So glad this beautiful blue beast is getting the respect and love it deserves!

@samsulummasamsulumma6898

2 жыл бұрын

Who knows what the future holds... Maybe Shelby will be installing Unix and turn it into a mail server...😁 Just kidding, there never was a Unix for the Novas to begin with.

@JaredConnell

2 жыл бұрын

Flailing arm inflatable flailing mac mac! Wait, not any more....

@ActionRetro

2 жыл бұрын

@@JaredConnell 👉🖕👆🖐️👉👆😃

My grandfather had a Nova 800 he was extremely fond of, told me many stories of all the shenanigans he got up to with it as a researcher for Kodak. (At first they bought him a PDP after he was hogging their mainframe, when he learned of the Nova he insisted they buy one for him, and only the faster 800) One of the projects he said he worked on that really leveraged its processing power was creating one of, if not the first software image enhancement algorithm, but to do so first he needed an image to test on, some of the electrical engineers created an adapter for him to use some sort of picture tube to scan in images, he said if he started it before he left for the evening, it would have an image scanned by morning, one colour channel, onto the machines 1.5 MB hard disk. The software he wrote to “sharpen” the image, he said, took one week to do a full pass on a single colour channel. Anyway, he told me dozens of stories like this, so I have always had a fascination with Nova machines, and I’m absolutely thrilled to see you working on one, for such revolutionary machines they do not get anywhere near enough attention. Internally, they seem so much similar to early microprocessors than any other mini I know of.

We had one of these at my school in the late 70's, and I have been allowed to work on them. That brings back memories!

@gregoryknowlton3734

2 жыл бұрын

what model was it 101, 303, 333 these were models systems for my company?

When I was in secondary school in the late 70's I was one of the first students to do a Computer Studies O level course (UK Qualification). The computer we used was a Data General Eclipse, which I believe was a development from the Nova, designed to better support timesharing. This video has brought back many memories! Although the computer was at a local college 15 miles away we usually accessed the computer by ASR33 Teletype via acoustic coupler at a blistering 110 baud (10 cps). During the holidays I would travel up to the computing centre so I could use the high speed (300/600 baud!) Haseltine VDUs in the data centre., and from time to time would poke my nose into the data centre to talk to the system operators, and the Eclipse looked very like the larger Nova you have, and the exact same colour. I seem to recall in summer the system was operated with as many panels removed as possible, probably a comment on the air conditioning budget rather than the compuer itself! I don't know how much power it was rated at, but the computer room had a row of blue industrial power connectors which I now know to be 32A 240v connectors, with the computer in one and other peripherals in the others, so it seems the power you have calculated is realistic for the time.....

@TimGilberts

2 жыл бұрын

Funny seeing you here Ian - I have tried to post against this video a few times to point out that a lot of the needed manuals are on bitsavers I think but, they just never appear - if this does not appear I will message you on the forum and you can post the link for him!

Thanks for the update! Great to see these machines getting their own space! A few comments: The SLAs are likely memory backup, commonish on machines that straddled the transition from core to semiconductor memory. We use Dawn dish soap, hot water, and either a toothbrush or a small paintbrush to de-filth boards that need it. Often they just get a dry paintbrush if the dust isn't really caked-on or greasy. You can draw 12A continuous from a 15A circuit, or 18A continuous from a 20A receptacle. That uNova should definitely be fine. I forget how our Nova 4 is set up but I want to say it is wired for 240V 20A. They are of course all 120V inside, splitting the phases on the PDU.

With all the moving around of heavy hardware, Tech Tangents is going to be so buff at the end of this series.

I think you might have to invest in running a 240 volt circuit into your office to run them. I'd do that over modifying them. Although you said you don't have access to the panel so it would be difficult to find which outlets are on different breakers... Maybe you could have an electrician run a new circuit through the ceiling and you would have to check with your landlord... You could also have a electrician check your outlets, you might have 240 volt's behind the outlets if that building isn't that old. They will sometimes run 240 volts in the walls but split it to 120 out the outlets. I look forward to seeing this working!

