It (Kind Of) Works! We Have Software! - Cefucom-21 Update

[@briangoldberg4439]

Hi Reese, it would probably be a good idea to get a cassette dump of all the magnetic media before too long. Cassettes have a pretty limited lifespan. Maybe you have a friend with a high quality cassette deck who can rip them into a PC sound card. I would do it before you try to stick them in the Cefucom deck, because it could eat the tapes if the pinch rollers have deteriorated. I am something of a cassette player and media restoration specialist, having been working on the machines for 30 years or so, and I wouldn't stick an important tape in that thing until I made sure it was working with a COPY of the first tape. If you would like more information about what you need to replace in the tape deck and where to get the right parts, feel free to reach out.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Indeed, top priority for the next few weeks is to get everything archived 👍

[@Lachlant1984]

I still have my cassettes from the 80s when I was a toddler, some have been lost, but I still have many of them and as far as I know, they're mostly still working. I was quite rough with my tapes as a child, these days I'm more careful. It's so nice to know that my favourite Jams Reyne and Roxette tapes still work. I do have CD versions of those same albums though.

[@Lachlant1984]

@@ctrlaltrees I would actually be curious to hear what the data track on those cassettes sounds like.

[@briangoldberg4439]

@@Lachlant1984 the main culprit is heat. if tapes are stored badly (even if they are still sealed), they can dry out and/or shed material. tape formulas contain shelf stable lubricants that keep the reels from sticking together as they are played. this can be ruined by heat, and some tape formulas are more susceptible to this than others. sometimes this can be reversed by careful application of special fluids

[@Lachlant1984]

@@briangoldberg4439 I see. My tapes are generally kept at room temperature. I do remember back in the 90s some of our tapes were exposed direct sunshine and that very adversely affected the sound quality, the sound would become very muffled with no treble and often times a loss of volume. I would never do that to my tapes now if I can help it. It's probably just as well that we no longer use cassettes in our cars, that's where the real danger was if you parked your car in full sunshine on a hot day. Bye bye cassette tape. This happened to my mother's Paul Kelly cassette, I believe the cassette shell actually started to bend and deform.

[@DosGamerMan]

I hope all the new subscribers check out your back catalogue. So many good videos and great old systems.

[@datassetteuser356]

Very true!

[@Momentvm]

This! ☝️☝️☝️

[@reformattic]

Pin this comment, Rees.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Thanks DosGamerMan, that's very kind of you to say. Thankfully it seems 99% of them understand what I'm trying to achieve here and I've only managed to get this far thanks to input from the community, so it's all very much appreciated. 😁

[@mrnemo204]

I recommend Usagi Electric to help you out on this. he speaks Fluent Japanese.

[@dieseldragon6756]

I certainly wouldn't mind Usagi helping _me_ out... 😍

[@joebadger]

Aargh! Rees don't put those precious cassettes into that dodgy deck. That's a recipe for chewed up or blanked tapes.

[@seanmorris440]

Yea, make copies and feed it those.

[@frankowalker4662]

So this is where the ROM images I found on my hard drive came from. I was a bit drunk when I started to watch the first part, and was very drunk at the end of it. LOL. I looked at the ROMs and found on ROM 3 was the character set for Japanese and English alphabets. (they are 12 bits high by 8 bits wide, which I found odd). ROM 4 seems to have an Assembler program on it. I could be wrong though. ROM 5 seems to be the cassette player controler. It prints the cassette function on screen. I bet you knew this already though.

[@myleft9397]

You need Adrian's Digital Basement to fix that colour incompatibility, and Techmoan or VWestLife on those tapes and tape mechs.

[@ctrlaltrees]

"If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them...."

[@retroftw]

​@@ctrlaltrees"...maybe you can hire...the 8-bit Team" (Insert Adrians 8-bit dance party tune)

[@davidgreen8512]

Another vote for getting Dave at Usagi involved.

[@Chupperson]

I searched for Cefucom on Japanese Wikipedia and found the name in katakana as セフコム (Sefukomu) on the page for Kanayama Nobuo, who seems to have been involved with the production of the learning materials. So there's confirmation of the pronunciation.

[@myleft9397]

What I love about your channel and this family of creators is 1. Weird electronics stuff. 2. New in box means let's open it!

[@ctrlaltrees]

This stuff was made to be used!

[@MVVblog]

Wonderful! Those audio cassettes should definitely be digitized as soon as possible, ideally before trying them in the computer. If you’d like, I could duplicate and digitize them for you. I’ve got some of the best cassette recorders ever made in my studio (Revox, Akai, Nakamichi), though I’m based in Italy, so I’m not sure if you’d want to risk shipping. Another thought I have is that the video output might be in black and white and might look best on a B&W monitor.

