The Secret Life of the Word Processor - Remastered

[@petrichor649]

The World is a better place for Tim Hunkin.

[@stephenhewitt5835]

Here here 👍

[@PartTimeLaowai]

indeed

[@321CatboxWA]

Unless there's frost on the pumpkin , then it's time for Peter Dunkin .

[@Microtonal_Cats]

And his silent sidekick. What's his name? I like their plump orange cat too.

[@PBeringer]

Well, duh ... 😜

[@kaustin9364]

There is something addictive about Tim's videos. Only Tim could explain how electrical connectors work, for example, and make it interesting!

[@BlameAmes]

"the last part to be perfected was the printer" - I like the optimism there :D

[@alec4672]

Why does everyone have problems with printers? I don't get it 🤷🏻‍♀️ I mean my first inkjet in 2009 was an absolute pile for certain. My modern Bother laser printer though, never have a single problem.

[@j2simpso]

@@alec4672 maybe it's just me but most of the printers I've owned had quite the hearty breakfast preferring to have some tasty paper jam before the first page could ever get out of the printer! 😅

[@numlockkilla]

It still isnt

[@graxjpg]

Some printers i have been exposed to were absolute garbage. But this was 15 years ago, nowadays the decent ones are quite reliable in my experience.

[@migfed]

@@alec4672 it seems you are a lucky guy but most of us take a bit of taste of hell using Hewlett Packard ones

[@wimwiddershins]

I really like the scaled up mechanical demonstrations in this series, Rex getting his shoes dirty while working as a printer head.

[@EngineeringVignettes]

I like that the animated Utopia office has doorways so short that everyone has to duck to get through them... It's the little things that make the episodes so much fun to watch :D Cheers, Tim!

[@Death_by_NOLA]

I'm don't get it, what's the meaning?

[@alittlebitintellectual7361]

@@Death_by_NOLA definitely not a utopia if ya have to duck all day

[@danieltx7066]

I watched that part three times. :)

[@theelmonk]

Tim's right to say that word processing is most people's only use for a computer. Before the internet this was true, but now, watching cat videos is probably most people's only use for a computer.

[@herseem]

You forgot to mention porn, which has always been up there as a use, even when engineers were producing erotic pictures using teletypes

[@theelmonk]

@@herseem Ah yes, the unmentionable cause for scaling

[@Muonium1]

I know everyone's calling it a silicon "ingot" which is understandable and not totally wrong, but it's actually called a "boule". An ingot is something made by pouring molten material into a mold and simply leaving it to solidify haphazardly, but a boule is pulled very slowly from a melt using the Czochralski process to form a single perfect crystal of ultrahigh purity with trace contaminants at the PPM level.

[@wendythomas742]

Top anorak! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[@TheAlps36]

Cool - I just learnt something new!

[@User0000000000000004]

Thank you, professor nobody gives a shit.

[@fixman88]

I think I read about them being called that before!

[@theelectricmonk3909]

29:58 - "I'm probably too anti-social to make much use of [social media]" ...... says man on KZbin :D :D Seriously though - I'm really glad to see these programmes again, a proper slice of my childhood was spent watching them first time around, when they really helped my young mind grasp what had previously seemed like witchcraft. So, thank you Tim (and Rex, RIP), both for making the programmes way back when, and for re-showing them now.

[@PBeringer]

The clock at 16:25 has gotta be my favourite of Tim Hunkin's clocks. The timber sculpture work itself is amazing (I assume it's timber), and he doesn't seem to work with timber a great deal. Really hope to see him start putting out more KZbin content, or better yet, put together another well-resourced series for TV or streaming service. These series contributed to making me the person I became; I can't really overstate how much they mean to me.

[@Garbaz]

The little figurines around your circuit board are great!

[@gyrgrls]

When he popped that chip open, it exposed the heater wires that are used to send out the magic smoke.

[@graxjpg]

The idea that electronics are not run by magic smoke seems to be a pervasive one in today’s world.

[@johncooper4637]

Lucas, the Prince of Darkness, strikes again!

[@sehnsucht9206]

Over 30 years later, now with multiple degrees and licenses, I'm still learning from you...Thank you Tim!

