Warning: I tried, again, to kill the CRT whine, but unfortunately I appear to have missed some of it. Young ears beware of sudden high pitched sound.. these old ears unfortunately can no longer pick it up. Looks like I set a record for 'And yeahs"... heh. What can I say, between covid and work my scripting skills took a bit of a nap. Anyway it's a fun drinking game if you want to track how many times I said that. :)
My dad's first computer was a Microprofessor 1, and it;s still running! He got it as a kit in the 70s I believe, and it helped both him and me get into 8 bit computing Seeing it run BASIC on 7 segment displays is definitely a spectacle xD
Yep! Six characters, a hex keyboard, 2k of RAM and cassettes as the only data storage. I think he also had a tiny thermal printer for it too Also, aside from that, I absolutely adore your content and it’s inspired me to try and attempt to make my own SWTPC CT-1024, although that the moment it seems well above my GCSE level electronics skills xD
@@TechTimeTraveller BASIC calculator, TI-74 I had in 1985 when it first came out, high school kid had plenty of time to learn how to edit on a single line ;)
Single line basic is quite an experience. I think there was a Japanese Sharp BASIC computer in calculator form factor. It had a glorious dot matrix LCD display. It was a marvel. My folks still have it. There is also a thermal printer for it. And maybe a cassette adapter too.
One of my favorite things to play with as a retrotech obsessed teen in the 2010s was my Dad's old, fully functional Multitech MPF-1. A lot more primitive than this one for sure, just a seven segment display where you entered Z80 assembly instruction by instruction in hexadecimal OR (surprisingly) BASIC despite the fact it didn't have a full keyboard. Still I had a great time with it, it had a speaker you could make bloopy noises with and the heatsink would get absurdly hot if you used it for more than 5 minutes.
Back in the in early 1980's it was common for sports coaches in high school to use the term to mean extreme exercises. People would get upset at Christian religion term for the underworld, but the s word for sports training was considered A-OK in public schools. Weird times as a kid.
Storing away non-working items was my Grandfather's generalized solution to problems. For example, he broke the dishwasher in about 1981. It was still sitting broken and unused in the corner of the kitchen when my Parents finally sold the house in 2001; presumably the new owners have since disposed of it.
The world of 70s and 80s clone computers is pretty wild. It was interesting to learn about this one. How strange it was to clone the Apple II and not make it compatible with the majority of its software!
Ah, the good old TK2000… my father had one of those, the only thing I was allowed to run on it was Karateka (loaded via tape, though he had the disk drive adapter). I think he ran software related to the accounting office he worked at back then, remember seeing visicalc disks somewhere. Soon, he updated to the TK3000 (Apple 2e clone), where I learned to program in basic. The thing with availability back then wasn’t so much about the costs, but the market reservation in place - we couldn’t import electronic equipment at the time, only buy those items that were assembled in country, and the low volume production meant it was hard to find things like a disk drive to buy in the first place, while everyone already had a tape player/recorder at home. Interesting times! By the time the reservation expired/was voted out we got a 486. Wish I still had those around, all that I have left is the actual disk drive and a few boxes of disks, maybe a tape or two…
21:25 That's a clone of the game "Phoenix" by Centuri. It was an arcade cabinet released around 1982. It was ported to just about every game system and computer of the time, including a ton of unofficial clones.
What a weird little thing. I really like the form factor, though it's a shame they didn't put a bunch of blinkenlights behind that front panel like an old Hayes modem.
I had one of these as a kid from 1983-1986. The external chicklet keyboard was very difficult to type on. I had the external 5.25” disk drive and the 40 column thermal printer. The lack of software meant that I was forced to do a lot of BASIC programming to enjoy the machine. It was a huge step up in 1986 to an IBM PC XT and then on to Amiga 500 in 1989.
Nice! So you guys were never aware of the TK2000 and its software library I guess then. So weird that Microdigital cloned a machine with so little going for it.
Long & McQuade sells Deoxit in Canada. I ordered a can and picked up directly from the shop in Victoria. I remember seeing this computer for sale at a shop back in the 1980s in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island.
@19:05 rs232 cable fun. I was authoring BBS software back in mid 1980's and working on VT terminals to VAX/VMS systems, it was always voodoo like this to get things working.
I remember the original Micro Professor so well... I desperately wanted one!!!! I wanted anything with a hex keypad and no BASIC to be honest. But I had some peculiar desperate longing for the Micro Professor. But, until now, I'd long forgotten the MPF II... thanks for the memory.
For a simple solution. I use CRC electrical cleaner. Just make sure to get the can that is plastic safe. They have a contact cleaner. But depending on the version it is not plastic safe. My experience is about the same as using deoxit. Just tons cheaper.
@idahofur I always get confused about contact cleaner vs whatever deoxit is. I had canadian tire contact cleaner but was left with the impression it wouldn't clean ic sockets properly. Not sure why I came to believe that.
