The Mini NEC PC-8001 Computer by HAL Laboratory
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 เม.ย. 2021
- Unboxing, setting up, and playing all 16 games on the PasocomMini PC-8001 -- a miniature Raspberry Pi-powered recreation of NEC's classic 1979 computer, built in conjunction with HAL Labs in Japan! More info here: www.pcmini.jp
Remember the days when computers were huge and screens were tiny? Well, here we have the exact opposite! Looks like a load of fun.
Just like how TVs were black and white and cars were color. Now we have color TVs and our cars are black and white.
@@brianrvd My car is Electric blue, and it's going to be purple soon, cars nowadays look the same, How am I supposed to distinguish mine from others?
Same thing for power usage. My dad's old CRT would make the lights in the house flicker when he turned it on.
lol true
Remember when computers and OS's actually tried to innovate vs turning into dumb shit?
>HAL Laboratory
This is the content I'm here for
With that title I wasn't surprised to see you here AK. Hope your doing well.
I'm sorry, Dave. Wrong HAL
@@brianm6337 right HAL if you're into Kirby.
Antdude be like: "neat"
Didnt knew you watched LGR
I wish that someone would make one of these tiny things where the tiny keyboard actually works.
It must be done not because it should be done, but because it can be done!
I was actually expecting him to use the keyboard at first 😂
A 38 minute LGR Blerb ! Blessed we are !
"I am the shlong" - Clint Basinger, 2021
*_>Now I am become Schlong, the Destroyer of Worlds_*
If you aren't already working on "I am the schlong" t-shirts, you hate money.
22:08 "Go up the flooa"
Either this was written by a guy from Japan, or a guy from Boston
I put the pedal to the flooa
In my two-toned Ford Explooa
I don’t think I’ve heard any adult perfectly convey what it feels like to be a child amazed by video games than Clint whispering “wow, duuuuuude” at 35:39
Fun Fact: The names on the score screen at 35:40 are all Japanese singers/idols/actors from the early 80s!
I love a video that starts with someone shouting "JAPAN!"
I was just gonna comment " *_JAPAN_* !"
Love how the I/O slots line up like the original old serial and parallel ports.
Some of these games ended up on the VIC-20, also courtesy of HAL in Japan. The first game, for example, is Heiankyo Alien, which is basically a top-down version of the arcade's Space Panic, and came to the VIC as 'Alien' (or Super Alien). Check P is very much like Rally-X, which (before watching the whole video) may appear later in a more faithful version. Later, no, Rocket Bomb is no more faithful, but does have its own charm. (Rally X also came to the VIC, but had to be renamed as Radar Rat Race.)
Thanks! I wondered about the VIC-20 connection.
Note that an updated version of Heiankyo Alien is on Steam. along with all the other insane Mindware stuff, should anyone be interested.
@@RvLeshrac An updated Space Mouse is also on Steam.
20 years ago I found a VIC-20 at Goodwill and played the whack-a-mole type game on it. I don’t remember it being that animated but I vividly remember the grid of moles popping out of blocks with a bowl-shape on top.
That could explain why Meldac was able to bring Heiankyo Alien to the Game Boy.
This is the sort of content you’d find as a bonus feature on a blu ray
"LUNAR CITY is under attack from TOPSIDER. Reinforcements delayed." - LUNAR CITY Defence Force
Return message:
"We are sending Space Battleship _Yamato_ and the 5th Space Navy. They will arrive in 2 days. Good luck." - Earth Space Force Commander.
Looks like the GRPH key does "Barrier replacement", so I guess it would plug holes in the green line?
Yeah it does. But you have limited charges that IIRC you regain based off wave scores, new waves reset the barrier too.
"I am the schlong!" Laughed for about 5 minutes straight
Needs a t-shirt.
He is the good white schlong, verses the green diseased ones! ;)
10 PRINT "I AM THE SCHLONG! ";:GOTO 10
Wasn’t expecting a full LGR extended video on blerbs but it’s certainly welcome
Pasocom is short for personal computer fyi (paasonaru konpyuuta) パーソナルコンピュータ
Can translate the paperwork tomorrow if I remember and have time.
Those were some tense moments watching the Jupiter Lander coming in for landing.
Now I know how the people at NASA felt when Curiousity was landing on Mars!
Or how they must have felt when the Mars Climate Orbiter broke apart in Mars' atmosphere...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
It's impossible to control anything in real time as far away as Mars, the transmission time even at the speed of light is in minutes. So they have to rely on the lander largely landing itself rather than constantly tuning it.
