China reference, he's a personal TV hero of mine. He has this awesome ability to break down seemingly complex topics into digestible chunks of information that's been a real inspiration. I unfortunately don't have any Acorn stuff. What you might have been seeing was the TI Silent 700 in the background. It can look a lot like other micros of the time. Thanks again!
Great work! You've made some amazing progress with this machine! Honestly, when I first saw it, I thought it was a basket case. But you've managed to repair pretty much everything you've set your mind to, which is an awesome achievement! Hopefully you can find something interesting in all that source code and other data, and I can't wait to see what you're going to work on next!
Oh man, when I first unloaded the machine, I thought the only truly salvageable pieces would be the terminals, I never imagined that we'd get it this far along! I'm reasonably confident we can get the Printer up and going, but the Phoenix drive is going to be a challenge on a different level. It'll be fun though :)
I had a boss that used to say "problems that go away alone come back with company" (in a tentative translation from Portuguese where alone means without company but also means without cause).
Your persistence in fixing problems is an inspiration to anyone who has a problem with a computer or any other machine. It's hard to keep going when things don't work and your fix just reveals more problems.
One of these days I'll have to put together some kind of paper on my method of reverse engineering circuit boards of this era. I got my hands on an early '80s smart meter and accompanying field test terminal (something to do when lockdown mania swept across the country), and with this method, I was able to make node charts that allowed me to make accurate schematics of all the boards in both.
This is fantastic! Please back up everything from the finch drive to the hawk drive. The finch drive may be marginal - some mechanical component is possibly worn out or fouled so it may stop working permanently at any time.
I'm super happy that TH-cam has recommended one of your videos a while ago. This channel is one of my favorites and I love your content - maybe it has also to do with your moments of desperation? Don't mean it the mean way ;) Nasty little jumpers. Man these tiny little pieces of doom had driven me nuts in the past. Whether it was a bad configuration on a motherboard or a false label on a drive. Please keep on, this stuff is highly entertaining :D
When you walk away in frustration at 21:25 part of me was halfway expecting "HaHaHaHa Just kidding" to appear on the monitor at 21:30 and then it starts working.
Woohoo! Awesome you got the Finch working! I have to admit, there is a part of me that really, really, really wants to see that Phoenix up and running. Couldn't really say why... maybe just because it looks so cool. :)
I said "termination" repeatedly when the disks were conflicting. Seems like you heard me :) Well sorta termination, or not quite, but still, something jumper-resistor thingy :)
I really like this desoldering iron! The only downside is that one really big chips where I have to use the bulb a lot, my hand starts to cramp up and I have to switch to my left hand. Other than though, it does an awesome job, and you can even still find new tips for it on Amazon. For less than $50, it's a dang good deal.
@@UsagiElectric If you ever find a Radio Shack 64-2185 digital soldering station you can put that desoldering end into the iron it comes with. It is 80W and the temperature control is nice to have. I used that for years until I scored a Hakko gun.
It's amazing to look back at these old machines and realise just how far we've come in terms of technology, so much that the machine itself can be emulated in a Web browser.
Puppy! Love what you're doing with this machine and it's counterfeit brother. Getting this thing "period correct" and working has been a true labor of love.
I used to use a desoldering iron just like that. Those things worked better than you might think. The suction was instant, and quick. If you were good with it, it generally worked on the first suck. In fact, i need to find a new one and buy it. While i have solder suckers, wick, and hot air guns, there's something about that suction bulb that just works. I mean that thing was my bread and butter for close to a year.
I’m curious. What would this system cost when it was new? In a similar configuration to what you have now? Anyway, I really enjoy your videos!! Thank you!
Interestingly, we found a brochure comparing minicomputers from 1983, and they have the Centurion listed, though it's a slightly different configuration. A CPU6 system with 256k, one 32MB Finch, one 4-port MUX, one CRT and a TI-810 printer cost $41,465. The 100 LPM ODEC printer, 96MB Phoenix, 10MB Hawk, and Floppy, would add quite a lot more as it would require the drives and larger printer, as well as the appropriate PRT, CMD and DSK/DSK2 controller cards. I would estimate that would push the cost of the system closer to $60,000 (those Phoenix drives were like $10k alone). With a quick google, $60k in 1983 is around $184,000 today! So, in today's money, I would say a full fledged Centurion would cost between $125k and $180k depending on configuration. Not a cheap system indeed!
