Rare Memotech MTX 512 Computer - Show & Tell
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มี.ค. 2020
- ● Description
The Memotech MTX512 is the rare british micro you wanted to see the most, so Keith and I spent the day taking one for a test drive and learning everything we could about it.
● Support RMC
Time is the most valuable thing we have. Official Cave Dwellers create a reliable monthly income that allows me the time to dedicate creating content. My goal is to be able to do it full time. You can support this dream here: / rmcretro
If you'd like to leave a one off tip then here are some methods:
● Treat me to a Coffee with Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/rmcretro
● Support the Sponsors of The Cave
MonsterJoysticks: monsterjoysticks.com/RMC
1ClickPrint: www.1clickprint.com#RMC
● Chat with me using one of these:
Twitter: / rmcretro
Instagram: / rmcretro
Discord: / discord
● Episode Links
The Digital Orphanage: / thedigitalorphanage
The Swindon Museum of Computing: www.museumofcomputing.org.uk/
Derek Findas: / @thefolkinscotlandpodcast
● I have an RMC Shop where you can buy mugs, posters, records, books and more:
rmcretro.store/
● RMC Podcasts
Enjoy my Podcasts with your favourite app using the links here:
Retro Tea Break - audioboom.com/channels/5001251
Retro Island Diskettes - audioboom.com/channels/5001240 - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Thank you for watching, here are the important links! Don't forget to give Keith a sub....
Keith - The Digital Orphanage: th-cam.com/users/TheDigitalOrphanage
The Swindon Museum of Computing: www.museumofcomputing.org.uk/
Derek Findas: th-cam.com/channels/UNc-5F-VAzj7bL9XOlVSFA.html
Neil - RMC
A pleasure as always to collaborate with Neil, and thank you Cave Dwellers for subscribing to my little channel!
Great video, Also for some reason, im not getting notification of your uploads. im subs and bell icon is clicked. have I done something wrong?
It's an 8-bit beta max.
@@TheDigitalOrphanage Hi Keith, your talk with Neil about the Russian version in red prompted me to look up this page www.primrosebank.net/computers/mtx/mtx_russian_bid.htm which has a nice crisp picture of one.
I'd like to add that I really think you two present together very well! Neil keeps the pacing of the video and moves between points, lets Keith leverage his encyclopedic knowledge, it's a good combo! It be really great to see you two covering other things together in future :) (you're blowing micro live out of the water)
MTX 512 was a victim of simply too many different competing home computers on the market at that time. There was the Acorn Atom, Amstrad CPC 464, Apple IIe, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, Sinclair Spectrum, IBM PC, MSX, and a ton of others. The MTX 512 just couldn't compete with so many competitors despite having one of the best values and expandability of any home computer on the market in the UK at the time.
Thanks guys, this is the most serious review of the Memotech MTX, I have ever found. I think it demands for a follow up, for what we are doing with the Memotech after year 2000 :) There are actually a lot of activity, compared to the active people. The past 20 years we got a lot of Memotech related stuff, like: A Stable Emulator (Memu), we got the SD card device (Rememorizer), we got REimplement a MEMOTECH compatible computer (ReMemotech). In the Memotech facebook group, we gave yearly "Memofests" since year 2013, where we have seen new hardware, and software. What I personal do most is converting existing games from e.g MSX, Sord M5, Colecovision and Sega SG-1000, over to the Memotech, I try to do a game a year or so. It all started with a homebrew from John Dondzilla, Space Invasion for ColecoVision, The Colecovision have same hardware, as Memotech, and John let me have the source code for the game, so I ported that over quite fast. Cause lack of sourcecode for games, I later learned how to disassemble from Binary files, to make a working assembler source, and then convert back to the Memotech, its a long process, but i feel a bit "skilled" now, so its faster than before :) - We also saw a Network card for the Memotech, and a Memotech computer acts like a webserver. We have seen Turbo-charged MTX+ systems. Etc. Also a smaller version of the Videowall, is in development. Many of the people active today, was also active in the 80s, so its fun, for me to meet and talk with those people. But Thanks for a great review. Some links to Mention: www.nyangau.org/memotech/memotech.htm
www.mtxworld.dk
facebook.com/groups/2443017753
www.primrosebank.net/computers/mtx/mtx512.htm
Wow, the machine’s design is very sleek! It still looks great even in 2020.
Didn't even know this thing existed. Which is a shame. That thing looks ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS! I would use a computer with those looks nowadays and I would be extremely proud of it!
