I Bought the Computer from WarGames

[@dvusmedia]

This video is kinda nostalgic for me. Two anecdotes: 1) In the late 70's I built several of original IMSAI kits... and learned what happens when you put the caps in the wrong way. 2) A couple of years later, I was working for a major supplier to the U.S. Air Force in Colorado Springs. They made things like hard coaxial cables used in the firing mechanisms of MIRV warheads. They provided many weird sorts of things to the Air Force but they also provided computer simulation services to the Air Force. When the movie came out the Air Force swore with a straight face that "We do not own any computers like the one in the movie". Which was true-- as they were renting two Control Data Corp Cyber 70 series computers from the company I worked for, as well as the peripherals, and the programmers to create the simulations for... you guessed it... the real "Thermonuclear War" simulation . This was1980-- long before the movie came out.

[@FlyingAce1016]

Cool story thanks for sharing!!

[@David_Crayford]

1983 for War Games. 3 years doesn't sound like much to me now but maybe it did then. I was going to joke you supplied Majors to the USAF but that is beaten hands down by the *We do not own* line.

[@kevind4606]

That's a wild story bud. Like the other commentator said Thanks for sharing with us.

[@123mikeyd321]

Wargames and Firefox. I was born in '73 and those films shaped my future. As did others but those 2 are ones I always remember. Great content BTW, I never miss a Dave's Garage episode.

[@David_Crayford]

1969 just after Apollo 11. Ditto. Also, dad worked on Lyons LEO and IBM System 3. We learned to write on green lined fanfold.

[@paulklasmann1218]

A lot of 70s and 80s films kindled my interest in electronics and computers. When I watched the 1950s The Thing from Another World, I went out and bought a Geiger counter kit for what was a lot of money for a 14 year old.

[@me67galaxylife]

Don’t know about firefox but wargames is pretty unrealistic and i’m not talking about the super computer

[@jaymzx0]

Great video, Dave. This is still one of my favorite movies. The first 10 minutes of the film with the airmen in the missle silo is intense! I remember being at DEF CON 16 in 2008. They had a viewing party in one of the auditoriums to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film. When the camera showed the IMSAI the crowd cheered 😆.

[@mattcrooke8321]

If you ever watch that scene again, look at Michael Madsen when he ‘types’ the code into his padlock 😉

[@skfalpink123]

I have the Altair 8080 replica which is really nice! Just by flicking data/address switches and then executing "chase the bit", it gives a really fantastic LED light show, which is a perfect backdrop for those endless MS Teams meetings!

[@davidbonner4556]

One of my first jobs out of High School was hardware repair for these early S-100 systems (North Star and Cromemco were also available). The IMSAI was my dream machine at the time, and also my test bed. One difference between the Altair and the IMSAI was the front panel markings... the toggle switch groupings. Altair's panel was marked referencing 'Split Octal', or Base 8 where 3 bits == one symbol... 255 decimal == 377 octal. IMSAI's panel was marked in Hexadecimal, or Base 16 where 4 bits == one symbol, or 255 decimal == FF hex. Octal was the established 'programmer's' numbering system at the time from Mainframes, but Hexadecimal was gaining popularity among microprocessor enthusiasts due to fitting evenly into the bit format. The difference being: 11 111 111 = Octal = 377 for 8 bits, 377 377 for 16 bits 1111 1111 = Hex = FF for 8 bits, FF FF for 16 bits.

[@boredwithusernames]

I had the very great pleasure of helping to work on a North Star Horizon system back in 1983. It had some kind of dumb terminal attached which stayed powered up with a user menu displayed on it even when the Horizon was powered down... very strange setup. I can't remember the fault now it was so long ago but I do remember the customer had bolted a big red physical panic button to the side which reset the system when it crashed.... which was so often it was the reason he fitted the button... which is why we were working on it. Happy memories... ;)

[@aerodigital]

Nice! The only thing I use for octals now is file attributes.

[@CFSworks]

Ah, I was wondering what caused the shift from octal to hex! (Well, probably many factors, but this explanation seems like the most compelling to me.) Thanks for sharing! A bonus fun fact: Octal's popularity in early computing history meant it was also used by the Apollo Guidance Computer. (15-bit word size, so 5 octal digits per word) I visited the Computer History Museum this year and they had an original AGC DSKY (DiSplay+KeYboard) unit exhibited. I couldn't help but grin when I saw that the 8 and 9 keys were much less worn out than the other digits. :)

[@KeithHorowitz]

I saw some IMSAI 8080 computers set up with Octal color set RRBBBRRR for the switches instead of Hexadecimal. The colored switch covers popped off easily. I learned to use the IMSAI 8080 with Hexadecimal. 2 characters instead of 3 seemed much more efficient. All the boot printouts I had were in Hexadecimal. I learned later that there was good reason for Octal on the Altair/IMSAI systems: 8080 machine code was designed as an octal based system. You could tell which pair of registers you were addressing by looking at the second and third nibble of Octal. RR=command, BBB=first register, RRR=second register.

[@billb6283]

Interesting

[@Euthymia]

If you can find a Cermetek 1200 modem to go with it, you'll have the complete set. That was the direct coupled modem that he used later in the movie. Big flat black anodized rectangular slab. I worked at Cermetek right after the movie came out and they were proud as anything about the "product placement."

