PC Archeology: Not just another normal IBM PC XT clone (Handwell PC-401)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ธ.ค. 2023
- ** Update in pinned comment.
On this PC Archeology episode, we have what I thought might just be a run-of-the-mill IBM PC XT clone -- but it turns out this machine is unusual and odd, and looking inside creates more questions than answers.
-- Links
ROM Dumper download:
archives.oldskool.org/pub/misc...
NEC V20:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC_V20
Retro Web Motherboard:
Not available yet
BIOS dump: (and pictures)
archive.org/details/front_202312
RGB2HDMI: (use this fork, it's more up to date)
github.com/IanSB/RGBtoHDMI
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-- Tools
Deoxit D5:
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O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
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Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
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Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
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Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
www.rigolna.com/products/digi...
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
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TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
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TS100 Soldering Iron:
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EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
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DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
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Magnetic Screw Holder:
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Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
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RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
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Heat Sinks:
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Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
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--- Links
My GitHub repository:
github.com/misterblack1?tab=r...
Commodore Computer Club / Vancouver, WA - Portland, OR - PDX Commodore Users Group
www.commodorecomputerclub.com/
--- Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
• How to remove chips wi...
--- Music
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Update: Thanks to patron @peterkooiman4867, it was found that Computer Amusement Systems (CASI) sold a turnkey solution for using a video camera to snap a picture of someone and instantly print it out. Imagine a digital photo booth but in 1986. This was certainly what this computer was used for! Too bad we don't have the original software to see this turnkey solutoin in action.
The copy in their advertisement reads:
A sure winner that combines 3 of today's hottest trends . . . video, computers and instant pictures . . . plus the know-how and guarantees of Texas Instruments, Panasonic and CASI. An all cash business. Customers come to you. No selling. No stress! It's not a franchise. All the money and the profits are 100% yours. Tailor-made for families, individuals or absentee owners. Part-time, full-time or weekends. There's no need to leave your present job. With the CASI System you take someone's picture with a T.V. camera and instantly print it with a computer. It's so push-button simple, a child can run it. But the profits aren't kid stuff. The CASI is portable, sets up in 30 minutes or less, anytime, anywhere. The world is your territory. There are thousands of locations waiting to be filled . . . plus tremendous mail order application. If you're serious about accumulating money in your own fun business . . . ask for the facts. You'll receive proof, pictures, answers, and testimonials. Quite a package. And it's all free.
imgur.com/a/My00ZZ1
archive.org/details/americanlegionvo1175amer/page/48/mode/2up?q=%22computer+amusement+systems%22
LOL, that must've been a lucrative business!
Did the software ever turn up?
That clears up a lot. I thought this machine would have made a very underwhelming video toaster.
But with the mere addition of a TV camera this becomes a selfie machine. 🤳 Too bad, Adrian, all your potential customers have their own in their pockets by now.
I'm curious to know why they thought this had potential as a mail-order business. This application seems like it could _never_ be a mail-order business.
@@ericwazhungI mean, if you think about it, if you rented it out for like proms, parties, and what not it could been profitable. Plus, this was 1986, Getting a picture taken and being able to have it in your hands within minutes was mind blowing at the time.
I hope somewhere out there, Thomas Lao is looking at this video and saying, "FINALLY! Someone appreciates my BIOS!" *wipes tear from eye*
he’s probably dead
@@jessihawkins9116 I dunno. There seems to be a LinkedIn with an older gentleman who worked in the semiconductor industry...it doesn't seem to list his whole resume, but it's a definite possibility, as for CoPAM, I wonder if it's related to Component-Oriented Platform Architecting Method...so the specialized board components can be used in cross-platform.
@@jessihawkins9116 I bet he's not. I used to do this stuff in the '80s and I'm still around.
@@LungsMcGee do his stuff?
@@jessihawkins9116 Write BIOS and ROM code.
Glad I could help with ROM dumping! The reason F000-FFFF is always dumped even if that area is sometimes mostly empty is because there is no standard for ROM extensions in that space; it's reserved for the system BIOS, BASIC, diags, etc. and there is no 55 AA signature. Since there is no way to determine the size of what is in that region (especially if it mirrors itself every 8k or 16k), ROMDUMPR just dumps the entire 64K region for examination.