@@TechTimeTraveller Different brands and different ic's / sockets / strength of cleaner. A good example is the Apple II plus I cleaned up. The sockets cleaned up nice. The dram chips not that much. So I had to clean those differently.
What an interesting computer. I suspect the first thing anyone who wanted to use this thing seriously would do would be to hack a real keyboard to it, especially since the manufacturer already provided a port to do so. Also I'd imagine the reason why the Brazilian company decided to clone a clone instead of the actual Apple II was probably a workaround for Apple's litigious reputation. I bet they figured if Multitech didn't get sued they could probably get away with it too.
There were already many full Apple II clones in Brazil when the TK2000 came out. Microdigital had focused on Sinclair clones up to that point so their market was the low end. The Microprofessor II allowed a near Apple II clone at a much lower price. It used the new 64Kbit DRAMs, it eliminated a lot of chips by not having the text and low res modes (simulating them in software instead), and it used a Sinclair/TRS-80 style raw keyboard instead of a smart (expensive) one like the Apple II. Later on Microdigital did the TK3000 which was a full Apple //e clone.
For anyone who might be interested, there's a long review of this machine and its peripherals in the 1984 Benchtest Special edition of Personal Computer World magazine. I only know because I have my old print copy on the shelf still..! Maybe it's online now somewhere?
@@chrislauf2643 I had a look and found all the regular editions of PCW but not the benchtest special. I'll pull out my print copy and see what I can do. I lack a flatbed scanner, so it'll be photos of just the one article.
Today a Multitech is a collectible. But at the time, expansion slots were an important feature of the Apple II. The grey market Taiwanese clones were blatant Apple knock offs. They were available for as little as $500. There was a tremendous amount of cracked software too.
I had an MPF III and absolutely loved it. I modded the crap out of that thing, upgraded ROMS, put in a 65c02 in it. build a 128k RAM disc for it. It's still at my Mum's house, I will have to collect it one day and see if I can get it back up and running.
@@ThecrackpotdadPlus Nice! Did they improve on compatibility at all? I saw one for sale recently but didn't jump on it as the seller was asking quite a bit.
@@TechTimeTraveller Oh! I still have my MPFIII, and it works perfectly. It is from 1984, and I used it during the first years of the University while I was studying Electronics Engineering. I really love that computer!
@@TechTimeTraveller Oh yeah, the MPF III was very compatible with the Apple //e, there were some easy hacks that could make it compatible with the //e+ (with mouse text etc. It was great, I really loved it. I am definitely going to go get mine from my Mum's.
Wow, Luis Nakanishi wrote Karateka. Who knew? Seriously though, I was always a bit disgruntled as an Apple //c owner that it couldn't run Karateka. (I think it must have made use of undocumented opcodes which were removed in the 65C02.)
I'm amazed that the users groups of the time didn't mention these, a lot of us C64 users would have loved a $400 Apple II to hack. The Brasil devices would have been great bootleg imports too ;) In Fort Wayne Indiana, I did manage to lay my hands on a Sinclair ZX81 imported from UK, would have been cool to get cheap Apple clone that was so small.
Growing up in the early 80s the only places I ever saw Apple II's were in classrooms or teacher's houses. I guess they were just so much more expensive than Commodore etc, which I saw a lot of. I suppose folks wouldn't have minded getting their hands on a cheap variant, even if it required some hacking for true compatibility.
the whole rx tx thing is often a PITA. i have a monitor that swaps them around. i think it's because it could be interpreted as one side's send will go to the other side's receive or alternatively that master system controls both send and receive lines and they run straight across
Almost bought one of those TK-2000 clones, but I'm still looking for the Apple II clone I had back in the day. Still, they look kinda nifty in that Atari 'inspired' case ;)
Looks like they were hoping for more third party support or enough initial sales to fund more software or peripheral development. Thanks for the exploration!
Is memory mapping dictated by board layout or ROM? If ROM or a simple bodge wire mod got the memory map to match the Apple II then maybe they were just more subtle than other clones in their "wink wink nudge nudge" to dealers who loaded them up with Apple ROMs to avoid the fruit company lawyers? Just speculation though, seems like it would be part of the oral history of these machines if that were so.
If you're not aware, there are a ton of usb-c to 3.5" jack adapters that way you don't have to use those crappy tablets. Apple themselves make the best one by far, it was like $20 cad last time I looked.
Great video! Perhaps a weird request: I have one of these, but no accessories, including no PSU. If you have the time when making the next video or so, I would appreciate it if you measure and include the PSU pinout. (Of course I could just tone out at least +5V and GND, and probably additional pins to the expansion connector, but as it took you four years to buy some Deoxit, you might not be that surprised to hear that I bought my MPF-II before 2020 and haven't taken the time to figure this out :) ) Btw the MPF-II figured in various 1983-home-computer-boom-era magazines in Sweden but I never heard of anyone owning one, until vintage computing really became a thing not that long ago.
