March 14, 2025 • 60 mins
Guest: Leo Binkowski, software developer and programmer
First broadcast March 14 2025. Transcript at https://hdl.handle.net/1853/77457
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
(00:01):
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ADRIAN BLACK (00:02):
Well, hello, everyone,
and welcome back toAdrian's Digital Basement.
On today's video, we'regoing to take a look
at what's in this box here.
It's the NABU, Ithink I'm saying
that right, PersonalComputer, made
by NABU ManufacturingCorporation out of Ottawa,
Canada.
It was a bit of an unknownpersonal computer that
(00:23):
was very short lived and ithad some very interesting
characteristics about it.
Very recently, a sellerput a whole bunch
of these up for sale,brand new in box.
So I purchased one.
And let's take a lookat this thing together.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:00):
You are listening to WREK Atlanta
and this is Lost in theStacks, the research library
rock and roll radio show.
I'm Charlie Bennett in thestudio with Cody Turner
and Marlee Givens.
And I'm on the board andit's not really the board.
It's more like a laptopplugged into a thing.
So I'm just freaking out.
But not too much.
Each week on Lost in theStacks, we pick a theme
and then use it to create amix of music and library talk.
(01:23):
Whichever you're herefor, we hope you dig it.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:26):
Our show today is called Retro Tech in Action.
We hope it's the first ina new occasional series.
CODY TURNER (01:32):
Yeah.
Retro Tech is a service atthe Georgia Tech Library,
supporting research intoour technological past
so that we cancreate the future.
You may have heard ofDylan Henry, the Retro Tech
Manager on our showrecently, and he brought us
the topic for today's show.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:46):
So here's a brief summary
of the technological past thatwe're talking about today.
In the '80s, a Canadian companylaunched a home computing
venture, the NABU Network.
They also designed amachine to use with the NABU
Network and your television.
It connected the hometelevision cable--
it connected to thehome television cable,
and offered informationand gaming for the home.
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:07):
It was, as all reportage
about it proclaims, theinternet before the internet,
ahead of its time andultimately unsuccessful.
MARLEE GIVENS (02:16):
Thousands of NABU machines
lost most of their purpose andbecame surplus inventory or home
curiosities.
One entrepreneur,James Pellegrini,
acquired over 2,000 of theNABU machines and stored them
in a barn.
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:30):
A barn?
MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah, that's right, (02:31):
undefined
in an old barn inMassachusetts, where
they stayed for years untilthey had to go in 2022,
and they went on eBay.
CODY TURNER (02:40):
Adrian Black, who you heard in the cold open,
bought a NABUmachine and showed it
on his YouTube channel,which was popular enough
to pull in videos from otherfolks with NABU machines,
such as the programmernamed DJ Sures--
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:51):
Sures.
CODY TURNER (02:52):
Sures, who has been trying to get
a machine working himself.
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:55):
He then got the attention of our guest
today, Leo Binkowski, who hadbeen a programmer for NABU back
in the day and stillhad hardware, programs,
and enthusiasm forthe NABU Network.
CODY TURNER (03:06):
Leo helped DJ boot up a NABU machine for real,
giving the NABUnetwork a new life
as a playground for hackers,vintage tech hobbyists,
and NABU enthusiasts.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:14):
And that is retro tech stuff for real.
MARLEE GIVENS (03:18):
Dylan and Charlie spoke
to Leo Binkowski about the NABUrevival from a retro tech angle.
You'll hear some of that today.
But we had far too muchmaterial for one episode,
so you can find the wholeconversation on our podcast feed
as a bonus episode next week.
Our songs today areabout supporting
each other,communities connecting,
(03:39):
and extraordinary machines.
A retro tech show,of course, means
some reflecting on the past.
Those reflections caninform our present,
but they can also reveal regretsabout what happened or never
did.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:51):
Oh boy.
MARLEE GIVENS (03:52):
So let's start with "Regret" by Saint Vincent,
right here on Lostin the Stacks.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:57):
I hope the song is at least upbeat.
[ST. VINCENT, "REGRET"]Morning by the--
MARLEE GIVENS (04:07):
That was regret by Saint Vincent
and this is Lost in the Stacks.
Our show today is calledRetro Tech in Action.
It features an interviewwith Leo Binkowsk,
a programmer who worked onthe original NABU network.
He is a key playerin the NABU revival.
Dillon Henry andCharlie spoke with Leo,
and will let himintroduce himself.
LEO BINKOWSKI: I'm Leo Binkowski. (04:29):
undefined
I used to work for a companyin Ottawa called NABU Network.
And what's kind of cool isthat I started literally right
out of high school.
So I had no idea whatmy professional life was
going to look like right at whenI was coming out of high school
and starting right intodoing video games full time.
Well, actually not full time.
I started part time, buteventually became full time.
(04:50):
OK, let's talk about NABU--
what NABU stands for.
It got retconned,the name, which
was natural access tobidirectional utilities.
But the name, first ofall, was very simple.
But it also turns outthere's a Greek God
of messaging, which is whatwe were trying to latch into.
The president at thetime, John Kelly,
was the one who picked the name.
And that's wherethey got that name.
(05:12):
And if you've seen the logo,it has these lines in it.
So that was part ofit, was linking it
to a TV, the Scan lines of a TV.
That's how the logo worked.
The NABU computer was an attemptto make an entertainment unit
for the home that wasa lot smarter than what
was available at the time.
At the time, we weren'tinterested in actually
calling it a home computer.
(05:33):
We called that afterwards whenthe IBM-- when IBM PC came out,
then we called it theNABU Personal Computer.
But at the time, wejust called it the NABU.
The idea was to make anentertainment device that
would be used with yourTV and your cable package
to give you a lot moreinformation, some education,
and entertainment inthe form of video games.
(05:54):
The bidirectionalpart was something
that we never got installed wayback when, mostly because cable
companies weren'tequipped for it.
Until the cable companiesstarted investing in internet--
they didn't upgrade.
They were onlydesigned for broadcast.
And in many cases, theywere designed for broadcast
in a very horrible way.
Even cable at the timehad terrible ghosting
(06:16):
and interference at that time.
And it was because they didtheir layouts and their cabling
very badly.
And there was alot of interference
introduced by notscrewing things in tightly
and that kind of stuff.
So we had to livein that environment.
But the long-term goalwas to be bidirectional,
was to be literallythe internet.
CHARLIE BENNETT: What did that feel (06:32):
undefined
like when there was thissort of reactivation
of NABU history in 2022?
How did you feel about that andwhat did that make you think?
LEO BINKOWSKI (06:43):
Actually, I thought it was great.
I personally had triedto revive it a few times.
The problem is that I'm notreally good with hardware.
The hardware is oldand that kind of stuff,
but I had what amounted to bea completely unassembled jigsaw
puzzle and I didn't exactlyknow how to put it together.
I had literally allthe pieces that--
I could have recoveredit, but it was actually
the impetus of otherpeople that got interested
(07:03):
that made me want tobother recovering it.
And the reason why is thatwhen I started doing it,
I realized that in Ottawa, wehad maybe 15,000 customers,
so there was 15,000 familiesthat would know of it.
Maybe 50,000 people, and otherpeople who knew it through
advertising orthat kind of stuff.
But there was also theAlexandria, Virginia one,
which was probably around10,000 subscribers, maybe less,
(07:25):
maybe eight.
But it was nice to see it,that everybody was interested.
And it came about because thatguy had a whole pile of them.
Those PCs that he hadwere from Tribune Cable
when they shut down inAlexandria, Virginia.
I identified--actually traced them
back to where they came from.
I was saying, where didthese guys come from?
Because there weren'ta lot of floppy drives.
And one of the thingsthat we had was we
(07:45):
had floppy driveswith our system.
And I was going,how come he doesn't
have floppy drives andthat kind of stuff.
But he had adapters,and he had computers,
and that matched withwhat was going on
in Alexandria, Virginia.
What we didn't understand isthe cable companies were very--
they're gatekeepers,just like today.
They have their market.
They have their thingsthat they want to do.
And they want totell you what to do,
(08:06):
not-- they don't want youto come in and run roughshod
over all of their operations.
So that was a big uphillbattle that we had.
DILLON HENRY (08:12):
So I have a question on that,
because it seems like, in a way,that this was ahead of its time,
which you sometimessee with technology.
You would see people introducea touch screen or something,
but it doesn't-- it didn't catchon in the '80s when people first
put it out there.