Ah that makes a lot of sense. Better safe than sorry. I just edited the final file to remove everything but the top 8K.
You missed the author's name in the BIOS: Thomas Lao
He's from the Des Moines Laos.😁
@@crazyedo9979 There are 15 people with "Lao" as surname in Des Moines and it's suburbs... so you gotta be specific.
Apparently, Computer Amusement Systems (later CASI/QLT) were in the business selling of "Computer Portrait Systems", setups meant for events, malls etc that would take a picture and print it out. Or as their ads put it, "A sure winner that combines three of today's hottest trends... video, computers and instant pictures." The "C", "M" and "P" markings make sense in that context, for camera, monitor and printer.
Ahh! So like a photo-booth kind of thing? A digital one? Must have been some self booting thing that just took the pic and printed it out. Haha. Wow. And one thing is we know it wasn't saving every picture on the drive. Unlike similar systems today :-)
Thanks to Peter, we have link to one of their ads: archive.org/details/americanlegionvo1175amer/page/48/mode/2up?q=%22computer+amusement+systems%22
imgur.com/a/My00ZZ1
I recall seeing such a system in use at the county fair. A vendor would have a photo booth and print images on T-shirts. Not sure how the image was transferred. My guess is they printed on a sheet of transfer paper, then the image was applied via heated press.
Me too! It was a very blocky digitized pic. They had t shirts, but the one I got with my pic (it’s now long gone) was on a foam frisbee.
Funny how CASI name drops Texas Instruments but not AT&T 😂
This was not boring. Interesting mobo, BIOS and case, very intriguing ATT card. A little repair. Also, it has an NEC chip. This video had quite a lot going for it.
The original owner has passed, Im going to ask the original owners daughters if they could find the software. The printer is around, but looked somewhat standard to me, but im no expert. If i come up with stuff, ill email Adrian, but he has TONS of other video content. I am grateful he did this video. I hope some of the parts are usable elseware. This was at a gocart track. One that i used to work at back in high school actually (circa 2004-2008). But i do not remember still frames being available. I shared this link with the owners family, yhey will appreciate it. Thank you Adrian
I found this on a webpage about digital photography:
1977 - First Computerized Portrait System. Developed by Computer Amusement Systems, Inc. of New York City.
I have used the AT&T ICB and still have some, along with the companion VDA (video display adapter) - The ICB can capture frames at 256x200 resolution with 15 bit RGB color. The 16th bit is used to select overlay, so you can overlay the contents of the frame buffer with live video passing through the composite video connectors. The 9 pin connector allows connection to an analog RGB monitor.
Interesting! That's pretty advanced for 1987. I imagine the card is useless without accompanying software.
It's always fascinating what will turn up in the comments. Yet again the viewers fail to disappoint.
@@Starchface Yes but It was worthless by the time I got it though! I got the card(s) with documentation and was able to write a program in Turbo C to use it from DOS. If Adrian wants to try it I can send a copy over.
@@lamune6809 really suggest ya do.
@@lamune6809 Yeah that would be so cool! Please send him!!!
I think you should send Adrian any software and documentation you have for it.
I can remember that some programs would not run if it could not find" IBM Bios" in the ROM at the correct location. so the clones but the" this is not IBM bios" message so that IBM bios was in the correct memory location and hoping they could get away with it.
My first PC was a home built PC-XT, it was more fun in them days.
Home brew XT!💯👍😁
@@crazyedo9979 I guess he means buying the parts separately and screwing them together. In the mid 80s the difference between doing that and buying an off the shelf computer was $100s. Some student called Michael Dell realised that if he bought parts in bulk and charged a bit less for built up computers he might sell quite a few. I wonder whatever happened to him 🙂
@@MrDuncl That's exactly what I ment. I did this myself in the 80's. That brought back some good memories.😁
i wonder if the reason for cpus having a string like genuineintel instead of just intel is something similar. funnily its present even in modern cpus that i don't think anyone could make a pirate copy of anytime soon
@@kahvikissa_ One question. Do you work for free?😁
It's highly unsporting of that tantalum capacitor not to explode when it went bad. They're so much easier to find that way.