[@kerryedavis]

I have a Novation CAT (I think) modem that looked the same. Might be an acceptable substitute.

[@pupaepedorra]

Wonderful video, and it was informative too, if possible, i would really like to see more videos about this machine and it's relatives, as they have always sparked my attention, even thou i started programming in 1992.

[@brodriguez11000]

I was hoping it was WOPR. Dying for a game of chess.

[@ramosel]

Reminds me of the days I worked on a "dark project" which used a Data General Nova 3... We had what looked like a woman's train case that housed a cassette drive. The whiz kids would write code and an armed (military) guard would bring it to us on the cassette. We'd take the train case out of a locked cage, put the tape in it, hook a 50pin twisted wire harness to the back plane, throw some switches and tape would run. They'd call and confirm the function and we'd hand the tape back to the armed guard and he'd leave with it. Never knew exactly what the machine was doing... just had to keep it running.

[@greggv8]

@@squishmastah4682 fun movie but everyone kept calling the cartridge a "tape". GRRRRR! (Same reaction when people mix up clip and magazine for firearms.)

[@fakshen1973]

That's the beauty of the distributed nature of dark stuff. One person knows so little that they probably have no idea of how their work matters in the bigger picture. The Manhattan Project was exactly like that. Most workers had no idea that they were doing the research or manufacturing of components for the program.

[@David_Crayford]

See also: *The Falcon and the Snowman* from same period. A tech guy working in a security compartment.

[@TomCee53]

@@greggv8 similar to making movies with a phone Is still called filming, and recording audio is called taping.

[@gordonm2821]

Loved the film. I was 13 at the time tinkering with ZX81 and ZX Spectrum machines here in England. The timing of the film was perfect.

[@Microman6502]

Yep me too. This was the movie that got me obsessed with computers and led to a 30 year career in software development!

[@kdkseven]

It just got me obsessed with Ally Sheedy!

[@MrPhred]

Great video! I used an IMSAI 8080 in my very first job as a firmware developer. I loved that machine! The S-100 bus made it easy to design and wire wrap any additional cards you might need. I tricked mine out with an EPROM burner card and a whopping 32K of static RAM.

[@c1ph3rpunk]

I wish wire wrapping would make a comeback. As much as I like breadboards, prototype boards and the like, wire wrapping is sometimes just easier.

[@silicon212]

I can remember going to the office at Coconino High during lunch when I was there back in '83-'84, and getting to play on the principal's TRS80 - hey this one had 64K RAM! This was my 'socializing' during school as an Aspie myself ... watching this stuff brings back so many wonderful memories ... thank you.

[@DavesGarage]

Did anyone catch the line about how the WOPR "went completely Pon Farr from playing too much tic-tac-toe with itself”? It's a pretty obscure reference, but I was sure hoping *someone* would get it! 🙂

[@1971merlin]

Not sure the WOPR engaged in any mating rituals. Maybe that's why it ended up quitting.

[@Zahgurym]

Wasn't sure I heard that right... replayed it a few times to be sure. 😆

[@JimConnelley]

Nice Dave! Brings back memories of my personal experience with the Altair 8800. We used them for real-time monitoring and recording of wildcat well drilling. We output to the same paper tape device used to input the actual program. Also used an IBM Selectric to print out one line per interval foot drilled. Front panel toggles set in the boot loader which would read the paper tape.

[@nukeum9535]

Love this stuff. "Computers came from aliens..." Those who say this, never messed with old tech.

[@RodBeauvex]

Well, it *is* a common trope that aliens *hate* humans....

[@sholland42]

People still think aliens are real? There’s exactly zero proof that space even exists.

[@dgurevich1]

We torture the earth itself by making sand think

[@Kristinapedia]

And they also don't know that computers were around since the 40's.

[@nukeum9535]

@@Kristinapedia adding machines and mechanical computers have existed since the late 1800's even later in some cases.

[@bertnijhof5413]

It remembers me of my first job in the prototype test department of Philips Data Systems in ~1969. My job was to test the prototypes of the data-communication hardware (ASR 33 TTY (110 bps) and synchronous terminals using a complex protocol to share a 9600 bps line between them :) Note that the complete protocol was hard wired. I would use the 16 address keys to insert a small program somewhere in the 64KB core memory. For the content we used the 32 keys, since it was a 32-bits computer comparable to the IBM 360/30. At the end we would punch the small program to paper-tape to be used again the next day :) After a year we would connect displays (24 x 80 characters); matrix typewriters; Philips desk sized office computers and 16-bits mini computers for remote card readers; printers and other peripherals.

[@Chris-on5bt]

As a young guy I find it fascinating the watch and learn about these very tactile and esoteric old machines. Keep up the great content!

[@TheronGBurrough]

You should have seen the pterodactyls in the sky back then! One of them was caught on film in "War Games".

[@Chris-on5bt]

@@TheronGBurrough Heh, if I remember correctly Mathew Bradric and the female lead go the abode of Dr. Faulkin and he has a pterodactyls flying when they get there. Yes, it is a shame they all went extinct in the great Dino-Russo war of the early 90s. Sad history that is.

[@TheronGBurrough]

@@Chris-on5bt Hee-Hee! Good 'un!