This setup would have been $30-$40K brand new in 1980 or about $160K adjusted for inflation. Just the CRT started at about $2492 or about $8900 in 2023. The Hawk drive and cabinet were $11500 or about $41000 in today's money. bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/centurion/Centurion_DataPro_Reports/M11-128-10_8010_Centurion.pdf
This CPU6 system with 256 KB of DRAM, Data-100 line printer, a few ADDS terminals, 10 MB CDC 9427H Hawk drive, 32 MB CDC 9410 Finch drive, 8" DSDD Floppy, the mulit-user OPSYS and Centurion's accounting software would be in the $45K to $50K price range in 1985. FYI - Back in 1975 the CPU4's 32KB DRAM memory card (p/n 1003) sold for $10,000.
Love that Radio Shack iron. Solder suckers don't work for me, wick only works with my bench iron (which has the thermal mass), and the motorized ones are just too pricey for my limited desoldering. It fits in the middle well. And congrats on getting the FFC and drives sorted. Marc sent that 8" HP to a good home. 🙂
I have that same Radio Shack desoldering iron and used it a lot. I used to keep an old metal coffee can next to my desk for blowing out the solder. It works well enough, but that squeeze bulb would make my hands sore after desoldering parts for an hour or two.
There's two big hurdles we have to overcome with porting software. First, we're only now starting to get a handle on the assembly instruction set. It's bonkers and dramatically different than anything else out there. A completely custom job that has some wild features (for example, you can write to a literal address, something that should be impossible). Second, the Centurion uses a very weird 400-bytes per sector instead of the standard 512-bytes. This means that any file transfer program not only has to transfer a file, it has to translate the file between the two different types of file systems. This is proving to be quite difficult to overcome!
I just discovered your channel a few days ago and I absolutely love this type of troubleshooting and exploration of old tech. When I saw you'd visited the brilliant CuriousMarc, I knew I'd found a new favorite channel. Subscribed!
Marc's seemingly endless fascination and exploration of 20th century space tech is massively entertaining. But the video that got me seriously hooked was when he used his mechanical calculator to divide by zero. Once I saw that I knew I was in the right place
Epic win indeed! Great to see your progress, I'm so happy to watch things go in the desired direction :). Ah, replacing IDC connectors by hand! Been there, done it.
@@Stoney3K I had to do that quite a bit because no IDE cable would fit my custom AT case. If you don't re-use the same position the cable doesn't mind having holes in it. Putting a connector back in the old place always caused weird errors because it would never make a good connection again.
I'm there watching, thinking stop talking, quick, get it backed up and talk after, knowing it could die any second, perhaps for the last time. Well done for making a successful backup.
Though I am not knowledgeable in this area, but am said to be highly analytical while finding solutions beyond regarded as normal that makes things work that were given up, I enjoy your videos very much.
Thank you! That's next on the list. I wanted to make sure I had a 100% working FFC and Finch before diving into the unknown MicroPlus Finch. While my Finch didn't really have anything exciting on it, the MicroPlus Finch should have a full OpSys as well as applications, so we absolutely need to dump it fully. I'm working on an assembly program to get that done more effectively, but I want to test it out on my Finch first so we don't accidentally destroy any data on the other Finch. Soon though! I definitely want to get that Finch back up to Tennessee and get that MicroPlus up and working fully!
Radio Shack desoldering iron fan boy here! Mine still works after all this time; I just wish I could find a source for the desoldering iron tips, now that Radio Shack is basically Kaput.
Nodemcu wifi Modem into one of the serial ports will allow external developers to run code directly on your machine. And give you text Internet access. Might be worth spending $20 setting it up
That is a cool idea, but I'm not sure if that is a good idea with the current hawk, and finch drives. Now if the classic drives could be eliminated and have a modern solution that could be used as a sandbox that would be awesome.