So do you think thatmaybe this just was
a little bit ahead of its time?
(08:33):
Or why do you-- and why doyou think that it shut down?
Was it just because the cablecompanies seeing it-- or being
gatekeepers, or was there someother limit to the growth?
LEO BINKOWSKI (08:44):
No, that was a limitation, but not
a huge limitation becausewe were going to cable shows
and so on, and therewas a lot of interest.
Because remember,it was the same time
when cable was lookingto expand, in the sense
that pay TV wasappearing about then.
I mean, HBO had already beenaround in the '70s, but it
exploded in the '80s withmany channels at that point,
and MTV and stufflike that was out.
(09:07):
So there was lots.
So it sort of fitinto their plans.
But the incrediblysimple reason was
that we had really, really goodinvestment from a real estate
developer in Canadacalled Robert Campeau.
And he built mostof downtown Ottawa.
And he was reallyinterested in it.
And when his companybasically folded
when the-- in the mid-80s, themortgage rates went super high,
(09:29):
like, next to 20%, and peoplewho were into real estate,
some of them took a bigbath, and he was one.
And it was $1 billion company.
And we had a 30day demand note on.
So as soon as that was called,we had to scramble for 30 days
to try to get somebodyelse invested.
And that's just tooshort amount of time.
What we ended up doingis reforming the company
(09:49):
to a smaller one sothat we could do that,
and we ended up takinganother crack at that,
where we basically were tryingto sell ourselves to RCA.
And it went right upthe pipe, all the way
to the board of directors.
And the CEO said that hedoesn't see it going anywhere.
So that was theend of that story.
And that's just likemost other technology.
The actual technology wenton to become something else.
(10:10):
All we were doing isbroadcasting a sound file
over and over againthat literally
was embedded with data.
So this was very good, forinstance, for-- at the time,
one of the applicationsthat was used
was a company that becamecalled Adaptive Broadband.
But they had an--
International Datacastingwas the original name of it.
And that was when NABUsplit into the technology
company and the consumerservice that was
trying to be made out of it.
So the technology became thingslike beaming weather information
(10:34):
to ocean-going ships becauseit could be done via satellite.
So that was a very easy one.
But the next one becamesending radio programs--
instead of analog, whenit was full of noise and--
sending it digitally.
And that's where thetechnology went with that.
So the technologydidn't die so much
as the consumer service died.
It was interestingfrom my point of view,
(10:56):
is that I always wantedto get back into gaming.
But then I thoughtI should get serious
about my life andthat kind of stuff.
And I started doing things likedatabase and financial software
and all the stuffthat made me money.
So wrapping it all around isthat when I saw this happening,
I said, this is great.
This is fine.
I have all the stuffin my basement.
If I can get other peopleto help me to get it out,
then it'll really happen.
(11:17):
And what the pileof PCs in a barn did
is it created a marketthat I didn't have before.
There was really nopoint in doing it before,
because nobodyever said, oh yeah,
I played with NABU whenI was in grade school.
But really, nobody wouldhave been interested in it.
Now there was peoplethat are actually
interested and actuallypeople willing to help.
(11:39):
So I started with one guy.
I'm sure you've seenthe stuff, DJ Sures.
I noticed his videos and Inoticed he was getting there.
He bought an adapter and hewas trying to make it work.
And he's very, verytechnically adept.
And he managed to get it toboot something from the cycle.
Like, his own program,his own Hello, world.
(12:00):
And I thought, OK.
Well, he's-- so basically,I tried to contact him.
And I found the best means wasLinkedIn because he was there
on LinkedIn.
And I sent him a messagethat was basically--
the message was like,if you link with me,
then I can make all yourNABU dreams come true.
So he didn't believe me,but he linked anyway, just
on the off chance.
And I said, yeah, I canbasically give you--
(12:21):
I can give you theboot packet that you're
looking for that'llliterally boot the operating
system and the menu.
So I said here it is.
And remember, thesefiles are tiny.
This one was about 50Kor something like that.
So I just emailed him thefile, and I said go ahead.
And he had trouble getting itgoing and that kind of stuff.
But when he gotit going, then he
managed to get itbooting and working.
(12:43):
And I said, well, now thatyou got that, let's start.
And I started throwinggames at him that would
be loadable from the menu.
And I said, OK, never mind.
And I just sent him thewhole two meg package
that I had of justone of the cycles.
And he got the rest of it goingand then he made videos of it.
And then all of asudden, everybody else
got interested in those PCsthat were now sitting on eBay.
And so there's-- now there's atleast a couple thousand of them
(13:05):
out there.
Somewhere, there'sprobably in Ottawa,
there's probably another1,000 floating around
in people's basements.
Because when we shut down,they had no way to return them.
So they probably juststuffed them on the shelf,
like other people did.
And they're pulling-- like otherpeople are pulling their Apple
IIs and TRS-80s off the shelvesthese days and dusting them off,
they'res looking at the NABU.
And oh, look.
And on Facebook, they'vefound that people are actually
(13:26):
making it do things and theycan lead there, and find
their path towards it.
CHARLIE BENNETT (13:31):
This is Lost in the Stacks.
We will be back with moreretro tech discussion with Leo
Binkowski after a music set.
CODY TURNER (13:38):
You can file this set under LA669.5.C66.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MARLEE GIVENS (13:56):
That was "Mule Train"
by Holly Golightlyand The Brokeoffs.
And before that, we heard"April, Spring, Summer,
and Wednesdays" by Status Quo.
Songs about supporting eachother for common goals.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Lost in theStacks, and today's show
is called Retro Tech in Action.
(14:16):
Our colleague, DylanHenry, brought us
a retro tech subject, the NABUnetwork and its recent revival.
Our guest is Leo Binkowsk,who worked on the NABU network
when it started and ishelping to revive it today.
CHARLIE BENNETT (14:30):
Is the main draw of NABU now the gaming?
LEO BINKOWSKI (14:35):
I think currently that what's more interesting
is people are writingnew games for the NABU.
The NABU was designed tobe a bidirectional thing.
We broadcast it via cablejust because cable companies
technology didn't have atwo-way mechanism for us.
We had other mechanismsto do two way.
We had modems andthat kind of stuff.
(14:56):
But inherently inthe computer, it
uses an RS422 interface,which could go two way.
And in fact, that'swhy the adapter is
separate from the computer aswell, because we consider them--
once we get two way, we'll havea completely different adapter
that'll do that.
But people are makingnew games, and are
using that bidirectionalfunctionality,
and creating multiplayergames, for instance,
(15:16):
that would theoreticallywork, and literally work,
over the internet.
So now they have aTCP/IP stack that they're
connecting with viahost computer using
that RS422 connection andthey're creating new games.
So there's a wholeecosystem now going,
where people aremaking new stuff
and having funwith the new stuff.
Sorry, Dillon.
You were going to say something?
DILLON HENRY (15:34):
Well, no.
I was going to ask, because nowthat you're talking about games,
and that's developing games.
And that's what you did.
And I wanted toask, because there
was a video that resurfaced--
I don't know if it was you whouploaded it or someone else.
But when you were--
they did like a featureon you on television
and they talked about howyou would-- or you talked
(15:56):
about how you wouldrecreate arcade games,
like Pac-Man and such.
And it would basically--you would film, like,
playing in the arcadeand then reconstruct,
or reprogram thegame from the video,
rather than programming frompre-existing lines of code.
(16:17):
Is that accurate?
LEO BINKOWSKI (16:18):
Yeah, we did that for several games.
We didn't have to do that witha bunch of the later titles.
The MSX-based titles, wewould get source code for.
But when we started,nobody trusted us.
Namco didn't trust us.
Nobody.
So we literally justrecreated the games.
In the case of Pac-Man,I knew it well.
I was already a pretty goodplayer, 100,000-plus player,
and so I knew it pretty well.
There was also abook that I used
(16:40):
as a reference, which was by KenUston, called Mastering Pac-Man.
And he gave me a lot ofthe pattern aspect of it
that sort of gelled in my head.
I said, oh, this is why thisis happening, and so on.
And basically, I recreatedthe patterns that I could.
Now mine is kind of squashed,because in an arcade,
they flip themonitor on its side
(17:01):
to give it a portrait profile.
So mine, the wholeboard is squashed.
I can't make it identical.
But what I can dois make the ghost
do what he says they do and Ican make things happen the way--
and it turned out to be apretty good representation.
So much so, I actuallygot a letter from Namco
saying it was the best onethat was available at the time.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:18):
Oh, wow.