Re the magazines in Sweden: I hope this comment survives the yt algo, but: search the net for "Stonans scanningsprojekt" and you will likely find a page with a bunch of magazines scanned. All in Swedish so likely not much use for most of the world, but still.
Many thanks! I can do that for you. I'm terrible with stuff I buy lately... I have several machines I bought years ago but never got around to playing with just due to 'ah.. I gotta connect some wires' hehe
If you didn't find a non-Amazon source for Deoxit products, I can recommend RP Electronics in Burnaby, BC. When I last needed some D5 spray, the only listings on Amazon Canada were two cans for about $90 plus import fees, plus exorbitant shipping vs about $25 a can and reasonable shipping costs from RP.
Thanks muchly! I just discovered those guys for some other gear.. didn't clue in. Apparently Tom Lee Music in North Vancouver also sells it? Just found that out today.
Neat! Thanks for showing this off... I never heard of this Apple clone before. Given all these games worked, it seems the compatibility isn't /terrible/.
I'm hoping someone with better programming skills than I can figure out how to transplant the compatiboot thing to make other apple II software work.. if it's even possible..
the way a 3.5mm headphone jack switches is that there's a switch inside the jack, so when you plug a cable in there the device knows to turn off the built in speaker and route the audio out through there. It's not detecting the receiving end.
From what research I’ve done, compatiboot seems to be a fast loader for apple II software. It might also do some on-the-fly patching for not-fully-compatible machines (i.e., the MPF II, Pravetz, etc.), but I’m not finding any info that supports this
I'd love to learn how to patch software for this thing. I was hoping it'd be something simpleish like adding a bootloader but I guess it's a bit more involved. Would love to port Carmen Sandiego to this thing, which was my first exposure to the Apple II way back when.
(Edit for easier reading. Blame combination of being in a rush and having just woke up) Interesting, had a talk with some people the other month, at a local retro gaming/computing expo, who were into similar little machines from the UK. I actually had one of these machines myself, but only for a brief time, back during my senior high school days. One of the shop teachers wanted to get rid of one and 'donated' the machine to me. From what I gathered, it was being used as some kind of 'teaching to program' type of thing at the school before my time.
One common pitfall with serial connections is they have two main uses and aren't usually labelled as to which they are intended for. The first type is for connecting simple peripherals and have straight through pin to pin connections. The second type is for use as a DTE-DTE communications link, which doesn't need a modem, and so includes an in-built 'null modem' crossing of the Tx/Rx lines. Links that use (a pair of) modems actually use the simple straight through DTE-DCE cable at each end since the modems automatically swap Tx/Rx as a function of the connection protocol. If you need the breakout board set to straight through mode I would guess you are only using it as a gender changer to enable you to connect the two cables, one of which has the null modem crossover. Either that or you needed a straight through connection and both cables are cross over types so you needed the breakout board to cancel the built in crossover when using them singly.
The weird thing is.. if I just removed the breakout box and connected those same two cabled together.. they don't work. Even though the breakout box is just passing everything through unchanged.
@@TechTimeTraveller That IS weird. I would suspect dodgy connectors. Possibly a loose fitting pin in the corresponding socket that only makes intermittent connection. If the breakout box has larger pins or tighter sockets it could make a more reliable link. I’ve been caught out like that with aerial connectors. Different manufacturers and the plug held the pin perfectly in th centre of the socket without touching the sides. Yet close enough that capacitive coupling allowed enough of a signal to pass through that it appeared to work poorly and led the investigations down many other possible signal degradation possibilities before the actual culprit was tracked down.
FYI depending on what type of phone you're using they usually sell 3.5mm adapters for the charge port. It's still BS you have to do that, but you can at least still use wired earphones.
Are there any hardware mods for the Brazilian machine (and thus MPFII also) documented that can change the hardware addresses to make them fully Apple II compatible? That might be easier in the long run than tracking down compatible software.
There is a software for Android that can force audio output on 3.5mm jack socket. I don't remember its name but I have used it to be able to send APRS packets through my handheld radio (ham radio stuff).
Falcons is a great game. Thanks for the review. I've got one of these that's been sitting in a box for 20+ years. At least I now know what I haven't been missing.
Any idea if people modded them from new to use the apple memory map and swap cloned roms into it, or did they just get used as-made? By the time this came out the c64 was around too and not much more. Hard to imagine intentionally getting a machine with nearly no software and such a bad keyboard when a little higher price would get such a better machine.
I've had that happen on some wireless mics with an old battery when they get low, I think the voltage drops below the operational parameters and it introduces that gibberish digital noise into the signal.