Great you got it working 🙂 Didn't you have a second finch drive to fix ?? How is that doing? It would be great if you could demo how the Centurion OS was actually used "in anger" to do something... is that something you could do?
Agree. David does the most amazing work in restoring these machines, and I'd like to see more of how they were actually used by customers. Sort of Day in the Life type videos. Maybe he needs to hand this type of exploration off to another person, perhaps someone who regularly used the machines back in the day.
A 30 year old guy and a 60 year old guy sit at a table. the old guy asks do you remember floppy discs the younger guy says. ofcourse i do puts a flimsy plastic 3.5 floppy drive from the year 2000 on the table. the old guy says you call that a floppy drive this is a floppy drive .he then slams an 8 inch 1976 floppy drive on the table crushing the 3.5 floppy drive to pieces.
This was such a trip down memory lane. First TeraTerm, I had forgotten it even existed it was so long ago that I used it. Then the IDC cable, I have done that so many times.
If or rather, since we know the pinouts and the expected signals, would it in theory be possible to make an SSD adapter? I mean I vaguely remember you saying that you didn't want to do that, but I'm kind of curious if that would be possible. [And it would make it a hell of a lot easier to debug stuff like this]
Do not think the Unicomp you are working with for keyboards has / had any ties to the Unicomp in Richardson, TX was a Centurion dealer back in the 1980s.
Thank you! I unfortunately didn't make it to MW this year. I have a trip to the Northeast coming up in October, and couldn't afford to go to both this time.
@@UsagiElectric I came "this close" to going myself. It was a 9 hour drive from Central, PA. When it came down to it, I just couldn't justify it; I have too much else going on, including a deep shop sink install which will make cleaning PCBs, cases, and grill tools so much easier than using the shallow bathroom sink. I had to buy a sink pump for it and there went $300 of gas and hotels monies. I guess the next will be VCF East in NJ in April. I will 100% be going to that one and plan on hitting the one in Atlanta or Chicago next year, The Lord willing 8-).
Two questions: 1 - In Finch Disc Diagnostic, what is option A - Audio Control for? Does the finch hard disk also work as a speaker? It would be a great accessory for the Floppotron. 2 - How can you clean, disassemble, diagnose and repair these monsters, and even record and edit videos in just 24 hours a day? And there's still time to visit your barbershop, museums of obsolete technology and go to old geek meetings. Do you have a temporal dilation device in your laboratory? Yes, there is, don't try to deceive us, confess it.
The [ Audio Control ] in the ?Finch diag is used to turn ON or OFF a "beep" on error messages and end of a test pass. The "Beep" is just the Control-G code being sent to the ADDS terminal to sound the beeper / bell tone.
The printer is fascinating! There's a few more Centurion episodes I want to cover before we dive heavily into the printer, but rest assured, it is coming!
Somebody casually reverse engineered an entire board so somebody else could casually probe it to determine, oh, it's this chip. Some rabbits may have been involved.
All credit to Meisaka and the rabbit, I just turn the wrenches is all!
This was was a particularly interesting video because I watched it with my dad who , in the late 70s (before I came along), he worked in a clean room assembling massive platter HDDs for Hewlett-Packard. At the time he had just been accepted to Washington State University's College of Veterinary Medicine. A few years later I was born and of course his DVM program took more and more of his time. Can't remember exactly how long he worked in assembly, but he started in the shipping department and was pulled aside by a supervisor and asked if he'd be interested in the new position, which paid much better. I believe they were using 14" platters at the time.
Low and behold, he could never imagined that 44 years later he'd be watching TH-cam with his son and sharing memories of building these massive drives. Ironically, dad's not a "computer guy" at all and has been a dedicated vet for nearly 40 years. It was just a transitional job for him, but one he brings up often.
I can't believe how far you've come with this project. Awesome work, to all involved.
Thank you! I'm honestly blown away that the machine was capable of coming back as far as it has. When I first saw the pile of bits and bobs I got from Oklahoma, I thought there was no way it'd ever run again. Now, I don't even hesitate to spin it up and do some work on it!