LEO BINKOWSKI (17:18):
They were really impressed with it.
And they were looking--
and in fact, thatPac-Man prototype
allowed us to get the contractfor Galaxian and Dig Dug
as well.
So we actually released a Namcopackage as a subscriber package
with all three games on it.
But the nice thingis, you could take it.
Once you got tiredof it, then you
could unsubscribe from thepackage and not play them.
One of the really cool thingsis that we gave labs of NABUs
(17:41):
to schools.
Because remember, we onlyneeded one cable connection.
So from us, itwas like, well, we
have all these NABUs in stock.
Just they have tosupply the TVs.
We don't have to sell-- wedon't have to give them that.
And we would give them NABUs.
We had a big educationalpackage with logo,
and teaching French language,and all kinds of other junk.
We were really seriousabout education.
(18:01):
And that turned out to be reallygood, because it was the same--
the idea is-- we gotthe idea from Apple,
because Apple did the samething, really, in California.
So we just did it in Ottawaon a much smaller scale.
But it turned out really good.
It got us a lot of subscribers.
And of course, they're gettingit for the school year.
They're told bythe schools, yeah,
we're using them in the lab.
If you want your kidto have a head up,
you can subscribe to them.
And they're cheap at $20a month kind of stuff.
(18:23):
And people did.
And that really that putus somewhere past 10,000.
Like, at one point, we wereabout 12,000 subscribers.
And it was literallyduring when we
were doing the blitz forschools, and that kind of stuff.
And I thought that was one ofthe best ideas that we have.
And I really thought thatthat was our in, like Apple,
into the market.
So even when I saw Googledoing the same thing
with Google Chromebooks, I said,they're doing the same thing.
(18:44):
They're going to win.
20 years from now--
they've justplanted their trees.
20 years from now, they're goingto have a whole pile of people
buying Chromebooks for no otherreason that they're nostalgic
and they like using them.
What we were trying tocreate was network PCs
that people could use forentertainment, because remember,
even video game entertainmentwas a relatively new market
at the time.
(19:04):
It was niche, kind of.
There was console gamingand that kind of stuff.
But the Commodore 64hadn't even appeared yet.
So you're looking atApples and TRS-80s
that don't do it that great.
And the NABU came out and wasvery colorful and very graphical
at the time, evenbefore the MSX came out.
So we were looking todo something really,
really, really cool.
And it was nice that itsort of came out that way.
(19:26):
And all I can say is that I hopethat we can recreate it again
from the 2009 stuff and soon that you might have seen.
And it's nice to have literallypeople interested in it.
So there's a Discord,for instance.
Actually, there's acouple different Discords
where people are discussingit and still doing
(19:47):
software development for it.
I have a forums.nabu.ca, AndI put that there so people
who talk on Discordcan move it somewhere
where Google will searchit so it's permanent,
because Discord is notreally Google friendly.
So all of thoseconversations will
be lost if they don'tpost them somewhere.
And we have a nabu.ci site wherewe're posting as many things
(20:08):
as we can, talkingabout new things
that we're doingwhen we make changes
to the libraries andthat kind of stuff.
So that's kind of nice as well.
And I'm not done yet.
I've found I've gotlots of floppies,
and I haven't createdthe system where
I can deal with the floppies.
And I'm afraid of turningthem into dust too quickly.
That's why I'vesort of held it off.
Last year, I had a hard driveand I got an MFM emulator.
(20:31):
So I had this harddrive sitting around
and I knew it had acomplete NABU cycle on it,
but it was different fromwhat I had already done.
And I got a friend namedSanto, and what he did
is he helped mewalk through getting
the stuff off that hard drive.
And it didn't start,and we had to spin it
an old timey propeller, likea biplane, where we had that--
(20:52):
to spin the spindle, becausethat's an old hard drive.
The spindle is external, right?
It's not all thatself-contained.
So we spun that thing.
He said, there'smore fun to be had.
And we did.
And I got it going.
And I pulled off everylast bit of that hard drive
without error.
And then almostimmediately after--
I shipped it off to Santo.
I said, see if you can getanything more off of it
(21:13):
and that kind of stuff.
But it told me that I pulledevery sector off of it.
I shipped it to him.
And he said thatit never survived.
It didn't come up.
But it did its job.
I got every bitof data off of it.
And I posted that.
And everybody washappy because there's
a whole pile of new stuff.
So I still have these floppies.
And I know there's stuff there.
I know there's source codethere that I haven't yet posted,
(21:34):
like I posted source codethat I did have on GitHub.
And so there's moresurprises to be had.
I just got to get to it.
But I'm still working.
MARLEE GIVENS (21:43):
You are listening to Lost in the Stacks,
and we'll hear moreabout the NABU network
on the left side of the hour.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) 1, 2, 3
This is Davia Nelsonof the Kitchen Sisters
(22:03):
and you're listening to Lost inthe Stacks, the research library
rock and roll radioshow on WREK Atlanta.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Headlights burn liketorches on the way to a war
Tell me what it was thatwe were fighting for
CHARLIE BENNETT (22:22):
Today's show is called Retro Tech In Action.
We're talking about NABU,a vintage technology
that has been brought backto life in the here and now.
You can learn moreabout the past, future,
and present of NABU byvisiting NABU network,
N-A-B-U network.com, a resourcededicated to preserving
and displaying historicalexamples of NABU PC hardware,
(22:44):
software, documentation,accessories,
and who knows what else.
You'll even find apicture of all the boxes
that came out of that oldbarn in Massachusetts.
File this set under HN90.C6.P755
[RUSH, "CHEMISTRY"]
CODY TURNER (23:10):
That was "Chemistry" by Rush,
a song about how a communityworking together can make a sum
greater than its parts.
CHARLIE BENNETT (23:20):
This is Lost in the Stacks
and our show today iscalled retro tech in action.
We're speaking with softwareengineer Leo Binkowski
about his experienceswith a vintage technology
that has become current again,the NABU PC and network.
Is the joy of the NABUright now a retro joy,
(23:43):
or can this developinto something
that is a competitor againto existing services?
LEO BINKOWSKI: The NABU as it is, (23:51):
undefined
I think it's a snapshotin time more than it's
going to be a competitor.
I think it's a lot of funfor the retro community,
because they had NABUsand VIC-20s, and TRS-80s,
and that's for years.
And pretty much everything thatwas going to be said about them
has been done.
There's new stuff comingout, like with the NABU
(24:11):
and that kind of stuff.
But then this cameout of nowhere.
It was super cheap tojust do an experiment.
And the retro community is oldand generally more affluent.
So for them, it was like,I can take a shot on this.
And for some people, they justbought it hoping that it would
and it did.
So all of a sudden,something appeared,
and then they had alot of fun with it.
So now, there's-- of course,there's a community around it,
(24:33):
and those community keepson talking to each other,
and making new stuff, andtalking about how to fix things,
and so on.
So now there's a whole pile ofinformation on how to fix them.
And that's great, becausethat was never recovered.
What's interesting is the newdevices, the things that--
ROM emulators so that you canrun several different ROMs,
because I had a whole pile ofdifferent PCs and all of them
(24:56):
had differentcopies of the ROMs,
because they were alldevelopment ones, or prototype
ones.
Some people are there becausethey knew NABU in the past
and they grew up with it.
One guy emailedme on eBay saying
that his dad worked for NABUand he's recently passed away,
and he became an engineerbecause of his dad.
So he wanted to get one.
So he said, where can I get one?
(25:17):
And I went quickly to eBay andI said oh, there's one up here.
And I sent him thelink and he bought it.
And so that's one guy.
Other peopled it'sjust as I said.
The retro community say,brand new machine, something
really cool.
And there's a whole pileof things to like about it.
It's very different.
Like, the weird part about thatlike that long keyboard cable
and that kind of stuff.
The keyboard has itsown microprocessor in it
(25:37):
as well as the computer.
And we had this long,long, long, long cable
that was like 30feet long so that you
could put on your coffee table.
Like, everything was built foran '80s kind of living room.
The stereo cabinet.
If you look at thedimensions of the NABU,
it's identical to everystereo so it could
fit in the stereo cabinet.
And that cable was for puttingthe keyboard on the coffee
(25:59):
table, which you naturallyput your game controllers
in that kind of stuff on.
So it worked out very,very, very well for us.
And it was just kind of stylish.
It was, as I said, '80s Brown.
I used to call thecolor chocolate.
