The Rise and Fall of the digital group

#hobby #z80 #vintagecomputer In 1974 Dr. Robert Suding and Richard Bemis of Colorado embarked on an adventure many pioneers of the computing industry attempted (and failed): to hit it big in the brand new personal computer industry. With innovative products and a plucky attitude, they saw initial success, only to end up as so many small microcomputer firms did - gone before the dawn of the 1980s. This documentary follows the rise and fall of the digital group, pioneers of the fledgling microcomputer industry.
00:36 - Act I - In the Beginning
03:55 - Experimenting with 'bugs'
05:03 - Another light blinker
06:35 - Hal Singer and the Mark-8
08:18 - Act II - Meet the digital group
10:07 - The CPU independent bus
12:19 - Five Flavors of CPU
14:26 - Sharp Dressed Computers
15:08 - The tape drive that thinks it's a floppy - The PhiDeck
17:03 - The Mini-Bytemaster
18:00 - Trouble in Paradise
20:54 - Act III - Great is the Fall
24:30 - digital group spies
24:42 - An awkward encounter
27:21 - Coda for the digital group
Opheliea's Blues by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommon...
Artist: audionautix.com/

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Sorry for the long delay! This 30 minute video took nearly a month of evenings and weekends to produce, which I really didn't see coming (although perhaps I should have!). I've been a fan of digital group for years and really wanted to try my best to do it justice. I enjoy doing documentaries but they require a ton of research, finding video material, editing and green screen silliness, and this video was no exception. Regrettably there is very little in the way of detailed accounts of the company; most 1st hand info comes from Dr. Suding, so some grains of salt should be taken. Anyway, thanks for watching, hope you enjoy and on to the next project!

[@rynz_2893]

im a little late to the party here but I just wanted to say excellent work. this was super interesting

[@jj74qformerlyjailbreak3]

This is the best digital group video on YT. Thanks for your hard work.

[@paulie-g]

Whatever effort you went to, it was well worth it. Absolutely fantastic. Great, new material about a hardware house that is undeservedly less known. Your enthusiasm is infectious.

[@peterholst8875]

I know that a lot of work have gone into this video, and sometimes most of the credit goes to the part that was the easiest to make... But I have to tell you that the acting and reuse of the same actor in the same scene, is SO well done! And so fitting to the good narrator voice! It is funny without being cringe.

[@jj74qformerlyjailbreak3]

J11. My all time favorite process. 60pin Dip.

[@tlafeir]

You deserve more subs. Your research production value, and narration style is on par with lgr, etc. awesome video

[@DrGooseDuckman]

I second this.

[@Patrick-857]

Videos have way more views than subs, and lots of recent views. Seems like the algorithm is smiling on this channel.

[@koobert]

The algorithm found him!

[@CaptHoborg]

Flattering but untrue

[@gworfish]

Don't tell him that. Tell all your friends.

[@Starphot]

Thanks! I knew Dr. Robert Suding as an innovator in the amateur astronomy field as a maker of a 20" binocular telescope using two matched 20" mirrors. He was in the loop with telescope building and other things with a telescope maker Jim Burr of JMI from the 1990's through the aughts. JMI went out of business several years ago.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

He was such an intelligent, inventive guy. I wish I had had the chance to meet him before he passed.

[@peterberbee]

Thanks for the history. I built a computer for myself out of a Heurikon MLP-8080 and a Digital Group video card with a debugger/loader of my own making. The video card was by far the best available for a reasonable cost at the time (‘78 or ‘79). Video display was a modified 9 inch TV. Sadly I lost the MLP-8080 when I loaned it back to Heurikon so that they could service customer equipment a decade or so later. The rest of the machine got lost with time, except for the isolation transformer used to prevent electrocution from the TV. I still use that part today and it reminds me of when I was young as did this video.

[@williamharris8367]

I really enjoy hearing about the history of these early firms -- it is nice to cover something rather more obscure, too. Thank-you!

[@ReverendTed]

I decided to watch this (after The KZbin Algorithm dropped your Brick Fraud video in my lap) because I still have a digital Starion 919. I didn't realize that digital and "the digital group" were different entities. Still an entertaining and informational video. Thanks!