Wonderful. A day when Usagi uploads is a good day
Thanks!
can't agree more.
Could not agree more! Really impressive and inspiring to see the Centurion begin to reach its potential once again,
Absolutely!
Your tenacity and perseverance is admirable and inspirational 😊
I think it's mostly stubbornness, haha!
@@UsagiElectricThis type of stubborness comes from subconscious knowledge that it can be achieved.
@@UsagiElectricwell-applied stubbornness is admirable and inspirational.
Sometimes, *paper* books 📚 offer a *support* that no other format can provide (9:58) 😁
Congratulations David (and team). Big day to get a fully-working Centurion system finally up and running as designed. Seeing the Finch reading and writing without error was something I wasn't sure we'd see. Looking forward to doing the same with the Phoenix. Well done!
Oh man, I was almost certain the Finch would never come back, it was an absolute joy to see it spin up and read out its contents!
The Centurion has been a roller coaster of a ride, but I'm really happy with how its shaping up. No clue how successful we'll be with the Phoenix, but we'll definitely give it the old college try!
"That's a new one. I don't know what it means." The mantra of every computer geek everywhere.
Oh man, huge thanks to Marc for hooking you up!
Amazing to see this thing being close to fully operational. You're either incredibly lucky or these old machines are extremely resilient for age. Having knowledgeable people definitely goes a long way.
That schematic by Masaka is a work of art and absolutely NEEDS to be turned into a wall poster, oh my god!
would be a cool desktop wallpaper also !!
100% agree! You can actually find the SVG for it here if you want to print it out: github.com/Meisaka/CenMiniCom/tree/main/FFC
@@UsagiElectric oh thank you !!!
I'm not into computers at all, but none the less I find this channel very interesting to follow.
Thank you so much!
I understand maybe 10% of the technical aspects, but 100% of the enthusiasm comes through.
Oh, that CRT takes me back to 1985, you can see the character cells burnt into the screen
And this CRT is actually pretty good! My other Centurion terminal has horrific burn-in, haha.
I have no idea what’s going on but I like it.
You got quite a bit of work ahead of you. Can't wait till you have the full centurion experience.
Definitely! Still have one more Finch drive to repair, the printer, the Phoenix, a custom paper tape interface, and much, much more. It's going to be a wild machine!
@@UsagiElectric I'm curious how the printer will go. I thought you mentioned an audio tape interface as well at one point?
@@danaeckel5523 The printer is going to be an interesting battle for sure!
We don't have a tape interface for the machine, but Centurion did actually use a Sykes magnetic tape drive with some machines. We unfortunately, don't have any further information than that. I do hope to build a paper tape interface for the Centurion someday so it can read in an store old Litton paper tape data. Centurion also had one of these, but it was for internal use only, so there were maybe only a handful ever built. It should be fairly easy to replicate though!
I love how all the tech channels nerd out together... I adore curious marc channel too.
That sort of thing is a sign of the absolute lack of meaningful serious retro-tech channels on TH-cam rather than any kind of ~voluntary~ congregation.
Just discovered you and watched Centurion episodes 1-14 in pretty much one sitting. ep 15 is next, but thought I'd put a comment on this one so you might see it amoungst the 100s.
I have always loved seeing old computers being saved (similar with old cars, like I see you also have), but I'm especially loving seeing you going a level further and trying to bring the mini computer back to life (with astonishing dedication).
I'm "1977" and "cut my teeth" on an Acorn Electron 32k in the early-mid 1980's (think I spotted one on the shelf in the background of two of your vids?). Back then your Centurion would have blown my mind with it's whopping 256k of RAM, and hard drives when all I had was cassettes, and I had barely heard of a floppy never mind a hard drive...
One of the best things about what you're doing is not only about saving the hardware, or even bringing the thing back to life and even more - saving the soft OS , - it's that you're documenting it all, AND doing it on video (is video an archaic term yet?). This footage could possibly now last for the future of the human race, - and it's great material for future generations. Also, (and I don't want to give you a big head here), but you do present well and are easy to watch and listen to (when you have your "Ed China" hair trimmed down a bit at least!)
