[00:00.000 --> 00:03.620]  ...to, you know, what old computers used to look like and work like.
[00:03.780 --> 00:06.560]  But that's not what my talk's about and, frankly, not really in my interest.
[00:06.860 --> 00:19.820]  So what we're going to do is we're going to explore the unlikely connections between well-known milestones and technology, look at culture and seemingly mundane things and events that helped bring those bigger things into being.
[00:20.100 --> 00:28.380]  The importance of these seemingly insignificant sparks would not have been imagined or identified at the time that they made their impact.
[00:28.380 --> 00:35.840]  And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk about a few example connections that I thought were interesting and we're going to go from there.
[00:39.590 --> 00:43.070]  In my former life, I was a box panel model.
[00:43.730 --> 00:50.850]  And this is a computer that I did some modeling for my Hollywood family, the L-Start Amigo.
[00:51.290 --> 00:53.110]  Has anyone ever had an L-Start Amigo?
[00:54.910 --> 00:55.730]  Of course not.
[00:56.510 --> 00:57.370]  It's made up.
[00:57.990 --> 01:04.190]  But the point is you throw these kind of things on the Internet and before you know it, people start believing them.
[01:04.370 --> 01:09.510]  I got letters from people talking about their L-Start Amigo, talking about what they, you know, how they remember this kind of thing.
[01:11.090 --> 01:16.070]  And if you look at, you know, as a technology, as a person who knows about computers, you probably laugh at some of those specs.
[01:16.070 --> 01:17.950]  So people are asking me suspicious questions.
[01:18.070 --> 01:24.490]  Are you sure that it had, you know, 4K of RAM, but 128-bit graphics and so on.
[01:26.510 --> 01:43.930]  So what I have found is Wikipedia and some of the other sites, especially having to do, I don't want to pick just on Apple, but especially Apple and some of the other popular home brands, perpetuate over and over again the same myths about how this happened,
[01:44.110 --> 01:49.690]  how this came about, what Woz said, what Steve Jobs said, what they invented, and all of that.
[01:50.430 --> 01:54.350]  And being, I guess, an anti-social person or whatever, I always fight against those things.
[01:54.430 --> 01:57.390]  I'm always looking for, is that really true?
[01:57.570 --> 02:05.390]  And as a result, I've spent a lot of my own personal time and, you know, I've turned it into a little, you know, I guess a little bit more serious than a hobby.
[02:05.390 --> 02:23.530]  But I've spent a lot of time really getting in there and identifying those things and really making, I guess, like a one-man crusade, just to look at the Internet and look at the information supplied by people who are not verified in the technology area to see if these things really happened the way they say they did.
[02:24.410 --> 02:34.310]  So the first thing we're going to talk about is the story of how a Casio mini-calculator led directly to the formation of the software giant Microsoft.
[02:35.390 --> 02:45.490]  So you can see, this is a calculator from 1972, and I'm sure this is going to be hopefully news to most of you as to exactly how this happened.
[02:47.150 --> 02:54.310]  So, since the turn of the 20th century, people use mechanical calculators like this one to do their science and accounting problems.
[02:54.310 --> 02:59.110]  And you would have this on your desk, and you would add your accounting up.
[02:59.210 --> 03:03.270]  You can see it obviously doesn't have a lot of advanced technology and science functions.
[03:03.470 --> 03:05.850]  But this is what you would have seen in the World War II era.
[03:07.750 --> 03:10.990]  And over time, things got a little bit more advanced.
[03:11.170 --> 03:11.970]  It's still mechanical.
[03:12.110 --> 03:13.510]  It's still mechanical and electrical.
[03:14.130 --> 03:18.510]  But here's a Monroe 8F213 from around 1964-1965.
[03:19.050 --> 03:23.030]  And you can see there's a lot more places that you can do your math, a lot more precision.
[03:23.350 --> 03:24.530]  But it's still mechanical.
[03:27.490 --> 03:28.270]  Here's another one.
[03:28.370 --> 03:32.970]  This is a Commodore mini-calculator.