Ah now I hear it. Wth.. that's my Yeti mic.. my 'good' one. And that whole segment was recorded in one go. I wonder if I goofed when applying noise reduction. Sound has always bedeviled me. I've had to fight with every mic I've ever used. I'm finding Blue products generally aren't that good.
Was there a specific reason you chose not to wash the PCB off with soap and water after applying the DeOxit? This is the method I've always seen after use to remove the excess/goo and additionally cleans the boards up...
@@TechTimeTraveller I was always under the impression that washing boards with soap and water is fine for most with the caveats being you gotta get all the soap off and dry the boards completely
Manual says -159.. but I did try -151 off cam in case. Neither worked. But it can 'fall' into the monitor if something crashes and various machine language instructions seem to work. Really weird.
java in general is the jankiest thing ever. older versions of minecraft are particularly sensitive to what java version you use. often resulting in issues properly scalling the game in fullscreen mode.
I remember when Java first rolled out.. and I needed to learn it or I wouldn't be able to operate my internet-enabled fridge, or something. Was the biggest thing when it arrived.
I really don't know why anyone would buy something like this unless they had it as a kid or something. It has no redeeming features. It wasn't the first at anything. It was just a very poorly executed clone vastly inferior to what it is trying to copy. The comparisons with the Apple II, price wise is just not applicable. Given its release date of 1982, a C64 is like a year away from being 1/2 the price as thing thing. Furthermore, not only is the unit incompatible with the A2, it lacks the main redeeming feature of the A2, which is the expansion bus. The A2 out of the box is crap. It is the expansion bus that turns the A2 from crap to great. Want to run CP/M on an A2, slap in a CP/M card. Want a sound synthesizer, plug one in. Want 80 columns, plug an 80 column card. More RAM? Plug it in etc etc etc.
Warning: I tried, again, to kill the CRT whine, but unfortunately I appear to have missed some of it. Young ears beware of sudden high pitched sound.. these old ears unfortunately can no longer pick it up.
Looks like I set a record for 'And yeahs"... heh. What can I say, between covid and work my scripting skills took a bit of a nap. Anyway it's a fun drinking game if you want to track how many times I said that. :)
@@TechTimeTraveller what CRT whine? I can’t hear it over my tinnitus. 🤣
Lol it's okay, I'm glad I'm not as old as I think i am.
im only a little old and i hear it ; ;
@@succuvamp_annait’s funny Ii am old enough I can’t hear crt whine in real life, but I can on youtube somehow
People complaining about CRT noise are wusses
Oh man, I love that case. It looks like they took a modem, cut a hole in the top for the keyboard, and called it a computer.
I thought it looked like a modem too. Maybe recycling an existing mould/extrusion
Wild this is where Acer started.
My dad's first computer was a Microprofessor 1, and it;s still running! He got it as a kit in the 70s I believe, and it helped both him and me get into 8 bit computing
Seeing it run BASIC on 7 segment displays is definitely a spectacle xD
I can't even imagine trying to program on a 1 line display.. yipe! :) I think you only got 6 characters if I remember correctly?
Yep! Six characters, a hex keyboard, 2k of RAM and cassettes as the only data storage. I think he also had a tiny thermal printer for it too
Also, aside from that, I absolutely adore your content and it’s inspired me to try and attempt to make my own SWTPC CT-1024, although that the moment it seems well above my GCSE level electronics skills xD
@@TechTimeTraveller BASIC calculator, TI-74 I had in 1985 when it first came out, high school kid had plenty of time to learn how to edit on a single line ;)
Single line basic is quite an experience. I think there was a Japanese Sharp BASIC computer in calculator form factor. It had a glorious dot matrix LCD display. It was a marvel. My folks still have it. There is also a thermal printer for it. And maybe a cassette adapter too.
Surprised it still works
One of my favorite things to play with as a retrotech obsessed teen in the 2010s was my Dad's old, fully functional Multitech MPF-1. A lot more primitive than this one for sure, just a seven segment display where you entered Z80 assembly instruction by instruction in hexadecimal OR (surprisingly) BASIC despite the fact it didn't have a full keyboard. Still I had a great time with it, it had a speaker you could make bloopy noises with and the heatsink would get absurdly hot if you used it for more than 5 minutes.
I always meant to get one but just never got round to it. They're a cool little trainer.. I didn't know they ran so hot though!
@@TechTimeTravellerMPF-1s are getting quite expensive now on Ebay. They really need a little heatsink on the regulator as it runs quite hot.
22:15 what a weird game concept. I did laugh seeing them get mad when you save them, though
LOL I didn't even notice that! That's funny.
Back in the in early 1980's it was common for sports coaches in high school to use the term to mean extreme exercises. People would get upset at Christian religion term for the underworld, but the s word for sports training was considered A-OK in public schools. Weird times as a kid.