So that first game is Heiyanko Alien - a big time Japanese PC classic that's been ported to loads of stuff. Dig holes, catch enemies and then bury them to score points! Check P is clearly a Rally X clone as well. Also there's a credit to Naoto Ohshima in that last game who is famous for being Sonic the Hedgehog's character designer! I think the game it's reminding you of is Star Voyager
Jeremy Parish has entered the chat
@@MeanderBot Haha I was gonna say!
Interesting, it's my first time seeing it!
You know what would be an awesome little mod for this thing? Imagine a breakout Floppy Drive that actually took MicroSD cards. If you get a small ribbon cable a 3D Printed housing that can hold the MicroSD Card Slot. You could Desolder the slot from the Pi and install it in the 3D Printed "Floppy Drive" enclosure. With a little work, the end result could look really tidy and fit right in with the mini pc. I dunno if this particular NEC PC had any sort of drives on it, but man I just think it'd look rad, especially if it somehow managed to be with the same scolor scheme.
Hey, a new video to help me procrastinate! Just what I was needing!
brother! let us share in our procrastination!
Same here.
Procrastinating in solidarity with you all.
hehe
I shall proceed to procrastinate with you all
For that price, I feel like the back shouldn't be that open. They really could have integrated the Pi ports better.
Yeah, it looked really nice until he showed the back, now it just looks like yet another disappointing RPi case :( Unlike e.g., TheC64 mini, which did have everything nicely integrated.
The price is ridiculous
Seriously, they put in so much attention to detail and then left the back open. : (
Maybe the idea was that they want you to use the case with other PCBs
"CASE: It's not possible.
Cooper: No. It's necessary."
- 'Interstellar'
😃 PC-8001 was my first computer 💻 with 32kbytes of RAM, and fitted with the HAL chracter generator of course 👍👍👍 Good old days
Most expensive raspberry pi ever but very cool regardless!
Now stick an LCD screen in that CRT disk holder from your last video and you'll have a mini monitor for your Mini PC-8001!
Persocom? Damn brought me Chobits memories
Chi?
@@SelecaoOfMidas chi!
Chhhhhhhiiiiiii......
Always always always appreciate the flashing light warnings, thank you so much!
A tiny little model of a computer with a computer inside it. The levels of cuteness are palpable! 🤍
Saw the Twitter message about a new blerb, wasn't expecting a 38 minute beast, but I'll take it.
The real PC-8001 had an optional dual 5.25" expansion subsystem with a separate Z80 CPU. I worked for a company called RACET Computes. Ltd. which integrated HDD support back in the early 1980s. It was my first computer job when I was a late teen.
I had similar fun going through the Turbografx16 mini months ago. I never got to play that system growing up, and the addition of the Japan only games was nice. Thanks for the video!
Best mini yet by the way. NEC build some high quality stuff. I think my uncle still has his from 25+ years ago.
Hey Clint! The first game you played is Heiankyo Alien. If you're familiar with Jeremy Parish, he's done a video on the gameboy version of that game that talks a bit about it's history and significance in Japan.
I just realized I’ve been following your channel for over 10 years now. Thank you for the quality content friend
I see tiny computer thingy, I click.
You got robbed with that Jupiter Landing game. You were going like 1 m/s and it still crashed :D
For real though. Landing on Jupiter _should_ be punishing, but that's ridiculous.
@@LGRBlerbs It's not landing on Jupiter, it's landing a ship named Jupiter (Lost In Space). Can't land on a gas giant...
@@big0bad0brad Isn't it a quite common theory that it actually has a somewhat solid core? Too lazy to Google it right now but I seem to recall something like that.
@@Programentalist The issue stems more from the gravity/atmospheric pressure - what's actually down there doesn't matter because you won't be in once piece by the time you make it there :)
@@big0bad0brad Ah, that's a factor of course! What kind of pressure are we talking, on the scale of making the Mariana Trench feel like the kiddie pool?
11:21 - 平安京エイリアン "Heiankyō Alien"
11:25 - モール アタック "Mole Attack"
11:48 - 走れ! スカイライン "Run! Skyline"
11:50 - オリオン80 "Orion 80"
TH-cam's translate confirms you're telling the trouf
Fun fact, if you take the letters HAL from HAL Laboratory and move them one letter down, you get IBM. This is from the founder of HAL Laboratory's ambition of being one step above IBM.
So it's not supposed to be a _2001_ reference?
This urban legend start shortly after the release of 2001. Creator Arthur C Clarke said "...about once a week some character spots the fact that HAL is one letter ahead of IBM, and promptly assumes that Stanley and I were taking a crack at the estimable institution ... As it happened, IBM had given us a good deal of help, so we were quite embarrassed by this, and would have changed the name had we spotted the coincidence."
Anyone else totally not interested in these classic computers once they find out they are just raspberry pi's in fancy cases?