@dangoswick

2 жыл бұрын

I agree with this

@spykillergames8402

2 жыл бұрын

yea...i mean it might be costly..but it would even allow the ability to run up the big 4x unit

@iroll

2 жыл бұрын

Yes... in a commercial/office rental environment like this looks to be it is not uncommon for people to need 240 for whatever reason, and the tenant should be able to make that improvement. It would be really dodgy to try and do two 120s, because not only could they both be on the same breaker but they could be two different breakers on the same SIDE of the panel, which would be a disaster!

@dangoswick

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, we often need 240v for a UPS in the wiring closet in small office spaces just like that. Should be pretty easy.

@ShadowRune

2 жыл бұрын

Problem is his is an ancient like 1970s/60s office building you can see it in his initial move-in video. So it would have been built for the needs of an office at that time

I wonder if CuriosMarc would be able to give some input for this project. Might even be helpful with tracking down spares, or even help with potential needed repairs! Wow, it's been two years? I remember watching the introduction video, but it doesn't feel like two years have past since then, hehehe

@nrdesign1991

2 жыл бұрын

That whole Covid stuff has frozen the world seemingly for some time.

@gbowne1

2 жыл бұрын

there are several items on eBay.. including a 100MB disk controller card.

@reinoud6377

2 жыл бұрын

You could also ask Adrian Black from Adrian's Digital Basement. He's less into ancient stuff but quite good in repairs and troubleshooting

@Colaholiker

2 жыл бұрын

@@reinoud6377 He has worked with Adrian before, so I'd think he knows his skills. ;-)

I started working for DG in 1986 at the repair centre in Australia, and have repaired just about all of their product range

Back in 1987, when I first entered the job market (as a computer programmer), my daily commute was a morning drive from Somerville, MA to Framingham (and back again in the evening, of course). I used to pass buildings displaying logos for well-known computer companies at the time. I think Data General was in there somewhere, but I don't remember for sure. The company was based in Westborough, which was about a 20 minute drive west of where I worked. I was working for a small software company, and used to fantasize about what it would be like to work for one of the big computer companies. Right now, you're making me sorry I was writing software for IBM clones rather than visiting offices as a field technician for a minicomputer or mainframe company. (Although from a career standpoint, it was probably just as well that I wasn't.) Regarding the power requirements of your acquisition, welcome to the 1980s and earlier. One thing I can tell you from my second job, in the data processing department of a bank, is that back then, when a medium to large business bought a computer system, the system vendor informed them of what its electrical and environmental needs were, and the data center - typically a big climate-controlled room with a raised floor - was then outfitted as necessary. That often meant 20- and 30-amp circuits and either custom circuits or power converters, air conditioning with humidity controls and air filters, and sound insulation so that the noise from the data center didn't disturb workers seated outside of it. I can only imagine what kinds of RF interference a pair of minicomputers might generate. I doubt it ever occurred to the designers of those minis that anybody might someday try to run one at home. But I'm getting immense vicarious pleasure in watching you try to do just that. If good things come to those who wait, then even better things should come to you for taking on this project.

If this is a _mini_ computer, I now understand why modern computers have _micro_ processors.

@alexthelion335

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, it makes you understand why the Apple II is considered a micro-computer

@St0rmcrash

2 жыл бұрын

@@alexthelion335 Or why a CPU is called a Central Processing Unit, it used to be a literal sizeable unit made of discrete parts paired with other units for IO, disc, power, etc

@belstar1128

2 жыл бұрын

What would a mega or giga computer be then.

@St0rmcrash

2 жыл бұрын

@@belstar1128 A mainframe? Or maybe an electromechanical computer like a telephone switch which while not general purpose were literally the size of buildings?

@Foobar_The_Fat_Penguin

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah. In the olden days, computers were made of vacuum tubes and took up entire floors of buildings. Then came the transistor and shrank them down to the size of a closet, so compared to that previous stage, they actually were "mini". Then the miniaturisation continued and the machines became small enough to fit on a desk (or next to it). These were then called "micro-computers" (C64, Apple II, etc). Today, basically every computer is "micro", so we kind of just dropped it.