Storing away non-working items was my Grandfather's generalized solution to problems. For example, he broke the dishwasher in about 1981. It was still sitting broken and unused in the corner of the kitchen when my Parents finally sold the house in 2001; presumably the new owners have since disposed of it.
Thats the coolest Apple 2 clone I've seen.
The world of 70s and 80s clone computers is pretty wild. It was interesting to learn about this one. How strange it was to clone the Apple II and not make it compatible with the majority of its software!
Ah, the good old TK2000… my father had one of those, the only thing I was allowed to run on it was Karateka (loaded via tape, though he had the disk drive adapter). I think he ran software related to the accounting office he worked at back then, remember seeing visicalc disks somewhere. Soon, he updated to the TK3000 (Apple 2e clone), where I learned to program in basic. The thing with availability back then wasn’t so much about the costs, but the market reservation in place - we couldn’t import electronic equipment at the time, only buy those items that were assembled in country, and the low volume production meant it was hard to find things like a disk drive to buy in the first place, while everyone already had a tape player/recorder at home. Interesting times! By the time the reservation expired/was voted out we got a 486. Wish I still had those around, all that I have left is the actual disk drive and a few boxes of disks, maybe a tape or two…
21:25 That's a clone of the game "Phoenix" by Centuri. It was an arcade cabinet released around 1982. It was ported to just about every game system and computer of the time, including a ton of unofficial clones.
Yes! I played a version on my HP 48G graphing calculator. Very similar, even down to the clicky "sound track"
What a weird little thing. I really like the form factor, though it's a shame they didn't put a bunch of blinkenlights behind that front panel like an old Hayes modem.
I loved the reference to Apricot Computers' provocative advertisement they published upon entering the US market.
That is a cool little Apple ][ clone... glad to see you've recovered from your door to door days!
2:12 - the advert for the Scelbi-8B is fascinating - I never knew that being able to send morse code was such a killer app.
That opening riff on the suicide game was totally the first few notes of "Another One Bites The Dust,"
Yup. They enjoyed the theme too much haha
I had one of these as a kid from 1983-1986. The external chicklet keyboard was very difficult to type on. I had the external 5.25” disk drive and the 40 column thermal printer. The lack of software meant that I was forced to do a lot of BASIC programming to enjoy the machine. It was a huge step up in 1986 to an IBM PC XT and then on to Amiga 500 in 1989.
Nice! So you guys were never aware of the TK2000 and its software library I guess then. So weird that Microdigital cloned a machine with so little going for it.
CRC electronics cleaner might be available in CA. Check auto parts stores.
Deoxit just isn’t available in Australia, so I use WD40 brand electrical contact cleaner. Honestly, it works just as well as you’d hope. 👌
Long & McQuade sells Deoxit in Canada. I ordered a can and picked up directly from the shop in Victoria. I remember seeing this computer for sale at a shop back in the 1980s in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island.
That suicide game played "Another One Bites the Dust" when it starts LOL
So tasteful hehe
@19:05 rs232 cable fun. I was authoring BBS software back in mid 1980's and working on VT terminals to VAX/VMS systems, it was always voodoo like this to get things working.
I remember the original Micro Professor so well... I desperately wanted one!!!! I wanted anything with a hex keypad and no BASIC to be honest. But I had some peculiar desperate longing for the Micro Professor.
But, until now, I'd long forgotten the MPF II... thanks for the memory.
The Sewerslide game had Another One Bites the Dust by Queen as its little tune lol
Falcons is a clone of Phoenix - I did a filecrack of it a few years ago.
For a simple solution. I use CRC electrical cleaner. Just make sure to get the can that is plastic safe. They have a contact cleaner. But depending on the version it is not plastic safe. My experience is about the same as using deoxit. Just tons cheaper.
@idahofur I always get confused about contact cleaner vs whatever deoxit is. I had canadian tire contact cleaner but was left with the impression it wouldn't clean ic sockets properly. Not sure why I came to believe that.
@@TechTimeTraveller Different brands and different ic's / sockets / strength of cleaner. A good example is the Apple II plus I cleaned up. The sockets cleaned up nice. The dram chips not that much. So I had to clean those differently.
What an interesting computer. I suspect the first thing anyone who wanted to use this thing seriously would do would be to hack a real keyboard to it, especially since the manufacturer already provided a port to do so. Also I'd imagine the reason why the Brazilian company decided to clone a clone instead of the actual Apple II was probably a workaround for Apple's litigious reputation. I bet they figured if Multitech didn't get sued they could probably get away with it too.
There were already many full Apple II clones in Brazil when the TK2000 came out. Microdigital had focused on Sinclair clones up to that point so their market was the low end. The Microprofessor II allowed a near Apple II clone at a much lower price. It used the new 64Kbit DRAMs, it eliminated a lot of chips by not having the text and low res modes (simulating them in software instead), and it used a Sinclair/TRS-80 style raw keyboard instead of a smart (expensive) one like the Apple II. Later on Microdigital did the TK3000 which was a full Apple //e clone.