[@landondyer]

I really enjoyed this bit of history. Very well done, thank you. I still have my DG system (26K, dual phidecks). I learned a hell of a lot building that thing, it was a pretty cool system for the time. In 1982 or so I met Dr. Suding; I drove to his house in Virginia and bought some hardware from him. He really didn't want to talk much about DG.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

No problem and thank you for watching. Does your dg system have the nice chassis? I do hope to get my phideck unit going one day.. I've been debating having two more holes cut in the top to permit four decks. It looks like the bottom has the mounts.. they just didn't cut the additional holes up top. That's awesome that you met Dr. Suding. I wish I could have met him but sadly did not. I understand in his later years he was more willing to discuss dg. I would guess only 3 years after it's collapse he probably wasn't keen to talk about it. :)

[@landondyer]

@@TechTimeTraveller I have the nice chassis, yes. The DG systems were the cadillacs of the late 70s microcomputers, it's too bad they were so expensive to make. The phidecks were always kind of terrible. Might try some of the fixes that have been proposed for it. In 1981 or so, one of my cow-orkers at the Bureau of Standards (in the DC area) was a guy named Chuck , who had led the DG Software group. He really didn't want to talk about DG much, either. :-)

[@paulie-g]

In a way, it's understandable he didn't want to talk about DG. Dr. Suding comes across as an engineer's engineer who put his heart and soul into the hardware he designed and built. Having it all collapse because the supposed "business guy" wasn't actually any good at business while possibly leaving customers high and dry must have been terrifically traumatic for him.

[@_B_K_]

I'm so happy that Adrian mentioned your channel in one of his recent videos. Incredible content -- thank you.

[@QuintusCunctator]

Thank you for sharing with us this unknown piece of history! The time and effort is very much appreciated.

[@tpcdude]

Love to see this inside look at the company's history .. also a pause at the auction listing shows where Denver was at the time "flopies" and other spelling errors went unnoticed.

[@shumpmaker8438]

You ever just accidentally find the EXACT youtube channel youve been looking for? These are all so good and to complete, its BLOWS MY MIND that youre sub-20k subscribers.

[@blkfngrs636]

man you nailed it. innovative products from complete assholes. i baught/assembled my system day one, and it set me on a computer science path, so a good life investment. first full z80 pc platform, tape bootstrap was great, floppy controller worked well, votrex speech synth was groundbreaking. and their bus and power supply setup was superior to others, but they were too late/slow to take the market. i use lucky to complete mine before they blew up, and did not really count on them, and there was a "handened" user group that made/traded/sold unsponsored products years after...

[@lelandclayton5462]

This got me thinking. The Micro Computer days are still around but evolved into a different format. Instead of 8bit CPUs, TTL or CMOS there are Micro Controllers, Single Board Computers and FPGAs. For example FPGA being the huge corporation expensive stuff that many people can't afford while Single Board Computers and Micro Controllers for the Hobbyist. Instead of BASIC there is Python.

[@binarydinosaurs]

As a user (and abuser I guess) of DEC kit from the early 80s onwards I was mighty surprised and confused the first time I came across a Digital Group machine 15 or so years ago. There wasn't a lot of info around at the time so thanks for filling in all the questions I had back then! I still don't understand how DEC let them get away with the name though.

[@rw-xf4cb]

Guess in those days they were often seen more as DEC (possibly as marketing to match IBM?) than digital which came in later.

[@jonathanbeeson8614]

Regarding the name there was also Digital Research, the developers of the CP/M OS for microcomputers. I guess these companies just weren't as uptight about similar names as so many are today.

[@ct92404]

I really enjoyed watching this! I learned a lot from your research, and all the little skits going on in the background were hilarious! It's obvious that you put a tremendous amount of work into making the video, and it definitely paid off. Keep up the good work!

[@marksmith9566]

We had a Digital Group with Oasis multiuser system with several terminals attached. It has an 80 MByte Hard Drive as the main storage. Long gone when IBM appeared.

[@robertd8224]

Love your video. I was a member of the Homebrew Computer Club in the 70's. Loved my Digital Group Computer that I built. It had a huge power supply. The lights would dim in my apartment when ever I turned it on.