[@PatrickJFurlong-c6z]

Brilliant video! Love seeing videos on obscure computers, the more obscure the better.

[@dougidoug]

It’s all very well put together as a product and looks great. It must have cost quite a bit new given the hardware inside it. Very impressed with your knowledge and the quality of your research. Damn fine job sir

[@Momentvm]

I love the utmost quality of your work. It is a rare find on YT nowadays. Top work!

[@circuithijacker]

Fascinating! Love this! Everything about this is exciting. Hands-on learning. I can definitely see this used to watch a scroll of a play as well. For kids learning for shapes, colors, matching, etc. I would love to see this used as a prop in a sci-fi movie or TV show...

[@gavin9038]

I'm really happy to have found your channel and to hear others have too. Very interesting videos and you're an awesome presenter too!

[@VideoEnjoyer-m3z]

This computer SLAPS!

[@ctrlaltrees]

Epico!

[@electronash]

This is the only computer officially endorsed by Will Smith.

[@ThisIsPete]

What an interesting gizmo. Hope you manage to get it up and running properly -- I'm intrigued to see how all the bits work together. I have a bit of computer-and-tape-based language learning experience. The Atari 8-bit played host to a series called "Conversational [Language]", which had tapes that contained both audio and computer data, so you'd load the program, and at various points throughout, it would use the Atari's ability to play back tape audio through the TV speakers to have actual speech. Clever stuff. Je m'appelle Dan Bowers! Bonjour! Je m'appelle Chantal Lamacq!

[@ArcadeAzrall]

Amazing video! This is one interesting system. Hope you get it fully working!

[@Slydog43UTube]

Great progress, love the vid. Can't wait for more

[@rkessing01]

The printer port is not an HPIB (GPIB or as it is officially known IEEE488) connector or port. The IEEE488 standard does specify a Centronics-type connector. However, there are a total of 24 conductors consisting of eight data lines, three handshake lines, five bus management lines and eight ground lines. None of them are optional. Since the printer port shown only has 14 conductors, it can't be HPIB. A parallel printer needs 18 conductors at a minimum assuming none of the signals are omitted. I did search to see if there was some pared down version of a parallel printer interface that could use fewer signals but didn't find anything. It is possible that this is a serial printer port, which would have been a low-cost option. But normally that would have used a DB9 or DB25 male connector. It may also be that they offered their own serial printer with a proprietary cable to ensure that they were the only source. It is an interesting question. But regarding the assertion of HPIB, I'm 100% certain that it is not as I was an engineer for a company that originally developed instruments that connected and communicated using that bus.

[@ziggurat29]

The printer port to wit has this wiring: 1 Strobe 2-3 D0-D7 respectively 10 Ack 11 Ready 13,14 Ground The code in rom seems to be for a garden-variety parallel printer: Port 00h out is the data latch 40h b3 out is the strobe 40h b6 in is the ready I haven't found the 'ack', but that was often ignored, anyway. I suspect there was a funky cable adapting this "mini centronics"/hpib to the usual connector on the printer side.

[@RetroSegaDev]

Great follow up Rees. It's always a treat when you dip into the truly obscure stuff!

[@Freedom4Ever420]

It is a beautiful machine. Those function buttons look like they have a lot of mass

[@ctrlaltrees]

They're certainly very tactile

[@senilyDeluxe]

23:28 that's quite the colorful language it teaches! ba-dum tss

[@dieseldragon6756]

And predates my patent use of the 🇬🇧 emoji in certain four-letter words by at least thirty years! 🙃

[@osgeld]

I just happened to subscribe a week or two before that video heh, you do a good job! (the EGPU on a mac mini popped up in my feed, and I was at home on a work day sick and didnt want to do much so I kind of binge watched your videos)

[@lasskinn474]

the user interface and such look quite refined for what it is and from when. some folks spent quite a lot of time making it. like the timeout back to loading screen, the alarm system and such.

[@AdamKlobukowski]

Video output quality might get better after recapping.

[@senilyDeluxe]

The overblown brightness suggests that Yes, but also there's probably be a potentiometer where you can dial that down and get better video quality without having to recap it. Only if you're lazy.

[@TheEPROM9]

The caps from that part of the 80s are usualy rock solid.

[@ctrlaltrees]

I am indeed lazy. But I also love recapping. So we'll see 😅

[@manitoba-op4jx]

@@ctrlaltrees the fuzzyness and whatnot implies the caps are getting leaky and their ESR is high. recap time.