[03:33.050 --> 03:34.010]  It's all still mechanical.
[03:34.210 --> 03:35.170]  The readout is on paper.
[03:36.550 --> 03:44.730]  But around 1967, that's when electronic calculators first using vacuum tubes and transistors appeared.
[03:45.230 --> 03:49.190]  At the time, these machines were called desktop computers, as you can see.
[03:49.370 --> 03:50.830]  Now, would you have believed that before?
[03:51.530 --> 03:52.690]  But there you go.
[03:53.470 --> 03:56.730]  1967, May, you see the term desktop computer.
[03:57.290 --> 04:04.450]  So, when you look at history, if you put it in today's context, you're making a mistake.
[04:04.450 --> 04:10.310]  You want to look at history from the perspective of the time, not of today's time.
[04:10.530 --> 04:16.090]  And back then, computers had a different meaning and a different word as far as, you know, related.
[04:16.210 --> 04:21.530]  Obviously, people know about the term computers referring to women who used to do the math during World War II.
[04:21.650 --> 04:22.430]  Those were computers.
[04:22.570 --> 04:26.170]  So, over time, this terminology has evolved.
[04:26.330 --> 04:36.090]  But in 1967, you've got desktop computers are essentially fancy electronic calculators that can maybe do basic rudimentary functions like square root.
[04:36.190 --> 04:43.550]  But the display is in a Nixie tube or other type of actual electronic display.
[04:45.950 --> 04:51.930]  This is a picture here of the first desktop computer, if you want to call it that.
[04:52.310 --> 04:54.910]  Of course, today, we call this just a gigantic calculator.
[04:54.910 --> 05:06.810]  The first one, this is the Model 132 from Frieden, who made the FlexoWriter and eventually got bought out by Singer, that could perform a square root calculation.
[05:07.090 --> 05:15.170]  It uses germanium transistors, delayed line memory, cathode ray tube for display.
[05:15.350 --> 05:19.990]  So, it's almost sort of like an oscilloscope sending its display out to the monitor.
[05:19.990 --> 05:21.590]  And here's a picture that I took of one.
[05:21.850 --> 05:25.350]  These are all pictures I mostly took of things that, you know, I've actually seen myself.
[05:25.930 --> 05:32.310]  But you can see it's really awesome as far as how it looks and working with it.
[05:32.510 --> 05:34.530]  But what it would do is it would actually have memory.
[05:35.170 --> 05:46.970]  It actually had the ability to store a few lines of numbers of memory, and you could actually run computations against something that had been entered in previously.
[05:46.970 --> 05:48.450]  So, that's a pretty new thing.
[05:49.550 --> 05:53.930]  And over time, you could see Toshiba, the Japanese, entered the market.
[05:54.330 --> 05:58.290]  You've got the 16-digit displays, Nixie tubes.
[05:58.530 --> 06:00.230]  So, you're getting more display.
[06:00.550 --> 06:06.350]  You're starting to become compatible with the most advanced mechanical calculators, which are still being sold at this time.
[06:07.110 --> 06:09.950]  So, this one is 1969.
[06:10.490 --> 06:12.650]  And this one would have cost $1,400.
[06:12.650 --> 06:20.810]  But what's important here, really, isn't so much that this particular calculator did anything fancy, other than the fact that it's a Japanese calculator.
[06:21.070 --> 06:27.830]  And you're starting to see the Japanese not just make componentry cheaply, but also actually put out their own calculators.
[06:28.030 --> 06:34.190]  And that was, in some ways, the beginning of the real calculator wars that took flight in the 70s.
[06:35.290 --> 06:36.090]  Here's another one.
[06:36.250 --> 06:36.950]  It's a little bit smaller.
[06:37.150 --> 06:42.290]  This is a Singer calculator from 1971.
[06:42.990 --> 06:48.750]  And it's one of the final desktop calculator footprints.
[06:49.170 --> 06:52.450]  This would have been about the size of a... the weight of a phone book.
[06:53.310 --> 06:57.030]  So, you know, when you're selling this to somebody, you would say, oh, this is only as heavy as a phone book.