Yeah, just sell the games on Steam or GOG.
The non-functional keyboard broke my heart
I'm a Kirby fan, and I clicked.
Kirby is one of the greatest things Japan has ever blessed the world with
I don't get it in the same way I don't get Pokemon. Or most anime for that matter :p
@@ahandsomefridge I'm not trying to pick apart what you're saying to call you "wrong" and attack you, but you do know Kirby is an actual good platformer game series and not just one of those weird "kawaii" things, right?
I was mainly aiming at character aesthetics and 'mascot' value. That doesn't speak to me much at all (not a big Mario or Sonic fan either, although there are plenty of good games out there).
@@ahandsomefridge I feel kinda the same tbh, the 8- and 16-bit game's look have a certain charm to them and a few later ones were interesting but I can definitely see what you are saying. Same goes for Mario and Sonic, but maybe a bit less for the post Mario 64 3d Mario games.
Edit: I'm not saying the games are bad (far from it, these are some of my most favorite games ever), I'm just saying I don't really get how they are such a great "mascot" that they are this big.
Love that little thing, quite impressed by some of the games.
Jeremy Parish's ears perks up when someone in the world plays Heiankyo Alien. Or mentions it. Or thinks of it.
This channel has gone [0] days without a Heiankyo Alien reference.
Really cool to see these early japanese PC games. Would be super interested to see more of them!!
Very interesting little device! I think these mini consoles are a great chance for people to check out consoles/games they never would've had the chance to back in the day!
35:05: I love how the message is signed "Admiral Piett"!
Hal from Raleigh here. Thanks for the content Clint
set it up next to the disk holder in shape ofmonitor, spectacular
never knew this thing existed! neat to see some of those early Japanese pc games! a few of those looked genuinely fun!
Ooooh, the one with the digging is Heiankyo Alien! I didn't know that was on the pc80...
There's a great gameboy port.
Jeremy Parish would be so disappointed Clint didn't know this one.
@@QunMang (0 days since Heiankyo Alien reference)
Always making my days better Clint. Sending much love!
Omg I love all of it, even the box so cool.
when someone makes these tiny devices with a functioning keyboard that is when people will go mad
finally my tiny hands will be useful :'D
The paper is a letter
the letter was received before the 8001 saying thanks for registering to the pc8001 present campaign and the seller probably put the letter in the box.
Thank you SO much for the flashing images warning.
I have Jupiter Lander on the Commodore Vic-20. I would LOVE to have this Micro-console. 200$ is a bit much. Thanks for covering this. I was aware of this product before your video went up....I got the Octopus Game&Watch for 80$ CAD yesterday. I love it.
Wow, those games look fun. I would love to have something like this when I was a kid.
Wow, Jupiter Lander. I remember trying to play that back in the early 80's on a VIC 20. Had a lot of trouble trying to land that thing.
Excellent taste in TVs. Hilarious to see such an old system blown up so large.
I still have my PC 8001 MkII! A nice computer for its time.
Hello Clint! Another great video.
The way those games are mixed up like mention is really cool.
It looks very similar in operation to an NEC PC-8201a.
That proto-laptop machine allowed the user to define special characters in memory for use by games and such.
The sounds these games make are gorgeous.
"It's like a FAX machine inside a blender." ROTFL! Don't ever change, my friend.
Impressed by Orion 80.. early 3D and it was silky smooth
Awesome, I mainly clicked on the video because I saw HAL Laboratory, which made me think about kirby, so I was intrigued, but the video was honestly really good beyond the whole HAL Laboratory stuff.
The way you looked at the camera at 32:30 reminded me of your brother introducing himself in that New Years thrifting video.
The MZ-80C looks amazing 😍
I knooooow. I really want to track one down!
Thats cool. I like that the blurb was 38 mins long
That last game, like an early first person flight game broadly based off of Star Wars? That's really something for 1979 from what little I know.
2:37 For those that might not know. Pasocom is short for "Personal computer". パソコン [pasokon] The first two kana from パーソナル [pāsonaru] and コンピュータ [konpyūta]. The ン [n] is changed to an M to match the English pronunciation. Just like ファミコン [famikon] becomes Famicom.
Looking forward to seeing someone from the Demoscene use one of these to fully render 3D geometry with a bangin' music track.
Congrats on the hight score!
The colors are like that to sorta simulate the acetone overlays that arcade games had at the time, it's kinda neat!
It's also worth noting that "graph" is the alt key for american keyboards, short for "alternate graphics"
I was curious to see this because our computer lab for my Business Statistics class at the local Tech School in 1980 was full of these. I wasted way too much time evaluating sorting algorithms on one that looked just like yours, but much larger of course.