Talking of things I desperately yearned for in the 80s, I hope Linda Lusardi's feeling better.
I saw Maria Whittaker in Basildon M&S once. We only knew her from Barbarian at the time.
I helped a few friends in the USA who had Memotech MTX512's. With a background in electronics this was a challenge to troubleshoot. Some power issues arose when you turned the unit on and the 5 volt rail or +/- 15 VDC supplies were overloaded. (don't leave both floppies in the drives on the expansion box) Also the floppies sometimes had slight differences in the reader heads. The same floppy written on the B drive would not run on the C drive or vise versa from one machine to the other. Without an oscilloscope it was impossible to tweak the heads. CP/M was fun. I even ran the NODDY. The best program I found was called "Supercalc" the forerunner of Excell. I could program in strings or equations with math. The other friends finally bought P.C. with IBM or Apple devices. So I gave all my parts and the PC away. Thanks, for the walk back down MEMOry lane.
i remember drooling over that through a shop window in tottenham court road before it became a scam street , they had top end hifi and the best micros on the market
They were available in Finland also, back at the day... Kinda expensive and died fast. Beautiful looking machine.
I remember, my C64 was 2995 FIM 1983 with a game. (Combat Lynx)
Just pulled one out from a e-waste container in Oulu.
Love the Weird Science connection. One of my favourite films from back in the day!
This form factor need to make a comeback with USB and midi ports.
I need a dedicated Ableton system in the 80's micro form factor.
Lassi Kinnunen thanks for the heads up but I'm interested in Behringer, Roland or Akai to make a dedicated microCPU.
@@BillyBatsonMarvel that would be extremely cool
I seem to recall running into a US company selling in-keyboard computers. One model even had an optical drive fitted. Can't recall its name off hand though, sorry. And yeah, i have been wishing a comback for the formfactor ever since i had to shelve my A500.
It's kinda weird how many really common form factors we had in the 80's and 90's that are all but gone now.
Anyone remember desktop PC cases?
You more or less haven't actually been able to get one in at least a decade.
(OK, that's not strictly speaking 100% accurate, but close enough)
Instead, almost all PC's have been either some variant of a tower case, or form factors that bear little resemblance to anything we had back then...
@@KuraIthys It's crazy how innovative and forward thinking manufacturers were back then. They knew what we wanted before we knew that we wanted it or needed it. Today, we tell them what we want and they give us the middle finger or give us the product with a key feature omitted. Crazy times in which we live...
On the left: Sir Clive Sinclair, on the right: Sir Clive Sinclair.
Two men on the same Spectrum
@@RMCRetro HAHAHAHA! Epic!
Thing looks like it was manufactured yesterday, great choice of materials.
The MTX 512 was the machine that got me into gaming. I spent hours playing Maxima :) Unfortunately it got thrown out while i was away at Uni :(
There was one of these in a computer shop I used to go in when I was trying to convince my mum I needed a computer. It looked so much better than all the other computers around it. Way outside my mum's price range though and I'd probably have been disappointed with the lack of games anyway!
I remember wanting 1 of these desperately. Because I can/could program in both Basic and Z80 assembly, this was the computer for me. By the time I saved up for 1, the MTX512 was dead. Thanks for the video.
Oh man - my first computer! It was brilliant. Unfortunately mine kept overheating. Memotech were only up the road from where I lived so they asked me to take it to them for repair - I got a tour of the factory whilst they fixed it 🙂
Ey, I'm here from a Weird Science forum post. Cool to get a closer look at this machine!
I studied all the PC Mags at the time before splashing out on one of these. The sturdy metal construction gave me goose bumps! I still have loads of games and books,, and cuttings from the magazines of the time that featured it. What broke the bank was finally buying the FDX dual disk drive unit which turned the 512 into a full business quality CP/M machine which could certainly have been a rival for the RM 480Z. I used the CP/M spreadsheet and word processor for several years. Some day it would be interesting to revisit all my old files on those floppy disks. However I could never figure out how to access the on board graphics once the FDX unit was attached. It seemd like you had to commit to one or the other! I could never bring myself to part with it even though it hasn't been used in 35 years! Even the black and red dust cover looks smart!
Whenever anyone says 'a quick recap' in assume we get 10 minutes of soldering irons shots next!
Recently found your channel watching an LGR video where it was mentioned. Maybe it was the 8-Bit Guy. It was one of those two. Anyway, I'm glad I did. Now I have a whole new library of retro tech videos to go through during this surreal moment in history. This self-isolation really isn't so bad.