Some people call itgray, because it's
kind of hard to tell whetherit's chocolate, or gray,
or what it is.
But it's just different.
It's something else.
And there's a community aroundit now, so that's kind of cool.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:22):
Yeah.
DILLON HENRY (26:24):
Something I wanted to ask,
because we're talking a lotabout NABU and not as much
about you.
And as you said,you were basically
a kid when you startedworking with them.
You said you wereout of high school.
How did you get involved?
And then how did your role growin the time that you were there?
LEO BINKOWSKI (26:44):
When I was in high school,
we had a fairly interestingcomputer science
department, whichtried to motivate us
in all kinds of weird ways.
So we had access to a mainframeat the Board of Education
that we had to dopunch cards on.
So we'd do punch cardprograms in Fortran,
put them on punch cards.
It would take us two daysto get the stuff back.
So I started doingprogramming and stuff.
But I found micros, becausecomputer stores opened up--
(27:06):
two computer stores in Ottawa.
One was ComputerInnovations and Computerland
opened up in Ottawa.
And ComputerInnovations actually
was one of thecompanies that became
one of the companiesthat joined NABU,
which was kind of interesting.
But I got a job atComputerland selling Apples
and that kind of stuff,because I could in a second.
I knew everything about them.
I could do assembler.
I could do magic thingsin front of people
and that kind of stuff, and Igot really good at selling them.
(27:29):
And after that, when Iwas about 18 years old,
I was still workingthat job, but I
was working other jobs as well,I got a really good opportunity.
The Board of Educationmade a computer camp
and they picked abunch of instructors.
And I was one of the ones thatapplied and ended up becoming
one of the instructors.
And at the end of oursix weeks of doing that,
(27:51):
in the first year ofour computer camp,
NABU came to visit.
They were actuallyinterested because we
wrote our own softwareto teach people
how to do Basicon Commodore PETs,
and we had like 10 lessons.
So they were actuallyinterested in licensing that.
But then they noticed that therewere a bunch of people there
that were really, really good.
And they said, we wantto write video games.
If you guys are interested,we'll offer you jobs.
(28:13):
They said it in avery off handed way
that wasn't actually real.
But Tuesday morning, thatwas I met them on Friday.
On Tuesday morning, Iwas at their office.
And the guy wasn't even there.
But another guy that workedfor him said, oh, yeah.
That sounds like him.
He didn't tell meanything, but sure.
And they brought meback to the back room
and they kind of signedme up, and they gave me
a machine to work with,and it was really weird.
DILLON HENRY (28:34):
Wow.
LEO BINKOWSKI (28:34):
And then I would go there as while I was still
in high school.
I was just finishinghigh school then.
So that whole summer, weworked, like, all of us.
Out of the eight instructors,all of us were offered jobs.
I went and then had threeother people quickly join me.
And so we had four peoplefrom our computer camp group.
And then we all started writingvideo games in part time,
(28:58):
and while we were-- theother guys, one guy was 16.
He was still in high school.
And he's actually--now he's in Amazon.
He's a director at Amazonor something like that.
So his auspicious starts iswriting our version of Pong.
And at the time,it was interesting,
(29:18):
because we were workingwith other people that
were real programmersand that kind of stuff.
And a couple of them didn'tthink that we were anything
and treated us like lousy.
But they warmed uppretty quickly when
we saw that wewere pretty capable
and we could producestuff fairly quickly.
They were basicallythrowing as much work at us
that we could take.
I was just started goingto college at that point,
and I was thereprobably 50 to 60 hours
(29:40):
a week, even while Iwas going to college
and that kind of stuff.
Most of the time, wewere working overnight,
just because we were teenagersand we ended up that way.
Plus, we could makea lot more noise
and turn up the musicwhen everybody else has
gone to the office.
So it just evolved into that,where we took over the office
and became relativelyrowdy at night.
DILLON HENRY (30:01):
How do you feel reflecting on your time
and then seeingthat it's come back
and you're kind of gettingback into that work
all this time later?
LEO BINKOWSKI (30:10):
There's actually several aspects
of that that's kind of neat.
I've always stayed in contactwith other employees of NABU
and that kind of stuff, and I'mjust seeing them more often now.
But the resurgenceis kind of nice.
Well, I like talkingabout it clearly.
And so I get to talk about it.
As I talk about it, Iremember other little things
about what happened,and that kind of stuff.
So I end up expandingon those things.
(30:31):
It's fun doing this.
And what I'm reallyinterested in
is getting these machines intomuseums in playable versions,
like yours.
I saw the thing about your lab.
And I thought thatwas nice that you're
doing a lab sothat people can see
exactly different evolutions.
VCF East also had ahuge collection and that
(30:52):
was really, really interesting.
And that's apermanent collection
that they have there as well.
I would like to see itin the museum in Ottawa.
We have a museum ofscience and technology
they call Ingenium here.
I'd like to see them do that.
They actually have one.
That's the most annoying part.
But they don't-- it's not ondisplay because it doesn't fit
into their plans or whatever.
So I'd like to convince themthat this is something that
(31:12):
would actually bea draw, especially
ones that are actuallyworking that kids can play
and that kind of stuff.
And we-- the really coolpart about those computers
is that they'rereally resilient.
I don't know.
You must have seen one.
They're made out ofmetal and they're solid.
I can stack them,like, eight high
and have them not fall over.
So that's pretty good.
So I'm pretty certain thatthey can take any abuse
(31:34):
that a museum could provide.
So it would be niceto get them in there,
just to let people play them.
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:38):
Leo, thanks so much for your time today.
LEO BINKOWSKI (31:40):
Oh, thank you very much for having me.
I really enjoyed this.
I'm happy that the AtlantaHistorical Computer Society
introduced me to you guys.
And it was a lot of fun.
And this was agreat conversation.
CODY TURNER (31:54):
This is Lost in the Stacks and our guest today was
Leo Binkowski, a softwareengineer who was part
of the original NABU projectin the '80s and is now a part
of the NABU revival.
You can file thisset under PZ1.A2.N33.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(32:15):
[FIONA APPLE, "EXTRAORDINARYMACHINE"] I'll make the most
of it
I'm an extraordinary machine
That was "Extraordinary Machine"
by Fiona Apple.
Before that was "I'm FiveYears Ahead of My Time"
by the Third Bardo, songs thatmostly describe the NABU PC
(32:36):
maybe more than fiveyears ahead of its time,
but still anextraordinary machine.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT: Today's show was (32:50):
undefined
called Retro Tech in Action, allabout the NABU and its revival.
Do any of you havea computer system
that you wish wouldhave a revival?
Marlee?
MARLEE GIVENS (33:00):
My family's first computer was an Apple IIc.
And I used it toplay Lemonade Stand.
And I still think aboutthat about once a month.
Cody?
CODY TURNER (33:10):
The iPod shuffle.
I don't think you should haveno idea what songs playing,
no control over the playlist.
Just be like, oh, yeah.
It's that one songthat goes like that.
That's the one I like.
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:20):
I like that.
Mine is the old monochromeemailer that I used to use when
I came to collegeback in the '90s.
I guess we all justwant a simpler time.
Is that-- OK.
Let's roll the credits.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CODY TURNER (33:45):
Lost in the Stacks is
a collaboration between WREKAtlanta and the Georgia Tech
Library.
Written and produced byAlex McGee, Charlie Bennett,
Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:55):
Legal counsel and a perfectly rendered Galaga
game were provided by the BurrusIntellectual Property Law Group
in Atlanta, Georgia.
MARLEE GIVENS (34:02):
Special Thanks to Leo for being on the show,
to Dylan, for guest producing,and to all the folks who
are messing around with NABU.
And thanks, as always, toeach and every one of you
for listening.
CODY TURNER (34:13):
Our web page is library.gatech.e
du/lostinthestacks, where you'llfind our most recent episode,
a link to our podcastfeed, and a web form
if you want to getin touch with us.
CHARLIE BENNETT (34:25):
Next week, our show is called This Machine
Fills Metadata Fields and Idon't know what that means,
but I am here for it.
MARLEE GIVENS (34:32):
It's time for our last song.
We've heard a lotabout NABU today,
and probably nobody expected itto get this much attention when
it dropped out ofsight in the '80s.
The machines and theknowledge stuck around
so that NABU couldhave a revival.
So let's finish with a songabout something else that
sticks around.
This is "Hey, Hey, My, My" byNeil Young and Crazy Horse from
(34:54):
their live albumRust Never Sleeps.
