Firing up the Sanyo MBC-16 Plus.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Sorry for the delay! Big Blue (the school bus) is here now and I've been really busy cleaning it out and fixing things up. Hope to get filming there in the next couple of weeks! School bus video next!

[@SockyNoob]

One of the timestamps is invalid. It has 63 for seconds. Probably a typo.

[@AndrewFremantle]

I love the activity sounds of old MFM drives. I despise and don't at all miss the bearing noise.

[@fnjesusfreak]

According to Japanese Wikipedia (lol, for what that may be worth), the official katakana transcription is ティアック, "tiakku", so tee-ack is probably the intended pronunciation.

[@PCRetroTech]

That Plantronics card is a holy grail! I can't believe you snagged one of those. I was vaguely busy while watching the video, and thought I heard you say you got it for some insanely low price on Ebay. I'm not going to rewind the video to check or I might cry. Congrats on an incredible purchase!

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Thank you! I've not seen one sold before so I had no reference to go by but I'd heard they're pretty rare.. so for that price I was like.. heck yeah!

[@SockyNoob]

Especially for only $60. Even a broken one at that price is a steal.

[@vwestlife]

Computers with heavy RF shielding were (and maybe still are?) called "Tempest" and were designed to prevent electronic eavesdropping. They were made for use by the U.S. military and government.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

@vwestlife i would presume if that were the case with this machine they would have taken steps to delete any sensitive data.

[@50shadesofbeige88]

A beautiful display of beige goodness if I've ever seen one. RIP C:\

[@nestromo83]

My god... you booting up Typing Tutor just... immediately took me back to elementary school in '90-'91. We had just gotten a brand new computer lab of IBM PS/2s, and this is what I learned to 'officially' type on. Like you, I'd been typing on my C64 and TI-99/4A for years, but... had to relearn, but got pretty quick with it after a little while. Love the videos as always, but this one just struck a special chord with me.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

@nestromo83 Many thanks! I *think* this was the one we typed on but I'm not 100% sure. I know it wasn't Mavis Beacon.

[@nestromo83]

@@TechTimeTraveller Every school system is different, particularly down in North Carolina where I am, but we never used Mavis Beacon for sure. It was this for as long as I was there... I got made into the defacto 'assistant' for that teacher at the lab and then on because of... well, being nerdy and into computers at a time where it wasn't cool. You know the drill. But yeah, that was definitely the program, or at least a version of it, that we had... that blue background with the green test window is burned into my consciousness. Anywho, I'm surprised that MFM drive lasted as long as it did with the issues it presented when you first cranked it up... wish I knew of a way to refresh them, but they're kind of a dying art, so to speak. Lookin' forward to the next video!

[@DerekLippold]

We had Apple IIe in my school computer lab 😂

[@yagurl_]

The hum is just so sooothing

[@catriona_drummond]

Some impressive DOS command line action there. I had no idea about the copy con thing. I only started out in 1992, towards the end of DOS and EDIT existed.

[@thedungeondelver]

I think the big circles the cables were wrapped around are called chokes?

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I think you are right.

[@shermanikk]

They are, and they are there to prevent the cables from acting like antennas.

[@justinbollaert2253]

​@@TechTimeTraveller toroid ferrite core ;-)

[@michaelturner2806]

If you have a copy of Steve Gibson's SpinRite, an old version of it (still available on his website for purchasers of the "newer" utility), it can do some testing for the best interleave for a system, as well as dynamically rewrite the disk to the new interleave without having to low level format again. The best interleave for a system depended on a combination of the speed of the system itself, the controller, and the drive. Changing one of those without adjusting the interleave could slow down drive access by a lot. This is a case where higher or lower than optimal both could lower speed.

[@AiOinc1]

1:25 Common mode suppression choke 5:00 Seagate ST-225? This is definitely not a 251. 5:12 The font is stored in ROM on the video card.

[@wrlrdqueek]

You can tell people are nostalgic for HDD noise, they make little buzzer speakers you put in-line with the Disk Activity light to simulate it.

[@bollux78]

Hey, nice weird machine! I was thinking about the repair and color. You can retrobrite the front as best as you can, do the filling and sanding of the broken pieces and then paint everything using the color you achieved, except for the top left square with the writings, so you have a nice an smooth finish.

[@RedstoNeman0]

10:48: pouring a glass for the flashbang young viewers received lol

[@stephenwhitaker4150]

You definitely can shoot in Shamus. I just have forgotten the key, as I have only played with a joystick. Also, for Topbench, the system it is displaying (PCjr/V20) is for the closest matched (comparison), not your current system, that is what is being updated at the top. Keep up the great videos!

[@NerdlyPleasures]

You press the Alt key while holding down a directional to shoot in Shamus with the keyboard.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

That's what I was doing wrong. Kept thinking it was a regular key.

[@SockyNoob]

Lol, the PC speaker in this is at the same exact tone as a censor bleep lol. Speaking of sounds, that keyboard sounds lovely. Sounds like it haa Alps switches or something similar. Could listen to it all day.

[@guidolehwalder9376]

@Tech Time Traveller: You could use (over nigh, because it take very long) Spinrite 5.0 to mark (and find) the Bad Tracks on the HDD - after that the PC should only use good clusters of the HDD

[@vwestlife]

FYI, it's normal for these Turbo XT clones to start up at 4.77 MHz. Then you can switch into turbo mode with either a key combination (usually Ctrl + Alt + Plus on the numeric keypad) or a speed switching utility it originally came with.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

@@vwestlife This one has a manual switch at the back for 4.77 or 8mhz, set to the latter.