[@DavidMills_Physicist]

That's a serious chunk of silicon - great to see it.

[@muffinbra]

♟

[@jimmyguy428]

Did anyone else catch that static spark at 16:09 as he was sliding the circuit board back into the base under the wooden statue? Great video!

[@YouStEeLz]

Nice catch haha

[@BastiElektronik]

Y'all know that thats just a film artifact, like a scratch in the emulsion. This series was shot on 16mm film.

[@jimmyguy428]

@@BastiElektronik I don't believe it is just a film artifact because you can clearly hear the crack sound of the spark.

[@BastiElektronik]

@@jimmyguy428 It is film. Look at it one frame at a time. A spark doesn't look like that. The crack is probably the wooden support plate of the PCB banging against the side of the chest

[@YouStEeLz]

@@BastiElektronik I'm torn now. I also thought it was spark because it had an audible cue supporting the theory, but the film scratch is also valid. While doing a freeze frame, I couldn't see any reflection nor light incidence on the closeby scene from the spark, and if it was coming from the metal plate it would have gone the shortest path (bottom of the plate), not the middle going up then down on the PCB, supporting the light scratch theory...

[@supahfly_uk]

The pace and cadence of this is so relaxing.

[@jishcatg]

Long time software developer here. Found it very amusing when you said you don't recall ever getting one of your programs to work in 1970 in school. I can imagine it was difficult to not have immediate feedback in the batch processing days. As a boy I had a computer with no disk or tape storage and I would create large complicated (for me) programs on my typewriter before I managed to try them. When I finally got a disk drive I was in heaven. I'm glad you pointed out how important that transition from batch processing to a more immediate mode was important to all computing, not just word processing. It really allowed for an explosion in creativity in the software world.

[@herzogsbuick]

Almost 30 years of building circuits, taking things apart, programming computers -- and I had never, ever seen a silicon ingot! Thank you for sharing, Tim!

[@PebblesChan]

@7:52 Tim pulls out a PAL (Programmable Array Logic) instead of a RAM. Unlike a RAM a PAL can only be programmed once but some PALs contain flip flops which act as write bits (with read capability only if there is a circuit present to do so).

[@fullmetaljacket7]

16:37 fun fact: The z80 is still being manufactured to this day!

[@markkevin7245]

Where?

[@josugambee3701]

​@@markkevin7245 Zilog makes them. They're about $8 each on Mouser, at least in the US.

[@Zerbey]

It was first conceived in 1974, so in computing terms was already quite old in the 1980s when the various home computers implemented them but continued to feature in consumer electronics well into the 1990s (the MegaDrive/Genesis had one!). Still in use in specialist applications even now.

[@Rapscallion2009]

Yes - they're cheap and very, very well understood. If you don't need much computational power they definitely have a role.

[@jbalazer]

Zilog recently announced that they will be ending production of the classic Z80 microprocessor. It was manufactured for 48 years.

[@KanalFrump]

the giant splat painting printer model is fantastic!

[@vsvnrg3263]

the whole show is great but my favourite part of the show is the little men at 15:45.

[@PeterBrockie]

Pro tip: Grab some N or HO scale figures for your own projects. :D

[@hiroprotagonist1587]

Put me in mind of SCP-2978

[@lachlanwilliams5818]

I remember watching this program with my dad in the early nineties. Back then I didn't understand anything but, I now work in IT and I can understand everything.

[@Sibicle]

look forward to all these. scared of when you run out! really like your new content as well 😊 thanks for sharing!!

[@ryanmalin]

That was the best ending! Great work on that robot in the credits. I learned a lot this episode. I at first thought I knew all there was about word processing but thanks for that clear demonstration on ascii. Also the Pegasus was sick. And your midevil timer circuitry and all your gadgets you and Rex have produced are all top notch. Thanks for being so inspiring.

[@frixyg2050]

I agree, that ending is really impressive. It must have added to the production cost! But I feel it turned out really well and is quite memorable. (That music, ugh. Is there anything worse than hearing "Take Five" performed in Four?)