[@sdowns77]

This is the first video of yours I have seen and I really appreciate your demeanor and speech patterns. Most people who choose to make videos behave and sound inhumane, as if generations of local news anchors have been teaching young people what normal is. You, on the other hand, seem like a very friendly person that is also very knowledgeable with the life experience you’ve acquired. Thank you for your videos and channel. I am now going to watch your library. Have a good day. Sean

[@TanyaCumpston]

I used to own one of these when I was in my 20s (I'm 69). My first program was written in binary and entered using paddle switches. By the time I eventually sold it it had a keyboard, hard disk, monitor, an operating system and ran Fortran. It was a pivotal period in my life, and I ended up with a career in real time embedded software. I miss it.

[@yaayimanalien]

nice

[@petevenuti7355]

Was there ever a schematic available? It might be fun to make a true replica instead of an emulator.

[@TanyaCumpston]

@@petevenuti7355 Yes, but sourcing components might be difficult. The CPU (on its own plug-in S100 bus card) was a ceramic 8080 chip, and the first RAM card I plugged in was 1K bytes. I can't recall the type of RAM chips it used, but I'm guessing they might be pretty hard to obtain now. It all depends on what you mean by "true" replica. Probably the best you could hope for would be S100 cards that behaved the same way, but used different components. A carefully written emulator running under a preemtive real-time OS should be able to match the exact behaviour of the original 8080 (which ceased manufacture in 1990), including instruction timings (important because a lot of software at the time used wait loops when interfacing with hardware).

[@petevenuti7355]

@@TanyaCumpston back in the '90s I used to gut old 8080 to turn into external SCSI RAID arrays, even though I brought literally tonnage of old computer parts to the scrap metal yard , I still have several hundred pounds left. There might be a 8080 or two left, I know I have a few 30 pin Simms( with the pins, not edge connecter) , I never had much S100 bus stuff but may have a few left. I only tried to save some really cool stuff, like an original Hayes modem, full length ISA card with box, a half meter long Winchester drive with clear case(you can see the internals of the drive in operation) ECT ECT, I'm sure I got a good head start on parts.... The specific ROM chips might be a stumbling block however.....

[@James_Knott]

@@petevenuti7355 Yes, the computer came with a binder full of schematics.

[@JessicaFEREM]

ha they really said "fine I'll make it myself" and actually followed through with it

[@flyingirish66]

Another great video. When I first got out of school I went to work teaching microprocessors and microcomputers at a Tech School, we had several of machines much like this, you wrote the code by flipping the switches, machine level language for the 6800, and we taught the programming, system design, and electronic troubleshooting. Good job.

[@enilenis]

Seen Altair 8800 at a space observatory in 1995. Was told that it was used to do astronomical calculations, back when it was in service. They put it into a glass display case, after it retired.

[@SidebandSamurai]

Dave, Thanks for showing off your IMSAI computer. Looks like Mathew Brodrick's family was rich to have a dual floppy setup as well as a modem. The operation was really rudmentary for the time. I always wanted one of these computers, but did not get my first computer until 1982 which was a TRS-80 Model III. Loved that machine.

[@widicamdotnet]

I think the rationale was supposed to be that by 1982, the IMSAI was no longer a current machine, and David might have gotten it handed down from a previous user (his friends at uni, probably).

[@lordmikethegreat]

@@widicamdotnet That would make sense as very few people would buy that as their first computer in 1982. I still wonder why they didn't use a current popular machine and maybe extort some $$ from the manufacturers for "exposure". I guess using a machine like this would make it totally generic with no bias for any particular model or brand. This movie was a big hit, and yet, despite this, no one ever made a playable version of "Global Thermonuclear War" either as a standalone game or a dial up BBS game (which would have been more appropriate). I always found it surprising and frustrating as a game like that could have been an absolute blockbuster hit. I mean, who wouldn't want to try their hand at "Global Thermonuclear War". AFAIK, there were no homebrew versions of the game, either. It certainly would have been a great BBS door game. If anyone knows anything, please let me know. I'd love to find a version of it somewhere to play.

[@widicamdotnet]

@@lordmikethegreat I don't think the marketing department would be interested in trying to sell a game that everyone knows was advertised with the slogan "the only winning move is not to play" :-D But yes, a hobbyist's reimplementation running on a BBS would be very nice to see.

[@lordmikethegreat]

@@widicamdotnet I just did a search and someone at github claims to be working on just that! I'm looking forward to it for sure!

[@javabeanz8549]

They were a beautiful machine. I mostly remember it for my first BASIC course, and having to use those cool switches on the front to enter a ROM address and telling it to run, so we could then use the keyboard and CRT, and then loading BASIC. The Polymophics 8800 (Poly 88, as was it's nickname) already loaded all that for us, and didn't have all the cool switches and der blinkin lights.

[@neilbrideau8520]

Dave. I was so absorbed in computers when this came out and this just became cement. I am not one to get jealous but I am feeling both jealousy and nostalgia.

[@RSkala100]

Thanks Dave, as an S100 builder back in the early 80’s this brings back great memories of assembling and using my Netronics Explorer system. I truly appreciate your videos.

[@AnthonyRBlacker]

Great video.. It's amazing how far we've come and how quickly we've done so.. Imagine what the next 50 years will bring us??!!??

[@freman]

I got a sick and twisted chuckle from knowing it is just as bad for you to get stuff from Australia as it is for us to get stuff from the Americas

[@llothar68]

As Australians it might be easier to send it to Philippines and pick up in person 🤣

[@dogwalker666]

Indeed a used test meter from Merica cost £15 but was £90.00 for postage, and 3 weeks delivery, A brand new Chinese copy cost £10. With free postage and arrived on under a week.