[06:57.790 --> 07:00.210]  And, you know, obviously, today that sounds funny.
[07:00.330 --> 07:02.170]  But back then, this was cutting edge.
[07:02.330 --> 07:02.970]  What's a phone book?
[07:04.650 --> 07:07.010]  There's a good... that dates me too.
[07:07.250 --> 07:07.910]  Alright, so...
[07:10.390 --> 07:14.770]  Then, all of a sudden, Casio came out with this little itty-bitty calculator.
[07:15.130 --> 07:16.790]  This is 1972, August.
[07:17.350 --> 07:20.170]  And the Casio Mini was the first hand-held calculator.
[07:20.910 --> 07:23.110]  Over two million of these things were sold.
[07:23.270 --> 07:24.290]  And guess how much they cost?
[07:25.070 --> 07:25.950]  Ninety-nine dollars.
[07:26.890 --> 07:31.610]  So, you could see this was a huge, huge impact in the market.
[07:31.910 --> 07:33.330]  And, of course, it's going to have ripples.
[07:33.750 --> 07:36.050]  And, okay, I'm setting you up.
[07:36.350 --> 07:38.210]  What's the connection between Microsoft?
[07:43.460 --> 07:44.520]  Fit in your pocket.
[07:44.640 --> 07:46.840]  It was smaller than a pocket camera.
[07:47.140 --> 07:51.980]  You could see back here, you've got four double-A batteries that you could use to power the thing.
[07:52.660 --> 07:53.380]  Significant improvement.
[07:53.520 --> 07:55.940]  So, the Japanese had really come up with something remarkable.
[07:57.520 --> 07:59.220]  And there's the manual.
[07:59.460 --> 08:02.120]  Just like a manual would get for a watch today, you just don't read it.
[08:02.360 --> 08:02.680]  Why?
[08:02.900 --> 08:04.400]  You turn it on, you use it.
[08:04.520 --> 08:07.140]  You don't need to... you don't need to know how to use it.
[08:07.200 --> 08:09.580]  You don't have... you don't have to learn how to program it.
[08:09.680 --> 08:11.640]  You turn on the calculator and you just use it.
[08:13.900 --> 08:15.920]  Other manufacturers, of course, had to follow suit.
[08:16.160 --> 08:20.380]  On the left, for me anyway, you see the Casio...
[08:20.380 --> 08:24.580]  I mean the Commodore, which earlier you saw that desktop unit.
[08:24.740 --> 08:25.960]  They got smart.
[08:26.060 --> 08:26.620]  They got the money.
[08:26.820 --> 08:28.060]  They made a small version.
[08:28.600 --> 08:29.580]  Texas Instruments, of course.
[08:29.740 --> 08:31.280]  Many of you are probably familiar with that calculator.
[08:31.920 --> 08:35.720]  When I was a kid, I remember we got a calculator.
[08:35.820 --> 08:37.600]  Somebody down the street got one of these calculators.
[08:37.660 --> 08:39.400]  And everyone went to the house and looked at it.
[08:39.480 --> 08:41.680]  And I remember wanting to touch the divide button.
[08:41.820 --> 08:43.540]  And the guy was like, no, I don't know what that does yet.
[08:43.540 --> 08:48.720]  So, it was... you know, you have to understand the times were different.
[08:49.020 --> 08:51.800]  And I remember actually getting in trouble for wanting to divide something.
[08:52.640 --> 08:52.740]  You know.
[08:53.200 --> 08:56.540]  But, not everybody was on board.
[08:56.540 --> 09:01.180]  And there was still... there were still manufacturers.
[09:01.740 --> 09:15.880]  Two months before the Casio Mini came out, in June of 1972, a little company called Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems announced their new calculator, Kit, right into the highly competitive desktop calculator market.
[09:16.520 --> 09:20.040]  This is an image from a July 1973 radio electronics article.
[09:21.160 --> 09:23.580]  And Ed Roberts is the name of the guy that ran this company.