Welcome! Great to see you here
Another competitor to this probably would have been the Einstein Micro. Another machine worth featuring.
Remember everyone, practice social distancing. Always leave an Amstrad CPC464 distance from the next person.
Devvy Nully I would have said 4x CPC 464 distance. Don’t want to see the channel become ModernManFlu.
That’s a fine looking computer! What a stunning design, good set of features combined with a great industrial design. Hardware sprites and 80 colum option, that sounds like witchcraft. That big dual floppy drive is quite a looker too. Johnny Ive, if you’re watching, this is how you design a computer!
Amazingly timeless look to this one, I really can't get over it
Thoroughly enjoyed this video. Really great format exploring rare computers with Keith. Looking forward to those to come.
Pink noise is not white noise by the way. It has a specific spectral density vs frequency. 1/f. Useful.
Yes, I've looked it up since, and learned the difference between white, pink and brown noise. Every day's a school day! Interesting stuff.
Can't say much more than that is one beautiful looking machine!
Great video and been enjoying Keith's channel too.
I lusted after a Memotech at one point in the 1980's. The British micro scene of the 1980's was amazing.
Was aluminium particularly cheap in the mid-80's? That disk drive expansion case -- I literally gasped when I saw that shiny brushed alu side-plate, That thing was built like a solid industrial appliance! While looking extremely slick at the same time.
My guess is that using extruded aluminium allowed them to be flexible without the cost and delay of making moulds, etc.
YES!!!! Haven't watched this yet, but was hoping for a full episode on it :D I'm gonna save it for tonight when I have better time for it - can't wait! Thanks for bringing some love for this particularly beautiful machine.
This was an entertaining, informative and very nostalgic watch for me. Thank you to both of you! And I'll cross my fingers for that Andy Key tea-break.
Arguably, a design influence on the Korg M1 synthesiser.
Dara M yes...beautiful
Absolutely influenced the M1 design, and I know for sure that the M1 round buttons was influenced by the Synclavier II. I used to own a Korg M1 way back, the Memotech design looks really familiar. The M1 was also really sturdy like the Memotech, no creaky plastic moldings and suchlike.
Why would a not-very-successful British computer influence the design of a Japanese synthesizer?
Am I right, that probably 90% of all disco / club tracks in the 90ties had a Korg M1 in it?
Great video as always Neil! I picked one of these up from a car boot sale for £5 about 25 years ago. It didn't work and I'm gutted to say I didn't have the skills or experience back then to fix it. I think it got thrown out in the end - what I would give to have kept it!
Congratulations for 100k subs, silver YT button! Nice video, incredible machine, with great potential for that time. I like it! Stay good, stay-at-home, and cheers from Serbia!
Damn, the look of this machine still holds up, it's so slick! Graphically, it really reminds me of the ColecoVision, MSX, or SG-1000 level of quality.
you might say it the same "platform", ColecoVision and SG-1000, have same cpu, videoprocessor and soundprocessor. The Z80 of the Memotech is 0.5mhz faster, but else the same, so thats why its quite easy to port games around between those systems, I have done that before :) The MSX have another soundprocessor, so some emulation have to be done in the code to port a MSX game over to the others.
Really great video,I think it looked amazing when shown with all it's add on's and wouldn't look out of place on a desk today
Fascinating. Of course all I could afford back then were the computer mags that came out. I remember this machine and the glowing review it was given at the time.
Thanks for making this video, it's great to see the MTX in action. From the moment I saw the title, I immediately knew it was the computer from Weird Science. All these decades and I never knew that Memotech were a British company.
Beautiful beast. Sold in France (too expensive, as always) in the 80's, its very pro look"n"feel made the other home computers look cheap by comparison. And then the Amstrad CPC came to the party... ^^
I remember the Memotek... seeing it here on the channel brought it back! Thank you! :-)
During '82-'84 I used to work in a small independant home computer retailer in Banbury, Oxfordshire.... "Computer Plus". It was a lovely little family-owned shop, and we used to sell the usual suspects: Spectrum, C64, Atari 400/800, BBC Micro, Tandy TRS-80 Colour Computer, Dragon 32, and yes, we even had the Memotek in stock for a short while. I really loved the way it looked and was built; it was so beautiful, and robust, with that cool-to-the-touch aluminium case. It wasn't a big seller; nobody really knew what it was at the time - they all knew about the Speccies and C64, but sadly the Memotek never really got a chance to become well established... :-(
Have just come across of these whilst cleaning out a garage...thanks for such an informative video...