[@nonsochestofacendo]

Thanks for another interesting video! I'm more into 80s early 90s computers but i really enjoy the story of this older technology! Thanks again.

[@lampdevil]

This was a great watch! Not only a thorough go-over of the company itself, but very illuminating about what it was like to be involved with personal computing at the time. My knowledge and system experiences only went as far back as ancient IBM PCs and clones and the C-64. Knowing about the spirit of the computer user groups of the 70s and the things they made and sold gives so much further context to things I'd half-known and barely understood. Your videos are great and I am still eagerly diving through the archives! Thank you so much for your work.

[@LiquidAudio]

Absolutely fascinating video, thanks for all the hard work that obviously went into this!

[@TechTimeTraveller]

@@LiquidAudio Thank you!

[@samsulummasamsulumma6898]

This is an excellent video! Thanks for the time and effort! I have thoroughly enjoyed every single of your videos so far!

[@randywatson8347]

So awesome to see personal computers at the roots of the 70's. The designs looks very sleek!

[@jSyndeoMusic]

Wild… I lived in Denver for a couple of years, and used to ride on a bike trail that apparently went right by 585 S Jason St, their former office building. I never would’ve known. I wonder how many other stories like this there are, the stories that the buildings and places around us have that we don’t know.

[@carlosedwardos]

Wow, very impressive video on a very obscure company from the 70's, can't believe you found so much info! - I am an original Altair 8800 owner (still own it) and so I got a big kick out of this video! - One request, we could hear your intriguing monologue much more clearly without "The Entertainer" or other background music while you are presenting such great information. Great job, subscribed and shared!!

[@PronatorTendon]

Your videos are incredibly informative. There's an order of magnitude more information than other channels I watch for vintage tech. Your relation of the history of these products, companies, and people is impressive. I look forward to more in the future

[@mewintle]

Fantastic! Really seems like the inspiration for the amazing “Halt and Catch Fire” series.

[@medes5597]

According to the creators they didn't know about Digital Group until after they'd done the first season. They based it on Osborne and Compaq, with bits of others thrown in (particularly Digital Research, as Gordon was heavily based on Garry Kildall). It's definitely super close though. Even if it's apparently coincidental.

[@asteroidrules]

That tape deck system is something else, I didn't realize that sort of memory access in tape drives was ever available in the consumer space. I'd heard of industrial computers which had similar access using tape reels but I assumed that diskettes had taken over before anyone tried it on home microcomputers.

[@medes5597]

Man, I hope you end up doing more videos like this or the miniscribe video. I come back to both so often. Not that I don't love the other videos, but these ones are special

[@FullMetalFab]

Is there a site that lists all the info on building a Mark 8 from scratch ? I can't even find a digital copy of the July 1974 Radio Electronics magazine on the web.

[@caseyjones1999]

I feel like I'm watching a Ken Burns documentary on PBS, this is awesome! Thank you!

[@maxheadrom3088]

This channel is awesome! Out of sight!

[@earlyburg]

"...manually program a bootstrap loader". Now we have cell phones and VR headsets. Good job guys and thanks.

[@paulawillaminachandler-ren3725]

Very informative, and enjoyable video. Thanks for your effort in research, narration, and editing.

[@Spudcore]

Amazed I'm only coming across your channel now. Subbed, with gusto!

[@AshtonM99]

Thanks for this video. I'm a lifelong Coloradoan and CS student, so I'm especially glad to hear this story of a Denver-based tech company flourishing.

[@Brantdrangus8489]

Damn fine video. Thanks! Love your self created stock footage and humour.

[@haweater1555]

15:40 How awesome it must have felt for the 70s hobbyist to watch (and hear, and feel) their quad-cassette drive system randomly access files.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I really, really want to get something like this working. I have the dual deck. The quad deck is vanishingly rare. The dual deck has the mounting points inside for 4 drives but just doesn't have the holes up top cut out. It's tempting to get a pro to cut them out. I think it would be incredible to see something like that operate... just because it's tape!

[@andrewhudson3723]

Excellent overview! Great research!