It was kind of stubborn.😁
just means that PSU has a decent short protection mechanism. especially for this old of a PSU.
I remember back in the early 80s an arcade booth that took your photo and printed it on a dot matrix printer with pin-fed paper using ascii characters. If you got closer to it you saw the computer characters. If you backed up you saw your photo.
I remember there used to be guys on the Boardwalk in like a booth with a PC and a video camera and a printer in Wildwood, NJ back in 1988-89. I remember cuz it was pretty darn hi tech for Summer of 88 lol. He'd take your picture and then print it out all digitzed with fat pixels sorta like gameboy's camera & printer later, and it would print out a full page 8.5x11" b&w portrait with overlaid text. My mom got one printed out and she still has it, somewhere. So that's what I was gonna suggest it probably was!
On the ATT board, the big IC with WE on it it likely Western Electric, AT&T's manufacturing arm.
Skynet was a relatively big psu manufacturer up through the early 2000s. I had looked into them a few months ago when trying to find a suitable replacement for a vintage synthesizer. Ensoniq and Akai both used their PSUs in the late 90s
Rock solid machines, no wonder they will take over in the future :)
Commodore used Skynet for their PSUs for big box Amigas (and I think for their PC clones too maybe). My A4000 has a "SKYENT" sticker in it. Chinese companies had a bad habit of misspelling their own brand, hence the "Intelligent Date System" sticker on this machine from Intelligent Data Systems.
They are also apparently still around.
In 2007 I worked for a company that built Juniper network products and they used Skynet power supplies.
Soundcraft si 1-2-3 have skynet
"Skynet electric" *Terminator music intensifies*
We think alike...👍
dudum dum du dum...dudum dum du dum... DUDUM DUM DU DUM... DUDUM DUM DU DUM!
Now , just need to connect this "old beast" to internet and "Skynet revolution" can begin XD
@@AlbiDartanan haha my pc is safe it has no internet you can't use it against me
I love these old attic finds, it's nice to see old gear in relatively good shape, and I very much enjoy Adrian's vids about treasures rescued from landfill! I reckon that C and M would be "Camera" and "Monitor", and "P" is probably "Printer".
There’s some information out there for the AT&T ICB (image capture board), as a companion to Targa/TGA graphics products eventually spun off into Truevision. The board was capable of still image capture at a pretty low (below broadcast NTSC) quality. One source puts it at 256x200 and 15 bit color depth. There’s a PDF brochure and some other sparse bits of info that come up in Internet search results.
Back in the late 1980s I used an ICB in what would eventually be called a multimedia system. These were used for military training, specifically Patriot missile training. The ICB would take input from a laser disk player and overlay various switches and indicator lights. We used an optical touch screen on a Mitsubishi multi standard CRT monitor, so we could switch between composite vide and EGA (eventually VGA) computer video.
One thing I recall about the ICB was that there was a volt or so of DC offset on the composite video output, which could cause a video amplifier to saturate if it was DC coupled. Fixing that issue was my first improvement over the previous generation hardware done by my predecessor.
Targa / TGA.. now that's something I haven't thought of for years
@@gumbykevbo During this time the folks like me working on the Hellfire missile upgrades were using this card and it was terrible. The TV camera on the Hellfire (which was 1975 vintage) had a better resolution than this AT&T card and it was.. well.. hell to 'see' what the missile was seeing. I got the 2nd or 3rd Genlock off the production line to put onto an Amiga 1000 for the project and it was a great upgrade.
As an electronics beginner, i find it incredibly interesting to learn how to detect common faults and identify faulty components. i think it would be great if you could make a tutorial series for beginners on this subject.I would love to learn more about it.
COPAM was a clone manufacturer in those days. While the motherboard itself may not be from that manufacturer, it looks like the BIOS may be.
With an Amiga 1000 and a real-time video capture addon card called 'Live!', I used to capture client images and print color photos. With a Video-8 camera plus a 4096 color HAM paint software called Photon-Paint, combined with celebrity photos pre-scanned from magazines, I used to real-time compose those live captured clients with a celebrity of their choice and color printed them, them iron-pressed the image on t-shirts with a line of text of their choice. I did this for weddings and similar large party events. Since I did this in 1987 in real-time, it was considered amazing.