[@kiwitrainguy]

The music is actually called "The Russians Are Coming" according to comments on other Tim Hunkin videos.@@frixyg2050

[@abighairyspider]

At 17:00 Love the tree of LEDs soldered to the Z80

[@compu85]

It's great you were able to capture the Pegasus computer. As I understand it, it hasn't run for many years.

[@kevywevvy8833]

its in the science museum isn't it? At least it was, if it's the same one.

[@skonkfactory]

@@kevywevvy8833 It is, and last time I was there (fifteen years ago) they were running it once a week or so...

[@kevywevvy8833]

@@skonkfactory I think it's beautiful

[@richardpurves]

@@skonkfactory Sadly since then there was a bit of a fire. It's detailed on a website somewhere.

[@davesaxonfields6752]

So wonderful experiencing these programs all over again. I used to rush home from school to watch this series, can’t begin to describe how these programs shaped my career - Thanks Tim & Rex (bless him) for encouraging my curiosity in those younger years…

[@ZXRulezzz]

The Z80 computer with a bunch of LEDs soldered to the CPU seems to be an Amstrad CPC, 464 perhaps; rather than Commodore. Great show, never had a chance to see it originally broadcasted, but I stumbled upon it a decade ago and have been a fan ever since. It's wonderful to see it again all upscaled and touched up. Thank you, Tim, greets from Russia!

[@wendythomas742]

Definitely a 464, the grey case and the space for the built-in cassette deck gives it away. Also Commodores didn't use Z80 series CPUs; their 8bit machines were mostly based on 6502s.

[@ZXRulezzz]

@@wendythomas742 And the computer which "gets the virus" in the outro seems to be Commodore Amiga of some sort - window title and cursor shape give it away :)

[@HammondDirk]

@@ZXRulezzz Yes, definitely an Amiga! I guess they were used in television a lot, because they outputted a PAL or NTSC signal that could be used directly in video editing. Also no "rolling screens" on camera.

[@haweater1555]

The MOS KIM 1 is the granddaddy of all of the Commodore line of computers.

[@Dukefazon]

1:22 - I was pleasantly surprised to see an Amiga Workbench instead of some kind of an IBM machine

[@iamdarkyoshi]

Same! I recently got my hands on an Amiga, it's a very interesting user experience, and I'm really curious how the computing scene would be today had it been continued around the Amiga instead of the IBM. Funny to think we can still boot DOS on almost any machine made today

[@Dukefazon]

@@iamdarkyoshi Yes, I often think of that myself, there were many companies building computers and why the IBM and clones became the standard. The Amiga 500 was ahead of it's time (both graphics and sound) but maybe the modularity of a PC that helped it survive.

[@tdumnxy]

@@iamdarkyoshi much better than any Amiga was the Acorn line of ARM processor (RISC) based computers e.g. the Acorn A5000, designed & built in England. You may have heard of ARM processors, they power 100s of millions of mobile phones and tablet computers even today...

[@tdumnxy]

@@Dukefazon look up Acorn/ARM

[@threesixty8154]

Another brilliant remaster Tim, as always I love the mechanical demonstrations you and Rex built. It really is great to hear your current reflections on when you and Rex made the episodes. Thanks so much! Cheers!

[@rooneye]

MY GOD these are awesome. I want an updated version of this, but keeping the old school man in a shed vibe.

[@Aengus42]

"DOS for Dozy Sods"!!!! 🤣 I think I've still got my copy somewhere... 😆

[@der.Schtefan]

These videos are a hidden treasure! Back in the day when you could attach a LED to a processor signal

[@garp32]

That silicon ingot is AMAZING! Also, thanks to you and Rex for fueling my passion for always wondering how things work and why. It was an amazing series I grew up with and wish it had continued for many more seasons. You two were amazing and VERY influential in my life. And, to a point..still are influential. Thank You!

[@Bensol99]

That IC clamp that showed all the activity on the pins is pretty damm neat! Always a pain when your probing a circuit to get the bigger picture, hard to grip what's happening sometimes only probing one pin at a time. Would be great for bigger 40-pin CPUs and such.

[@wahyutriwibowo1803]

Isn't that its job for modern IC superseded by interface like JTAG and equipment like Logic Analyzer?