I didn't imagine there were ever any games for this machine. My sorting routines were plenty of 'game' for me. I was really impressed that it had a numeric keypad st the time but all of ours were hooked up to green screens (or were they amber?)
My secondary computer is a Pi zero-W. It's really all the computer I really need.
I love how Asteroid Belt at 21:38, has the character as a "Beam Car" and it's literally a Volkswagen bus, with a 70's laser beam cannon just pointing straight up lol
Thank you for the flashing light warning !! Love all of your videos! 😁😁😁
Those games... bring back SO many memories! I was 15 in 1980 and I absolutely loved all these sort of games. Anyhow, nice to see you, as the good white schlong, verses the evil, green diseased ones! ;)
BEAUTIFUL Piece
The mini pc optic is really good. Gave the impression his hands were giant. My mind almost broke putting everything into perspective.
But I was actually disappointed the keyboard wasn't working.
If it would that would be mind blowing. Just seeing him typing with a tiny little stick to hit the keys correctly.
I want one, not to use, but as an ornament. I’ve got an original PC-8001 complete with Japanese keyboard in my loft, and a PS-8001B (British) with a few broken keys. Unfortunately all the cassette tapes with games and utility software were lost many years ago. I also have a PC-8801. I think I still have floppy disks for both with WordStar, DBase, BASCOM, ASM, and similar. Fascinating to watch - big smile :-)
You had me at "flashing retro computer imagery" :D
I played that exact mole/gopher game 20 years ago on a computer from Goodwill. Can’t recall if it was a Coleco Adam or a Commodore VIC-20.
The smooth scaling on the sprites is the last game blew my mind. What computer from 1982 could do that! Looks really cool.
38 minute Blerb - great job sir!
The changing colours as objects move vertically is probably a reference to early arcade games like Space Invaders. Where they would literally put coloured tape across the screen to give the impression of colour on a black n white game. :)
I was thinking they were directly evoking arcade monitor overlays, yeah.
That last game looks awesome. I do want a video on that, also i want to try playing it.
The other games do seem like playable, but that one seems like fun for more than a couple minutes.
A bit of hint for those who don't know "PasocomMini" literally translates to Mini Computer. Though the actual word is パソコン (Pasokon)
Very cool pi case.
The race game looks awesome!
Heiankyo Alien was the name of the first game you played where you were digging holes for the aliens. They had a port on the old black and white game that actually had way better graphics and was a really good time. Only dow side is short
I first saw this when it was featured in a GameCenterCX segment (forgot the name of the segment, but the theme was "Great Gameboy games that never got another port"). Didn't realize it was even older than that.
I thought it looked familiar; it got a Game Boy port in 1990
That’s crazy, I completely forgot that I played Heiankyo Alien on my GameBoy back in the late 80s! When I saw the little guy starting to dig a hole in the maze that immediately jolted my memory.
@@lastcontinue3010 first came out as a computer game in 1979 by the university of Tokyo theoretical science group and then published by Denki Onkyō Corporation in May 1980.
The game also had a super famicom release calledNichibutsu Arcade Classics 2: Heiankyo Alien by Nihon Bussan. There is also microsoft windows versions and a version for the cell phone.
As well as an arcade remastered version currently for sale on steam.b
But it got a lot more love in japan than it did here state side. As all of these are japanese games even the instructions in the story on the remastered version on steam or still in Japanese the Japanese is not required to be able to enjoy the game since it's a simple maze like game where you just go around digging holes to kill aliens.
When I was building my gameboy dmg with a raspberry pi 3 in it, I looked around on amazon etc for blank shells for as cheap as possible, but ended up seeing a really cheap (like $2-$3 ) sold copy of the gameboy cartridge of heiankyo alien which I used to seal the chassis (raspberry pi wouldn't need an opening for cartridges..)
Sidenote: I did my best not to damage the cartridge and did save the cartridge PCB, so someday I'll put the cart back in a shell and be able to play it on a real gameboy. For now emulators work fine.
if i remember right, pasacom is a portmanteau of the phonetic spellings the japanese use for the english words "personal computer ", which is commonly used when talking about PCs where we'd just say the acronym PC
This looks so clear. Surprised how good the games look on a non-CRT.
NEC stuff has interested me since I got into the PC Engine and their fantastic CRT VGA monitors (tho i dont own the latter sadly lol)
Neat little case, certainly a lot nicer looking than some other mini retro computers that have been released already...
Well that is one neat little thing.
That was awesome!
This is so cool!
Cool looking games. I want one. 🕹
This is cool. I want a ZX Spectrum mini with a tiny tape drive that moves.
Yeaaaah it's one of those PC's\ consoles that you really don't miss. It existed, I guess.