@@jecelassumpcaojr890 Awesome. Thanks for the info.
For anyone who might be interested, there's a long review of this machine and its peripherals in the 1984 Benchtest Special edition of Personal Computer World magazine. I only know because I have my old print copy on the shelf still..! Maybe it's online now somewhere?
Many thanks! Going to look for it!
@@TechTimeTravellerif you can't find it, give me a shout and I'll see if I can scan the pages well enough for you.
Any luck finding the article? I would love a copy
@@chrislauf2643 I had a look and found all the regular editions of PCW but not the benchtest special. I'll pull out my print copy and see what I can do. I lack a flatbed scanner, so it'll be photos of just the one article.
A nice way to kick off the week.
CRC QD Contact Cleaner basically the same stuff, sold at almost every hardware / home store at half the price
Today a Multitech is a collectible. But at the time, expansion slots were an important feature of the Apple II. The grey market Taiwanese clones were blatant Apple knock offs. They were available for as little as $500. There was a tremendous amount of cracked software too.
I had an MPF III and absolutely loved it. I modded the crap out of that thing, upgraded ROMS, put in a 65c02 in it. build a 128k RAM disc for it. It's still at my Mum's house, I will have to collect it one day and see if I can get it back up and running.
@@ThecrackpotdadPlus Nice! Did they improve on compatibility at all? I saw one for sale recently but didn't jump on it as the seller was asking quite a bit.
@@TechTimeTraveller Oh! I still have my MPFIII, and it works perfectly. It is from 1984, and I used it during the first years of the University while I was studying Electronics Engineering. I really love that computer!
@@TechTimeTraveller Oh yeah, the MPF III was very compatible with the Apple //e, there were some easy hacks that could make it compatible with the //e+ (with mouse text etc.
It was great, I really loved it. I am definitely going to go get mine from my Mum's.
Wow, Luis Nakanishi wrote Karateka. Who knew? Seriously though, I was always a bit disgruntled as an Apple //c owner that it couldn't run Karateka. (I think it must have made use of undocumented opcodes which were removed in the 65C02.)
I'm amazed that the users groups of the time didn't mention these, a lot of us C64 users would have loved a $400 Apple II to hack. The Brasil devices would have been great bootleg imports too ;) In Fort Wayne Indiana, I did manage to lay my hands on a Sinclair ZX81 imported from UK, would have been cool to get cheap Apple clone that was so small.
Growing up in the early 80s the only places I ever saw Apple II's were in classrooms or teacher's houses. I guess they were just so much more expensive than Commodore etc, which I saw a lot of. I suppose folks wouldn't have minded getting their hands on a cheap variant, even if it required some hacking for true compatibility.
the whole rx tx thing is often a PITA. i have a monitor that swaps them around. i think it's because it could be interpreted as one side's send will go to the other side's receive or alternatively that master system controls both send and receive lines and they run straight across
This reminds me a lot of the US Timex-Sinclair machines. Probably far more sophisticated than those.
Almost bought one of those TK-2000 clones, but I'm still looking for the Apple II clone I had back in the day. Still, they look kinda nifty in that Atari 'inspired' case ;)
Looks like they were hoping for more third party support or enough initial sales to fund more software or peripheral development. Thanks for the exploration!
Is memory mapping dictated by board layout or ROM? If ROM or a simple bodge wire mod got the memory map to match the Apple II then maybe they were just more subtle than other clones in their "wink wink nudge nudge" to dealers who loaded them up with Apple ROMs to avoid the fruit company lawyers? Just speculation though, seems like it would be part of the oral history of these machines if that were so.
If you're not aware, there are a ton of usb-c to 3.5" jack adapters that way you don't have to use those crappy tablets. Apple themselves make the best one by far, it was like $20 cad last time I looked.
Great video!
Perhaps a weird request:
I have one of these, but no accessories, including no PSU.
If you have the time when making the next video or so, I would appreciate it if you measure and include the PSU pinout.
(Of course I could just tone out at least +5V and GND, and probably additional pins to the expansion connector, but as it took you four years to buy some Deoxit, you might not be that surprised to hear that I bought my MPF-II before 2020 and haven't taken the time to figure this out :) )
Btw the MPF-II figured in various 1983-home-computer-boom-era magazines in Sweden but I never heard of anyone owning one, until vintage computing really became a thing not that long ago.
Re the magazines in Sweden: I hope this comment survives the yt algo, but: search the net for "Stonans scanningsprojekt" and you will likely find a page with a bunch of magazines scanned. All in Swedish so likely not much use for most of the world, but still.