[@MattTester]

Great to see the KIM-I up on the wall at the end alongside the modern 555 kit.

[@aeraxeur]

when i was a kid, i would watch secret life of machines with my mom. such a pleasure rediscovering this show and reliving those memories.

[@starfox6335]

Good to see you again old friend. ❤

[@SandyRiverBlue]

The robot at the end, inexplicably made me smile ear to ear.

[@stephenhewitt5835]

Me too 😁

[@derekdexheimer3070]

I remember seeing these on PBS in the very early 90s. I very much appreciated the handmade, tinkerer-craftsman feel to the production design, the demonstration devices, and Tim's underspoken delivery. Nothing like it before or since. Glad to see Tim is still around, and grateful to see this old series again.

[@kevywevvy8833]

probably already been said but the late Tony Sale organised the rebuild of the colossus machine, rather than an enigma machine mentioned.

[@MarkReedUK]

Dear Tim, many many thanks for posting these remastered versions. I first saw this episode 24 years ago in my GCSE IT class and it is still as brilliant as I remember. Even now with the commentary you have taught me something new, I always though silicon wafers were cast as discs. Hope you are well and keep on inventing 🙂👍

[@jennifernorman9655]

Brilliant! Takes me back to the first computers that were introduced to my school in sixth form. Learned a lot, thank you 😊

[@AquarianNomadic]

I watched this show when I was a teenager in the 80s. Thank you for uploading.

[@jonathanbailie]

Found this little gem of a show recently. You guys are like the OG Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage 😆 Wonderful show, spent my whole Sunday watching the entire series!

[@kalashnakov0477]

I love your tv programs and years in educating the public, great to see you're still active 👍

[@MARIAJUSTINIANIO]

The little figurines around your circuit board are great!. The World is a better place for Tim Hunkin..

[@TastyBusiness]

I love seeing that 1950s machine running with a CRT and paper tape, that's something not seen at too many museums. And a PDP-12 in that beautiful lime green. I'm glad to see all of the blinkenlights on various demonstration rigs. An MOS KIM-1 too! Oh wow, the EMSL discrete 555 timer on Tim's wall at the end.

[@jasonharding9490]

It makes me happy that the respective legends Tim Hunkin and Tony Sale met and maybe knew each other to some extent. I remember meeting Tony Sale only a couple of years before he died, still giving demonstrations at Bletchley park.

[@neilfurby555]

Tim’s workshop looked quite clean and tidy in those days, decades ago. I think he still uses the same one (?) but perhaps a bit more lived in! Brilliant series of programmes from a truly creative team, never bettered.

[@KK4CNM]

You were instramental in inspiring my love of engineering. Thank you.

[@hamarlucente5088]

Definitely my favourite episode. The outro music playing while that robot burns is etched into my memory.

[@borgdylan]

HI Tim, really enjoying seeing this serier. THis came out a bit before I was born (1993). I am enjoying the glimpse that you and Rex provide into the state of machines in the early 90s. Some things I remeber using and others were gone before I was old enough to get to use them.

[@stevensims3342]

Incredible to see such a wide variation of designs to achieve a similar task.

[@wanderingdoggo]

This video is simply amazing! Loved the part at 15:42 when he showed the circuit board decorated with miniatures XD what a nerd! Also the clock is truly a piece of art! Wonderful!

[@rickblackwell6435]

The silicon ingot is astounding. I had no idea how that was done. Love it.

[@richierich7721]

I love that show you did with rex I watched those several times bore you had a KZbin channel wishing there was more , I'm so glad to see you have a channel .

[@yqisq6966]

Pure tech. Pure art. Flawless.

[@cmonkey63]

I got my computing science degree only a few years before this episode originally aired, and I have to say that the content is still relevant today. Glad that these original episodes were remastered, and the commentary at the end is a nice book end.

[@tocsa120ls]

30:59 holy moly. I saw that piece of monocrystalline silicon in the Science Museum three years ago. Not a bit too late! Your gallery in the basement was still there, I enjoyed that one tremendously.