[@vwestlife]

@@TechTimeTraveller It's still worth trying that key combination, because it definitely does not look like it's running at 8 MHz,

[@TechTimeTraveller]

@vwestlife I'll give it a try. I just assumed it was because it was showing 8mhz during POST.

[@lasskinn474]

@@TechTimeTraveller there were several methods to do the "turbo" (or rather the slow-mo part of it). in a lot of them(most? not sure. most later anyway) the mhz and bus will remain the same, technically, as far as the bios and such are concerned, with the cpu let being paused for every second cycle(or let run every fourth) or such trickery. edit: someone made a video about it in like past year.. hmm that dude with an eastern european accent that does a lot of old fixing of voodoos and stuff? someone anyway

[@janb.5579]

Next time find an old version of Spinrite, like v2 or v3 I think. It can sometimes low level format those old MFM/RLL drives _without_ destroying the data on it. Takes a veeeery long time, tho... like, days... ;-) It tries to read each sector multiple times and reconstruct whatever it finds there, the low levels the sector, and then writes back whatever it read before. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

[@BHDelannoy]

They have the motherboard schematic on the retro web, colour and monochrome are controlled by the dip switches on the motherboard

[@RandallCrook]

The shielding may be apart of tempest hardening.

[@BeerAndWarcraft]

I love this channel. #GoSensGo

[@lutello3012]

Looks like the Blue Chip computer I used in middle school. (Herc)

[@paulstubbs7678]

For fixing (or trying to) an old school hard drive try 'Spinright' - Gibson research

[@Chriva]

Radio and TV companies where batsh*t crazy about RF interference back in the day. Could it perhaps be a so called "station computer"?

[@chasonlapointe]

I could tell you'd be a Testarossa driver due to your exquisite taste in pc hardware...

[@leecremeans5446]

It looks like that copy of King's Quest may be configured for composite artifact color instead of TTL color. If the Sanyo has a composite output (I forget if it did or not), try hooking up a monitor or TV to it and running King's Quest again.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

@leecremeans5446 Mine doesn't have the rca jack on the back but what you're saying makes sense. I just grabbed that copy from somewhere at random. I thought it had the right overlay files for CGA EGA etc.

[@NerdlyPleasures]

@@TechTimeTraveller King's Quest III and other Sierra AGI games can be displayed with 4 colors with CGA by pressing Ctrl + R during the game. Later versions of AGI games can also show 4 colors by running the executable with the -r command line argument, but not the version shown.

[@michaelstoliker971]

Those ferrite loops were called chokes, I think.

[@beatadalhagen]

I would be curious if there is anyone out there rebuilding old MFM/RLL hard drives. I had done a couple in my youth, but that was on the living room table.

[@LeftoverBeefcake]

I feel your pain about having retro items getting smashed in transit. I just got an Amiga 2000 keyboard off eBay that cost quite a bit, only to have it arrive smashed up on both ends due to the seller's inadequate packing job and UPS shipping. After a bit of back-and-forth with the seller he's taking it back for a refund, thankfully. :(

[@TechTimeTraveller]

It's really tough and often a total crapshoot with vintage plastics. I had one item shipped and it arrived with the box in mint condition, but internally it was destroyed. I guess the jostling caused the plastics inside to give up the ghost. Someone needs to start a Very Fragile Items courier service.

[@georgehilty3561]

Strange thought, but do you think that maybe all that shielding was to protect the computer? Maybe from an emp or something?

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Might be. I think another commenter suggested that also.

[@PapaMurphTV]

ferrite rings?

[@TechTimeTraveller]

That might be the name I was looking for! Thank you!

[@MichiganPeatMoss]

Torroidal core. Heavily used by amateur radio folks for tuning antennas. In this instance, would handle RF interference for sure.

[@paulstubbs7678]

I wouldn't be at all concerned with seeing other peoples data, they chose to leave it there, so they obviously don't care.

[@TMS9918A]

"I don't have a lot of old PC stuff" ...Really?

[@TechTimeTraveller]

@TMS9918A Yeah I guess the numbers have crept up. But I really don't have a ton, not relative to the rest of my stuff. I've seen guys with racks of PC gear.. whole basements. Mine is a small stack in one corner.

[@maxa.8230]

Maybe all this shielding was created for some secret government laboratory, but now after с800:5 we will no longer know the secrets of Areа 51 sadly

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I think if it belonged to those guys it'd be wiped. The machine had a Wheel of Fortune disk in the drive when the seller got it so I think whatever was on there probably was considerably less exciting than alien contact lol

[@Lemon_Inspector]

So in your typing class, you had your monitor at an awkward angle because you weren't supposed to look at the *keyboard* which was *in front* of you. Like normal. Are you sure your teacher wasn't just pulling a cruel prank on your class?

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I don't think so. As I recall, the goal was to learn how to touch type. So either, in the days before widespread scanner use, you were transcribing notes or such from paper (usually on a mount in front of the keyboard) or simply looking onscreen. You were to almost never look at the keyboard.

[@emonk042]

chkdsk /f or nortons disk doctor