Great video. It's stunning, looks like it was made yesterday. I wish someone would make a modern micro with all the bells and whistles. I just love the form factor. Cheers
Great video and great review! Love to have more of that on your show. Fun to see some danish made hardware (the speech module 😃), for such a niche computer. Just showes that no one knew where the market would tirn back in 1984, and therefore who to back. Great crazy computer days🤪
Two exquisitely attired gentlemen. This is how I like my retro computers being presented.
That's a beautiful piece of hardware, especially for the time. Very aesthetically pleasing.
Absolutely beautiful machine
I cant believe this was out in 83!
Stunning looking
futuristic
brushed black metal
perfection
I thought the micro was just a cool looking computer prop
in weird science
just to make the film seem futuristic
yet it was a British starter
again its probably the best looking 80s micro I've ever seen
then you present a floppy which can be connected on the side expansion
I was using a tape as late as 1989 with my 128k speccy
very advanced!!!
i want one lol
Such a lovely machine, I'd dearly like to get my hands on one... the tinkering options would be marvelous. Thanks to the MTX community and developments for the RC2014 (well worth an episode) it would be lots of fun seeing how much could be coaxed in to running.
Many thanks.
Thank you for your quality and informative entertainment during the lockdown.
Thank you for watching
Such a stylish machine - very capable too, perhaps surprisingly. Also Keith looking particularly distinguished in this one. All the makings of a classic RMC video. 😁
Such a lovely machine.
Keith is a fabulous guest to have on. I look forward to seeing him in the Cave again!
Thank you! After the world gets back on its feet, I look forward to visiting the cave again too. Stay safe everyone.
thank you for showing this computer and peripherals, this could have been an amazing micro given the chance.
nice one Neil @@@Kim@@@
Cheers Kim!
Superb a great computer and some rare add ons loved this episode .
Such a shame that The Memotech didn't succeed, but it was such a competitive market in the early 80s. I remember computers coming out almost monthly up until 1984.
In the mid 2000s i became deseperately addicted to black hardware - I couldn't find one of these so ended up with the infinitely more powerful NeXT colour station and cube... I was always disappointed that the memotech MTX didn't have a flashing red light on the return key like shown in Wierd Science...
I worked in a computer shop that sold these when they came out and was able to buy one (cheers mum and dad). While support was thin, the built-in ROMs for the assembler/disassembler and Noddy (text adventure language) we're great to play with. Perhaps the most solidly built machine I've ever used with that extruded aluminium clamshell case design. The keyboard was infuriating though, that small return key below a far bigger less used key. I think there was a fault with the hardware sprite collision registers too, at least I never got them to do what the manual claimed. Always good to see a video on the Memotech.
Certainly the mid 80’s micro aimed at the hifi enthusiasts there. Lovey looking bit of kit and a top vid as always Neil 👍
Thanks for explaining the link between these computers and video walls. The only one of these I've ever seen in real life was controlling a video wall in a nightclub in Nottingham in the late 90s, and until now I never knew the history behind it.
Another awesome video, I have the 1983/1984 first issue of A-Z of personal computers the MTX 512 features in there in the under £500 category along with Electron Atari 800 Sharp MZ-700 etc.
What a great machine, looking forward to the enterprise!
Thanks guys that relaxed me
I noticed here one drawback with the MTX512 that I was not aware of previously…despite having hardware sprites, they were not multi-colored like they could be on the C64 (fabulous!) Atari 800 and even the BBC micros of the era. Anyway, back in the day I loved this micro when it was released. With those handsome looks, quality metal build and high specification, but it was pricey!
Very nice video to watch right after work :)
I bought one when I was stationed at RAF Lakenheath. I learned BASIC, Noddy, and machine language on it - all with a tape recorder as a disk drive wasn't affordable for me at the time. I thought it was a great machine. Eventually I also bought a C64 and then an Atari 1040ST. Used those until my first IBM PC (an AT clone) in 1992. I loved Toado too!
It still looks so new and fresh, not just the condition but also the design, it aged pretty well i think... except the drives that expose the real age, but else...
My first computer 🤩. You bought the machine and unlike C64 you could use ordinary tape player/recorder and a TV. Learnt to program on it and made a vocabulary trainer to learn English.
I remember the talk of red MTXs for the CCCP. My mate who was far more middle class than me had one of these... it was LOVELY.... wish I had got my hands on that assembler.