Just wondering what type of color printer it was, was it a matrix printer with color cartridge? Or an early version of inkjet?
@@imqqmi For me, it was the fastest top of the line Epson Dot-matrix with a CMYK color ribbon. I chose it because there was a color ribbon designed to be directly heat-transfer to cloth or T-Shirts. The printer was so fast, doing graphics bi-directionaly (usually only text worked bi-dir at the time), I had to create 2 special fans to keep the print-head from overheating as I would run the printer for hours non-stop and unlike text, the >60% fill rate means the printer head just screamed non-stop.
@@brianhginc.2140 Interesting thanks!
If bowling; maybe a scoring display driver [to a CRT]
When I re-activated my IBM 5155 Portable PC just recently the same happened: all leads measured fine with the Ohm-Meter ... and at first Power On a tantalium blew on the 12V rail (and on the FDD - with a firey blow). Replaced all of them. The nasty 3-legged yellow drop types. Thanks for sharing !
Merry Christmas happy holiday Adrian to you, your underground shelter and all your technology thank you for many ace videos. More to come
The first video I watched from your channel is the IBM pc with shorted caps :) so this brings back memories.
That was cool to watch you dig aroundin history with you Adrian, thanks!
I have a 1979 calendar made using one of these kinds of systems. My dad got it at the Fryeburg Fair in Maine.
None of your videos are every boring, always informative and enjoyable to watch :)
I know these beasts extremely well ... lots of these (labeled Bondwell ! ) IBM-XT 8088's were sold in Cape Town, South Africa in the later 1980's - early 1990's. Usually school computers, with 640kb RAM. Guts are from Taiwan.
Dude loving your increased confidence - great knowledge, content and delivery 👍
Good demonstration of expired caps failing on power up after they didn't run for an eternity and became depolarised. The tantalium type caps have low ESR which made them used on 1980s electronics a lot, but they also hate sudden power spikes.
That looks like a "Compam Intelligent" clone, which was largely sold in the eastern US to companies which wanted to private label their own computer. The original product was a clone of the original 5 slot PC called the PC-301. Their PC-401 had an 8 slot motherboard. They seemed to have disappeared before the AT came out.
Seems to be a Copam PC-8088 Turbo Mainboard, also known as Copam B-180. Or at least a very similar variation. It is listed in The Retro Web.
Copam was a Taiwanese computer manufacturer(?) seems they made XT & AT clones either their brand or white boxed for others.
Love that little turntable you bought (I can't remember when the first time you used it)... adds just a little something extra to the production value without a lot of cost, and I'm sure it's really practical for working on some of these big beasts!
Pick and Place equipment of that era would also use frame grabbers to facilitate merging video with a DOS/UNIX menu screens. The frame grabber would not only capture and overlay video but supply graphics such as cross hairs, crude component outline graphics and facilitate fiducial recognition for alignment. Pretty amazing stuff back then that can be done in the palms of our hands today.
Adrian, a challenge: now find the software that the system ran, and a video camera, and get it working 💪 Maybe even the printer...
This seems an impossible ask LOL. It's such a huge shame the floppy wasn't just left in the A: drive all these years. I would have definitely recreated the whole photo-booth thing if I could!
I could *smell* the dust as you opened up that power supply.
Thanks for the video, it is always interesting to see clones .
I’m old- I remember these in the malls and they had dot matrix printers with transfer ribbons and Ike make t-shirts etc with your picture taken from a video camera capture
The monitor output looked so crisp!
I'm a bit disappointed you didn't try hooking up a composite video source to the IN port and a composite monitor to the OUT port to see if it defaulted to passthrough video. Finding a drvier for that ancient low production board is going to be no minor miracle unfortunately. It's a shame the floppy wasn't left in the machine, even if it was degraded it could have had a lot of clues.
I'm guessing C = Camera. M = Monitor. P = Printer. for the markings on the back.
Someone else commented that the IC with "WE 229DW" is likely Western Electric, and I would concur. They had their own line of custom ICs and semiconductors, and would make sense given the AT&T branding on the board.