[NEIL YOUNG, CRAZY HORSE, "HEYHEY, MY MY"]
(00:01):
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ADRIAN BLACK (00:02):
Well, hello, everyone,
and welcome back toAdrian's Digital Basement.
On today's video, we'regoing to take a look
at what's in this box here.
It's the NABU, Ithink I'm saying
that right, PersonalComputer, made
by NABU ManufacturingCorporation out of Ottawa,
Canada.
It was a bit of an unknownpersonal computer that
(00:23):
was very short lived and ithad some very interesting
characteristics about it.
Very recently, a sellerput a whole bunch
of these up for sale,brand new in box.
So I purchased one.
And let's take a lookat this thing together.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:00):
You are listening to WREK Atlanta
and this is Lost in theStacks, the research library
rock and roll radio show.
I'm Charlie Bennett in thestudio with Cody Turner
and Marlee Givens.
And I'm on the board andit's not really the board.
It's more like a laptopplugged into a thing.
So I'm just freaking out.
But not too much.
Each week on Lost in theStacks, we pick a theme
and then use it to create amix of music and library talk.
(01:23):
Whichever you're herefor, we hope you dig it.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:26):
Our show today is called Retro Tech in Action.
We hope it's the first ina new occasional series.
CODY TURNER (01:32):
Yeah.
Retro Tech is a service atthe Georgia Tech Library,
supporting research intoour technological past
so that we cancreate the future.
You may have heard ofDylan Henry, the Retro Tech
Manager on our showrecently, and he brought us
the topic for today's show.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:46):
So here's a brief summary
of the technological past thatwe're talking about today.
In the '80s, a Canadian companylaunched a home computing
venture, the NABU Network.
They also designed amachine to use with the NABU
Network and your television.
It connected the hometelevision cable--
it connected to thehome television cable,
and offered informationand gaming for the home.
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:07):
It was, as all reportage
about it proclaims, theinternet before the internet,
ahead of its time andultimately unsuccessful.
MARLEE GIVENS (02:16):
Thousands of NABU machines
lost most of their purpose andbecame surplus inventory or home
curiosities.
One entrepreneur,James Pellegrini,
acquired over 2,000 of theNABU machines and stored them
in a barn.
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:30):
A barn?
MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah, that's right, (02:31):
undefined
in an old barn inMassachusetts, where
they stayed for years untilthey had to go in 2022,
and they went on eBay.
CODY TURNER (02:40):
Adrian Black, who you heard in the cold open,
bought a NABUmachine and showed it
on his YouTube channel,which was popular enough
to pull in videos from otherfolks with NABU machines,
such as the programmernamed DJ Sures--
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:51):
Sures.
CODY TURNER (02:52):
Sures, who has been trying to get
a machine working himself.
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:55):
He then got the attention of our guest
today, Leo Binkowski, who hadbeen a programmer for NABU back
in the day and stillhad hardware, programs,
and enthusiasm forthe NABU Network.
CODY TURNER (03:06):
Leo helped DJ boot up a NABU machine for real,
giving the NABUnetwork a new life
as a playground for hackers,vintage tech hobbyists,
and NABU enthusiasts.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:14):
And that is retro tech stuff for real.
MARLEE GIVENS (03:18):
Dylan and Charlie spoke
to Leo Binkowski about the NABUrevival from a retro tech angle.
You'll hear some of that today.
But we had far too muchmaterial for one episode,
so you can find the wholeconversation on our podcast feed
as a bonus episode next week.
Our songs today areabout supporting
each other,communities connecting,
(03:39):
and extraordinary machines.
A retro tech show,of course, means
some reflecting on the past.
Those reflections caninform our present,
but they can also reveal regretsabout what happened or never
did.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:51):
Oh boy.
MARLEE GIVENS (03:52):
So let's start with "Regret" by Saint Vincent,
right here on Lostin the Stacks.
CHARLIE BENNETT (03:57):
I hope the song is at least upbeat.
[ST. VINCENT, "REGRET"]Morning by the--
MARLEE GIVENS (04:07):
That was regret by Saint Vincent
and this is Lost in the Stacks.
Our show today is calledRetro Tech in Action.
It features an interviewwith Leo Binkowsk,
a programmer who worked onthe original NABU network.
He is a key playerin the NABU revival.
Dillon Henry andCharlie spoke with Leo,
and will let himintroduce himself.
LEO BINKOWSKI: I'm Leo Binkowski. (04:29):
undefined
I used to work for a companyin Ottawa called NABU Network.
And what's kind of cool isthat I started literally right
out of high school.
So I had no idea whatmy professional life was
going to look like right at whenI was coming out of high school
and starting right intodoing video games full time.
Well, actually not full time.
I started part time, buteventually became full time.
(04:50):
OK, let's talk about NABU--
what NABU stands for.
It got retconned,the name, which
was natural access tobidirectional utilities.
But the name, first ofall, was very simple.
But it also turns outthere's a Greek God
of messaging, which is whatwe were trying to latch into.
The president at thetime, John Kelly,
was the one who picked the name.
And that's wherethey got that name.
(05:12):
And if you've seen the logo,it has these lines in it.
So that was part ofit, was linking it
to a TV, the Scan lines of a TV.
That's how the logo worked.
The NABU computer was an attemptto make an entertainment unit
for the home that wasa lot smarter than what
was available at the time.
At the time, we weren'tinterested in actually
calling it a home computer.
(05:33):
We called that afterwards whenthe IBM-- when IBM PC came out,
then we called it theNABU Personal Computer.
But at the time, wejust called it the NABU.
The idea was to make anentertainment device that
would be used with yourTV and your cable package
to give you a lot moreinformation, some education,
and entertainment inthe form of video games.
(05:54):
The bidirectionalpart was something
that we never got installed wayback when, mostly because cable
companies weren'tequipped for it.
Until the cable companiesstarted investing in internet--
they didn't upgrade.
They were onlydesigned for broadcast.
And in many cases, theywere designed for broadcast
in a very horrible way.
Even cable at the timehad terrible ghosting
(06:16):
and interference at that time.
And it was because they didtheir layouts and their cabling
very badly.
And there was alot of interference
introduced by notscrewing things in tightly
and that kind of stuff.
So we had to livein that environment.
But the long-term goalwas to be bidirectional,
was to be literallythe internet.
CHARLIE BENNETT: What did that feel (06:32):
undefined
like when there was thissort of reactivation
of NABU history in 2022?
How did you feel about that andwhat did that make you think?
LEO BINKOWSKI (06:43):
Actually, I thought it was great.
I personally had triedto revive it a few times.
The problem is that I'm notreally good with hardware.
The hardware is oldand that kind of stuff,
but I had what amounted to bea completely unassembled jigsaw
puzzle and I didn't exactlyknow how to put it together.
I had literally allthe pieces that--
I could have recoveredit, but it was actually
the impetus of otherpeople that got interested
(07:03):
that made me want tobother recovering it.
And the reason why is thatwhen I started doing it,
I realized that in Ottawa, wehad maybe 15,000 customers,
so there was 15,000 familiesthat would know of it.
Maybe 50,000 people, and otherpeople who knew it through
advertising orthat kind of stuff.
But there was also theAlexandria, Virginia one,
which was probably around10,000 subscribers, maybe less,
(07:25):
maybe eight.
But it was nice to see it,that everybody was interested.
And it came about because thatguy had a whole pile of them.
Those PCs that he hadwere from Tribune Cable
when they shut down inAlexandria, Virginia.
I identified--actually traced them
back to where they came from.
I was saying, where didthese guys come from?
Because there weren'ta lot of floppy drives.
And one of the thingsthat we had was we
(07:45):
had floppy driveswith our system.
And I was going,how come he doesn't
have floppy drives andthat kind of stuff.
But he had adapters,and he had computers,
and that matched withwhat was going on
in Alexandria, Virginia.
What we didn't understand isthe cable companies were very--
they're gatekeepers,just like today.
They have their market.
They have their thingsthat they want to do.
And they want totell you what to do,
(08:06):
not-- they don't want youto come in and run roughshod
over all of their operations.
So that was a big uphillbattle that we had.
DILLON HENRY (08:12):
So I have a question on that,
because it seems like, in a way,that this was ahead of its time,
which you sometimessee with technology.
You would see people introducea touch screen or something,
but it doesn't-- it didn't catchon in the '80s when people first
put it out there.
So do you think thatmaybe this just was
a little bit ahead of its time?
(08:33):
Or why do you-- and why doyou think that it shut down?