[09:23.820 --> 09:29.480]  So, he got... he got obviously sandbagged by... by the Casio Mini.
[09:30.780 --> 09:41.260]  And here's a... here's a couple of pictures from the radio electronics magazine geared towards hobbyists, geared towards people who want to build the calculator themselves.
[09:41.820 --> 09:44.060]  It was less expensive than $1,400.
[09:44.060 --> 09:46.140]  You could get this thing for $250.
[09:46.880 --> 09:48.300]  But you had to build it yourself.
[09:49.100 --> 09:51.920]  You... you had to enter in the... the... the ROMs.
[09:51.940 --> 09:52.680]  You had to solder it.
[09:52.780 --> 09:53.720]  You had to put the wires together.
[09:53.800 --> 09:54.880]  You had to do all the work yourself.
[09:55.620 --> 09:57.720]  This thing had bridge rectifiers.
[09:57.840 --> 10:00.660]  You can see caps and resistors and so on.
[10:00.740 --> 10:02.920]  So, you have a whole schematic that you'd be working from.
[10:03.080 --> 10:07.400]  And this is actually a selling point that you would actually get to do all this.
[10:08.540 --> 10:16.900]  And you can see the input consists of array of switches, housing a keyboard, and closing one of the switches causes a start signal to be generated in the unit response.
[10:19.240 --> 10:21.880]  And here's a picture of... of the one that I have.
[10:22.140 --> 10:24.380]  And you can see the complicated wiring.
[10:24.700 --> 10:28.560]  And this is actually... a friend of mine was working on this.
[10:28.640 --> 10:36.060]  Bob was working on this to fix it and replace one of the ROMs by building his own PIC chip to replace one of the ROMs.
[10:36.060 --> 10:39.600]  But you can just see that this is definitely not a pocket calculator.
[10:41.620 --> 10:43.060]  And there's the final product.
[10:43.360 --> 10:43.980]  Very good.
[10:44.180 --> 10:44.460]  Okay.
[10:44.740 --> 10:49.440]  So, the kit sold for $200 or you could buy it assembled for $250.
[10:50.580 --> 10:53.340]  Compare that to the Casio, $99.
[10:53.740 --> 11:00.280]  And within no time at all, Ed Roberts found his company MITS was $300,000 in debt.
[11:02.040 --> 11:08.440]  So, Ed decided to take the lesson of Casio and apply it to a new idea that he'd been playing with.
[11:08.860 --> 11:15.000]  He knew that his 1440 calculator could be upgraded to accept up to 256 instructions.
[11:15.300 --> 11:16.720]  Why not make a computer?
[11:18.100 --> 11:21.520]  So, he didn't go the make a little kind of calculator route.
[11:21.620 --> 11:23.300]  He went make a computer route.
[11:25.680 --> 11:33.460]  He knew that in his time, the early 70s, useful minicomputers were simply too expensive for the average person.
[11:33.620 --> 11:35.020]  But he knew that everybody wanted one.
[11:35.700 --> 11:37.380]  He knew that there was a potential demand.
[11:37.800 --> 11:39.680]  And so, he said, what the heck, let's do it.
[11:39.840 --> 11:43.460]  So, he called up his friend in popular electronics.
[11:45.100 --> 11:47.800]  And the MITS Altair 880 was born.
[11:50.360 --> 11:53.260]  So, he told them at the time he had a computer for them.
[11:53.480 --> 11:54.820]  They were thrilled to feature this.
[11:55.000 --> 11:56.000]  They gave him free press.
[11:56.140 --> 11:57.140]  They gave him a free cover.
[11:58.180 --> 11:59.880]  And there was a two-part feature.
[11:59.980 --> 12:00.960]  One in January of 1975.
[12:01.320 --> 12:03.940]  And the next was in February of 1975.
[12:04.820 --> 12:07.480]  The Altair was sold only early in 1975.
[12:07.480 --> 12:09.540]  It was extremely primitive for today's standards.
[12:10.700 --> 12:14.880]  And it ran at a minute fraction of today's processor speed.
[12:16.180 --> 12:17.680]  Here's a picture of it.