Thanks for the video, assembled hundreds of XT’s, XT turbo's and AT’s. Great machine for the time. Ours were clones manufactured in Taiwan back in 85/86.
Hey Adrian,
Another nice video about a very old computer, a clone that appears to function just like ever. 👍
I always stream your video to my TV and audio stereo set.
Question, was the microphone not set properly?
Because I had to turn up the volume on my audio so that I could hear you speak clearly. 🔊😄
When you are checking out a mystery motherboard it can be useful to check the label that manufacturers often put on one of the expansion connectors. They often have more information than PCB marking for silkscreened text.
I see you found out what the computer was used for, but one of my guesses if it had come from a bowling alley would've been to mix two signals together for a scoring screen; The computer would be tracking the score and displaying the raw score values while another source would provide a coloured background for the scores to be composited onto, resulting in a much cleaner display than trying to do this with only a CGA output.
Adrian thanks for everything you do. Don’t miss a video. 😊😊😊😊
The Columbia Data Products MPC-1600 also had eight widely spaced slots - very similar to this board. The MPC-1600 had the floppy drive controller built into the motherboard.
Ayyy there's my favorite computer repair extraordinaire!
Had a chuckle at skynet on the power supply
Interesting machine, especially that image capturing card, from the comments, I guess basically for taking digital photos, which sounds quite amazing for the 80's.
17:22 It actually says “Skynet”! 😮
This looked like a well-designed 'clone' for its time with the cool videocard, V20 CPU for that extra sense of speed and a proper powersupply.
Hey Adrian !!
Were did you found this fantastic RGB to HDMI adapter ??
How can i get one of it from here Brasil ??
I really love to watch your videos !! Fix computers was my job in early 90’s years here !!
Im owner of a complete Brasil clone of MSX2 !! I really wish to experience video usage in modern monitors…
Thanx !!!
I bet that video thing was used to overlay messages and team scores in the arcade/game hall onto a TV.
They could have run a VCR with a loop of cool stuff and then put text on top.
Exactly what I was thinking.
Same here
no. no it’s not
I was thinking the same, Cathode Ray Dude did a vid on an 80's standalone video "titler", with a computer you might have the possibility to do a much more customizable/dynamic "titling".
That extra capture card may be an overlay for a bowling score system - I recall in the mid 90s, Brunswick Bowling used something similar (it was NOT an XT, based alone on the animations I recall) and it seemed to be an EGA setup, or at least a 16 color mode. They had that setup until like 2005 or so. Today it is still a bowling alley, but not even Brunswick Lanes.
no that isn’t it
Bowling score was my first thought as well, but it was already figured out -- this machine was hosting an early digital photo booth with a video camera and a printer.
@@Stoney3K And it all booted on a 360k floppy and 256k RAM? I suppose... perhaps the standalone device had the storage.
You only need them locking couplers if the filament is under compression. If under tension, like you have it, just a printed coupler is more than enough. Awesome print.
according to an article on vogons the mother board is made by Copam
I've always loved oddball stuff like this. 👌
My guess for the big AT&T board, it looks like it was possibly just for overlaying text from a CCTV camera input maybe? C and M on the back could be for Camera and Monitor. Just an idea. I have no facts to support this.
The 80's were fun! I helped design an XT clone in Brazil circa 1981, and we implemented minor changes on the original IBM schematic such as designing the main board with a built in VGA adapter, larger BIOS ROM with good diagnostics and burn-in loops; 736KB of linear DRAM space available for the OS (doable because VGA memory starts at B800h and we could reclaim an extra 32K that otherwise would belong to a Mono display adapter); custom designed power supply with industrial specifications; A sturdy case with a keyboard connector on its left side, and 8 slots spaced 1 inch apart, just like this machine. List price: $5,000.00 USD for a system with 2 floppy drives. But it had a V20 instead of Intel's 8088...
VGA (like EGA) actually starts at A000, B800 is the start of CGA (and EGA/VGA text mode)
@@kilianhekhuisPlus, wasn't VGA introduced in 84 or 85 or something?