Was it just because the cablecompanies seeing it-- or being
gatekeepers, or was there someother limit to the growth?
LEO BINKOWSKI (08:44):
No, that was a limitation, but not
a huge limitation becausewe were going to cable shows
and so on, and therewas a lot of interest.
Because remember,it was the same time
when cable was lookingto expand, in the sense
that pay TV wasappearing about then.
I mean, HBO had already beenaround in the '70s, but it
exploded in the '80s withmany channels at that point,
and MTV and stufflike that was out.
(09:07):
So there was lots.
So it sort of fitinto their plans.
But the incrediblysimple reason was
that we had really, really goodinvestment from a real estate
developer in Canadacalled Robert Campeau.
And he built mostof downtown Ottawa.
And he was reallyinterested in it.
And when his companybasically folded
when the-- in the mid-80s, themortgage rates went super high,
(09:29):
like, next to 20%, and peoplewho were into real estate,
some of them took a bigbath, and he was one.
And it was $1 billion company.
And we had a 30day demand note on.
So as soon as that was called,we had to scramble for 30 days
to try to get somebodyelse invested.
And that's just tooshort amount of time.
What we ended up doingis reforming the company
(09:49):
to a smaller one sothat we could do that,
and we ended up takinganother crack at that,
where we basically were tryingto sell ourselves to RCA.
And it went right upthe pipe, all the way
to the board of directors.
And the CEO said that hedoesn't see it going anywhere.
So that was theend of that story.
And that's just likemost other technology.
The actual technology wenton to become something else.
(10:10):
All we were doing isbroadcasting a sound file
over and over againthat literally
was embedded with data.
So this was very good, forinstance, for-- at the time,
one of the applicationsthat was used
was a company that becamecalled Adaptive Broadband.
But they had an--
International Datacastingwas the original name of it.
And that was when NABUsplit into the technology
company and the consumerservice that was
trying to be made out of it.
So the technology became thingslike beaming weather information
(10:34):
to ocean-going ships becauseit could be done via satellite.
So that was a very easy one.
But the next one becamesending radio programs--
instead of analog, whenit was full of noise and--
sending it digitally.
And that's where thetechnology went with that.
So the technologydidn't die so much
as the consumer service died.
It was interestingfrom my point of view,
(10:56):
is that I always wantedto get back into gaming.
But then I thoughtI should get serious
about my life andthat kind of stuff.
And I started doing things likedatabase and financial software
and all the stuffthat made me money.
So wrapping it all around isthat when I saw this happening,
I said, this is great.
This is fine.
I have all the stuffin my basement.
If I can get other peopleto help me to get it out,
then it'll really happen.
(11:17):
And what the pileof PCs in a barn did
is it created a marketthat I didn't have before.
There was really nopoint in doing it before,
because nobodyever said, oh yeah,
I played with NABU whenI was in grade school.
But really, nobody wouldhave been interested in it.
Now there was peoplethat are actually
interested and actuallypeople willing to help.
(11:39):
So I started with one guy.
I'm sure you've seenthe stuff, DJ Sures.
I noticed his videos and Inoticed he was getting there.
He bought an adapter and hewas trying to make it work.
And he's very, verytechnically adept.
And he managed to get it toboot something from the cycle.
Like, his own program,his own Hello, world.
(12:00):
And I thought, OK.
Well, he's-- so basically,I tried to contact him.
And I found the best means wasLinkedIn because he was there
on LinkedIn.
And I sent him a messagethat was basically--
the message was like,if you link with me,
then I can make all yourNABU dreams come true.
So he didn't believe me,but he linked anyway, just
on the off chance.
And I said, yeah, I canbasically give you--
(12:21):
I can give you theboot packet that you're
looking for that'llliterally boot the operating
system and the menu.
So I said here it is.
And remember, thesefiles are tiny.
This one was about 50Kor something like that.
So I just emailed him thefile, and I said go ahead.
And he had trouble getting itgoing and that kind of stuff.
But when he gotit going, then he
managed to get itbooting and working.
(12:43):
And I said, well, now thatyou got that, let's start.
And I started throwinggames at him that would
be loadable from the menu.
And I said, OK, never mind.
And I just sent him thewhole two meg package
that I had of justone of the cycles.
And he got the rest of it goingand then he made videos of it.
And then all of asudden, everybody else
got interested in those PCsthat were now sitting on eBay.
And so there's-- now there's atleast a couple thousand of them
(13:05):
out there.
Somewhere, there'sprobably in Ottawa,
there's probably another1,000 floating around
in people's basements.
Because when we shut down,they had no way to return them.
So they probably juststuffed them on the shelf,
like other people did.
And they're pulling-- like otherpeople are pulling their Apple
IIs and TRS-80s off the shelvesthese days and dusting them off,
they'res looking at the NABU.
And oh, look.
And on Facebook, they'vefound that people are actually
(13:26):
making it do things and theycan lead there, and find
their path towards it.
CHARLIE BENNETT (13:31):
This is Lost in the Stacks.
We will be back with moreretro tech discussion with Leo
Binkowski after a music set.
CODY TURNER (13:38):
You can file this set under LA669.5.C66.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MARLEE GIVENS (13:56):
That was "Mule Train"
by Holly Golightlyand The Brokeoffs.
And before that, we heard"April, Spring, Summer,
and Wednesdays" by Status Quo.
Songs about supporting eachother for common goals.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Lost in theStacks, and today's show
is called Retro Tech in Action.
(14:16):
Our colleague, DylanHenry, brought us
a retro tech subject, the NABUnetwork and its recent revival.
Our guest is Leo Binkowsk,who worked on the NABU network
when it started and ishelping to revive it today.
CHARLIE BENNETT (14:30):
Is the main draw of NABU now the gaming?
LEO BINKOWSKI (14:35):
I think currently that what's more interesting
is people are writingnew games for the NABU.
The NABU was designed tobe a bidirectional thing.
We broadcast it via cablejust because cable companies
technology didn't have atwo-way mechanism for us.
We had other mechanismsto do two way.
We had modems andthat kind of stuff.
(14:56):
But inherently inthe computer, it
uses an RS422 interface,which could go two way.
And in fact, that'swhy the adapter is
separate from the computer aswell, because we consider them--
once we get two way, we'll havea completely different adapter
that'll do that.
But people are makingnew games, and are
using that bidirectionalfunctionality,
and creating multiplayergames, for instance,
(15:16):
that would theoreticallywork, and literally work,
over the internet.
So now they have aTCP/IP stack that they're
connecting with viahost computer using
that RS422 connection andthey're creating new games.
So there's a wholeecosystem now going,
where people aremaking new stuff
and having funwith the new stuff.
Sorry, Dillon.
You were going to say something?
DILLON HENRY (15:34):
Well, no.
I was going to ask, because nowthat you're talking about games,
and that's developing games.
And that's what you did.
And I wanted toask, because there
was a video that resurfaced--
I don't know if it was you whouploaded it or someone else.
But when you were--
they did like a featureon you on television
and they talked about howyou would-- or you talked
(15:56):
about how you wouldrecreate arcade games,
like Pac-Man and such.
And it would basically--you would film, like,
playing in the arcadeand then reconstruct,
or reprogram thegame from the video,
rather than programming frompre-existing lines of code.
(16:17):
Is that accurate?
LEO BINKOWSKI (16:18):
Yeah, we did that for several games.
We didn't have to do that witha bunch of the later titles.
The MSX-based titles, wewould get source code for.
But when we started,nobody trusted us.
Namco didn't trust us.
Nobody.
So we literally justrecreated the games.
In the case of Pac-Man,I knew it well.
I was already a pretty goodplayer, 100,000-plus player,
and so I knew it pretty well.
There was also abook that I used
(16:40):
as a reference, which was by KenUston, called Mastering Pac-Man.
And he gave me a lot ofthe pattern aspect of it
that sort of gelled in my head.
I said, oh, this is why thisis happening, and so on.
And basically, I recreatedthe patterns that I could.
Now mine is kind of squashed,because in an arcade,
they flip themonitor on its side
(17:01):
to give it a portrait profile.
So mine, the wholeboard is squashed.
I can't make it identical.
But what I can dois make the ghost
do what he says they do and Ican make things happen the way--
and it turned out to be apretty good representation.
So much so, I actuallygot a letter from Namco
saying it was the best onethat was available at the time.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:18):
Oh, wow.
LEO BINKOWSKI (17:18):
They were really impressed with it.