[@jscoulter61]

Try getting stuff from Australia to New Zealand! yey gads! 2 fricken weeks for something from Sydney to Christchurch! any- thats off topic 🙂

[@davidsmith-ih2kk]

And how bad, those Yanks must have a special postal service to Australia 🇦🇺 you know the one where you buy something for $2 and pay $100 postage.

[@ScubaAnt72]

@@jscoulter61 Mate, next time I can meet you half-way across the ditch in a canoe if you like :)

[@ejharrop1416]

Love it and keep the oldies but goodies coming, thank you!

[@rickthorp8363]

I love these videos (I love all of your videos honestly), but the detail and level of information using easy to understand terminology and building blocks makes it so interesting and enjoyable. Thank you!

[@DavesGarage]

Awesome, thank you!

[@dhellis19498]

My first computer was an IMSAI 8080, S/N 13 bought it at one of the many Byte store and it came in kit form. It took some digging in the docs to see that there was a modification where you had to cut a trace on the front panel. I wish I had that computer now.

[@K7RRW]

Like Conan Harris I bought one of these in the late 70's as a kit. I was running a Model 15 teletype on 146.70 mhz in Richland, WA (my call WB7CNJ then now K7RRW)and thought there might be some way to connect this baby to a teletype. I soldered and soldered. The 4k memory boards took forever to build. I know this unit cost a fortune for the day, and tried feeding paper tape into an optical reader to program it. I ultimately sold it to a ham friend but you have brought back many memories before I bought an Apple II. Without any other IMSAI enthusiasts around at the time, I never really had it running to its capacity. Thanks Dave! 73

[@K7RRW]

Oh, I forgot. That Teletype was the last one running for the Walla Walla depot to Dayton that I purchased from the last telegrapher on the line, Murray Fisher W7NSU, a WWII hero decyphering the Japanese Purple Code on submarine duty. I still love the sound of the Teletype printing, a marvel of engineering.

[@josephcote6120]

In 1978 we were debugging our assembly code with an oscilloscope. Sort of. a DAC chip is a digital-analog converter. Takes (in our case) 8 bits and converts it to a proportional voltage between 0 and 5 volts in 256 steps. We built an S-100 card that had a DAC on address lines 0 through 7, and another DAC on 8 to 15. Set the scope in X-Y mode and fed in the two voltages. Each address the computer went to moved the spot of the scope to a different point, you could watch it move as the program executed and read and wrote data to memory. If it got stuck in a loop somewhere you could see it, or if it was going to a memory area it shouldn't be using we'd see that.

[@James_Knott]

I bought and built an IMSAI kit in Nov. 1976. I didn't have floppies, so I used a couple of cassette recorders. Back then, the kit didn't come with anything, not even memory, so I had to buy various boards, using the ads in Byte magazine to see what was available. I started with 4K of memory, but eventually reached 20K. For software, my go to was a company called Scelbi. I bought an assembler, editor, monitor and BASIC from them. Since I didn't have a paper tape reader, I had to load them in manually, initially via front panel, later with a keyboard and then save to tape. When I had everything up & running, I had a keyboard & monitor, 2 cassette recorders, a 300B manual modem, an amateur radio interface, which I designed and built myself, an 8 port serial I/O card (4 populated), which I also designed and built. It was connected to my amateur radio transceiver and also a M35 ASR Teletype, which provided printer, keyboard, tape punch and reader. Other than the Scelbi apps, I wrote all my own software. Back in those days, you knew your computer inside and out. BTW, that Zork game reminded me of Adventure, which I used to play on a VAX 11/780 computer at work. One day, I showed the game to my wife, who then asked if she could play it on my IMSAI. I said no, but if we had a modem... I was soon the proud owner of a 300 baud manual modem, which could then be used to call into the VAX.

[@rickkephartactual7706]

I remember the fun and excitement of using computers back then but lord knows I don't want to go back to that. I'm too spoiled with the awesome computers we have now.

[@MrTurboTash]

Strange, was just looking at the schematics and instruction set breakdown of the zx80 this morning. Feeling like one of the cool kids by understanding the blinky lights :D

[@billyclaymyers82]

Where is the love button for this video... As a current Microsoft dev I wish you were still on campus so I could come by and say hi when I visit Redmond. You are awesome Dave.

[@Psychlist1972]

I have this same replica kit, still unassembled. I really need to get on that, especially now after seeing it in action.

[@n5zxz]

Wow does this ever take me back to school in the early 80's where I was studying computer science. We were using a DEC PDP-11. Seeing Kermit run reminds me how when we received the 1st IBM PC in the lab and we used Kermit to emulate a VT100 terminal to connect to the PDP-11. This video made my day. Thank You.

[@JKVisFX]

Hey Dave, I am a fellow Aspie. I wasn't diagnosed until 42yo though I lived an entire lifetime, from early childhood on, with all of the stress and strains, and pain that I am certain you did as well and still do, just like I do. I am glad to find a fellow Aspie who is a tech junkie. My personal interests center around high-performance graphics, animation, video, visual effects, synthesizers, and electronic music.