[@cheeseparis1]

Doesn't look powerful enough for 3D graphics, but I bet someone will create a DOOM capsule and play it in emulation :p

[@ctrlaltrees]

One page at a time 😅

[@cheeseparis1]

@@ctrlaltrees with the music on cassette

[@dieseldragon6756]

@@ctrlaltrees If I'm understanding the size of those capsules correctly, there's _more_ than ample space in those for a Pi, a suitable LCD panel and a battery to run both off... 😉

[@binarydinosaurs]

Haha, Pernod is The Man when it comes to MAME, the second there's a sniff of a new ROM available he's on it, and he also got my Positron 9000 emulated and booting while the actual machine itself is still unwell. Hopefully you'll get to meet him at RetroFest. Excellent progress so far! :D

[@SproutyPottedPlant]

We love you Reese 🌱🌱

[@ctrlaltrees]

Aww, I love you too SproutyPottedPlant 🪴

[@Rockythefishman]

It looks like some computer from an alternative universe, really interesting thing to look at and learn about

[@mcbpete]

Misread the title as 'It's back in Boots!' and had flashbacks to the odd decade or so when Boots were a chemist ..... and computer/game retailer ?!?

[@dieseldragon6756]

The Cefucom seems to closely resemble the design style of the Coomber-brand cassette players used in UK schools in the early 90s. These had a very industrial and unaesthetic design intended to make them unattractive to theft (They genuinely looked like a piece of garage equipment) bu were solid and well-built, as befits a school setting. Perhaps the Cefucom isn't so heavily steered in that direction (It sort of half-is and half isn't) but it's certainly a big piece of kit, clearly designed more for institutional use rather than domestic.

[@thepirategamerboy12]

Really reminds me of the Tandy CoCo in action, mainly the green background.

[@martindejong3974]

Yes, it probably also uses the Motorola MC6847 Video chip, the colourful crash screen also seems to point to that video generator.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Bingo! It's an MC6847.

[@blufudgecrispyrice8528]

You could still ask Usagi Electric. If he's interested I'm sure he wouldn't mind flying to the UK as he does to various parts of America. Transporting the product around would be a hassle.

[@TheBasementChannel]

I like the cassette mode, reminds me of when I bought my PS1 and used it as a CD player

[@Mrshoujo]

Pronounced "Kah Mee Shee Bye." Also the video output circuity needs going over. That's basically unusuable. Check for solder cracks. ☝

[@TheEPROM9]

My sugestion is buy a RAM tester & start the tedios proccess of desoldering chips. I recomend usuing desodering gun to get most of the solder out, then a heat gun to get the chip out otherwise you will rip traces & pads. then suck the solder out the holes when the chip pins are not blocking them, best way I have found that works. Make sure you solder in sockets so the chips can be esily changed if they fail again. Due to the issues you are more likely to have a singal chip that has partialy failed/failing probaly on one board.

[@rigues]

That green display gives strong TRS Color Computer feelings. As for the abysmal quality of the video output, my bet would be bad caps or a cold solder joint.

[@ziggurat29]

The coco did to wit use the same display controller chip

[@drgusman]

That printer port is a centronics printer port with the standard connector used by MSX computers.

[@JesterEric]

The MSX port is 14 pin and was used on other Japanese computers like the NEC

[@gcewing]

It looks like the RetroTink is misinterpreting one-pixel wide features of the characters as colour information for some reason. It might work better with a real analog monitor.

[@H3adcrash]

Haha, funny seeing ChipGuy in the comments section on the video! Hello from your old friend Electricguy/EG.

[@dosgos]

MenditMark might be helpful with the big paper reader gizmo. He is good with odd electronics. Fascinating gizmo that looks like it was for schools with big budgets.

[@HoffmanYouTube]

Potentially you could use one of the cassette / mp3 adaptors to load the software. I think they don't need to motors to work for the signal to be received by the play head. Then you could use a PC to playback to recordings of the tapes.

[@MrGil1995]

@ctrl-alt-rees did you consider the idea that the audio tape might have tones in one channel to control the slides in sync with the audio thats on the other channel? if the tape deck is broken there would be no tones to tell the projector to start/ advance slides

[@ctrlaltrees]

Interesting thought! Hopefully it's just a faulty tape deck which should be an easy fix.

[@MrGil1995]

@@ctrlaltrees try playing the tape on a stereo cassette deck just to check if there are tones in one channel, that might give you a clue on how the whole thing works....