And they were looking--
and in fact, thatPac-Man prototype
allowed us to get the contractfor Galaxian and Dig Dug
as well.
So we actually released a Namcopackage as a subscriber package
with all three games on it.
But the nice thingis, you could take it.
Once you got tiredof it, then you
could unsubscribe from thepackage and not play them.
One of the really cool thingsis that we gave labs of NABUs
(17:41):
to schools.
Because remember, we onlyneeded one cable connection.
So from us, itwas like, well, we
have all these NABUs in stock.
Just they have tosupply the TVs.
We don't have to sell-- wedon't have to give them that.
And we would give them NABUs.
We had a big educationalpackage with logo,
and teaching French language,and all kinds of other junk.
We were really seriousabout education.
(18:01):
And that turned out to be reallygood, because it was the same--
the idea is-- we gotthe idea from Apple,
because Apple did the samething, really, in California.
So we just did it in Ottawaon a much smaller scale.
But it turned out really good.
It got us a lot of subscribers.
And of course, they're gettingit for the school year.
They're told bythe schools, yeah,
we're using them in the lab.
If you want your kidto have a head up,
you can subscribe to them.
And they're cheap at $20a month kind of stuff.
(18:23):
And people did.
And that really that putus somewhere past 10,000.
Like, at one point, we wereabout 12,000 subscribers.
And it was literallyduring when we
were doing the blitz forschools, and that kind of stuff.
And I thought that was one ofthe best ideas that we have.
And I really thought thatthat was our in, like Apple,
into the market.
So even when I saw Googledoing the same thing
with Google Chromebooks, I said,they're doing the same thing.
(18:44):
They're going to win.
20 years from now--
they've justplanted their trees.
20 years from now, they're goingto have a whole pile of people
buying Chromebooks for no otherreason that they're nostalgic
and they like using them.
What we were trying tocreate was network PCs
that people could use forentertainment, because remember,
even video game entertainmentwas a relatively new market
at the time.
(19:04):
It was niche, kind of.
There was console gamingand that kind of stuff.
But the Commodore 64hadn't even appeared yet.
So you're looking atApples and TRS-80s
that don't do it that great.
And the NABU came out and wasvery colorful and very graphical
at the time, evenbefore the MSX came out.
So we were looking todo something really,
really, really cool.
And it was nice that itsort of came out that way.
(19:26):
And all I can say is that I hopethat we can recreate it again
from the 2009 stuff and soon that you might have seen.
And it's nice to have literallypeople interested in it.
So there's a Discord,for instance.
Actually, there's acouple different Discords
where people are discussingit and still doing
(19:47):
software development for it.
I have a forums.nabu.ca, AndI put that there so people
who talk on Discordcan move it somewhere
where Google will searchit so it's permanent,
because Discord is notreally Google friendly.
So all of thoseconversations will
be lost if they don'tpost them somewhere.
And we have a nabu.ci site wherewe're posting as many things
(20:08):
as we can, talkingabout new things
that we're doingwhen we make changes
to the libraries andthat kind of stuff.
So that's kind of nice as well.
And I'm not done yet.
I've found I've gotlots of floppies,
and I haven't createdthe system where
I can deal with the floppies.
And I'm afraid of turningthem into dust too quickly.
That's why I'vesort of held it off.
Last year, I had a hard driveand I got an MFM emulator.
(20:31):
So I had this harddrive sitting around
and I knew it had acomplete NABU cycle on it,
but it was different fromwhat I had already done.
And I got a friend namedSanto, and what he did
is he helped mewalk through getting
the stuff off that hard drive.
And it didn't start,and we had to spin it
an old timey propeller, likea biplane, where we had that--
(20:52):
to spin the spindle, becausethat's an old hard drive.
The spindle is external, right?
It's not all thatself-contained.
So we spun that thing.
He said, there'smore fun to be had.
And we did.
And I got it going.
And I pulled off everylast bit of that hard drive
without error.
And then almostimmediately after--
I shipped it off to Santo.
I said, see if you can getanything more off of it
(21:13):
and that kind of stuff.
But it told me that I pulledevery sector off of it.
I shipped it to him.
And he said thatit never survived.
It didn't come up.
But it did its job.
I got every bitof data off of it.
And I posted that.
And everybody washappy because there's
a whole pile of new stuff.
So I still have these floppies.
And I know there's stuff there.
I know there's source codethere that I haven't yet posted,
(21:34):
like I posted source codethat I did have on GitHub.
And so there's moresurprises to be had.
I just got to get to it.
But I'm still working.
MARLEE GIVENS (21:43):
You are listening to Lost in the Stacks,
and we'll hear moreabout the NABU network
on the left side of the hour.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) 1, 2, 3
This is Davia Nelsonof the Kitchen Sisters
(22:03):
and you're listening to Lost inthe Stacks, the research library
rock and roll radioshow on WREK Atlanta.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Headlights burn liketorches on the way to a war
Tell me what it was thatwe were fighting for
CHARLIE BENNETT (22:22):
Today's show is called Retro Tech In Action.
We're talking about NABU,a vintage technology
that has been brought backto life in the here and now.
You can learn moreabout the past, future,
and present of NABU byvisiting NABU network,
N-A-B-U network.com, a resourcededicated to preserving
and displaying historicalexamples of NABU PC hardware,
(22:44):
software, documentation,accessories,
and who knows what else.
You'll even find apicture of all the boxes
that came out of that oldbarn in Massachusetts.
File this set under HN90.C6.P755
[RUSH, "CHEMISTRY"]
CODY TURNER (23:10):
That was "Chemistry" by Rush,
a song about how a communityworking together can make a sum
greater than its parts.
CHARLIE BENNETT (23:20):
This is Lost in the Stacks
and our show today iscalled retro tech in action.
We're speaking with softwareengineer Leo Binkowski
about his experienceswith a vintage technology
that has become current again,the NABU PC and network.
Is the joy of the NABUright now a retro joy,
(23:43):
or can this developinto something
that is a competitor againto existing services?
LEO BINKOWSKI: The NABU as it is, (23:51):
undefined
I think it's a snapshotin time more than it's
going to be a competitor.
I think it's a lot of funfor the retro community,
because they had NABUsand VIC-20s, and TRS-80s,
and that's for years.
And pretty much everything thatwas going to be said about them
has been done.
There's new stuff comingout, like with the NABU
(24:11):
and that kind of stuff.
But then this cameout of nowhere.
It was super cheap tojust do an experiment.
And the retro community is oldand generally more affluent.
So for them, it was like,I can take a shot on this.
And for some people, they justbought it hoping that it would
and it did.
So all of a sudden,something appeared,
and then they had alot of fun with it.
So now, there's-- of course,there's a community around it,
(24:33):
and those community keepson talking to each other,
and making new stuff, andtalking about how to fix things,
and so on.
So now there's a whole pile ofinformation on how to fix them.
And that's great, becausethat was never recovered.
What's interesting is the newdevices, the things that--
ROM emulators so that you canrun several different ROMs,
because I had a whole pile ofdifferent PCs and all of them
(24:56):
had differentcopies of the ROMs,
because they were alldevelopment ones, or prototype
ones.
Some people are there becausethey knew NABU in the past
and they grew up with it.
One guy emailedme on eBay saying
that his dad worked for NABUand he's recently passed away,
and he became an engineerbecause of his dad.
So he wanted to get one.
So he said, where can I get one?
(25:17):
And I went quickly to eBay andI said oh, there's one up here.
And I sent him thelink and he bought it.
And so that's one guy.
Other peopled it'sjust as I said.
The retro community say,brand new machine, something
really cool.
And there's a whole pileof things to like about it.
It's very different.
Like, the weird part about thatlike that long keyboard cable
and that kind of stuff.
The keyboard has itsown microprocessor in it
(25:37):
as well as the computer.
And we had this long,long, long, long cable
that was like 30feet long so that you
could put on your coffee table.
Like, everything was built foran '80s kind of living room.
The stereo cabinet.
If you look at thedimensions of the NABU,
it's identical to everystereo so it could
fit in the stereo cabinet.
And that cable was for puttingthe keyboard on the coffee
(25:59):
table, which you naturallyput your game controllers
in that kind of stuff on.
So it worked out very,very, very well for us.
And it was just kind of stylish.
It was, as I said, '80s Brown.
I used to call thecolor chocolate.
Some people call itgray, because it's
kind of hard to tell whetherit's chocolate, or gray,
or what it is.