You are also enguaging with current interested proper "boffins" which is also great for everyone, and big kudos to them too for getting involved and sharing their magic.
Wish I had your level of knowledge and expertise in the electronic area. I've soldered up a few projects in my teens for my various Amigas, but I was just following schematics and never had much clue about how they worked. Still, I'm learning a few bits and pieces from you and different ways of looking at things from your vids so thank you for sharing the love and knowledge, - looking forward to catching up on the rest of the series. ETX (0x03)
Thank you for the kind words!
And kudos for the Ed China reference, he's a personal TV hero of mine. He has this awesome ability to break down seemingly complex topics into digestible chunks of information that's been a real inspiration.
I unfortunately don't have any Acorn stuff. What you might have been seeing was the TI Silent 700 in the background. It can look a lot like other micros of the time.
Thanks again!
Fair enough - all good - both you and Ed rock. Appreciate the response. Keep up the good work!
Great work! You've made some amazing progress with this machine! Honestly, when I first saw it, I thought it was a basket case. But you've managed to repair pretty much everything you've set your mind to, which is an awesome achievement! Hopefully you can find something interesting in all that source code and other data, and I can't wait to see what you're going to work on next!
Oh man, when I first unloaded the machine, I thought the only truly salvageable pieces would be the terminals, I never imagined that we'd get it this far along!
I'm reasonably confident we can get the Printer up and going, but the Phoenix drive is going to be a challenge on a different level. It'll be fun though :)
I had a boss that used to say "problems that go away alone come back with company" (in a tentative translation from Portuguese where alone means without company but also means without cause).
Your persistence in fixing problems is an inspiration to anyone who has a problem with a computer or any other machine. It's hard to keep going when things don't work and your fix just reveals more problems.
One of these days I'll have to put together some kind of paper on my method of reverse engineering circuit boards of this era. I got my hands on an early '80s smart meter and accompanying field test terminal (something to do when lockdown mania swept across the country), and with this method, I was able to make node charts that allowed me to make accurate schematics of all the boards in both.
This is fantastic!
Please back up everything from the finch drive to the hawk drive.
The finch drive may be marginal - some mechanical component is possibly worn out or fouled so it may stop working permanently at any time.
I'm super happy that TH-cam has recommended one of your videos a while ago. This channel is one of my favorites and I love your content - maybe it has also to do with your moments of desperation? Don't mean it the mean way ;)
Nasty little jumpers. Man these tiny little pieces of doom had driven me nuts in the past. Whether it was a bad configuration on a motherboard or a false label on a drive.
Please keep on, this stuff is highly entertaining :D
I burst out laughing at "...and the Finch is still working ohhhoohoh Finch is NOT WORKING. WHAT."
lmao rip your sanity
A rollercoaster retro ride today 😊 Love watching you figure out all these issues to get these lovely old beasts working 😊 Many thanks!
Nice work It was good seeing all the drives working. Thanks for the videos.
Thanks for watching!
When you walk away in frustration at 21:25 part of me was halfway expecting "HaHaHaHa Just kidding" to appear on the monitor at 21:30 and then it starts working.
Woohoo! Awesome you got the Finch working! I have to admit, there is a part of me that really, really, really wants to see that Phoenix up and running. Couldn't really say why... maybe just because it looks so cool. :)
An awesome colab I did not expect but welcome.
I wish Marc lived a little closer, I would absolutely love to hang out and help him work on stuff more!
What I like about you and your videos is you never give up!
Usagi Electric will soon have a full-fledged professional business system. 🙂
I was suspecting either jumpers or terminators when one worked but the other didn't and vice versa.
curious marc is amazing ! you guys must have had an great time.
Amazing journey - so glad I've been here from the beginning!
EDIT: Mei-chan is so cute! 🐶
I said "termination" repeatedly when the disks were conflicting. Seems like you heard me :) Well sorta termination, or not quite, but still, something jumper-resistor thingy :)
Wooo... that looks so much nicer than my manual non-electric solder sucker. I've been eyeing up a Hakko but those far exceed my cost/benefit.