[@martygeist2116]

Hi; I think it is interesting that the Boards that You show in the system that You bring up to show the Digital Group Sign-on are the Boards that I sold to Bryan Blackburn along with the Screen Shot of the various programs, one of which Is ICOSE, which I have the complete Listing for, I don't remember if I sent Bryan that Listing.. But, it was written by a friend of mine.. And so I recognize it.. Thank You Marty

[@brianbowcutt249]

This channel is an absolute under appreciated gem, been binging under quarantine and loved every upload. Hope commenting counts for something with the inscrutable algorithm.

[@jimbarlow2611]

Just Wow! You are a unique and talented storyteller. Your videos are a treasure. Thanks for this one, it filled in some big gaps for me.

[@audiodiwhy2195]

Excellent video. This must have been a ton of work to put together. Thanks

[@johnpenner5182]

thx for the info on the mark8 - missing info in my databanks of early computer history.

[@IainShepherd1]

I got into tech in the late 80s with PC clones, I've read a little earlier history but The Digital Group had never come up till now! Thanks for ensuring these names don't die.

[@mikolasstrajt3874]

I like your acting style. It brings more life to the video.

[@olsmokey]

This brought back so many memories. I designed periferals for S-100 computers back in the early 80s, even started a user group for one particular make/model S-100 based kit computer back then. What times we had, staying at the meeting til the early morning the day after the meetings - it was all new and very exciting. Even wrote software for CPM which was much fun and used an assembler for the venerable Z-80 for other projects. Ahhh, them were the days! Subscribed. Thanks for the memories. Edit: I had a 4004 CPU stashed around here somewhere. Can't find it...

[@sunnohh]

I thought this was going to be about DEC, pleasantly surprised, what a wonderful history to learn about. The other digital!

[@1sonyzz]

Yet here we are, in this day and age with computers in our pockets running on none other than micro processors which then people were skeptical about.

[@boowiebear]

What an absolute frenzy of innovation and failure during this time! I had no idea those early computers were so difficult to use but so many people saw the potential.

[@joshuaharlow4241]

Well done. Thank you. Beyond interesting. Very appreciated!

[@NickBurgoyne]

Excellent documentary. Great production values. I'm very impressed :)

[@iteachtime]

Man, I really enjoyed this - Thanks!

[@XalphYT]

Fascinating!

[@VexMage]

Oh wow! I didn't think I'd hear about the high school at the end of my road in a tech video, lol.

[@smd-tech]

Thank you thank you thank you for calling it a microprocessor and not a microprawhsessor.

[@hropanepranks]

Great piece.

[@pcs9518]

Pretty much the prehistoric version of the modern PC. Loved it keep up the awesome work!

[@dubselectorr345]

My great cousin Robert Edwards invented the Altair 8800! The name was not mentioned but the computer was covered well. He invented the Altair BUS. He was not much of a family man and no one saw him all too much. His passion was to be a doctor so he sold it (for nothing) to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who at the time both worked for him, TOGETHER, in a garage... The world was more focused on software rather than Hardware at this time period. That is what Edward's focus was on, the hardware... I am a technician of 20 years and it oddly has nothing to do with him because I did not see him all too much. R.I.P. Edward. Great video!

[@TheBigChill1]

On the mid 90's I installed a complete network with SEC/Digital equipment on one of the greatest companies in my country...I wonder if it still works today...

[@catriona_drummond]

This was beautiful.

[@HoldandModify]

I love your videos. Recently discovered. I know this is an older one and maybe you’ve addressed this but, your audio needs a low pass filter. Certain words are pegging the low band 30-60hz area causing a heavy thud or pop in headphones or in my subwoofer when watching on home theater. :)

[@TechTimeTraveller]

My first mic was a Blue Snowball that I suspect was defective. It was always erratic despite replicating the recording conditions. I tried to correct it in Audition but I may have overcorrected. New mic I hope will put things on a better footing.

[@HoldandModify]

@@TechTimeTraveller what I do for my newer videos is add an EQ and just pull down all the frequencies below 60hz. Love your work and look forward to watching your stuff!

[@ldchappell1]

Very interesting and well made.

[@d_shepperd]

Very nicely done.

