We Found a 2nd Centurion OS!
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- čas přidán 17. 07. 2024
- A couple of weeks back, we swung by Butler Tech in Cincinnati to visit Mr. Hall, who heads the IT department there. In his department is a rare Centurion Desk System, and Mr. Hall actually let us bring the full card cage and one of the platters home, here to Texas, to back up. So, let’s get to doing that today! And of course, once it’s all safely backed up, let’s take a peek at what’s hiding out in the code.
For more on Butler Tech, check the link here:
www.butlertech.org/
Here's the Arduino code for the ROM reader:
github.com/Nakazoto/Centurion...
Centurion Wiki:
github.com/Nakazoto/Centurion...
If you want to support the channel please hop over to Patreon:
/ usagielectric
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Intro Music adapted from:
Artist: The Runaway Five
Title: The Shinra Shuffle
ocremix.org/remix/OCR01847
Thanks for watching!
Chapters
0:00 The Game Plan
4:09 Dumping the ROMs
5:04 Prepping the platter and drive
7:02 Testing and dumping the platter
12:12 Let’s try to boot this bad boy
15:26 Testing the CPU5 hardware
17:46 Booting the OS with the CPU5 hardware
19:54 Fixing the bootstrap ROM
21:23 Testing the bootstrap ROM and backplane
22:53 Testing the bootstrap ROM and backplane… again
25:03 Thank you Mr. Hall!
26:23 Donkusa-sue - Věda a technologie
I think you have earned the title of Digital Archeologist!
Spot on. Looking at computer files with dates from 1976 onwards is unreal. I was only 2 years old then! 🤯
Thank you!
I'm having a blast bringing these old machines up and saving the data!
Digital Necromage casting +2 resurrection. Very nice :) Looking forward to more pdp-11 adventures to compare with mine.
I would say he's a pretty well-established computer archaeologist by now!
@@LongSteve Think that I was born in 1990 and enjoying the content
18:56 "There is one file that is quite interesting"
* Points to "Girl82" *
Oh no, is this what I think it is?
"It's this one right here, KING"
That's also interesting.
When I saw the scratched platter of the Hawk Drive so many episodes ago, I thought: "Well that's it. An ancient system has ceased to work." Little did I expect, how far you and your growing communtity would explore, repair and understand things! This episode is an epic show of the capabilities you have gained together, you swap around cards and enter commands as if you had been a centurion service technician back in the day. And I have the feeling, that I got at least the concept of how careful but confident I would have to gor forward, if I finally spun up one of our old Pc's.
Timeless lessons in analysis and trouble shooting that apply across disciplines.
To be totally honest, when I saw that too, I thought the exact same thing. I'm constantly amazed at what the community has managed to extract out of this system. It's been an absolutely wild ride and there's lots more exciting and interesting stuff to come on the machine!
This old CPU5 OPSYS did not support file libraries / sub-directory. The idea of file libraries / sub-directory was a new feature in very late CPU5 OPSYS and all the CPU6 OPSYS systems.
Must be fascinating to see these ancient systems you worked on being brought back to life!
Same thing with MS-DOS 1.x vs 2.x.
@@stonent Exactly what I was thinking. For the early OS's sub-directories were a very novel concept. Even those that came later like IBM's mainframe VM/CMS which did not support them. At least in the 80's. Haven't used it since, so don't know if it does even now.
@@stonent Right we got an IBM PC XT in with a 10 MB hard drive which had MS-DOS 1.0 and it's really fun considering filenames were limited to 8.3
I think this version of OpSys is somewhere in the middle. It does have some libraries, like the GL library, but I sure can't figure out how to access them! I'll have to get you on the horn one of these days and really pick your brain on the CPU5 OpSys!
Mind your head on the ceiling when you jump up and down with excitement!
I love how excited he gets over this stuff. He is like a little kid who just had the best Christmas ever! His enthusiasm keeps me coming back!
Keep up the good work!
I get the same way when exploring old computers
Thank you so much!
I had no clue what was on that platter and it was really epic to stumble across a 2nd complete OS!
It reminds me how excited I was trying to figure how this stuff worked in grade school. Cell phones are boring.
Oh you do. Back in the 90s me and my Dad got an old PDP8 up and running again after sitting in a warehouse rotting for like 15 years, and man I when we finally got it spun up and running again, I was hollering, it was a great feeling.
@@shayneoneill1506 You should go read Tracy Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine.