[@doubledrats235]

Great to see that old iron running. My first computer was a DEC PDP-8 with BASIC using a mark sense EDUCOMP card reader in summer school after 7th grade in 1973. I was addicted for life. The next summer we had a DEC PDP-11/35 with a room full of ASR-33 teletypes. That was a LOUD room! No computers then until high school when a math teacher built an IMSAI 8080. You had to first enter a boot program with the switches and then Microsoft BASIC or CP/M could load from paper tape on an ASR-33. In college we had a SOL Terminal computer with CP/M and an IBM mainframe with punch cards and ForTran 4.

[@Not_Glitchy2023]

Thank you for the Playlist. At least I have lessons being learned in order. Focus guaranteed. Thankyou. Great work Sir. Michael.

[@jemmrich]

Very cool and it looks like a beautiful interface! Nice build!

[@The_Oldguy]

The old memories are coming back! My first paycheck in computers was in 1964, prior to "Electricity" LoL, . IBM, Control Data, and Honeywell were my toys to play with. Loved your Video!

[@markc2643]

When you started playing Zork I had a flashback to when I was 15 , I went with my dad to a customer he was installing a PDP 11-70 for and I got to play Adventure on it using a line printer terminal. When I got to the passage with a dragon laying on a Persian rug, I typed "kill dragon." It responded with "with what, your bare hands?" I typed "yes" and "Poof the dragon magically disappeared." I told my dad about it and he laughed saying everyone there who had tried playing it was stuck on that task. Great memory.

[@James_Knott]

I used to play Adventure on a VAX 11/780 computer at work. I still have it on my Linux computer and just put it on a Chromebook a few weeks ago.

[@utp216]

That was awesome! Thank you, Dave! 👍

[@steverae68]

Being a full on Apple nerd, still love anything retro even Microsoft related haha - What a great channel - subscribed and bell rang :) A little story from my past, so currently im a O365 SME and have worked with Microsoft products all my life (hence why I use Mac at home) .. so back in 1995 I was doing a demo of the newly released Windows 95 to my work colleagues… ( at the time we used windows 3.11 ona Novell 3.12 network), was demoing the plug n play feature… to much applause…. From the back of the room, a voice spoke up (our current network manager at the time) “that’ll never catch on…..” and they promptly got up and walked out….. I let you all embrace that comment for a moment … Happy days …

[@javabeanz8549]

I am glad it caught on, as I was doing networking back then, and anything that didn't take multiple tries to configure was a big plus. So was moving to twisted pair rather than coax, so you didn't have to check every connection in the building if one station was off the network. Though someone could still smash a cable under a desk, and take down the whole network with noise.

[@nickwallette6201]

Plug n' Play under DOS was a PITA, so I could understand the skepticism there. Much prefer simple jumpers. But in Win95? To _not_ see that that was the future is to be truly ignorant. haha

[@patrickpaganini]

It's hard to always be ahead of the curve. My g-grandmother was apparently appalled when free & compulsory education came in, because she felt it wasted several years when children could be hop picking in the fields.

[@WalterStoermer]

This was a fun video, and I would like to see more of them. I grew up with the 8086 (IBM compatables) running DOS 3.2 (it was in the mid-80s).

[@EightPieceBox]

Still subscribed! I first saw War Games when I was 10. I finally had a computer with a modem about 5 years later. I never hacked into my school's computers, but I did try a war dialer program once and probably only found a fax machine or two and a few confused and annoyed people.

[@lordmikethegreat]

Of course, the term War Dialing came from the movie

[@jfirebaugh]

I've been inside the room where the WOPR scene was filmed. It was a vacant building on a Air Base in California. When it was operational, it was the 24 hour operations center for the Air Force during the cold war. There was even a general officer's apartment way back in the back because there was always a general officer on duty.

[@dereklea1183]

I was in the military training to be a signal’s intelligence analyst when War Games was being shown in theaters. The IMSAI 8080 computer seemed so advanced as compared to the machines we used to feed with a paper tape in class. My first assignment was to Berlin, Germany in 1984 and we received an IBM desktop that had an 8088 processor with a 20 meg HD and I thought that thing was the cats ass. I was assigned to Hawaii a couple years later and we were using Compaq 80386 computers when I arrived in 1987. Now, I’m watching this video on a phone with no telling how much more computing power it has over a computer from back then. Amazing how computer technology advances over the years.

[@PrinceWesterburg]

WOW! I *just* missed that era, I was on Sinclair ZX80 / 81 and at school Reseach Machines 380z & 480z, always wondered about those front panel switches - thanks!

[@davidshoemaker4437]

Oh wow, walk down memory lane, back when most people did not know what a computer was, and even if they saw one they had no idea what to do with it. It was pretty amazing exploring what you could program, and the internet was mostly text, no tic-tock or youtube. Thanks for sharing.

[@TheKurtsPlaceChannel]

Very nicely put together video and very entertaining as well. Thanks for posting this.

[@digitaldoc1976]

Dave, I can't begin to tell you how fascinating it is, the content of your videos. What a treasured resource you are! To think that the person behind so many of the elements to my PC which I've loved since my own 80-88 clone is right here and reading my words is astounding, to say the least. Thank you for providing this content. If you don't, so much history would be lost! You're a national treasure, in the flesh, and I'm a big fan!