Putting aside the historical significance of preserving this important computing equipment for just a moment, your positive attitude, perseverance, and enthusiasm is/are truly motivating! Lessons learned is having an awesome “can do” attitude that can be applied to just about anything. I really enjoyed this episode!

If you had access or permission to run a new circuit from the breaker box, you could have a 240v 30 amp breaker installed and wired to an outlet.

Cool project. Nice to see progress. Take your time, Shelby. I know from my own small projects how painful it can be working on them. I recommend the book "The soul of a new machine" that's about people working for Data General and the process of making a successor to the Novas

@vladimirvparfenov3935

2 жыл бұрын

2nded! they dont hand our those Pulitzers lightly!

@theejectionsite1038

2 жыл бұрын

Actually that was on the successor, or second generation of the Eclipse series. The Nova and Eclipse were 16 bit and the superminis were 32 bit. They were called the MV-series. I worked with all three generations but missed the micro-Nova.

Would be REALLY interested to see the Nova 4, apparently it has effectively the original AMD CPU (4 x Am2901 bitslice) and some of that newfangled intel solid state memory

I did a lot of work on DG, mostly on Eclipse and MVs. I have some spare toe-breakers somewhere if you need for the second rack. Regarding the nut plates the trick on removing them was to let them drop. Easier to pull out of the bottom of the rack or put a deflector to have them drop out front. If you were afraid to let them drop bend a piece of thick copper wire to have a small 'L' at the end to fit in a hole and pin it in place from behind. The real fun was putting them back in place! We didn't have cage nuts at the time at all. I may even be able to find a few of the nut plates somewhere. Scotch tape was one of my tricks. I'd scotch tape the bar in the rails. The ancient push-on comm cables were 'fun'. We used the DGs to connect dozens of customers via modems so we had expansion chassis' attached with three or four Intelligent Async Controllers (IACs). The backplane was the type you show at 21:28 with the two sets of pairs of pins. Imagine those with dozens (maybe 32) of those push-on connectors side by side. With four IACs in a chassis that was a ton of cables coming out and they used the same kind of pinching flat cable trap used on the three serial cables you had! We often had to go back there with a screwdriver and push them back in and try to tighten the bars again! Fun times! The full green connectors you have there are typical (or they could be black) and often they had every pin connected. On the older devices they came out to a 'paddle card' (i have one) which was a flat circuit board to which a big push-on connector would be attached. Since the buss was connected from the main chassis to the expansion chassis that way you had to put a terminator onto the end of the chain or you could get I/O errors. Regarding removing the chassis on the heavier one we eventually invested into a hydraulic lift that had a big flat plate to slip it onto. Mostly though we had rails made of angle metal that the chassis slid on to get them in or out. You seem to be missing those. If I didn't have one I would stack crap on the lower devices or to the bottom of the rack (used everything from wood to paperback books!) Eventually though I began making 'hammock slings' by taking old cables and tying them off the top of the racks (we ran about 20 racks with no sides and no top plates) these were strong enough to handle a 185lb Argus drive to swing it out to the hydraulic truck or to a secretary office chair (no arms) In case you can't guess I packed away a lot of samples of stuff I worked on. I have about a dozen of the big boards from Nova/Eclipse/Eclipse-MV devices around here, tons of screws and nipples and nut plates. A bunch of the toe-breakers and who knows what else. I also have a few manuals but none likely to help you except a foldout Nova Minicomputers Instruction Reference Card and maybe the DG Unix reference card. (ps with the toe breakers there should be feet screwed into the bottoms to tighten down against the floor to prevent the tipping you were experiencing. I don't think I have those though.)

I worked for DG through the 80's. They moved me from MA to GA in 84. Supported techs in the field and flew all over the USA fixing stuff they couldn't. Earned one of my 3 pensions during my term there. Note: their racks frequently had bad AC connections, which required opening the outlet boxes to tighten the screws.