With that V20 you should have advertised it as the best 8080 CP/M machine ever!
@@bewilderbeestie Nec V20 as seen in this video was an 8088 replacement, but sure it would have run CP/M-86...
You added VGA to a motherboard 6 years before IBM invented it... That's truly impressive.
I've heard of Skynet power supplies somewhere. I think we have them in some equipment at work.
The C, M and P then stands for Camera, Monitor and Printer for that photo booth set up.
nice computer. Block Out in green monochrome is exactly how I remember it.
As you know the farther you go back on ibm clones even the generic looking one's can be mfg a certain way not to fit parts. (mostly power supplies). Not that somebody wouldn't just leave one hanging from the back or inside. At the local fair I went to as a kid. They not only had a computer to print out your pictures. They also had a dating one too.
Your last comment made me think of the film 1984 "Electric Dreams" where the computer wants to date Madeline 🙂
I had a Skynet power supply in my Amiga A4000 but the output voltage was a little weak. I swapped it out for a BeQuiet PSU but have kept hold of the Skynet one.
In my experience shorted tants occur when power is applied after long periods of storage. I figure they break down internally, and then eventually 12V is enough to break through and make a bridge. As a habit now, I just remove all 16V Tants on +12 and -12 rails before even starting the board - machines run fine without and it saves surprises later. Serial and sound boards using those rails have localised filter caps generally and motherboard's are all +5.
When i was in college myparents bought an "Artisoft" brand pc, while living in Tucson, AZ.
It had a push-button (one on each side) lift-top. It literally was like a car hood. Very cool.
Artisoft was the company that eventually created and sold "Lantastic", an early network/server system (more like peer to peer though).
The pc was bot remarkable more than the flip-top. It looked about like any xt clone other than the unique top.
Good to hear Lantastic mentioned in 2023.
Let me add that the RGB2HDMI device is outstanding! Fantastic device.
Got one myself and it works fantastically. Works on CGA/EGA and Hercules very well.
I actually thought the thing was Honeywell at first glance!
These older computers sure have impressive looking MBs. I like the look. Things are so slim and miniture nowadays they just don't look as impressive.
Cool Little Card, there. Nice video, very interesting.
Nice, no microscope necessary to repair traces.
The system I was learning drafting on back in ancient times was made by Bausch and Lomb.
For a PC this old it is VERY clean. Only light dust, neither spider webs nor obvious grime on the outside...
We had one of those systems for programming older arcade machine HDDs at an old place I used to work at in the early 90s. And to answer another question, Ours looked identical to that one but was a Honeywell and we ran 512Mb on the RAM extension board which you what it was.
Thanks for sharing. 😉👌🏻
It looks like one of those portrait system they took a picture and print it out, then either framed it, or put it on a tshirt.
Nice modular synth on your desktop ❤️ Are you into synths?
Hello from Norway !
This mainboard looks like the one I have in a COPAM PC-501 AT which is an AT clone, but I know COPAM had an XT clone called PC-401 !
37:49 Hi RAM!
44:38 OMG Block Out! I had this a million years ago on an old PC.
I'm thinking ID:61120282 could be the serial number of the rom itself, with 61 possibly indicating that it was the 61st rom programmed that day, and 120282 either being December 2nd, or February 12th of 1982, or the 6112th rom made in February 1982....
The RCA jacks on that AT&T image capture card had "C" and "M" written on the case next to them. Possibly for the camera and monitor for the photo booth type application.
I have a friend that's with arcade hardware since the late 70's, I'll have to ask him if he has one of these in his warehouse. He likely at least has documentation for it!
I had a Copam PC-401 Turbo when I was growing up, so I reacted to the "PC-401" sticker immediately, and the "COPAM" copyright from the BIOS dump suggests that this is mabye a predecessor to that? Mine had a turbo button and could go up to 8MHz if I recall correctly. I still have the manual around somewhere, including a printout of the BIOS source code.
I also replace failed tantalum capacitors with electrolytic ones, always.
That custom card. It has an In and an Out... I'd take a wild guess that you feed a video signal into it, and it puts the same video signal out, with extra information of some kind added to the screen.