[@tupchurch]

Pretty cool. I was looking up IMSAI 8080 a few months ago, but I don't think anyone did a hands on with it. This was much more informative. I never knew how these actually worked, until now

[@indisputablefacts8507]

When I saw the thumbnail I was staggered by the cleanliness of that panel. I just watched it to figure out how you got one that cherry! I had a friend (way back in the day) who had one of these. I felt seriously out-geeked at the time as I was rocking an Atari 800. One thing's for sure, both of our computers were considerably more broken in than that shiny thing you got!

[@petevenuti7355]

Atari, ever use the xio command? Anyway, one can't seem to kill those , I lent mine to a friend who it was stolen from, then bought it back at a yard sale (left out in the rain) a decade later, my name in sharpy still on it. Never got a hard drive for it. Back in the day, I got around the small memory by putting my basic code to the tape drive , then had a program that would read the code line by line, printed at the bottom of the screen followed by a chr$(13) which was the return key, so it entered the program into memory on the fly as it read it from tape erasing over what was already in memory as it ran in a loop, so my program could be as big as what the cassette could hold! But then it was slow as hell. It wasn't til 15 years later I realized that it was called memory paging, what I was doing, to tape of all things.

[@rainmant5724]

That was great! I never saw how one worked!! Thank you so much!

[@KillroyWasHere86]

I've seen Wargames for the first time since having a basic understanding of AI. It's by far the best 80s computer movie.

[@richardiredale3128]

Little bit of somewhat-related trivia: In 1982 I was a sales rep for HP in Southern California. One day I was told by HP Corporate (up in Palo Alto in Silicon Valley) to deliver a 9845C to a special customer. The 9845C was a very heavy, very expensive desktop computer from HP that had a very heavy, very expensive color CRT display that mounted on top of the desktop unit on two short and beefy columns. The delivery was to a Mr. Colin Cantwell. Never heard of him. Turns out he was a legend in the Hollywood scifi modelling world, building complex rocketship models out of plastic Revell airplane and ship kits and whatever else was lying around the workshop. He met me at the door, wearing a one-piece orange ripstop nylon jumpsuit and long scraggly hair. He needed the 9845C to create all the graphics to be used on the screens in a new movie they were about to begin shooting called "Wargames." A month goes by and I got a call from Colin, asking for some special cable, and he asked me to deliver it to the film studios in Culver City. He met me at the gate and took me to the Wargames set, which was then about 50% complete, with 2x4s, plywood, and fake consoles full of screens and switches. Pretty cool introduction to Hollywood for me. Added trivia bonus: Colin mentioned that he worked with George Lucas on Star Wars concepts like the X-wing fighter. He was also credited with creating a major plotline for the first movie, "A New Hope." He created the Deathstar concept out of a couple of hemispherical foam pieces, but the glue he used caused the pieces to separate slightly, creating a "trench" around the equator. That accident became the basis for the movie's final flights into the Deathstar trench, where Luke fired the torpedoes into the port that caused the Deathstar's demise. All because Colin's glue expanded slightly... I never saw Colin again, though I was in touch with his caretaker wife a few years back. Colin Cantwell just passed away recently.

[@NuntiusLegis]

Great story, thanks for sharing. Vintage computers, plastic modelling, and science fiction all rank high on my list of interests. :-)

[@kryptonic010]

Dave! Dave! Dave! This takes me back to the days of programs like EDLIN and you especially blew me away with basic and preceding an instruction with a line number. Good Job!

[@josephcote6120]

EDLIN was not fun to use but it was useful in a batch file as it picked up command lines from the BAT file. I used to joke that my favorite editor was Turbo EDLIN Pro Gold.

[@tridium-go6hw]

One of the first micro computers our industrial control company used (in the 80's) was an S100 Z-80 based system made by Industrial Micro Systems (IMS) running CP/M (later versions ran MP/M). It was the size of a small refrigerator. Had 64K of dynamic RAM and one SSSD 8" floppy drive that held about 80K per disk. I knew very little about microprocessor-based systems back then, but that changed quickly. My first assignment was to install a printer on our first IMS system - and in those days you had to write your own custom printer driver in assembly! Talk about being tossed into the deep end... The IMS had a Western Dynex "hard drive" that used removable platters the you popped into the top of the drive - 5MB per platter (!). Our second system came with a 20MB removable platter drive - I was in heaven! Except the 20MB drive seemed to be very buggy. Western Dynex's facility happened to be in Phoenix where we were based, so I loaded up the whole IMS system and trucked it down there to see if they could figure out what the issue was - they lifted the lid and very quietly asked - where did you get this drive? It turned out someone had shipped their brand-new, not yet released 20MB prototype to IMS, who happened to install it in our machine. Oops... Wow - I hadn't thought about those days for a long time. Thanks for the memories Dave!

[@ajcroteau0928]

Hi Dave, I really enjoyed this video. Not because I’m a huge war games fan but having the ability to look back and see where it all started :)

[@16vSciroccoboi]

I used to love text adventure games. I played one online. I was young and had no idea what I was doing but it was incredible..

[@UncleKennysPlace]

Those were, as they say, _the only game in town_ in early days.