Many thanks! I can do that for you. I'm terrible with stuff I buy lately... I have several machines I bought years ago but never got around to playing with just due to 'ah.. I gotta connect some wires' hehe
An impressive dive into obscurity! And to think that someone took the trouble to clone a not very compatible clone...
11:45 USB-C to 3.5mm audio adapters work well, with my new-ish Samsung & "old faithful" earphones at least
I use a old Data IO 29A to write those chips. I haven’t found a modern programmer that handles them.
Untested is how I buy lots of stuff. It mostly means “needs a new RIFA” in my world.
If you didn't find a non-Amazon source for Deoxit products, I can recommend RP Electronics in Burnaby, BC. When I last needed some D5 spray, the only listings on Amazon Canada were two cans for about $90 plus import fees, plus exorbitant shipping vs about $25 a can and reasonable shipping costs from RP.
@@reidster87 Thank-you for highlighting a Canadian vendor!
Thanks muchly! I just discovered those guys for some other gear.. didn't clue in. Apparently Tom Lee Music in North Vancouver also sells it? Just found that out today.
7:00 Do you think customs will have a problem with me sending s 55 Gallon Drun of D100 from the US? 😅
I'm pretty sure the D100 is concentrated. I prefer D5L. It's cheaper and you don't have to worry so much about wasting it. See Deoxit D5L-4A solution.
Neat! Thanks for showing this off... I never heard of this Apple clone before.
Given all these games worked, it seems the compatibility isn't /terrible/.
I'm hoping someone with better programming skills than I can figure out how to transplant the compatiboot thing to make other apple II software work.. if it's even possible..
@@TechTimeTraveller I'm confused by you mentioning it uses a different memory map, yet these games run. I guess it could be subtly different.
the way a 3.5mm headphone jack switches is that there's a switch inside the jack, so when you plug a cable in there the device knows to turn off the built in speaker and route the audio out through there. It's not detecting the receiving end.
hahahaha *head gets cut off* "is that a no?"
From what research I’ve done, compatiboot seems to be a fast loader for apple II software. It might also do some on-the-fly patching for not-fully-compatible machines (i.e., the MPF II, Pravetz, etc.), but I’m not finding any info that supports this
I'd love to learn how to patch software for this thing. I was hoping it'd be something simpleish like adding a bootloader but I guess it's a bit more involved. Would love to port Carmen Sandiego to this thing, which was my first exposure to the Apple II way back when.
(Edit for easier reading. Blame combination of being in a rush and having just woke up)
Interesting, had a talk with some people the other month, at a local retro gaming/computing expo, who were into similar little machines from the UK. I actually had one of these machines myself, but only for a brief time, back during my senior high school days. One of the shop teachers wanted to get rid of one and 'donated' the machine to me. From what I gathered, it was being used as some kind of 'teaching to program' type of thing at the school before my time.
I think the "Suicide" game played "Another One Bites The Dust"... 😅
It did, and it seems like if they are going to do that, "Don't Try Suicide" would have been more appropriate.
One common pitfall with serial connections is they have two main uses and aren't usually labelled as to which they are intended for. The first type is for connecting simple peripherals and have straight through pin to pin connections. The second type is for use as a DTE-DTE communications link, which doesn't need a modem, and so includes an in-built 'null modem' crossing of the Tx/Rx lines.
Links that use (a pair of) modems actually use the simple straight through DTE-DCE cable at each end since the modems automatically swap Tx/Rx as a function of the connection protocol.
If you need the breakout board set to straight through mode I would guess you are only using it as a gender changer to enable you to connect the two cables, one of which has the null modem crossover. Either that or you needed a straight through connection and both cables are cross over types so you needed the breakout board to cancel the built in crossover when using them singly.
The weird thing is.. if I just removed the breakout box and connected those same two cabled together.. they don't work. Even though the breakout box is just passing everything through unchanged.
@@TechTimeTraveller That IS weird. I would suspect dodgy connectors. Possibly a loose fitting pin in the corresponding socket that only makes intermittent connection. If the breakout box has larger pins or tighter sockets it could make a more reliable link. I’ve been caught out like that with aerial connectors. Different manufacturers and the plug held the pin perfectly in th centre of the socket without touching the sides. Yet close enough that capacitive coupling allowed enough of a signal to pass through that it appeared to work poorly and led the investigations down many other possible signal degradation possibilities before the actual culprit was tracked down.
Great video as always.
@@bluepenguin2993 Thank you. I got 1 dislike.. the CZcams algorithm... lol
1:58 A punch only topped by what Apple did to eMachines in '99
12:39 That is the case (and keyboard) of an Atari 1200XL
FYI depending on what type of phone you're using they usually sell 3.5mm adapters for the charge port. It's still BS you have to do that, but you can at least still use wired earphones.
@22:30 another one bites the dust!
Are there any hardware mods for the Brazilian machine (and thus MPFII also) documented that can change the hardware addresses to make them fully Apple II compatible? That might be easier in the long run than tracking down compatible software.