It is great to see you SO GEEKED when DOS 5 comes up! Congratulations to you and the students of Butler!
I wonder if it's possible to 3D print shells for new air filters for the Hawk Drives, then cut foam to fill them, i.e. to create new air filters for the drives?
Thank you so much! It was awesome seeing it all work as well as it did!
@@PCFixer Totally possible, but it can't be foam, it has to be proper HEPA air filter material. But eventually, that will be something I'm going to have to tackle!
@@UsagiElectric Of course, pardon me, I was thinking about the foam stuff they use for lawnmower air filters, ha-ha--but for the Hawk, that just is NOT GOOD ENOUGH!
Very Interesting. As a fellow geek, I really enjoy seeing you jump up and down when you get stuff to work. It's amazing to see how these storage devices still hold their data after 10s of years. Spin on crash free my friend !!
Thank you!
I was super excited to come across another OS copy. With the right care, most of these old machines will run for another 40 years!
@@UsagiElectric May the Hawk always fly, may the Heads RTZ and may it never crash. Though, if it ever does, between you, Ken, and the Community, someone out there will flat out manufacture new heads to get it working again!
The look on your face and the bouncing around actually brought a tear to my eye. I have been watching CZcams stuff for a loooong time and that part of this video has to be one of the best things I have ever seen.
Hopping like a wrabbit.
Thank you so much!
When I say it out loud, it sounds silly to be that excited over some 40 year old data, but I can't help it, it was so awesome!
I don’t know which is more fun. Watching this equipment working or your reaction to it working. This is so much fun.
To top it off, the cat at the very end, a ending we did not deserve, but appreciated.
He will have to change the channel name to Neko Electric now.
Epic! First file to open is GIRL82!! I recall that KING game - had it on a CTL Mod One in 1975 where it was called HAMURABI!
ascii pr0n
as soon as he read the intro for King i was saying to myself that's Hamurabi
Let me guess, some 'tasteful' ASCII art?
Yes we must investigate for science or something.
That file took my intrigue so much I didn't even notice KING listed immediately afterwards.
It's so cool to see files on a disk that were created in 1976!
It was awesome to see so many cool files from the early history of both this system and the company. The oldest file on the platter is from 05/07/1974!
@@UsagiElectric Good lord that's amazing!
@@UsagiElectric That file will turn 50 almost exactly a year from now!
@@senilyDeluxe Like a Rolling Stone 😃👄🎸
Not Old enuff to have been around with this, but as an 80/90s Nerd...
This has been a Killer Story Brotha!
You literally jumping in excitement at seeing another operating system is _totally relatable_ and _absolutely adorable_ in the best way possible. I love this!
Wouldn't be adorable if you had to work around someone like this all day. LOL!
Awesome find! So great to see another centurion come to life. Job well done David!
That's fantastic. As you were jumping up and down, I was clapping with joy to see it boot.
Never loose your enthusiasm. 👍
That game, King, sounds like a clone of the classic Hammurabi, written back in 1968 by someone at DEC and then converted to BASIC by David Ahl in the 1970s.
Seeing our boy jump for joy at the discovery of the OS, was an absolute delight!! Easily my favourite part of the video.
I LOVE the Centurion series of videos! I'm working on designing a 65816-based "minicomputer" right now (trying to use every pin on the 65816 for its intended purpose, including multiprocessing, DMA, vector pull rewrite) and so this 1970s vibe is music to my ears and very thought provoking as I work on my own completely pointless project.
Man that was amazing! Computer archeology at its best, hope you can get your hands on Vintage Geek's microplus soon!
I only understand maybe 10-15% of the technical parts, but 125% of your enthusiasm comes through. Great video.
I would add a toggle switch to disable/enable the heads. Instead of partially disassemble the hawk drive to get at the plug. You seem to enable/disable the heads fairly often, so a switch makes sense to me.
Very sensible, make sure it has an indicator so you don’t accidentally try and boot when you meant spin.
18:59 -- errr, no, man... This *isn't* the "quite interesting" file we were all hoping for and expecting you to open. :P
You were *almost* there. ;]
.
Jumping around the room. Good work 👍
so cool, a new Cenurion OS find. Love to see your excitement while trying to read the platter. hoping for something good! congrat, and thanks to mr. hall who trusted you enough to lend you the platter, to try to read and copy it! - nizchka
I've never seen you as excited as you are in this video, congrats on managing to do all this smoothly! Never expected a game to be on a minicomputer.