[@piggypiggypig1746]

@@UncleKennysPlace and the graphics were limited only by your imagination

[@williamklett6660]

I actually assembled the IMSAI 8080 as a kit in 1977, 1 MHz clock speed, and 4k ram. Audio cassette as data storage. I eventually added a 16k memory card and the basic video for a CRT. I also had a Zilog Z80 CPU adapter for a blazing 2 MHz. I ran Palo Alto Tiny Basic and Micro Pascal. :)

[@karenorgan6203]

Awesome video, thank you for showing me how the interface works

[@nobodynemoq]

Great replica! Really fun to see your short tutorial and presentation! ♥

[@pirobot668beta]

Had me one of them: got rid of the card-guides and mother-board; wired the CPU, memory, display and cassette-interface PCB's together with point-to-point wiring! Saved enough room, I was able to put the entire computer into a small brief-case. Key-board folded out when the case was open. External CRT, of course, but it was a fully portable computer! I took it on several Army training exercises (I was a 31N20; I used the computer to monitor teletype transmissions). Yeah, that was me...Tactical Computing at Fort Hood with the 13th Signal Battalion, 1978-1980!

[@CrossRoadsOfTime]

That was a great movie, and interesting to see how the computer works. though on a side note, when you said Launch Kermit, well that made me think of a certain frog in a trebuchet

[@nickwallette6201]

Well, he did use it to reach FrogFind.

[@melkiorwiseman5234]

I've been told that the Kermit file transfer protocol and program were both named after that certain green frog.

[@crookedtool]

@@melkiorwiseman5234 X Modem file transfer was named after Malcolm X. It was a very controversial decision at the time.

[@melkiorwiseman5234]

@@crookedtool And YMODEM protocol was just the next letter after X. 😆 And then ZMODEM finished off the whole set. As far as I remember, it was the last protocol used, and it had compression built-in.

[@eduardogarcia3049]

This has got to be one of the most fantastic channels. Love every single video.

[@STR82DVD]

I used to use both an Altair as well as the old Digital PDP 11 amongst the myriad of other systems of that era. Great stuff lad. The first time I saw War Games I was immediately taken with the fact that most of the scenarios were possible. Outlandish in theory but as it has happened in the past where there were a few early system integration problems and false alerts with the systems at NORAD. We came close, very close in 1979 as I recall. Great stuff lad. Big thanks for the trip down memory lane.

[@BeFs]

Thanks for explaining and showing examples, this was great!

[@craigtiano3455]

I had an IMSAI 8080, which I built as a kit. Later, when I switched to an S-100 single board computer based upon the Z80, I had to modify the front panel to allow the thing to run properly. The IMSAI had a well made S-100 backplane and power supply that eventually housed an 8 cpu system running TurboDOS. I used the IMSAI chassis for over 20 years before retiring it. When my wife asked to have a closet, the system was sold on ebay.

[@BB-iq4su]

Built mine and added two floppies and a teletype. Wrote program to optimize commodity future contract trading. Followed 14 commodities. Made an important amount of money. This video brought a tear to my old eyes...

[@robertleemeyer]

Oooh!!! I always wanted one of those! Once I get approval from the CFO, I'm heading over to High Nibble and get one...

[@15743_Hertz]

The IMSAI was before my time. I do remember programming an IBM System/32 with COBOL and RPG using batch pocessing, however. IBM 026 key punch for the win!

[@BookOfMorman]

I love your content Dave! Keep up the great work!

[@stargazersfield]

Amazing timing. I was just looking at The High Nibble replicas two days ago. Great video that has motivated me to go for the replica! Cheers

[@doctoratomic]

In the mid 70s, I was a member of my middle school's computer club which had an IMSAI 8080 connected to a Teletype Model 33 ASR with punched paper tape reader/writer. The reader did not function most of the time; so, we had to bootstrap the IMSAI via the front panel toggle switches, which was best performed as a two-person operation.

[@ProtonD1200]

From Denmark, Oh how I miss that time. I am today 65 years old and started in 1982 with a TI99/4A from Texas, I replaced it the same year with an Acorn BBC Model B which became a big hit for me. I used it for 3 years with great pleasure. After 3 years it became an Atari 520ST system for 3 years, and then on PC. It was a time I loved when messing around with computers in 1982 and basic and machine code was a big challenge as no one could help you, you were only yourself

[@alexcarter8807]

I bought an IMSAI 8080 for $5 at a D.A.V. (Disabled American Veterans) thrift store in Mesa, Arizona in 1999 or so. It didn't say IMSAI on the front - the front panel was blank. I found the present IMSAI company, the "Fischer-Freitas company" and bought a new front face "mask" for it to go under the Plexiglas and then it looked more correct. Those suckers are heavy! Huge ol' S-100 bus backplane, and the power supply taken right out of an Electronics 101 textbook. Big ol' honkin' transformer, a full-wave bridge, and a couple huge electrolytic caps.

[@boblittle2529]

When I saw "War Games" back then, I was immediately obsessed with computer programming. The movie is solely responsible for my IT career which is winding down after 32 years in the field. It's great to see this IMSAI in action. I always wondered how these front-panel-switch thingies were programmed,. I see now how tedious it was and I realize I had it dead easy compared to the programmers before me.

[@photosbyjf]

a few years after War Games came out, there was an article about WOPR. The WOPR was purported to be a bunch lights, resistors, transistors and basically junk to build up a shell

[@samghost13]

Please more! Those are to be understood to build on top. Thank you very much Sir!

[@DavesGarage]

More to come!