I really like this desoldering iron! The only downside is that one really big chips where I have to use the bulb a lot, my hand starts to cramp up and I have to switch to my left hand. Other than though, it does an awesome job, and you can even still find new tips for it on Amazon. For less than $50, it's a dang good deal.
@@UsagiElectric If you ever find a Radio Shack 64-2185 digital soldering station you can put that desoldering end into the iron it comes with. It is 80W and the temperature control is nice to have. I used that for years until I scored a Hakko gun.
It's amazing to look back at these old machines and realise just how far we've come in terms of technology, so much that the machine itself can be emulated in a Web browser.
Amazing the time and effort you spend into getting this old system up and running,., well done🎉🎉🎉
dear david,
I AM AT THE EDGE OF MY SEAT THIS IS AMAZING
kindest regards
You're getting closer to finishing up the Centurion computer. It's always great to see it all go together.
Puppy! Love what you're doing with this machine and it's counterfeit brother. Getting this thing "period correct" and working has been a true labor of love.
Sounds like that half-height 8" floppy drive would be a good candidate for your secondary system to take to shows.
Any progress on mobile rack v2.0 ?
I used to use a desoldering iron just like that. Those things worked better than you might think. The suction was instant, and quick. If you were good with it, it generally worked on the first suck.
In fact, i need to find a new one and buy it. While i have solder suckers, wick, and hot air guns, there's something about that suction bulb that just works. I mean that thing was my bread and butter for close to a year.
I’m curious. What would this system cost when it was new? In a similar configuration to what you have now? Anyway, I really enjoy your videos!! Thank you!
Hundreds. Literally, hundreds.
Interestingly, we found a brochure comparing minicomputers from 1983, and they have the Centurion listed, though it's a slightly different configuration.
A CPU6 system with 256k, one 32MB Finch, one 4-port MUX, one CRT and a TI-810 printer cost $41,465. The 100 LPM ODEC printer, 96MB Phoenix, 10MB Hawk, and Floppy, would add quite a lot more as it would require the drives and larger printer, as well as the appropriate PRT, CMD and DSK/DSK2 controller cards. I would estimate that would push the cost of the system closer to $60,000 (those Phoenix drives were like $10k alone).
With a quick google, $60k in 1983 is around $184,000 today! So, in today's money, I would say a full fledged Centurion would cost between $125k and $180k depending on configuration. Not a cheap system indeed!
@@UsagiElectric that’s crazy!! I really appreciate the reply! Very neat stuff
This setup would have been $30-$40K brand new in 1980 or about $160K adjusted for inflation. Just the CRT started at about $2492 or about $8900 in 2023. The Hawk drive and cabinet were $11500 or about $41000 in today's money. bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/centurion/Centurion_DataPro_Reports/M11-128-10_8010_Centurion.pdf
This CPU6 system with 256 KB of DRAM, Data-100 line printer, a few ADDS terminals, 10 MB CDC 9427H Hawk drive, 32 MB CDC 9410 Finch drive, 8" DSDD Floppy, the mulit-user OPSYS and Centurion's accounting software would be in the $45K to $50K price range in 1985. FYI - Back in 1975 the CPU4's 32KB DRAM memory card (p/n 1003) sold for $10,000.
Reminds me of the old Cromenco with 8” HDD we had in the lab
Sitting here, typing on my humble laptop, all I can think is "I wish this laptop was a rack-mounted mini-system"
I saw this thumbnail... instantly got excited. And I know why. It is your enthusiasm when you get a win.
Love that Radio Shack iron. Solder suckers don't work for me, wick only works with my bench iron (which has the thermal mass), and the motorized ones are just too pricey for my limited desoldering. It fits in the middle well. And congrats on getting the FFC and drives sorted. Marc sent that 8" HP to a good home. 🙂
Aww cute rabbit! Amazing work on the drives too! Glad you got them working!