I am super impressed by your dedication to documenting this machine on youtube. Can't be many people on the planet who would put 100s of hours into this Centurion mini.
OH MY GOD!
I really hope students will have the opportunity to learn with it!!!!
This is an amazing delve into a computer system that I wasn't aware of. It's brilliant that you are saving this old data and hardware.
I hadn't heard of this system before, but it was exciting to see you get it to boot up and how you troubleshot the system... I think your enthusiasm about the machine and getting this archaic OS was contagious that I immediately subscribed! I certainly understand that emotion when you finally see something technical to come to life like that. Congrats on doing so and I hope to learn more about this system in future videos. Thanks a bunch for making this video!
Great work! Only you could do this stuff, thanks for preserving these wonderful systems!
Epic job David! I enjoy the Centurion story very much and it's wonderful to see how much knowledge about it you have learned over time.
There are two guys at my office that sound and act EXACTLY like this guy. They yell, laugh loudly and jump around all day like this guy. They program low level hardware. It is great to see this enthusiasm on a channel like this...but imagine trying to get work done with all that going on just over the next cube wall.
I thought I'd posted here the last time I watched this, but maybe not? Anyhow, you have a gift when it comes to minicomputers, and electronics in general. Your enthusiasm for this stuff is boundless and contagious. I know the folks at Butler Tech will be thoroughly jazzed to get a working system back from this exercise. So very well done!
I genuinely have no idea whats going on but I am completely hooked. I'm punching the air every time the chap shouts success. What a totally fun ( and I am sure for the right people informative) video- really well done, keep it up
Really nice work that you are able to do with the Centurion. I do believe this qualifies you as a Centurion Maestro. It's great to see the progress and these successes, and I can speak for everyone when I say we share your excitement!
After all ur efforts it is really nice to see u so happy...good luck for ur futur project
That's fantastic. As you were jumping up and down, I was clapping with joy to see it boot.
I get excited as well seeing you so happy to see the results on the screen! Good job
I absolutely love this channel. So much care and joy go in and come out of every episode, it's a great experience to get to observe. Keep killing it dude, and I'm psyched for the kids who will get to see a real working centurion! 12 out of 10!
I love how passionate you are about that system! It was a lot of fun seeing you disgnose and test the system.
Your enthusiasm is very contagious. I'm too old to have used minicomputers, and only really remember them from the background of various 70s tv shows (e.g. Rudy chatting with Oscar Goldman in front of some beast of a machine), but I always get genuine vicarious nostalgia vibes from this channel with all your gasping and leaping about.
I really enjoy your videos. Thanks for bringing these systems back into the light!
18:28 This enthusiasm and joy for getting things to work, and the process used to get there is what I enjoy about this channel. Well Done!
Always love how excite Usagi David gets when he breathes new life into old kit… did wonder at one point if he might hit his bonce on the ceiling of his new lab whilst jumping for joy! 😊
Great to see more old computing kit revived - and with -relatively- little TLC needed. Fantastic work, David & his helpers.
This is truly amazing. I'm so happy for you for getting this system up and running.
Your enjoing is ABSOLUTELY fascinating for me.... As usual, AWESOME work, compliments !!!!
Fantastic work!! So glad you got that 2nd OS and the computer up and running. Thanks for sharing the fun!
Your work is amazing and I eagerly await each episode in the Centurion series.
For your next step in learning to program in C, you might want to master the use of arrays. They'll make your ROM-dumping adventures (and other low-level work) so much easier.
It's so co how excited you get when things work. Loving the enthusiasm.
*cool
Awesome work! Great to see even more Centurion stuff preserved and running.
I love your genuine excitement and joy for vintage tech!
Fascinating and it's really great t0 see a genuine enthusiast at work! Well done!
Your enthusiasm is contagious, cool vid!
Like tuning in and catching these updates! I was getting my kids to program on the famicom a while back. My tape drive wasn't working so I was setting up so I could record and save to my phone the bg files etc. but it wasn't working so good, but I did get it to work with my laptop. I recently picked up a Yamaha MD8 and it works!
Great work. It's neat how you can use your working system now to test out boards and discs from other sources.
So in 1 year we've gone from 0 known working Centurions, to at least 3 (possibly a 4th with the Micro one, fingers crossed that one fires up and works).