[@uploadJ]

Front panel on TI (Texas Instruments) 960B minicomputer similar in function to IMSAI - I toggled many a switch loading the boot loader in the 1980's while at TI/DSEG (defense systems and electronics group) at the time ... we were doing self test software for the Panavia Tornado Interdiction fighter/bomber RADAR LRU 1 (proc/computer) test set, a 3-bay wide test set with a TI Silent 700 printing terminal and 912 VDT display ... we assembled/compiled jobs on CIC's IBM Sys/370 at the time ...

[@williamivey5296]

My first home computer! (I'd learned on machines like the NCR Century 100 and IBM System 3.) Had one hooked up to an LA-36 DecWriter for years. Even used it for inventory in a bookstore I ran for a while. Nice to see these replicas showing up, and I'm very tempted by them. They are a lot cheaper than the real thing. (Also better cooling I'll wager. The original had cooling slots running down each side of the case which only served to feed air into the system fan without moving it over the cards - had to cover at least 2/3rds of those slots to get decent cooling.)

[@ReneKnuvers74rk]

Great video! Hope you will show us more of the IMSAI some day!

[@stevejones2697]

SUCH a cool video!!! I have always wanted to see how those things worked in general.. Pretty much as I expected, but awesome to see. Not too different than the IBM store controller I had to support in my first job, but it had a single hex digit on a dial, and an "Enter/Execute" spring loaded toggle (up for enter, down for execute) where you could enter addresses and run programs. Someday I'd love to play with one of these in person!!

[@only4posting]

Fantastic video. Thanks Dave !

[@MrWildbill]

My first computer was a Heathkit H8, a pseudo S-100 back plane system with CP/M but only had it a year or so before upgrading to the H89, a dual Z80 system that used CP/M or Heathkits OS. I am really glad I went the CP/M route, had it hooked to my Hayes 300 baud modem and hung out on the technical BBS's of the day. (A bbs was a pre-internet equivalent to a web site, the difference being that you could only dial in and connect to one BBS at a time.)

[@MrRhar75]

great video thanks, loved the war games movie, interesting to see some of the actual tech.

[@randominternetbro6562]

That is the coolest thing. I love Wargames so much. It is my favorite movie. That and Hackers and The Net

[@amendegw]

How cool! Not Zork but I remember playing and enjoying similar Scott Adams adventure games on TRS-80 III. "Pirate's Adventure" comes to mind. Loaded via cassette tape.

[@tsbrownie]

I think I've got an 8080 somewhere. There's a reason it's unused.

[@BorkToThe3rd]

After a couple decades of trying to find a real IMSAI for less than a wheelbarrow full of cash I ran across the High Nibble IMSAI kit last year and snapped one up. It really works just like the original! My first computer class was a catch all class called "Introduction to Computer Electronics" that taught machine language programming using the Ithaca Intersystems DPS-1. (A Z-80 clone of the IMSAI.) The attrition rate was vicious. Only 5 out of 30 students completed the class! 🤣 It was an incredibly fun puzzle controlling a computer at that low of a level and being able to see exactly what happened at the instruction cycle level. My only warning on the High Nibble system is to use very very light torque on the bolts attaching the rear plexiglass as the t-slots are easy to crack in the corners. But across the board I think it is an amazing product with incredible quality down to the packaging level. I hope he sells a lot of them!!

[@walterhartman]

I'm still subscribed. The "Whopper" that controls google's servers didn't kick me off.

[@shaunjackson6366]

Great video. Good memories of this film (saw it as a kid in cinema when first released). Most films containing any form of IT make me cringe, but wargames holds up reasonably well. What, if any films / TV make you cringe in pain or make you think, "hey, not bad"?

[@georgemccracken8399]

Wow the CPM takes me back to my DOS days. Loved it

[@jayski9410]

I hope some of our younger colleges watch this to see what life was like before graphic user interfaces. Having to set individual bits and memory addresses with toggle switches is more than most folks could handle today. I wish they could experience writing a program on punch cards, then having to take them to a computer center where they'd be run overnight, and you'd get your result the next day. Often that result might be just a syntax error on line 300, and the whole program would stop. The real heartbreak would be when you'd drop the box of cards running back & forth between the keypunch machine and the submit desk. That was the ultimate randomization function.

[@mikescott58]

I built my IMSAI 8080 from a kit in 1977 and still have it. I haven't powered it up in about 40+ years. I have to recondition the 86,000 uF electrolytic caps on the 22 amp 5 volt unregulated power supply.

[@leojei]

Omg I always thought those lights on the computer were just for the light show (in the movie set) and had no real purpose, never thought it was used as a monitor and provide real feedback of the state of the memory, config, and operations…. Thanks Dave for enlighten me this bit that dated back in my childhood!

[@lordmikethegreat]

The lights and switches differentiate the original generation microcomputers from everything that followed after it. Always looking to save money on hardware costs, Steve Wozniak set the way by replicating the functionality of the switches into software via his Apple I monitor program. Since the monitor could do everything these switches did, there was no need for them anymore, and you could save a lot of money by not having to build them. Radio Shack and Commodore soon followed that approach as well, and you never saw the lights and switches ever again.

[@leojei]

@@lordmikethegreat Thanks for the history, I was born in 1983 and my first PC was a 8080 w a monitor and 2 5.25” floppy drives running BASIC. The ones u mentioned were way older than what I thought I knew, thanks !