Ooh, did you film a video together with curiousmarc? That would be awesome!
Not explicitly, but I will be making a few cameo appearances in some upcoming Marc videos hopefully!
congratulations! Amazing work! May the drive previously overheated or something of that sort?
I have that same Radio Shack desoldering iron and used it a lot. I used to keep an old metal coffee can next to my desk for blowing out the solder. It works well enough, but that squeeze bulb would make my hands sore after desoldering parts for an hour or two.
Getting the best possible use out of printed documentation at 9:59.
Fantastic job everyone!!!
you need to write(port) xmodem for the centurion. Or even better zmodem.
There's two big hurdles we have to overcome with porting software.
First, we're only now starting to get a handle on the assembly instruction set. It's bonkers and dramatically different than anything else out there. A completely custom job that has some wild features (for example, you can write to a literal address, something that should be impossible).
Second, the Centurion uses a very weird 400-bytes per sector instead of the standard 512-bytes. This means that any file transfer program not only has to transfer a file, it has to translate the file between the two different types of file systems. This is proving to be quite difficult to overcome!
I just discovered your channel a few days ago and I absolutely love this type of troubleshooting and exploration of old tech. When I saw you'd visited the brilliant CuriousMarc, I knew I'd found a new favorite channel. Subscribed!
Marc's seemingly endless fascination and exploration of 20th century space tech is massively entertaining. But the video that got me seriously hooked was when he used his mechanical calculator to divide by zero. Once I saw that I knew I was in the right place
Epic win and epic t-shirt!! 😀
Mr Usagi could probably have a channel just with animal clips
Strangely excited for the printer, in fact I have been since I saw it in your garage unloaded. Great work!
bus collision...great fun in over loaded Tbase2 coaxial office networks
Always fun.
Thanks!
Epic win indeed! Great to see your progress, I'm so happy to watch things go in the desired direction :).
Ah, replacing IDC connectors by hand! Been there, done it.
Thanks Keri!
It was super fiddly to get those connectors swapped over, but in the end, it worked a treat!
I never peeled them off though. I just cut off the connector with a pair of scissors and crimped the new one on.
@@Stoney3K I had to do that quite a bit because no IDE cable would fit my custom AT case. If you don't re-use the same position the cable doesn't mind having holes in it.
Putting a connector back in the old place always caused weird errors because it would never make a good connection again.
Fantastic video bro!
I'm there watching, thinking stop talking, quick, get it backed up and talk after, knowing it could die any second, perhaps for the last time. Well done for making a successful backup.
Though I am not knowledgeable in this area, but am said to be highly analytical while finding solutions beyond regarded as normal that makes things work that were given up, I enjoy your videos very much.
Ha, the Radial Ready was actually my guess as soon as you said it was a jumper setting
Congrats brother!
A wonderful series of videos about the centurion. I watch everything with pleasure.
When will we see IBM360 in your garage?))
EPIC!
Great stuff, thanks. When do you reckon you’re get around to looking at Vintage Geeks drive you took away a couple of a months ago? Al
Thank you!
That's next on the list. I wanted to make sure I had a 100% working FFC and Finch before diving into the unknown MicroPlus Finch. While my Finch didn't really have anything exciting on it, the MicroPlus Finch should have a full OpSys as well as applications, so we absolutely need to dump it fully. I'm working on an assembly program to get that done more effectively, but I want to test it out on my Finch first so we don't accidentally destroy any data on the other Finch.
Soon though! I definitely want to get that Finch back up to Tennessee and get that MicroPlus up and working fully!
Always forget the radial ready jumper on my SD card.
Radio Shack desoldering iron fan boy here! Mine still works after all this time; I just wish I could find a source for the desoldering iron tips, now that Radio Shack is basically Kaput.
i wish you did a little high pich filter at around 15:00, it was a little uncomfy, other that that i love the video 😊
Very nice to see your successful progress on this vintage computer :)
"Never give up! Never surrender!" 😀🎉
That was wonderful. Thank you so much.
Thank you for checking the video out!
Yay more centurion! Also i bought that shirt a week ago and it should be shipping to me soon!