Watching your excitement accessing the data for the first time is great!
Fantastic work. Congrats!
Your passion warms my heart
Awesome video, love watching it all the way.
I love it how he jumped ecstatically when his hunch totally worked and the Centurion just booted.
I applaud all of you who are saving, documenting and archiving all these obscure and obsolete computers and software!
We are quick to throw away old hardware when new and better options become available and we see zero value in saving anything...
Later when we start regretting that we didn't keep anything from the past we soon realise that there's nothing left?!
I could never afford a new computer when I started programming in 1981, and I didn't have my own computer until the late 80's, so I relied on borrowing old and obsolete computers until I got my first one, thus why I didn't care at all about these older computers when I got my hand on a new one. I remember throwing four fully working Commodore PET's in the garbage because they were useless - something I regret today. I regret throwing away my two SUN Sparcstations as well, as do I with many Motorola and Intel CPU's.
I have however saved many Amigas from the landfills by repairing the pcb's from leaky batteries and restoring them to fully working, as a sort of contribution to saving some important computers for the future generations, but my dream of owning a IMSAI 8080 and a Unibus PDP-11 with a cool front panel like the PDP-11/20 or /70 but the few running ones, even those repairable, have become so expensive that I just can't afford one just because the vast majority of them are in landfills today...
Thank you for this interesting trip to save the Centurion! (which later became Centurions ;) )
I'd never heard of Centurion before you made your first video, as I suspect most viewers hadn't, and now it's archived for the future!
The computer has evolved so fast compared to almost everything else, hence why museums etc never saw the need to save the past ones because it's always too late even before you start thinking about saving one, and that we should do something about!
Mate, the look on your face when it booted 😁 I’m sat outside on a balmy summer’s evening in the uk and I did an air punch. This is why I love this channel.
Love the rom reader! Thanks for sharing! love your content.
Butler Tech sounds like an awesome place! So cool that they still had one of the old Centurion systems.
Love your enthusiasm!!!! Fantastic video
Epic video! Keep up the good work, you're doing a fantstic job. I'm proud to be a patreon supporter of yours!
I love your enthusiasm. I get just like that when I manage to boot weird SBC boards.
15:10 - "I don't know what to do next!"
Me: Yea, because it worked out of the gate. I mean, normally you'd embark on a multi-episode Odyssey of recovery, but here you are with working software.
Happy to see those enthusiastic reactions when stuff gets booted up!
Sidenote though: whenever I want to watch some vintage films, I go straight into the DPMENU to choose from.
ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!!! THANK YOU AND YOUR COMMUNITY! 💯👍🎉🎉🎉😁
That’s really something else. I’m working on restoring some hardware, programs and files from early 80s and I’m hoping for a joyous moment like you’ve found here.
Man, finding games on those old machines is such a treat. :) Excellent work!
This was a nice happy episode
Awesome, so happy for you, Mr Hall and Butler Tech.
The enthusiasm in this video is amazing! 😊
It's interesting to see troubleshooting episodes. It's also refreshing to see an episode where all the hardware and software cooperate, and everything works first try.
This reminds me of my first steps into the IT business back in te early 70's, throwing colored jumper cables at mixers, sorting machines, then writing my first programs, punching the cards, lots of cards, even more cards. some programs had 3 to 4 boxes of punched cards to be read in just before the real data followed. oh, those were the times when we were young! by the way, I have never seen this type of machine before - I started on IBM's 360s with 48K of memory..., even had (for a relatively short time) a Honeywell-Bull 61-40 at home - a full room of hardware weighing 2000lbs and heating it with 3KW power consumption. But my wife learned Cobol on this monster...
I cannot give enough thumbs up here. This is really awesome and I can understand your emotions. I wish i could bring back the same feelings I had on my Ericsson 230 way back when in 1983.
Another fantastic video. Your repairs, as usual, are amazing. I'm sure you've already seen it, but I wanted to point out the Hakko desolder guns. I have an FR-301 and it's an absolute dream for desoldering DIPs. It's very fast, so less thermal stress on the chips, and less stress on me. It removes virtually all the solder. Often, when it's done, the chip falls out without having to break the pins free. As often as your changing out DIPs, I thought you might benefit.
15:10 That feeling and enjoyment is just pure gold. So pure about something small, but still a big thing. That joy is like from childhood of getting something great.
Massive congratulations dude! I can't believe you've rescued another Centurion!