But it's just different.
It's something else.
And there's a community aroundit now, so that's kind of cool.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:22):
Yeah.
DILLON HENRY (26:24):
Something I wanted to ask,
because we're talking a lotabout NABU and not as much
about you.
And as you said,you were basically
a kid when you startedworking with them.
You said you wereout of high school.
How did you get involved?
And then how did your role growin the time that you were there?
LEO BINKOWSKI (26:44):
When I was in high school,
we had a fairly interestingcomputer science
department, whichtried to motivate us
in all kinds of weird ways.
So we had access to a mainframeat the Board of Education
that we had to dopunch cards on.
So we'd do punch cardprograms in Fortran,
put them on punch cards.
It would take us two daysto get the stuff back.
So I started doingprogramming and stuff.
But I found micros, becausecomputer stores opened up--
(27:06):
two computer stores in Ottawa.
One was ComputerInnovations and Computerland
opened up in Ottawa.
And ComputerInnovations actually
was one of thecompanies that became
one of the companiesthat joined NABU,
which was kind of interesting.
But I got a job atComputerland selling Apples
and that kind of stuff,because I could in a second.
I knew everything about them.
I could do assembler.
I could do magic thingsin front of people
and that kind of stuff, and Igot really good at selling them.
(27:29):
And after that, when Iwas about 18 years old,
I was still workingthat job, but I
was working other jobs as well,I got a really good opportunity.
The Board of Educationmade a computer camp
and they picked abunch of instructors.
And I was one of the ones thatapplied and ended up becoming
one of the instructors.
And at the end of oursix weeks of doing that,
(27:51):
in the first year ofour computer camp,
NABU came to visit.
They were actuallyinterested because we
wrote our own softwareto teach people
how to do Basicon Commodore PETs,
and we had like 10 lessons.
So they were actuallyinterested in licensing that.
But then they noticed that therewere a bunch of people there
that were really, really good.
And they said, we wantto write video games.
If you guys are interested,we'll offer you jobs.
(28:13):
They said it in avery off handed way
that wasn't actually real.
But Tuesday morning, thatwas I met them on Friday.
On Tuesday morning, Iwas at their office.
And the guy wasn't even there.
But another guy that workedfor him said, oh, yeah.
That sounds like him.
He didn't tell meanything, but sure.
And they brought meback to the back room
and they kind of signedme up, and they gave me
a machine to work with,and it was really weird.
DILLON HENRY (28:34):
Wow.
LEO BINKOWSKI (28:34):
And then I would go there as while I was still
in high school.
I was just finishinghigh school then.
So that whole summer, weworked, like, all of us.
Out of the eight instructors,all of us were offered jobs.
I went and then had threeother people quickly join me.
And so we had four peoplefrom our computer camp group.
And then we all started writingvideo games in part time,
(28:58):
and while we were-- theother guys, one guy was 16.
He was still in high school.
And he's actually--now he's in Amazon.
He's a director at Amazonor something like that.
So his auspicious starts iswriting our version of Pong.
And at the time,it was interesting,
(29:18):
because we were workingwith other people that
were real programmersand that kind of stuff.
And a couple of them didn'tthink that we were anything
and treated us like lousy.
But they warmed uppretty quickly when
we saw that wewere pretty capable
and we could producestuff fairly quickly.
They were basicallythrowing as much work at us
that we could take.
I was just started goingto college at that point,
and I was thereprobably 50 to 60 hours
(29:40):
a week, even while Iwas going to college
and that kind of stuff.
Most of the time, wewere working overnight,
just because we were teenagersand we ended up that way.
Plus, we could makea lot more noise
and turn up the musicwhen everybody else has
gone to the office.
So it just evolved into that,where we took over the office
and became relativelyrowdy at night.
DILLON HENRY (30:01):
How do you feel reflecting on your time
and then seeingthat it's come back
and you're kind of gettingback into that work
all this time later?
LEO BINKOWSKI (30:10):
There's actually several aspects
of that that's kind of neat.
I've always stayed in contactwith other employees of NABU
and that kind of stuff, and I'mjust seeing them more often now.
But the resurgenceis kind of nice.
Well, I like talkingabout it clearly.
And so I get to talk about it.
As I talk about it, Iremember other little things
about what happened,and that kind of stuff.
So I end up expandingon those things.
(30:31):
It's fun doing this.
And what I'm reallyinterested in
is getting these machines intomuseums in playable versions,
like yours.
I saw the thing about your lab.
And I thought thatwas nice that you're
doing a lab sothat people can see
exactly different evolutions.
VCF East also had ahuge collection and that
(30:52):
was really, really interesting.
And that's apermanent collection
that they have there as well.
I would like to see itin the museum in Ottawa.
We have a museum ofscience and technology
they call Ingenium here.
I'd like to see them do that.
They actually have one.
That's the most annoying part.
But they don't-- it's not ondisplay because it doesn't fit
into their plans or whatever.
So I'd like to convince themthat this is something that
(31:12):
would actually bea draw, especially
ones that are actuallyworking that kids can play
and that kind of stuff.
And we-- the really coolpart about those computers
is that they'rereally resilient.
I don't know.
You must have seen one.
They're made out ofmetal and they're solid.
I can stack them,like, eight high
and have them not fall over.
So that's pretty good.
So I'm pretty certain thatthey can take any abuse
(31:34):
that a museum could provide.
So it would be niceto get them in there,
just to let people play them.
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:38):
Leo, thanks so much for your time today.
LEO BINKOWSKI (31:40):
Oh, thank you very much for having me.
I really enjoyed this.
I'm happy that the AtlantaHistorical Computer Society
introduced me to you guys.
And it was a lot of fun.
And this was agreat conversation.
CODY TURNER (31:54):
This is Lost in the Stacks and our guest today was
Leo Binkowski, a softwareengineer who was part
of the original NABU projectin the '80s and is now a part
of the NABU revival.
You can file thisset under PZ1.A2.N33.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(32:15):
[FIONA APPLE, "EXTRAORDINARYMACHINE"] I'll make the most
of it
I'm an extraordinary machine
That was "Extraordinary Machine"
by Fiona Apple.
Before that was "I'm FiveYears Ahead of My Time"
by the Third Bardo, songs thatmostly describe the NABU PC
(32:36):
maybe more than fiveyears ahead of its time,
but still anextraordinary machine.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT: Today's show was (32:50):
undefined
called Retro Tech in Action, allabout the NABU and its revival.
Do any of you havea computer system
that you wish wouldhave a revival?
Marlee?
MARLEE GIVENS (33:00):
My family's first computer was an Apple IIc.
And I used it toplay Lemonade Stand.
And I still think aboutthat about once a month.
Cody?
CODY TURNER (33:10):
The iPod shuffle.
I don't think you should haveno idea what songs playing,
no control over the playlist.
Just be like, oh, yeah.
It's that one songthat goes like that.
That's the one I like.
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:20):
I like that.
Mine is the old monochromeemailer that I used to use when
I came to collegeback in the '90s.
I guess we all justwant a simpler time.
Is that-- OK.
Let's roll the credits.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CODY TURNER (33:45):
Lost in the Stacks is
a collaboration between WREKAtlanta and the Georgia Tech
Library.
Written and produced byAlex McGee, Charlie Bennett,
Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:55):
Legal counsel and a perfectly rendered Galaga
game were provided by the BurrusIntellectual Property Law Group
in Atlanta, Georgia.
MARLEE GIVENS (34:02):
Special Thanks to Leo for being on the show,
to Dylan, for guest producing,and to all the folks who
are messing around with NABU.
And thanks, as always, toeach and every one of you
for listening.
CODY TURNER (34:13):
Our web page is library.gatech.e
du/lostinthestacks, where you'llfind our most recent episode,
a link to our podcastfeed, and a web form
if you want to getin touch with us.
CHARLIE BENNETT (34:25):
Next week, our show is called This Machine
Fills Metadata Fields and Idon't know what that means,
but I am here for it.
MARLEE GIVENS (34:32):
It's time for our last song.
We've heard a lotabout NABU today,
and probably nobody expected itto get this much attention when
it dropped out ofsight in the '80s.
The machines and theknowledge stuck around
so that NABU couldhave a revival.
So let's finish with a songabout something else that
sticks around.
This is "Hey, Hey, My, My" byNeil Young and Crazy Horse from
(34:54):
their live albumRust Never Sleeps.
[NEIL YOUNG, CRAZY HORSE, "HEYHEY, MY MY"]
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