I got a surplus Nova 1200 back in about 1984 and then a Nova 4X about 1986...I had a couple 1.25MB (I think??) single-platter cartridge drives, a 25MB sealed drive (basically the one you have), a 9-track tape unit, which took half a tall rack and about 10 "Dasher D2" dumb terminals....All this and a ton of documentation, schematics, etc. I spent hundreds of hours "playing" with it---everything worked. RDOS, FORTRAN compiler, BASIC interpreter, Assembler, etc., etc. I think much of that old hardware and docs are still in an old family storage building---I haven't looked in a couple decades! Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

FINALLY, ANOTHER VIDEO ABOUT THESE AWESOME COMPUTERS!!!

The thing that's going to use the most power is spinning up hard disks or disk packs. I had a Prime minicomputer in a previous life and I made the mistake of spinning both the 19" hard disks at the same time once, and they tripped the 16A 220V circuit breaker. Fortunately they had a circuit that, if enabled, enforced staggered spin-up: each disk would wait for the previous disk to be spinning before they would spin up. As others have already mentioned, it's likely that your office has two 120V buses that are out of phase, and you can build a cable with two polarized male plugs going to one female multiphase plug with 240 or 208 volts between the phases. Then it's a matter of finding two sockets that are on different phases. I know your office is kinda old but I know that newer offices usually have alternating phases on adjacent sockets. So one socket on the wall is on one phase, the next socket 9ft down, is on the other phase. It doesn't need to be true but that's how it was designed in an office that I helped to wire up in Mesa around 2005.

38:18 - The emotion you show at getting the Micronova out is quite touching, hopefully over time you can bring the Data Generals back to life.

I was a field service engineer for DG around London. I fixed all the range of their kit from micro novas, nova 3 and 4, and eclipse ranges. All the hard, fixed, and removable disc drives as well as mag tapes. I ended up working in R&D for them in North Caroline. Great times, I had the opportunity to go repair this kit in some wonderful places. I do hope you get all this up and running, if not, give me a call.😂

Such an awesome haul... It's really a pity everybody is into pdp-8 machines and Novas are an underdog when it comes to hobby collecting. As far as I know, there are no modern add-ons for memory, storage and I/O. Oh, and a fun fact: Steve Wozniak was a huge admirer of Novas. He used to have a Nova poster with a picture of the front panel and a table of the machine's op-codes in his room. He has stated that they were the epitomy of computer architecture design back in their day.

Your old video picking them up was my first exposure to your channel. I was living in Phoenix at the time, so that was a bonus.

YES!!! We have been waiting a long time for more content on this thing. Cheers!

@lucasrem1870

2 жыл бұрын

why you need this, love crap? waiting for crap, and then?

You can power the Micro nova easily off a standard 15A circuit. However with the 4X you will need 2 separate 15A circuits, one to power the CPU card/board and the other to power the HDDs. You need to check but odds are each room is it’s own circuit, so you just need to run and extension cord from one room to power it up.

@famitory

2 жыл бұрын

make sure they're all on the same phase leg otherwise weird grounding or phantom current issues may pop up

@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648

2 жыл бұрын

The circuits may be labeled on each outlet, so there could well be outlets from multiple circuits available in the same room, they will just have to be looked for. Also they will have to be used alone (don't share either of their circuits with anything that uses significant juice, if at all).

I love how there are actually some people out there taking these old mechanical machines and rebuilding them with modern components. So the physical nature, and workings of the hardware still work exactly the same, it's just all managed and run via modern-replaceable-components. (Which usually results in much more energy savings too.)

I absolutely lost it when Shelby started speaking Klingon to Googs. XD Unintentionally funny lol "Hogu Giaaah."

Ah man!! I’ve been waiting for this one for a looong time!! ❤️

3:30 it is SO awesome that you both have these records, AND are scanning them, AND are even showing them in this overview video! I really like this! The detailed history of a Forgotten Machine is something that really gets my attention! Excellent work!!!