[@codar1937]

Your videos are very enjoyable. Thank you for also doing extras at the end of the episodes with a look back of where technology was and where it is now.

[@lrochfort]

"Dad, what's a word processor?" "You know what a food processor does to food? Same thing"

[@lukeonuke]

this man is a gift to all mankind

[@thomasburke7995]

When the series first aired in the states i really enjoyed watching this. 40 years later still learning from the series. The one topic that i think you should have explored should have been machine tools. 😊

[@edgarwalk5637]

A retro video showing at the time retro computers, perfection!

[@Jim-si7wz]

Thank you Tim your videos are so inspiring to me, and I remember being just the right age when all the changes were happening you will remember the panic when workers thought they were all going to be out off work and replaced by computers and robots, the government assured us that it would never happen, glad they were so correct as usual. Keep up the good work I was born in 1960 and tried to learn just in time for it all to change again.

[@SunnyBeetle1922]

I love your sense of wonder and enthusiasm!!!😊Fantastic series Tim!!!…Well done!!👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽💯💯

[@KingSlimjeezy]

Im sure you've heard it before but every one of these are brilliant thank you very much! Looks like you had fun making them as well!

[@nutsnproud6932]

The memo was funny. The explosion of the vacuum cleaner. 9:41

[@marvingarden4587]

Positively delightful episode, and the added bit at the end was a treat. Thank you Mr. Hunkin! Cheers.

[@operatorjeffdeathstar7759]

Love the bird sounds in your yard...

[@whirledpeas3477]

Isn't that so wonderful, It makes me think of flowers and rainbows

[@Cabalist3131]

THIS is the one I’ve been waiting for! Thank you!!

[@bobd4563]

My early recollection of punched tape was for NC controller for manufacturing. Brave times. Mylar and paper from the teletype machine. The punched dots were brilliant confetti and the engineers would make sure that they fell in the right places. Static electricity glued them to the unlucky recipient

[@Maxrom]

12:26 Loving the realtime clock on the front of the Pegasus. Pioneering tech right there.

[@Farlig69]

Wow that silicon ingot end is amazing and totally understand how that can be your favourite!!! cool as!!!

[@TestTubeBabySpy]

That silicon ingot butt-end was awesome!

[@yassine3539]

My favorite channel.. Think you from morocco 🇲🇦🇲🇦

[@haweater1555]

13:03. Absolutely my favourite line from Tim for the entire series!

[@mgevirtz]

Tim, this is absolutely the best history of the universal computer I have ever seen.

[@MrAsBBB]

Just love it. I amazed my parents when I sent a message between my Sinclair spectrum and QL between the lounge and bedroom in 1987

[@volktales7005]

Was fascinating all those years ago, and still is today! Loved the program!

[@ShawnC22002]

Really enjoyed this one! Thank you for sharing these and your more recent series!

[@Ronenlahat]

Thank you Tim, these videos are amazing. I just discovered then

[@Wyld1one]

Re: us census. The idea of cards for data and internal programs was also related to fabric looms. The weave pattern was controlled by a series of plates with holes in them. Each hole in a plate controlled one wire in the loom for being up or down and thus changed the color seen on the he surface.

[@jincyquones]

Anyone else see that huge electrical arc at 16:09? 😲

[@michaelfisher9671]

Yep. I wonder if it still worked after?

[@alexander3554]

Probably not an arc but a flaw in the 16 mm film it was recorded on

[@michaelfisher9671]

@@alexander3554 Slowing it down I think you are exactly right, well done.

[@beautifulsmall]

Really appreciate you showing the old electronic stuff. first principles equipment will natuarually become rare. Z80, 1MHz, it could subtract two numbers and say if the answer was zero.double presision floating point . Teensy 4.0. its astounding.

[@markpitt5248]

The Pegasus Computer looks amazing! There is one in the Science Museum but unfortunately I believe it is no longer working.

[@johncooper4637]

Brings back memories of working on most of that stuff. Vacuum tube (valves in England) theory in school, tube TV repair, punch paper tape written on a teletype as input to a Bit480 computer, repairing sense amps and line drivers on core memory, fingering in boot loaders to load tape on the computer. And, oh, yes, IBM 370 terminals! Best was overhearing two engineers wonder how they were going to get past 300 Mhz clock speed. Now I don't fix anything I just throw away the old and get a new one.