I literally cheered 😂😂
@20:00 So the FFC has jumperless software configurable drives? Pretty cool for the 70s.
@23:40 nope. lol.
Nodemcu wifi Modem into one of the serial ports will allow external developers to run code directly on your machine. And give you text Internet access. Might be worth spending $20 setting it up
That is a cool idea, but I'm not sure if that is a good idea with the current hawk, and finch drives. Now if the classic drives could be eliminated and have a modern solution that could be used as a sandbox that would be awesome.
Great you got it working 🙂 Didn't you have a second finch drive to fix ?? How is that doing?
It would be great if you could demo how the Centurion OS was actually used "in anger" to do something... is that something you could do?
Agree. David does the most amazing work in restoring these machines, and I'd like to see more of how they were actually used by customers. Sort of Day in the Life type videos.
Maybe he needs to hand this type of exploration off to another person, perhaps someone who regularly used the machines back in the day.
Your assistant at 26:37
Much progress, few repairs. Good stuff.
Great Work!
A 30 year old guy and a 60 year old guy sit at a table. the old guy asks do you remember floppy discs the younger guy says. ofcourse i do puts a flimsy plastic 3.5 floppy drive from the year 2000 on the table. the old guy says you call that a floppy drive this is a floppy drive .he then slams an 8 inch 1976 floppy drive on the table crushing the 3.5 floppy drive to pieces.
Yes, I bet it does feel like you're chasing your tail on some of these repairs!
hey I am back
and I must say
you are still doeing great
This was such a trip down memory lane. First TeraTerm, I had forgotten it even existed it was so long ago that I used it. Then the IDC cable, I have done that so many times.
Are you in a position now whereby you can stick some variety of simulated drive in the system so that you can copy code to e.g. an SD card?
This is AWESOME !!!!!!
You are a legend yourself! 😊
Keep fighting that entropy
Awesome
If or rather, since we know the pinouts and the expected signals, would it in theory be possible to make an SSD adapter? I mean I vaguely remember you saying that you didn't want to do that, but I'm kind of curious if that would be possible. [And it would make it a hell of a lot easier to debug stuff like this]
"Here's the FFC, reverse engineered......the hard way."
Oof.
Unicomp still exists. I buy keyboards from them. They still sell the original IBM AT mechanical keyboard. Love these things.
Do not think the Unicomp you are working with for keyboards has / had any ties to the Unicomp in Richardson, TX was a Centurion dealer back in the 1980s.
Congrats Dave! Good job. Did you go to VCFMW this weekend?
Thank you!
I unfortunately didn't make it to MW this year. I have a trip to the Northeast coming up in October, and couldn't afford to go to both this time.
@@UsagiElectric I came "this close" to going myself. It was a 9 hour drive from Central, PA. When it came down to it, I just couldn't justify it; I have too much else going on, including a deep shop sink install which will make cleaning PCBs, cases, and grill tools so much easier than using the shallow bathroom sink. I had to buy a sink pump for it and there went $300 of gas and hotels monies.
I guess the next will be VCF East in NJ in April. I will 100% be going to that one and plan on hitting the one in Atlanta or Chicago next year, The Lord willing 8-).
Two questions:
1 - In Finch Disc Diagnostic, what is option A - Audio Control for?
Does the finch hard disk also work as a speaker? It would be a great accessory for the Floppotron.
2 - How can you clean, disassemble, diagnose and repair these monsters, and even record and edit videos in just 24 hours a day? And there's still time to visit your barbershop, museums of obsolete technology and go to old geek meetings.
Do you have a temporal dilation device in your laboratory? Yes, there is, don't try to deceive us, confess it.
The [ Audio Control ] in the ?Finch diag is used to turn ON or OFF a "beep" on error messages and end of a test pass. The "Beep" is just the Control-G code being sent to the ADDS terminal to sound the beeper / bell tone.
Im waiting the printer, wonder how it was work in that times
The printer is fascinating!
There's a few more Centurion episodes I want to cover before we dive heavily into the printer, but rest assured, it is coming!