When you are working with heavy unsupported rack mounted hardware, you can add support with a folded sheet steel 3U rackmount shelf that is installed upside down so the flat shelf is on top, and the folded side angle pieces are below the shelf. For a long server, use two of these shelves on the front and back posts. Use ALL the screw holes on the shelf so it doesn't bend and fold down on itself with the heavy weight resting on it.

I feel like ‘That’s Weird’ will become a catchphrase for this series.

I had a Perkin Elmer 3200 Unix minicomputer that ran on 240volts, 17 amps on one leg and 15 on the other. Those current measurements were constant! It pulled a lot of AC electrons; about $400 dollars worth per month! It also raised the temperature in a wet old basement by 5 to 7 degrees C, and dried out all the old cement floors! I had to install a 40 amp 240-volt pony panel in the basement with a 40 amp Hubble twist lock. It never popped the main 100 amp breaker, in the house, but I'm sure it got close! Get yourself a clamp on AC amp meter! It's also worth mentioning that most AC panel breakers need to be in an over-current condition for at least five minutes before they will trip. So transient inductive and reactive KVARS power surges from in-rush current from motors and power supplies,won't necessarily trip the breaker immediately. But you gotta be mindful of the Power Factor you are drawing as well.

I love how he says "There is no reason to run both of these at once, at least for me". There is no reason to do any of this sir, but still I watch with baited breath!

You channel is super awesome! Your microphone quality is very clear no matter which way you face. Where is the mic? Ah I watched on my phone. I checked big screen and it’s on you. Great stuff!

We had four ampex ADO effects generators at work, they drew 60 amps at 220volts AC constantly. They each had a 200 amp 5 volt DC power supply and a couple of 5 and 10 amp +-12 volt DC supplies!

Great to see another update on this. I had just gone back and watched your first video on these last week so it's awesome to get another one so soon.

I know of them from the book Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder!

12amps? Congrats on your new space heater!

Nostalgia. I have worked with a Nova 4x in the early 80s.

that blue looks sooooo good!

@Breakfast_of_Champions

2 жыл бұрын

1970s baby!

Awesome machine, glad to see it back in one of your videos again. And one just has to love this telephone hotline "DG-HELPS" sticker :-D

On a US power socket, you should be able to connect a 1.5kW continuous load (eg a heater), or a 1.8kW burst load (eg a hair drier). So your 12A should be fine, just like connecting an electric heater to the socket.

So glad to see you finally able to work on these. I saw your first video and had been waiting for a follow-up eagerly.

I could watch this kind of stuff all day. Love ur channel man.

Remember that 'rated' current is not the same as 'in-use' or 'inrush' current.... I used to have these discussions all the time in our datacenter builds... I'd get 'engineers' who would say "this chassis requires 15amps"... maybe yes, if every slot was completely filled with the highest power consumption devices... we'd put a current clamp on them, and startup draw would peak at maybe 3 amps, and runtime was more like 1... Always use a current clamp to verify before getting concerned.

@nickwallette6201

2 жыл бұрын

True, but inrush is not the same in-use either. Rated current is kind of a worst-case-scenario long-term average current rating. It's what the equipment should be able to handle indefinitely, if operating at the edge of its capability. Inrush is a very very brief, but sometimes extremely high current draw while transformer cores magnetize and capacitors charge. Inrush current will often exceed the nameplate current rating -- often by several times. It's not uncommon for inrush current to be 100s of amps. But only for 10s of milliseconds. This is the reason slow-blow fuses exist, to allow for excessive current _spikes,_ but not excessive current. And circuit breakers work on a thermal principle as well, so they won't immediately trip from inrush current. Remember, all that protection is meant to avoid having wires heat up and cause damage and/or fires. It takes time to overcome thermal mass.

@stevesether

2 жыл бұрын

This is exactly right. From what I can see there's about zero chance this computer uses anywhere near 12 amps. Where would the heat go? My guess is the power supply was rated for powering massive hard disk platters, and then only to spin them up. I didn't see any of those (which is itself a problem since I'm not sure where you'd load the OS with no storage medium).

It's really nice to see these beautiful Novas being given some attention.