[@simoncee9011]

Thank you again Tim

[@NewAgeServer]

8:38 I love how he shows the warranty void warning then removes the cover

[@partack1]

wow, what a treat at the end there seeing the endcap of a silicon ingot =D i never really thought about how they make those wafers until now, thanks for sharing, Tim!

[@greenaum]

[ 3rd paragraph is the interesting bit! Starts with "So instead..." ] Regarding the computer terminal at 13:55, it's interesting how some early ones work. Now it's all done in software, a whole screen full of pixels that the computer's software sets into the shape of whatever font and size you want. Prior to that, in the 1970s and 80s, the characters of a font would be stored in ROM chips. The display circuits would read in the letters "H" "E" "L" "L" "O" from RAM, then as it was drawing the screen, it would look up the pixels to draw from the ROM chip with the system font in it. You usually only got one single font. 65 stored in RAM meant capital A, so the screen circuits would look in the ROM to find the right dots to send to the screen for A. That needed, typically, 8 bytes, 64 bits, of ROM to store the character to draw for A, an 8x8 grid of pixels gave enough detail to draw decent enough letters and numbers. 8 bytes for, say, 128 characters is 1K of ROM, which was cheap in the 1980s but back in the '60s would have been a ton of money, and not even on a microchip but a big pile of circuit boards. It couldn't be done like that. So instead they had a little grid of all the letters and numbers, etched into a small sheet of metal, inside the monitor. The electron beam that illuminated the screen would be spread out to about the size of one of these characters. It would be aimed at one of the letters on the sheet, using electric or magnetic deflectors. It would shine through the metal, electrons passing through where the metal had been etched away, and blocked where there was solid metal. So it's like a shadow, or a beam rather, in the shape of an A. Then more electric or magnetic fields would aim this letter-shaped beam towards correct part of the screen, where the electrons would hit the phosphor coating on the glass and make it glow in the shape of that letter. Then for the next letter or symbol, same thing. Thousands of times a second, the beam darting around the holes in the plate, then onto the screen. The phosphor retained it's glow for a fraction of a second, and the human eye has persistence of vision, so the letters looked steady and constant even though they were being redrawn over and over. All that mechanical engineering when now it would be done in software, just because the software method would need more memory and processing power than the machine even had! It's interesting how they solved all these problems back in the day, when now we don't even think of them as problems. Then before all that, if you wanted a monitor to look at, you'd get dots and dashes like shown in the video. Text would come out of a printer on paper, and the keyboard would send data back to the computer. And that was also rather complicated and ingenious. All mechanical methods of turning a serial signal of 0100011 into "C". No software involved, just spinning motors and oily levers. You can look up how a teletype worked yourselves, but it's absolutely fascinating to see it all done. Here, some lunatic wires up a 1930s teletype to a Linux machine. We get to see how it does stuff that we'd now do with software, and previously with electronics, with mechanical parts. But does he succeed? kzbin.info/www/bejne/aImvi2eQbbGje6c

[@UseThink]

Mindblowing People put so much effort into everything

[@AndreasDelleske]

Tim, if you did all this, you're really creative and explained things pretty well! Hats off!

[@btwbrand]

I was in complete shock when he flashed that wafer across the screen in the closing thoughts, very rare item! Then he brought out the end of the crystalline monolith and I felt my jaw hit the desk. There was a video explaining how chips were made and it is more in depth and older than the current versions on youtube. They talked about the monolith drawing process and how pure it was. The whole thing could weight a Ton after being formed and be supported by a very tiny cross section of the crystal on the end opposite the one he displayed.

[@BillyBanter100]

A fascinating history, well presented.

[@rayceeya8659]

OH man I loved this episode. and bonus feature of the remastered version. @5min in you can see the text on top of the processor he's using for his demo. It's a Zilog Z-80! That is so cool.

[@cameronwinn5242]

Great episode! 💯❤

[@jhonjairoramirezlopez9355]

Wow.... Was excellent! 👍👍👍👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