[@Eternyl_bliss-nj9se]

Its odd although it looks totally different I was getting a Tandy Color Computer vibe from this then you mentioned the Dragon/Tandy. The silver finish abd the color screen reminds me of it too with green background and cursor. The artwork in the books looks to be same artist that did art for the Tandy Color Computer books. I grew up tinkering on TRS-80/Tandy computers. I am not too techy but was part of the pirate game/software ring for it back in 80s early 90s (laughs). I still own it and lots of software and most of the magazines.

[@mickeythompson9537]

The damn thing was internet-ready!

[@ctrlaltrees]

In 1983!

[@dieseldragon6756]

@@ctrlaltrees This is around the time Minitel 🇫🇷 was getting going as well. Crazy to think that Japan might've been gearing up to become just as connected as France! 🚄🖥🇫🇷😁 The UK was also heading that same way with Prestel, but BT really messed things up; Not only did a Prestel terminal cost more than a months middle-income wages, but the cost of accessing the service (Monthly service fee *and* per-minute/page charges) made it completely unaffordable to at least 80% of the British population. 💸 In direct contrast; In France, PTT were quick to realise that one minitel terminal lasting 10-20 years and having a free directory enquiry service accessible through it was a *lot* cheaper per customer than annual deliveries of phone books across the same 10-year period. Minitel soon took off like a rocket - Predating the modern Internet by at least 15 years - And what started off as a digital phonebook soon became an in-home banking, flight booking, train ticketing service that really catapulted France into being the most advanced country in Europe from the mid 80s right up until the mid 2000s. *Vive le TGV!* 🚄🇫🇷❤‍🔥🤘💨

[@dieseldragon6756]

@@ctrlaltrees This is around the time Minitel 🇫🇷 was getting going as well. Crazy to think that Japan might've been gearing up to become just as connected as France! 🚄🖥🇫🇷😁 The UK was also heading that same way with Prestel, but BT really messed things up; Not only did a Prestel terminal cost more than a months middle-income wages, but the cost of accessing the service (Monthly service fee *and* per-minute/page charges) made it completely unaffordable to at least 80% of the British population. 💸 In direct contrast; In France, PTT were quick to realise that one minitel terminal lasting 10-20 years and having a free directory enquiry service accessible through it was a *lot* cheaper per customer than annual deliveries of phone books across the same 10-year period. Minitel soon took off like a rocket - Predating the modern Internet by at least 15 years - And what started off as a digital phonebook soon became an in-home banking, flight booking, train ticketing service that really catapulted France into being the most advanced country in Europe from the mid 80s right up until the mid 2000s.

[@rewbycraft]

It has a timer that makes it wake up and beep at you to do your language lesson? This thing is the original duolingo!

[@dieseldragon6756]

At least we now *know* where the app got that idea... 😉

[@MatroxMillennium]

Looks like there might be some NTSC color artifacting going on there... I bet the picture would be a lot clearer on a monochrome monitor

[@ctrlaltrees]

You know what? I hadn't even considered that the original monitor might have been monochrome. I'll give it a go. Thanks!

[@gcewing]

@@ctrlaltrees But then that crash screen seems to have some quite clear coloured characters in it, suggesting that it's meant to be capable of colour output. It would be interesting to see how the green text looks on a monochrome monitor, though. Or can the RetroTink be switched into a monochrome mode?

[@paulmurgatroyd6372]

There's a chance that cellophane bag was never sealed in the first place, just folded to keep dust out.

[@electronash]

15:36 - Is it supposed to have colour video output? It just seems to be as though the "colour" is just how the raw pixels are being interpreted as chroma? A lot like the old CGA graphics cards with Composite output. Or the Apple II. It might make the text easier to read, if you can force the RetroTink to display in B&W?

[@andrewdunbar828]

師父 is also a Japanese word. More than half of Japanese words are borrowed from Chinese, though often they end up sounding different, unlike this one. Wiktionary says it means a: teacher and father 2: (honorific) teacher, master

[@julianbrown1331]

Nearly suggested the sifu observation in the last video too but I seem to remember cefu means something like encylopedia, I can see the overlap and confusion but I speak neither Chinese or Japanese so probably not very reliable

[@jimflagg4009]

Probably cold solder joints. They disconnect when heats up. If you have a friend with a hot air gun they can reflow the solder for you.

[@TheEPROM9]

The bad graphics is probaly down to a bad RAM IC, normaly you would get random charictors.

[@fadate7292]

You can try removing the crominance component and see if the BW image gets better.

[@jonnamechange6854]

It's a Cubist random art generator

[@williefleete]

I’m suspecting the time date IC runs off the battery and because it isn’t powered the IO is just reading floating inputs hence the garbage

[@sanitarium017]

Youd thimk they would produce these as general education computers, not just for language.