So happy to see it in a better space and finally getting treated. Super interested in further discoveries about this particular device.

looks amazing, can't wait to see the progress on this

We used a DG Nova in the mid 1980s to digitize property appraiser maps at a local government. Custom software with a Tektronix 4100 series green screen terminal and a big digitizing table.

Look for the outlets that have the funny looking T shaped terminal on them, they are rated 20amps. Lots of commercial spaces like offices have these types of outlets.

absolutely fascinating man! impressed with your patience and diligence, is so crazy to see a computer that is literally antique and you are respecting it like one. wish you good luck :)

Great to see you working on the DGs again. One thing to check: are the power supplies set up for 240v or 208v? Commercial buildings frequently are powered from 3 phase 120v. Between two phases, you get 208v, not the 240v you see in residential supply. Anyway, best wishes on this, and I look forward to your adventures in getting these two beasts running again.

This is a very neat endeavor you've undertaken Shelby. I honestly had forgotten that first video when you got it and brought it back. But thats more than understandable given space, and especially the sheer size and weight of what you are doing all by yourself. I look forward to seeing more at such time that your are ready to share. I know the world is all about On Demand now, but I'm grateful to have been raised there are times that only Slow and Steady will work. Keep being awesome Sir :)

Being able to walk around and show things free-standing makes you so much more animated in your presentation

Those big blue made in usa caps from the seventies are usually fine.

I am looking forward to more video on the Data General. I am glad to see that you are taking your time to learn all you can about it before you really just start tearing into them. Keep up the good work and take your time, it really does look overwhelming.

We used a DG Nova as the console for Amdahl's 470 line of computers. I remember it used a core memory (8k?).

Might be worth checking out a dry ice blaster, it's like a sand blaster but much more gentle and the dry ice just turns to CO2. Saw someone using one to clean PCBs one time and it was pretty awesome.

Man, I remember the Nova 4. I worked on a pair of those, and the Micro Eclipse back in the 1980's.

Would be nice if you could get them to work with domestic power, here in Europeland these old chonkers would often be configured to run on industrial 400V tri-phase connectors, not so much a problem in Scandinavia at least since all detached houses are wired to support an install of those outlets if needed.

You sir are the Freddy Tavarish of tech. I mean that in the best possible way!

I remember the video from 2020 when you picked them up and was wondering what had happened to them I had suspected space was going to be the main concern. I really appreciate the update. 👍

Gotta love the color scheme of that beast!

Great, this one we have been waiting for!

hi , I use to work at a company in the 70's and 80's that made AUTOMATIC IN-CIRIUT TESTER EQUIPMENT (ATE) IN Latham, NY . They had NOVA 3 and 4's they ran the testers. i don't have much experience with the NOVA's sorry ,but its nice to see them. it brings back memories of the time. I had different job's , i help populate broad's for tester's , then i went into final test where 5 to 6 guys had to get the tester up and running. Then after 5 years i did customer programming of there broads, two biggest company's was DEC PDP11/12 and WANG the Word Processor. The programs were $50K each and testers were $150K to $300K. The 2nd 5 Yrs i did programming of the tester for customers broads. The Nova's all had 32k memory I hope you have good luck in them up running.

I'm stoked! I've been waiting for this one.

I waited so long to this this behemoth again.. Awesome!

I am from Argentina and worked as a field technician in the local dealer of DGC for 11 years.....I think I still remember a lot of tricks.... =0)

Thanks for your works and explanation! Greetings from Argentina.

I presume those threaded bars on the front of the rack should be screwed into the right U, using the top and bottom threads and nice flat headed screws before the unit is installed and then it's held in the right place when you come to screw the rack ears to it if that makes sense

@lucasrem1870

2 жыл бұрын

why you care about that, why you need this? running what?

@NiallFleming

Жыл бұрын

@@lucasrem1870 if you don't understand the comment, perhaps it's not for you? I was talking about the flat threaded bars at 32:00 - as shelby was holding them in place with twist ties until he could screw the unit to it.