[12:18.320 --> 12:20.880]  It's about 7 inches by 20 inches.
[12:21.240 --> 12:25.220]  The only way to interface with this thing, though, it was a computer.
[12:26.820 --> 12:28.400]  But you couldn't do anything with it.
[12:28.580 --> 12:30.520]  It had some front panel switches.
[12:30.840 --> 12:31.760]  It had some lights.
[12:31.980 --> 12:33.160]  You could turn it on.
[12:36.140 --> 12:40.220]  But you weren't going to play Pong with it, which was a very popular game at the time.
[12:40.500 --> 12:43.040]  You weren't going to interface and do word processing.
[12:43.280 --> 12:45.400]  You weren't going to write with it.
[12:45.400 --> 12:48.540]  You were going to barely be able to do machine language programming.
[12:48.880 --> 13:02.640]  And the only way that you could actually interface with this would be to write your own programs with a teletype, punch them to tape, and write your own assembler, and write your own compiler, and all of that.
[13:02.800 --> 13:14.900]  And if you were into that kind of thing, and I assume that Ed Roberts of MITS figured his calculator-making guys would use their new handheld calculators to do the calculations they needed to then create this computer, I suppose.
[13:15.620 --> 13:20.580]  But at least this really kicked off a revolution, but there was a problem.
[13:20.780 --> 13:27.400]  It wasn't really very easy to use, and it wasn't really ready to be mass-produced, and it wasn't really for mass-market.
[13:32.060 --> 13:34.580]  So, the call went out to put together a BASIC.
[13:36.040 --> 13:42.240]  As you know, BASIC would be the holy grail, I suppose, for what eventually became the way that computers would operate.
[13:42.380 --> 13:48.600]  It would be the thing that would make you go better and faster and mass-produce and general public access to a computer.
[13:48.860 --> 13:52.680]  Because with BASIC, you could do both calculator functions and so much more.
[13:52.680 --> 13:53.600]  You could write programs.
[13:53.800 --> 13:59.960]  And you could do those kinds of things that people were doing with time-sharing computers and minicomputers in the early 70s.
[14:01.280 --> 14:07.540]  So, Paul Allen and Bill Gates were both from Seattle, but they were going to Harvard at the time in 1975.
[14:07.960 --> 14:18.140]  And when they learned about the Altair from Popular Electronics' article, they decided to make a BASIC for it in 4K, leaving space for programs.
[14:20.220 --> 14:22.240]  Here's a picture of what they looked like back then.
[14:23.760 --> 14:28.780]  Bill Gates and Paul Allen called Ed Roberts about hiring them to make Altair BASIC.
[14:29.100 --> 14:32.240]  Paul flew to Albuquerque with a paper tape containing BASIC on it.
[14:32.420 --> 14:39.180]  Paul Allen and Bill Gates got a contract to make BASIC for the MITS, and Microsoft was born.
[14:41.660 --> 14:42.840]  And you can see a quote there.
[14:42.900 --> 14:46.220]  Ed Roberts, we'll give the first guy that throws, that shows up with one.
[14:46.380 --> 14:48.180]  We'll buy the first guy that shows up with one.
[14:48.180 --> 14:53.560]  So, basically, they took them up on it, and that's how Microsoft was created.
[14:54.320 --> 14:56.220]  Here's an ASR-33 teletype.
[14:56.840 --> 15:03.720]  Bill Gates and Paul Allen's first commercial software was Microsoft BASIC, which was originally distributed on paper tape for use on this kind of a teletype.
[15:04.100 --> 15:05.600]  The teletype was the I.O.
[15:05.640 --> 15:10.840]  device employed by the MITS Altair, and that's how it would have been delivered.
[15:11.040 --> 15:16.700]  So you would have bought your Altair, you would have built it, and then you would have sent away from MITS, and you would have got a little paper tape that you would be able to load.
[15:16.860 --> 15:19.420]  Twenty minutes later, you'd have a ready prompt on your computer.
[15:20.760 --> 15:22.860]  After buying a serial phone...