[@AveragePootis]

That board setup in the thumbnail looks so incredibly similar to my 1984 Compucorp Metric 85 that it's uncanny

[@davewright3088]

I remember a marathon, assembling a DG Z80 kit over one Thanksgiving holiday at home. A day or so in, Dad entered the room and asked if I was going to come out and spend some time with the rest of the family... Alas, that system was donated to the Exploratorium during one of my lab purges over the years. I recall designing and building a 16K dynamic ram board that never achieved an acceptable BER, and some struggles trying to get an 8" floppy drive to work as well. Later on, I was able to acquire a Cromemco Z2D, and get on with the business of actually writing code...

[@channelwoodgrange]

"Nerd Praetorian Guard" You know... with an impressive logo... I'm smelling TTT t-shirt or pin merch on the horizon.

[@cebudave]

At first I though I would be watching the story of Digital Equipment Corporation, but this was far more interesting. I wonder if there was confusion between the two companies with digital in their name.

[@DavidHembrow]

Excellent video. But I stopped watching after the TENTH interruption by ads. The frequency of ads makes the video unwatchable.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I tried trimming it down before - now I've knocked out the midrolls entirely.. hopefully that makes it easier to watch. Thanks for the feedback!

[@DavidHembrow]

@@TechTimeTraveller thanks. I could watch the rest of the video without ads. I don't mind you monetising the videos, it's just a shame when good content is drowned by excessive ads.

[@samuellourenco1050]

Used lots of 74SNs in my beginner days, 20 years ago.

[@kaliban4758]

Sometimes i wish that the computer of today were like the computer of the 1970's in that the "motherboard" was nothing more than a backplane where EVERYTHING plugged into

[@CromemcoZ2]

I loved Digital Group's magazine ads. Their Phi-Decks looked amazing! Sphere made sexy ads too, but IIRC they were way out of my price range.By 1977 when I was ready to buy a serious kit PC of my own, going with a proprietary bus felt like a mistake. S-100 had lots of support from independent vendors by then. I settled on a Cromemco Z2 chassis and 4Mhz Z80 CPU card, partly because that's what my mentor had. Processor Technology's 3P+S card for I/O and their VDM-1 video card, a North Star floppy controller, and a too-new 32k RAM card from TDL rounded out the machine. That TDL card never worked fully loaded, but eventually made a terrific 28k card if you pulled one row of chips and made a few wiring changes. :) Anyway, four different brands plugged into the same bus. That was the S-100 dream in-action. Thanks for the video. I subscribed earlier today and am enjoying what's turning into a binge session as I keep seeing new ones I want to watch RIGHT NOW. :)

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Many thanks for the vote of confidence! Yeah dg stuff.. any computer stuff really.. was crazy expensive. You had to be pretty dedicated to be an early adopter like that. Few thousand bucks would buy you a pretty decent car back then I think! That must have been fun mixing and matching S100 parts to get exactly what you wanted!

[@rauljvila]

This channel is awesome! Thanks for the great content. Waiting for the YT algorithm to notice it.

[@ToTheGAMES]

Good video, but you really need a pop-filter for your microphone. :)

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I actually have one. I think the mic I was using had some issues. I'm hoping I've solved that now with a different one.

[@mdesm2005]

interesting video. In fact, very good. But the piano in the background makes it hard to listen too. Is there a version w/o a sound track?

[@paulstubbs7678]

17:04 Mini byte master, now that's a nice looking machine.

[@Arivia1]

Finally got around to watching this - as always it's a treasure, fun and educational. I am typing this on a "stultifyingly conformist" black box x64 desktop though!

[@Mr_Meowingtons]

wow that Computer looked Sweet! it had every thing going for it and was leading the way in a lot of things that would be standards. but like a lot of places they Fed it up with miss management

[@memadmax69]

I had a rainbow 100 once back in the early 90s and it ran cp/m. Interesting machine, couldn't do crap with it. Think I traded it for a hard drive lol

[@MrNednos]

Great content, thank you!

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Thanks for watching!

[@Meow_Zedong]

At 16:52, you use a black and white picture of a color graphics board which gave me a chortle

[@10gamer64]

How the heck you only have 1200 views, this is should have at least 1 mil views

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Many thanks. KZbin is just like that I guess.. I'm small with a short track record. Plus I guess the algorithm has trouble figuring out how to classify something like this. Or I just suck at SEO. :)

[@1944GPW]

I've searched the few Digital Group sites and have not been able to find what discipline Dr. Suding was actually a Doctor of. Can you enlighten us?

