Howdy from LSD (Lower Slower Delaware)

[gfroberts]

Got my (eBay) NABU a few months back but was too busy preparing my (Heathkit) exhibit for VCF East to really take the time to get smart. that starts now...

I'm a (retired) Computer & Systems Engineer enjoying late-in-life catching up on some vintage computing. my main focus has been the Heathkit H8, which was mostly a serial terminal I/O system but in the early 80s a small company called New Orleans General Data Services (NOGDS, catchy huh?) built a sound & video board using (you guessed it) the TMS9918A VDP and the AY-3-8910 PSG. but they were too late to the market - by then you could buy a whole computer (think VIC-20) for what the NOGDS board cost, so they had limited market penetration, and little software was ever developed.

our group (sebhc.org) has cloned the NOGDS board and I've actually developed quite a few simple C programs, including an implementation of the "greed" dice game, all of which I showed at VCF. NABU presents an opportunity to leverage the gaming knowledge of Leo and the other developers and bring some of those applications to the H8/NOGDS - and also possibly to port some of our software to the NABU (my greed game?)

really enjoyed Leo's VCF presentation (in spite of the technical glitches) and his "archaeology" videos, plus the many others i'm discovering...

so i'm still getting up to speed but looking forward to joining this community and the adventures in retro-computing that await us!

- Glenn Roberts

[memenesia]

Hi, Glenn. Do you have a link for that video on the NOGDS card?

[gfroberts]

here is the user manual for the original NOGDS HA-8-3 graphics board:
https://github.com/sebhc/sebhc/blob/mas ... 230221.pdf

here is info on our modern clone of that board:
https://koyado.com/heathkit/New-H8-Website/ha-8-3.html

here is a static shot of my setup at VCF
https://photos.app.goo.gl/L7LymrL67hzuTRN4A

the modern clone board can optionally take a TMS9928 chip, which puts out component video. for VCF I fed that into an Open Source Scan Converter to come up with very nice quality HDMI video.

here's a link to a video showing some of the pictures I showed on this board at VCF:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TfLikBmtgaqNojV29

happy to answer any questions!

[LeoBinkowski]

Very cool. Nice to meet you. I'm sure some of the resources I have will interest you. Stay tuned!

[gfroberts]

The thing I love about the "NABU/Leo Binkowski" story is the happy ending. I often wonder what happened to so much of the source code from 40 years ago. I think what you did is all too common: the last guy out the door packed up the backup media in a box and it's now languishing in a basement or attic somewhere. The "happy ending" part is that you are now able to bring this back full circle and make the code available through your "archaeology" efforts. I fear that all too often these old software vaults meet a much more calamitous end, either lost to bit rot, saved in media formats that are now unreadable, sold off at an estate sale, or tossed in a trash bin.

so here's to happy endings and the new life for NABU!...

- glenn

[LeoBinkowski]

Thanks! That's so nice, but we haven't quite reached the happy ending. I'm still having trouble extracting useful info off those floppies, and have not yet dealt with the hard drive. I have spoken to my old boss, John Shortt, and he would really like to recover "Manager's Baseball", which I consider our most ambitious and detailed game. It required like 50 segments of code and data, but worked well, and had a bunch of really amusing bugs.

Leo

[memenesia]

Hi Glenn, do you have a way I can contact you directly? I don't think the forums allows DMs and I could not find an email for you on all the links. Even a hint at where that might be online would be helpful. Speaking of full circle, your talk about this board out of New Orleans piqued my interest. I read up on it and realized to my extreme shock, that I know one of the gentlemen involved in the original development of the board. I mentioned it to him, and seems he was not aware of the effort; which tells me it might be a new interesting chapter for you both.

On a topical note, I recently got my NABU in and once I fix a VIC 20 and Atari 2600 I've got staring at me, I intend to power this sucker up.

Cheers!

[memenesia]

Hmm. Disregard my lamentation about DMs. I figured it out and sent you one, Glenn. Cheers!