[15:22.860 --> 15:26.740]  Yeah, you certainly would need to get more than just the RAM and the processor.
[15:27.020 --> 15:32.440]  And just so you know, I do have my original software license for the paper tape software.
[15:32.640 --> 15:34.960]  So nobody can say that I've been ripping them off.
[15:35.140 --> 15:36.100]  And there's the logo.
[15:36.740 --> 15:45.660]  So Microsoft did not invent BASIC or the personal computer, but they were among the first to look at the PC software as a product to be sold and supported, and not simply given away for free with the computer.
[15:45.840 --> 15:48.060]  This was very controversial at the time.
[15:48.560 --> 15:52.960]  You could also say that software piracy owes its foundation to the Altair as well.
[15:53.660 --> 15:57.960]  And although I'm sure it would have simply happened some other way, computers would have eventually come.
[15:58.420 --> 16:04.520]  The Casio Mini, which helps spur MITS to make the Altair, also therefore holds a special connection to Microsoft as well.
[16:05.700 --> 16:06.820]  It's for you to decide.
[16:08.640 --> 16:10.860]  Okay, that's my first connection.
[16:11.800 --> 16:12.900]  The second one.
[16:13.360 --> 16:16.820]  Let's take a few steps back, a couple years back.
[16:17.600 --> 16:37.800]  What we're looking here on the screen as a mini-computer, and what I would like to do is I'd like to build a picture as to how 1970s mini-computer field techs invented some of the first microcomputers, predating the Mark 8, the Altair, the MSI, and the Apple I,
[16:37.920 --> 16:39.360]  really by accident.
[16:40.620 --> 16:51.020]  Now, to start the story off, 60s mini-computers like this Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-8i, mostly held an array of front... had an array of front panels.
[16:51.020 --> 16:53.320]  There were no computer BIOS back then.
[16:53.480 --> 16:54.480]  There was no boot disk.
[16:54.700 --> 16:56.660]  There was no disk at all most of the time.
[16:56.780 --> 16:58.580]  It was just tape or punch cards.
[16:58.960 --> 17:05.820]  There was no computer screens built into the initialization process, and you needed a way to interact with the computer at the machine level.
[17:06.820 --> 17:20.800]  So, what the early manufacturers of mini-computers did was they put lights on the front of the machines to show things like the accumulator, what instructions were being run, and then gave you a front panel to interact with the computer so that you could,
[17:20.920 --> 17:23.200]  as a technician, kind of get things rolling.
[17:25.520 --> 17:26.520]  Here's another view.
[17:26.680 --> 17:29.720]  This is a Hewlett Packard HP 1000 mini-computer.
[17:29.860 --> 17:33.060]  It's got a different look to it, but it's got the same idea.
[17:33.060 --> 17:41.960]  You would use the front panel to enter the bootstrap commands in the computer by loading in processor instructions to specific locations in memory.
[17:42.140 --> 17:43.120]  So, you would flip them in.
[17:44.300 --> 17:56.460]  This was necessary, because there was no BIOS, just to tell the computer where the paper tape was so that you could then load in the instructions, so that you could then load basic or load whatever programming language you were going to use to actually do your work.
[17:56.540 --> 18:02.580]  This is before that, similarly to the BIOS chip that's on a modern PC.
[18:03.840 --> 18:07.740]  You could use this front panel to check memory values.
[18:08.140 --> 18:14.740]  You could look at memory locations for certain values used to indicate how far along a process had gone and whether it failed or not.
[18:15.360 --> 18:18.420]  You could move the program counter to run from specific locations.
[18:19.020 --> 18:21.920]  You could set memory to change peripherals.
[18:22.040 --> 18:31.740]  You would actually use... the computer would know to look at a certain location of memory to know whether it's typing... saving to a high-speed paper tape or to a teletype and so on.
[18:32.260 --> 18:37.180]  And, of course, you could run programs a step at a time so you could find failure points.
[18:37.280 --> 18:43.580]  So, these front panels were really essential to the operation of the earliest of the computers.
