Greetings from an original NABU Network user

[kcampbell]

Hello all!

First off, a collective thank you to DJ, Leo as well as Zbigniew and Bill at York, and everyone else who have contributed, researched, documented, preserved, hacked and revivified the NABU PC and Network! Absolutely fantastic work.

I'm happy to say that I used the NABU PC and NABU Network in 1983-1984, and it was an influential and important milestone in my life. I was around 10 years old, and my parents sent me to a week-long "Tennis & Computer Summer Camp" at the Hunt Club community center in Ottawa. We played tennis in the mornings, and played with NABU PCs in the afternoon. It was my first hands-on experience with a computer. I still remember our group watching "War Games" and then spending the rest of the afternoon programming in BASIC, trying to make the NABU PC interact with us like W.O.P.R./Joshua (without the speech synthesis or threat of thermonuclear war, of course).

Afterwards, my parents subscribed to the service and we had a rental unit from Rogers Cablevision in our living room for several months. The number of hours I spent with LOGO and "BC's Quest for Tires"...

After the pilot ended, we got an Apple II compatible clone, and the rest is history. My NABU experience kindled a lifelong interest in remote access and packet switched networks (at the time, dial-up BBSes, Tymnet, Datapac, etc.) and it also led to a life of professional software development (everything from 8-bit embedded systems, to early mobile (the dark days of MIDP and J2ME) to full-stack and Enterprise backends), stints as a sysadmin, network admin, etc.

Leo, I'm not sure if you'd be interested but I took a couple of group photos of everyone after the YUNN presentation at the Ottawa Science and Tech Museum in 2009. I remember you telling some stories when the mike was being passed around. I was also happy to have met and spoken with John Kelly afterwards, and I told him how influential NABU had been to me. I'm sure I came across as a weirdly manic fan, but he was quite kind and introduced me to a few other people.

I still have a promotional NABU pen around somewhere, an oversized white rollerball with the NABU logo in blue.

Unfortunately, I missed the eBay barn haul, and need to wait until a reasonably priced NABU PC turns up on Ebay. If anyone has one to sell, please PM me.

All my best,
Ken

[DJ Sures]

That’s a wonderful story, Ken! Thanks for taking the time to share the details. I enjoy hearing about people who have experienced nabu before the barn sale. I feel it makes a true connection compared to those who discovered nabu last year and had no previous historical significance to them. Hopefully one comes up for you to get! In the meantime the mame emulator works well - I find myself using it often

[kcampbell]

That’s a wonderful story, Ken! Thanks for taking the time to share the details.

Thanks, DJ! I honestly never imagined, after all these years, I’d find a NABU community to share that story with

I hope to have some time over the holidays to read, watch and dive into everything you and Leo have done, and try some coding using the MAME emulator.

My best,
Ken

[skin-nl]

Great story ken....I grew up with the c64 in the 80's...and it gets a special place in your heart

There's now a nabu for sale where you can bid on

https://www.ebay.nl/itm/256335457726?ha ... R7zy2ImNYw

Michael

[Super_Derek]

Amazing story!

Derek

[LeoBinkowski]

Welcome Ken!

Of course I'd be interested in your photos. You can post them here if you feel comfortable doing that. I am definitely interested.

And that is a rocking history of NABU. Since you met John Kelly, you could tell he's a really solid guy and was always super helpful during any conversation.

Leo

[LeoBinkowski]

Oh, and the original seller seems to be selling them, but for more now:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/395059609768?h ... R6jls6CPYw