"WE" is Western Electric, which jives with a card sold as AT&T. I'll see if I have a WE data book from that era.
excellent video as always, I am currently trying to troubleshoot a battery damaged 486 motherboard with x3 + 5v are all shorted with the x4 middle grounds, would you know where i should be looking for the short? thanks
The Handwell corp business address in california (4962 el camino real in LA) is a building that was built between 1980 and 1982. The exact people and investors etc involved elude my googly magnifying glass. It does seem that this computer was JAC (just another clone) spun up by a company riding on the IBM pc bandwagon. It also seems as if they were focused on direct b2b marketing, which makes sense in this instance. I see an incorporation date of 1983, and marketing materials from into the late 1980's. As computers in general became more versatile and capable, they likely lost any edge they had in that b2b space.
That card looks similar to one I used to have that I got from an only bowling alley that displayed scores on a monitor.
@adriansdigitalbasement For the record did you tried to feed something like a composite signal to the "IN", and saw if it something was output on the "OUT"?
looks like a video overlay board for scoring or message board on a CRT normally showing composite video.
In the early days of XT pc's Nec had made the NEC V20, wich was faster than the 8086 who ran at 4 ? Mhz, while the NEC ran at 20 Mhz. I had one too and was very content with it those days. Oh, the early nineties.....
I always thought that those PSU's from the XT/AT era were very sturdy. Still use one on my workbench lighting some leds and a fan when I'm soldering... (12V LED)
Set OBS to use MKV as the video file container - even if something goes wrong the footage should be salvageable either side of the faulty portion.
If you are interested in PC Archaeology you may find these stories interesting or amusing.
To cut a long story short I "inherited" an Altos 586. As we say in the UK this thing was built like "a brick shit-house". It was a fully functional machine running Xenix.
It had 8 serial ports and a parallel port, long before USB and Ethernet.
It had been running an entire (small) office.
I tried to give it away because I thought that it would be a good way for a student to learn Unix. Nobody wanted it.
In the end I took out the full height SCSI drive and binned the rest of it. What a waste!
I gave the HDD to some younger friends who were trying to start a business doing 3D animation. They needed more storage so they were happy to receive an extra hard drive.
Unfortunately they were using Amigas, so each frame was taking a day to render.
That was until I showed them the original version of Wolfenstein on my PC. The Amigas all went out of the window and they all bought PCs.
To me it kind of makes sense that an arcade may want to show a promotional video for a game, on some display somewhere but may want to overlay the screen with various texts on other things.. If not for anything else just because of the coolness factor which arcade places must find to be part of their brand when it comes to convincing people that they want to spend their time and money there.. Heck if they placed such display in the window it can even be ~literal~ curb-appeal.. and.. what people tend to overlay (especially back-when) was primarily text, so you wouldn't really need that much "juice" either so 256 k memory may be more than enough for a simple continuous text-overlay job.
Having seen the additional comment on what that card does, it'd be fun if comeone would find the software to make it work again, that sounds like something that could be entertaining to play with... :P
that mention of a hercules card reminded me of something...
in an original Hercules, there's 4k or so of SRAM on the board... why is it there? memory buffering for text mode? or undocumented ramfont functionality?
The V20 and the V30 were interesting chips, they were 8088/8086 clones but about 1.5x faster than the equivalent Intel chips in most operations at the same clock rates.
Infact I upgraded my 8086 XT to a V30 (And an 8087) sometime circa 1992, I found the V30 on some broken motherboards I obtained from a local garage sale.
Im not sure, but I suspect they were unusual in that they prolly had a small on-chip data cache, unusual for a dip packaged 16-bit x86 CPU. (Mabey even some kind of crude branch prediction also?)
Copam was a very well known PC clone manufacturer in Taiwan and one of the big 3.
Looks like this machine was possible an OEM or someone just used the Copam BIOS on it.
Skynet! Oh crap.
I’m dying to see that att card work!! I want to know what the output was like, I hope someone can find the software and we can see it in action!!
It was the 80's. Anything that worked was cool-explains the success of crappy media like VHS 😂 probably produced a chunky, pixellated picture...like a banner made with Print Shop 😊
i used to play that game back in the day