There is a software for Android that can force audio output on 3.5mm jack socket. I don't remember its name but I have used it to be able to send APRS packets through my handheld radio (ham radio stuff).
I will check that out. It's weird how one worked but the other didn't.
During my time I have only had one 6502 go bad on me (the C= SX64 floppy CPU).
I've yet to have even one.. heh.. they just seem to last forever.
Inserting-RAM-chip-the-wrong-way-alarm @ 8:10 ;)
Falcons is a great game. Thanks for the review. I've got one of these that's been sitting in a box for 20+ years. At least I now know what I haven't been missing.
Interesting
Never heard of that model
I had a ZX80 back then
If I'm not mistaken, I've seen designs for 25 series to 27 series adapters on OSHpark if the preservation side of you is feeling generous!
Will check out.
So basically you should get a TK-2000 if you actually want to use any of the software for this.
I haven't seen one of those in an age....................
Any idea if people modded them from new to use the apple memory map and swap cloned roms into it, or did they just get used as-made? By the time this came out the c64 was around too and not much more. Hard to imagine intentionally getting a machine with nearly no software and such a bad keyboard when a little higher price would get such a better machine.
@@carpespasm No. You would have to look elsewhere.
In an alternate timeline Apple embraced clones by licensing their ROM and the IBM PC never happened.
it's not so much CRT whine but just some other noise on your microphone. Bad ground connection maybe? There's some hissing.
By any chance do you recall where you heard it? Was it when I was speaking live?
@@TechTimeTraveller right in the start, it gets better
@@TechTimeTraveller It's basically up to that first chapter marker. then your voice keeps going and the odd hissing disappears?
I've had that happen on some wireless mics with an old battery when they get low, I think the voltage drops below the operational parameters and it introduces that gibberish digital noise into the signal.
Ah now I hear it. Wth.. that's my Yeti mic.. my 'good' one. And that whole segment was recorded in one go. I wonder if I goofed when applying noise reduction.
Sound has always bedeviled me. I've had to fight with every mic I've ever used. I'm finding Blue products generally aren't that good.
I love deoxit but that price is insane.
Like number 400 here!
Untested= badly broken stripped for parts!, lol
Was there a specific reason you chose not to wash the PCB off with soap and water after applying the DeOxit? This is the method I've always seen after use to remove the excess/goo and additionally cleans the boards up...
I did consider doing it but wasn't clear from the bottle if you needed or wanted to do that with d100. First time using it.
@@TechTimeTraveller I was always under the impression that washing boards with soap and water is fine for most with the caveats being you gotta get all the soap off and dry the boards completely
It's call -151, not 159 but this "compatible " is so weird it may be different
Manual says -159.. but I did try -151 off cam in case. Neither worked. But it can 'fall' into the monitor if something crashes and various machine language instructions seem to work. Really weird.
Will silicon spray act as a deoxant?
Radio cleaner is not a bad way to go if you can find it…
engagement
the breakout needing to be there even though it's not doing anything wtf lmao
java in general is the jankiest thing ever. older versions of minecraft are particularly sensitive to what java version you use. often resulting in issues properly scalling the game in fullscreen mode.
I remember when Java first rolled out.. and I needed to learn it or I wouldn't be able to operate my internet-enabled fridge, or something. Was the biggest thing when it arrived.
Now that is a clone we need to be made.
“Pro”cessor ,LOL lol
Canada kind of straddles the US and UK language wise. Zee, Zed, PRO-cessor, PRAW-cessor.. it gets confusing after a while!
Nope, that's an Atari 1200XL case (with modifications).
I'm from the UK this looks a cheap computer from 1982/83
I really don't know why anyone would buy something like this unless they had it as a kid or something. It has no redeeming features. It wasn't the first at anything. It was just a very poorly executed clone vastly inferior to what it is trying to copy.
The comparisons with the Apple II, price wise is just not applicable. Given its release date of 1982, a C64 is like a year away from being 1/2 the price as thing thing.
Furthermore, not only is the unit incompatible with the A2, it lacks the main redeeming feature of the A2, which is the expansion bus. The A2 out of the box is crap. It is the expansion bus that turns the A2 from crap to great. Want to run CP/M on an A2, slap in a CP/M card. Want a sound synthesizer, plug one in. Want 80 columns, plug an 80 column card. More RAM? Plug it in etc etc etc.
Because it's a weird old microcomputer
CRT noises came through your microphone with the voice over, sadly my ears aren't able to bear with this. Sorry. :\
Apologies. I did apply a filter to try and cut it out but I'm too old to hear it.
@@TechTimeTraveller It's fine! I left the video playing in background with muted tab, at least to give some ad revenue if anything. ^^;
wow its a pc sir
HAHAHA! Hipsters and their overpriced macs.