*I used to work on DG, in the 1970s: DG made GREAT gear! In 1985, my DG at home computer was a DG C-330 (a high end business computer at the time). My C-330 had 5 racks of gear, three of which were vacuum tape drives, and a 96mb "Zebra" disk drive (which was the size of a full-sized washing machine). While I was out of town, my dog lost his mind because I couldn't let him out for a bathroom break (I was bumped off my return flight), utterly destroying everything in my basement except the DG (because it was in racks). In fact, he destroyed the entire house, leading to a neighbor calling the cops! The cops looked at my DG, and called the FBI, thinking that only a spy would have a "mainframe" computer in their house. The FBI agreed it was suspicious, and they seized everything, including my DG. It took them (and the NSA) almost a year to figure out I was doing nothing wrong, and return my gear - in pieces...*

@AnonymousSquirrel123

Ай бұрын

*The current ratings you are freaking out over were considered to be "low power consumption" at the time these were in use. It's worth knowing that these systems drew a _huge- surge when they were first turned on, which is what you are seeing. Once running, they typically drew anywhere from one half to one third of their rating. Because of the impressively high draw when first powered up, they had a specific order which the powering up was done in. First you powered up the CPU(s), as this was the highest draw circuit. Once warmed up, you turned on the non-disk peripherals, like tape drives, multiplexers, etc. Finally, you would turn on the floppy drive(s) if you had any (they were pretty rare on DG), and finally, the disk drive(s) - usually a 96mb "Zebra", which was the same size as a half-rack (or a washing machine for those who are unfamiliar with what a half-rack looked like), being careful to disable the "Write" system before th power stabilized. Once everything was powered up and settled, you would enable the write circuits on your disk drives(s), and reboot the CPU.* *Obviously, booting these was a skill, and not allowed to be done by just anybody: you had to be trained up just to boot them!*

Utterly fascinating. I don’t know much about the DG machines - either hardware or software wise; it’ll be interesting to see more.

HOLY SHIT! I randomly remembered your first video a few months ago, and wanted to check for a follow up. I searched for like 15 minutes but assumed I would never find this channel again. Nice.

Good job buddy

These computers look really awesome fully assembled with the blanking panels in place. But I'm very glad modern racks are much more user-friendly. Captive nuts are so much better than whatever those weird bars are. For racking and de-racking big stuff with only one person, I usually mount blanking plates directly under the unit, and let it drop onto the plates. Usually I'll have access to both the front and side either through the adjacent rack or if it's at the end of the row, I can support it from the side as I pull it out until it reaches the point where I can support it just from the front, then I can pull it out and lower it onto a trolley. The biggest things I've installed/removed using this method without help were some Cisco 4506-E switches. They're 10RU high, but they're not the full rack depth, so they're only about 20KG for the bare chassis. In that case I only needed the blanking plate at the front.

Thanks! Been waiting for this!

Very excited to see the data general again! It’s my favourite I love the blue colour

Really cool that you were able to move the Datas General to the office

I'm an electrician, run a new 240v circuit, and it will handle both no problem, and be more efficient.

Double sided sticky tape will hold those screw retention plates in place when you go to reassemble those. Perhaps a bit of super glue as well...

Greetings Shelby, finally back with another update!👍

Awesome video

im so glad to see an update !! i kept thinking about it for a while and when you said 2 years passed by I thought u were joking omg that was 2 years ago already? help. Im so glad to know you're still working on it and you'll be able to do actual work now that you have the space needed, this looks so cool and amazing and even just seeing how its all put together is exciting, honestly i wouldn't even be sad if it was impossible to get it to work (tho i hope its possible and i trust that if it is, you'll be about the only one who can actually make it happen tbh). I started following you on twitch to get notified when you do that stream and I'll keep an eye out for any updates. Do take your time and i hope everyone understands this is a long trip and stop asking u all the time about it. Also the capacitor reforming thing sounds super interesting tbh id be super interested in a video about the process you'll end up using (when the time comes of course), I'm really happy this piece of vintage computing ended up on your hands and that you're doing the best you can to get it to work. And thanks for sharing it with all of us.