[@4CloudySky]

I hope this thing is not going to launch the nukes, lol

[@rodrigogirao8344]

Perhaps the MAME team could help in emulating that machine.

[@pigpenpete]

That's too small to be an GPIB/HPIB/IEEE488.2 connector, it doesn't have nearly enough pins

[@Derpy1969]

13:27 that connector is too short to be HPGIB. Right family, just fewer pins.

[@insanedruid3143]

Ecactly. HP-IB / GBIP /IEEE-488 uses a Centronics connector with 24pins (2*12). The connector shown is only 14pin. It could still use the same protocoll, as 14pin is what you need for a printer (omitting the Remote enable and Service Request pins as well as the individual GND pins.). But surely its not standard IEEE-488.

[@insanedruid3143]

Fun thing is that that connector actually IS a centronics connector. Just not a standard 36pin (following IEEE 1284 / generally known as a typical parallel printer port), but a smaller one. "Centronics" is the the (informal) name of the plugs form factor.

[@rager1969]

Heh heh, the video output looks better when the computer crashes.

[@gcewing]

Yes and no. If you look carefully, some of the green characters have artifacts similar to the way they appeared in the green text screens.

[@bertieblob3387]

This video makes me want to use PCBWAY! As well as that, it is an interesting and enjoyable video about a delightfully esoteric piece of old junk.

[@nwr99nwr99]

Rude! Rees isn't old 😂

[@BonkedByAScout]

7:40 it looks so worried

[@Mattfromthepast]

How long before someone ports doom to this thing?

[@Aeduo]

Video output looks like a tandy coco. Which yeah generally bad but this is extra bad haha.

[@dieseldragon6756]

Given C-A-R is located in the UK, I think the root of the problem is that he's producing an _NTSC-J_ signal in a _PAL_ region. Because of this the video output has to be converted _back_ to NTSC again, which KZbin does automatically for many regions. But because I also live in the UK I only see the PALised NTSC output, and have to provide my own filtration if I want to see a legible video signal. 🙃 (Thank Odin for ffmpeg! 👍)

[@design-flux]

Sorry did I miss the part where you talked about what was actually wrong with the machine from the first video? While you gained me as a new sub in the original I think the first section, before the software unboxing should’ve been a recap and resolution recap as to how it’s working now.

[@95Comics]

besides the cartridges,is this a normal pc? can you load dos/windows? can it be upgraded?

[@martindejong3974]

No, its an 8-bit (dual) Z80 based machine. It is NOT in any sense a PC.

[@stevenlarkins2026]

How did you get it to power up? No explanation as to why in your last video it wouldn’t power on..

[@leesmithsworkshop]

if you watch all the video it is explained.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Yeah, it's a bit buried later on because it's not very interesting. Basically user error 🙈

[@LarsvanderSchans]

This is so disappointing, with all the Japanese crap that's already stuffed into this machine. Why didn't they put the telephone answering machine also in it.

[@dieseldragon6756]

I can't help thinking that - If this had been made in the UK - The top of the unit would have had an integrated Teasmade as well... 🫖🇬🇧😇

[@tedwardtaylortv]

What about the built in display thing? Aren’t you going to show us how that works? That’s why I clicked on this video.

[@hugodesrosiers-plaisance3156]

At 13:50, he explains that it's not currently working because of a drive belt that was so old and dry it had essentially disintegrated inside the machine and some bits might still be in there rattling and buzzing.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Apologies for disappointment, I did try to make it clear from the get go that it isn't fully functional yet. The only reason I've got as far as I have is because of feedback from the community, hence the progress updates.

[@tedwardtaylortv]

@ I understand, when you said it wasn’t fully functional I just thought you were talking about the display connection on the TV screen isn’t too good. I didn’t realise you were talking about other parts too. Thank you very much for replying though.

[@dieseldragon6756]

@@hugodesrosiers-plaisance3156 I will feedback that this came across to me as applying to the cassette deck only, so I was still hoping/expecting to see the capsule „screen“ working to at least some degree. 😇

[@ziggurat29]

@@ctrlaltrees if and when you get around to it, it would be interesting to have scans of the roll images for the emulator efforts. don't break anything, of course.. it does seem that perhaps the rollers could be manually turned. also, since it seems there are three electrical contacts on the cartridge, perhaps measuring resistance might be useful. Given the era, it seems there likely is incandescent backlighting, which should show as a low resistance. A possible arrangement is: * gnd * backlight * start of roll Where upon boot the unit is rewound to start to sync up, and then the computer can know where it is during presentation. Just a guess, of course. Aside from hardware, maybe looking in the manual to just know how many slides are in a cartridge roll would be interesting.