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I believe it was for Systems Analysis at Florida State U.

[@haweater1555]

Thanks for the history lesson. At the time, I was 9 years old and reading Popular Science magazine, and don't recall ever reading about this company. Just another one of those homebrew companies that advertised in BYTE magazine to fall down to the onslaught of Apple/Commodre/Tandy mass-produced ready-to-use systems. MITS took off as an early starter due to being featured on the cover of Popular Electronics -- and that publicity is credited at kickstarting the entire microcomputer revolution. The other startups were only playing catchup until the Big Guys made a much more polished product a few years later. Example: Apple was a typical startup. Until Jobs made the decision to commision a custom machine mold to make an attractive case for the second model. Expensive investment, but it made all the difference in the world for your product to be taken seriously by the press. All the other little guys look crude. This is how you turn a $10,000 company into a $1,000,000,000,000 company.

[@Brightstarlivesteam]

I have a Cromemco system which I never got to work. It is currently sitting in the floor next to my desk.

[@SSJRayman]

Excellent. Much appreciated!

[@DrGooseDuckman]

Well done! Liked and subbed.

[@McTroyd]

I'm surprised DEC (Digital Equipment Corp) didn't take issue with The Digital Group's name. Maybe it was because they didn't operate in quite the same industries? Neat piece of history though. And 3 MB must have been a heck of a storage array for the 70s! 👍️

[@calvinthedestroyer]

How many customers could they have had if they fulfilled their orders on time?

[@TechTimeTraveller]

They probably could have done reasonably well as a hobbyist company.. potentially thousands of customers, which in those days was a good amount. They just weren't well capitalized, and once people stopped being willing to pay up-front they essentially had no money to buy parts.

[@michaelclement1337]

Are there any surviving working examples of the The Digital Group 6501 CPU board?

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Yes.. bytecollector had one. He sold it to someone a couple of years ago. AFAIK it was working.

[@kelvinnkat]

I'm very much late to comment, but what happened to the sound around 7:11 or so?

[@haweater1555]

22:30. Apple's IPO at $22 per share. Apple stock has since split by a factor of 224 since founding, and with a current share price trading at $174, means that those original shares are now worth $38,976 !

[@joegoldman3065]

I love depictions of offices in the 1960s hairstyles the clothing the office look everything in this clip has some great stuff from that. However at the same time it has such staggering sweeping and completely wrong generalizations of the Computing business that you should know this ahead of time so he did not listen to much of what the script says he's generalizations are absolutely absurd and unbelievably wide of the mark still this piece is entertaining and does have a few nuggets of Truth it also has amazing factual inaccuracies

[@TechTimeTraveller]

@@joegoldman3065 What was inaccurate?

[@jj74qformerlyjailbreak3]

This J11 is my favorite 60pin 16 bit processor

[@frankowalker4662]

What an interesting but sad story.

[@geraldalonso8232]

A very us centric view IMO, what about the Micral? I can't think yhat a learned person such as you did not take it into account as an inspiration for the Altair. All the best Jerry.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I've mentioned the Micral in other videos. Unfortunately they are so rare and I like to show the actual thing operating. I chose digital group just because it had a bit of a dramatic story. If I ever get a Micral 8008 I'll definitely do a video.

[@AiOinc1]

Such a shame they went the way they did. As always with early computing, a bit better management would have probably saved them in the long run. Absolutely beautiful machines. Maybe if they'd stuck around longer we might have seen an x86 board pop up.

[@kennywah5024]

10:50 this music track was used in the GT maintenance Shop in Gran Turismo 5 and it's killing me

[@TechTimeTraveller]

That's The Entertainer. Its ancient. KZbin's audio library has it probably because it's copyright free. :)

[@rustkitty]

4:04 wow, he did "It's not a bug, it's a feature" before it was cool!!

[@MISSCHAMPAGNE]

you are my new favorite channel and i am in love with u

[@MrRedFoxorMrelzorrorojo]

Looking at these computers, I can tell it's the 70's.