I don’t know how I’ve only just seen this video but this computer always intrigued me back in the day so it’s good to see it laid bare like this. It certainly looks like it would’ve given the BBC Micro some stiff competition if it ever gained traction.
I love Keith's channel, low key, chill, nerdy as you like.
Thank you! I need to borrow that as my tag line - "Low key, chill, nerdy as you like!" :-)
That machine is a stunner!
What a gorgeous computer.
What a good looking machine!!! I would love to have that with good pc components in it on my desktop.
Beautiful cases.
Pink Cave sir..? Ooh suit you..! Excellent stuff, very interesting...
good relaxing video. Great content too, greetings from France Pal :)
Wow this looks really neat
I had a Memotech MTX512 i loved it, we got it when at Blackpool from a place on the front auctioning stuff of we paid £50 i really liked programing for it. I believe i still have the black manual somewhere.
I would have loved something like Noddy back in the day. And I'd never have thought of using Logo for a text adventure. Now I need to dig out one of my old Logo disks.
I so wanted one of these for awhile in the 80's... Couldn't justify it, and never saw one in person. But still want one now, so maybe I'll go hunting...
I save up for one of these, loved it.
My uncle had a Memotech back in the day, as well as a Spectrum like myself. I have seen the Russian Red Memotech too, just last year in fact!
Those sprites bring to mind what you often saw on the Atari microcomputers.
Single-colour hardware sprites.
Of course the atari could in fact do multicolour sprites, but it was relatively limiting...
Iron Maiden T-Shirt. Nice 80s Touch.
The video digitizer was in the works before they went bankrupt, I worked in a shop that sold all kinds of home computers and the importer sent us news about upcoming products all the time. I know for a fact that it was before the bankruptcy, since I stopped working there before I heard about it. :) Wish I still had my 512 with FDX, such a fun machine.
My boss hammerfisted the keyboard to demonstratehow sturdy it was lol. Keyboard worked fine no matter how hard he tried to break the poor thing. He also put it on the floor once and jumped on it with both feet and yep, still worked fine.
Oh, and the tape drive was not included, at least not here in Norway. I have actually never seen the Memotech branded one before as far as I can remember.
Where in Norway was this? I have a feeling Memotech did better in Norway than other countries
@@ivarfiske1913 Trondheim.
Looks very much like someone at Amiga seen this before or during designing the A500, side expansion the same idea but the internal expansion due to space limitations was changed to trap door, very cool I never heard of this before.
Wow it's like the feeling of seeying a neogeo in the early 90's for the first time along side the snes and megadrive.
Brushed color aluminium... ahh it reminds me of Sony's DD walkmans from around the same year.
Very enjoyable video
Sold them back in the day. Noddy was great :)
A beautiful machine. As ever with these less popular 80s computers you just never know what programmers could have gotten it to do if there was the attention the ZX or C64 got.
it looks great!.
Z80 CPU seemed to have gotten a lot of love in British micros
Red aluminum Soviet retro PC seems like a good chance for a crossover with Bald & Bankrupt!
Now I've seen that dual floppy box I want one more than ever.
What a lovely slice of industrial design. It really shows off the form-factor nicely. That with the FDX addon, looks way more exciting than the beige boxes trundled out by Big Blue.
If anything, it doesn't fare that badly games wise against early stuff on the C64, or the MSX (which is probably a closer comparison as a result of sharing the same CPU and VDP) - but obviously suffered the way most minority platforms did and they don't really grow beyond those earlier titles.
The MemoTalk came an houer away from where i live :-D Aarhus are the 2nd biggest city in Denmark.
A gorgeous machine. Really sad they fell over so early.
It tickles the mind to speculate how Memotech would've evolved if the Soviet deal went through, with lots of money pouring in..
That disk drive expansion box is very cool - I've never seen that before. I bet they are crazy rare/expensive too, eh?
i had one of these. the tape deck was an extra. mtx 512 came with 2 games. toado (frogger copy) and snapper (pacman copy). it had its own language (noddy) that had 11 commands if i remember right but more importantly built in assembler for running machine code.
I recall it came with a sticker that said "Memotech users do it four million times a second”
Minor quibble: The Amiga 1000 came with 512k of RAM, but the OS was loaded into memory which reduced the usable RAM to around 256k. A third party kickstart ROM device was available later that would free up that RAM and give you the full 512k. (There was also the RAM expansion in the front, but that's a different beast altogether).
I'm sure I'm not the only one that's a little gutted when an old machine doesn't need any retrobrighting or vinyls fixed especially with Neil being the perfectionist