Thanks for video. I read Soul of a New Machine when I was a kid in the early 80s so yes, I heard of Data General

@davidelliott8016

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I was just thinking that myself, great book

WOOO! Love to see that blue!

I read Tracy in a _Reader's Digest_ that my grade school teacher had and read the whole book as soon as I could find it in high school. I finally saw one IRL in the mid 90's at my engineering company where it was still in use.

Been waiting for you to get back to working on them

Yes! Been waiting for this one ☺

Good to see the 2 ole gals again! And nice to see you able to make some progress on them you looked absolutely thrilled at the end. I totally get why you want to take these so slow and methodical, from the sound of it they are pretty complex and also full of old stuff that hasn't run in decades, yeah best to give everything all the proper checks. I can't wait to see some more updates on them, especially how you manage to power the Nova 4, that thing is beastly! The Mini Nova is really mini in comparison, no wonder you picked it as the first restoration.

Electrically I don't know if anybody else has commented a 15 amp circuit is rated for 12A continuous. Assuming there's nothing else on that circuit you'll just make it. most likely that unit had a dedicated 20 amp circuit since commercial property requires 20A minimum. but it is also not pulling full load although you got the capacitors charging.

when you go to reinstall it in the rack put it back in with a rail kit, or mount a wooden shelf below it, and set it on the shelf whilst installing the upper rack screws. you can stick those captured threaded bars nuts on the rack with some CA glue, lock tite, or hot glue, you should be able to remove them again fairly easily...

The thing that gets me is these are from the 70s and while the screw mounted rack design isn't my favorite it still has a very modern feeling function of just being a rack with some servers in it...

The connector that you installed @12:59 was very much "How are you doing?" - it looked very loose as Dave at EEVBLOG says. In regards to power consumption, remember that in the 1980's air conditioning was a significant element in computer installations. Interesting project. Good to see some people have such inspiration to resurrect old technology.

Maybe @CuriousMarc knows someone who can hook you up with Data General parts and manuals? But I'm sure it won't be easy.

Finally! This thing is why I followed back then

Looks interesting. On those spaghetti serial cables, I think I would suggest just making new short pigtails (IDC header to DB25), and connect normal serial cables up from there to wherever. Trying to work with those old spliced up messes is just not worth the headache. Put them away in a box and use nice new ones instead.

Very cool!

Wauw. Big project. Nice.

If you had a DG computer back in the day ... you would have had a massive library of documentation taking up more space than the computer cabinets. I am surprised that they were not available when you bought the computers ... perhaps not surprised too! Your models are before they changed to 'earth tone' colours ... a less yellow white ('colonial white'?) and brown instead of blue. Early DG computers often had a wire wrapped backplane ... which became simpler as the serial numbers increased. We once had a SX2000(??) with a serial no of 4 (??) ... this is from memory so I cannot be sure of the type number/code. DG machines often had the firmware updated as software (the tecchies referred to it as 'mushware') and they used 'ULAs' (Uncomitted Logic Arrays ... Ferranti chips?) extensively eg in their 'IAC's ('I.. Asynchronous Controllers' for multiuser terminal connectoins. An IAC8 would connect 8 RS232 terminals (we used Wyse 60s) to a computer. We originally had a uNova (MicroNova) MP200 with a 12 1/2 MB winchester disk and an 8" 1.2MB floppy disk drive. I think the SX2000 was replaced within a short period by a DC2000(??) which was not so much of a prototype! The Nova4 would use RDOS as it was a 16bit m/c ... AOS/VS etc were 32 bit. Try typing XYZZY at the AOS/VS command prompt and compare the result with typing into AOS/VS Ii ! ... I will post the responses later if no-one knows the responses or the origin of the command (yes it was in the CLI ('Command List Interpreter' ... ie shell). Edits: I think they were DC or MV 2000SX and ... 2000DX. If you typed xyzzy to the cli (Command List Interpreter prompt) you got "nothing happens" from AOS/VS ... and "nothing happens - but faster!" from AOS/VS II 😊