Your giddiness when you finally loaded the OS was contagious. I started hopping in my chair and I barely knew what I was cheering about lol
Thank you for doing this. Love it.
I love your channel! You should not underestimate your importance to history - you are a bridge from the generation who built and used those systems to today's enthusiasts who think that Apple is the pinnacle of technology and the end all. Just like there are those who knew and worked on early automobiles and who knew that EV's existed way before Tesla built their expensive golf carts, you are bringing this old technology to life and showing the origins of technology. You are indeed a digital archeologist as mamulcahy noted several days ago. Please keep up the great work and keep on bringing that old technology to life. As someone who loves vintage things (especially cars), this makes me almost giddy when I see how excited you are when you get something to work. I call moments like you exhibit "Geek Super Bowl Victories"!
Very cool! You're a digital archeologist!! Love watching these videos.
love the enthusiasm dude
After so many episodes of trial and mostly error, It's so refreshing to see things just work for once! I don't ever think I've seen a man jump for joy like you did. Congrats :D
You are doing so much to save a piece of history! Very cool!
The pure joy on your face when the OS boots the 1st time is awesome. Very cool stuff.
This is bar none - the best video I have seen in the longest time. Hard subscribe.
Diggin' through nearly 50 year old data must be so damn exciting! Thank you so much for sharing this journey!
When I was in grade school (didn't go to high school) someone donated an old TRS-80 Xenix system with 4 terminals and I got it running. Couldn't do much with it then but it would be a fun learning tool now. Was lost to time. Thought you were going to hit the ceiling when you were jumping around.
That was an epic day! So glad that it was brought back to life. 🙂👍
They really did build those things back in the day. Around that time in the early 80's I was working on a Data General Nova 4 system paired with 300 MB Control Data hard drives of the platter variety. 14 platters as I recall, and yes, they were removable. There was a company out of Pittsburgh called Randomex that would come around and inspect the disk platters and wash them periodically. Now I have more power in the palm of my hand. Thanks for the nostalgia trip. :)
I've seen a Centurion desk with drive on right and regular drawers on left so it was wider but otherwise the same as the schools. I first saw it in 2000 when it still had its roughly +200 lbs power supply on the lower back of desk. The original owner shared that they got it in 1979, however in early 90s the drive pack was installed and turned on without following procedures which cause a drive crashed and nothing was salvageable. They only kept the desk part because they couldn't get it through the stairs without disassembly, but felt it worked fine as a desk leaving it in place with a Win 3.0 and later a Win95 PC sitting on the desk. A few years later I noticed they removed during an office remodeling, always wondered about Centurion ever since.
Wow, It is amazing that you gave us the demonstration, but, I am not going into any computer dated back 40 years ago. I can't believe that the plastic cover for Hawk Drive are the same as 42 years ago without "Yellowing". I guess you and I are at the same age..😄😁😆 I remember the computer at Dallas Public Library back in 1982 and I entered as " LSCAN" in order for me to search the books instead of card catalogs.
Your exuberance is contagious. I wish we could do the same thing with my
Technical Design Labs - Xitan (S-100 bus) computer..
I found a pa ge that has a PDF of the ZPU card and a KiCad footprint of a general purpose card.
The circuit diagram was barely readable and has a missing gap in the middle with some lines that goto nowhere..
From his KiCad GP card, I was able to make a blank card footprint,
that I can use to make ANY S-100 bus card you could dream up.
I do not have any software for the Xitan, but the PDF did have some assembly on it..
My wild idea thought, since I have a KiCad blank card footprint. to make a S-100 bus version of the C-64 and run Hesmon on the Xitan to look at the entire Z-80 memory.
Other ideas were to make a completely modern retro computer.
ARM processor
i2c, USB, HPIB, CAN Bus, M.2 SSD, uSD, Wi-Fi, plus anything else you could dream up that didn't exist in 1979..
If this is doable, might have to scrap the original S-100 architecture and repurpose all of the pins on the bus. or give the bus a multi-mode pin..
Let me know what you think..
Off the rails question (as usual)
The Centurion terminal with heavy burn-in CRT. How about establishing an inquiry into finding a replacement CRT? Original part of course. They were originally bought from one of the CRT-manufactorers. You could be in luck and get new old stock.
It doesn't seem incredibly impossible.
Just wondered......
Anyway. Cheers and congratulations. What a thrill and a joy to watch.