[18:46.300 --> 18:50.320]  The problem was, is that the front panels weren't sexy.
[18:52.380 --> 19:05.140]  When you were selling a front paneled system from the 60s and you wanted to make your computer look like it was, you know, as you're emerging into the 70s, the manufacturers were beginning to remove the front panels.
[19:05.140 --> 19:18.920]  They were beginning to make it so the computers were supposed to have the cards and the chips and the quote-unquote BIOS in them to start up and at least get you to a glass console prompt or at least have a teletype, say, ready or something like that.
[19:18.980 --> 19:21.720]  So, you didn't have to enter in all these commands with the front panel.
[19:22.020 --> 19:23.280]  Okay, that makes sense, right?
[19:23.440 --> 19:24.900]  Today, nobody uses a front panel.
[19:25.060 --> 19:26.280]  So, why would you want one then?
[19:26.480 --> 19:28.980]  The emergence of this was a logical step.
[19:28.980 --> 19:39.660]  But, the problem is, is how do you support a computer as a technician if you no longer have the front panel to check to see what's wrong with the computer?
[19:40.180 --> 19:40.580]  Okay?
[19:40.980 --> 19:43.420]  You can see the technicians didn't like this.
[19:43.540 --> 19:51.420]  The technicians were the ones that liked the front panels, but it was the users and the sellers and the salesmen and so on that wanted to eliminate them.
[19:52.700 --> 19:57.180]  So, what started showing up were these little devices that were being created by different companies.
[19:57.180 --> 20:06.920]  This one is an example of a front panel add-on that IBM used in its IBM 360 era, 370 era systems.
[20:07.220 --> 20:11.260]  And this front panel was used to interface directly into the CPU.
[20:11.480 --> 20:25.840]  It would use the CPU of the system, but it would give the computer the ability to halt, to check memory, to look at things that weren't available if you couldn't get to the glass screen to see and run diagnostics.
[20:25.920 --> 20:35.840]  So, this was inserted back into the computer by the technicians who said, well, wait a minute, we can't do our jobs if we can't figure out what's wrong with the computer, if you just say it doesn't work.
[20:36.320 --> 20:51.140]  And this, of course, was being done in part because back in those days, the many computer manufacturers like IBM and Burroughs and DEC and so on, they actually would sell you the computer and the software and the technician.
[20:51.720 --> 20:54.960]  You paid for that on a monthly or yearly or whatever basis.
[20:55.140 --> 20:59.760]  It was rare for a company to actually purchase a computer outright because they were so expensive.
[21:00.020 --> 21:11.180]  So, this was actually a cost-saving measure that was put into play by the technicians because they didn't want to have to swap out an entire computer to figure out which component was bad.
[21:11.180 --> 21:12.900]  So, that's what this is all about.
[21:13.980 --> 21:15.040]  Here's another example.
[21:15.080 --> 21:17.520]  This is from a Burroughs B7800.
[21:17.900 --> 21:20.560]  This is a diagnostic panel for one of those.
[21:20.700 --> 21:27.560]  You can see, I think you can see on the screen, you can see at the very end, you can see how this thing was actually slid into a back plane slot.
[21:28.180 --> 21:38.280]  It had an LCD four-digit output display and it used to display two-digit machine instructions or one four-digit hex value.
[21:40.120 --> 21:42.080]  And you can see those are 16 switches.
[21:42.320 --> 21:45.300]  So, you can see that it was configured to work with the kind of computers back in the day.
[21:47.940 --> 21:49.900]  Okay, so, very exciting.
[21:50.380 --> 21:52.760]  What does this have to do with inventing computers?
[21:53.400 --> 21:58.500]  So, about the same time, microcomputers were invented.
[22:01.580 --> 22:05.960]  And here's a cover of electrical design news in 1975, best of issue.
[22:06.300 --> 22:11.320]  In other words, the articles written in this were written earlier, but this is like a reprint.
[22:11.840 --> 22:17.220]  And I was intrigued to learn about, there were many lesser known microcomputers from 1974 and 1975.
[22:17.620 --> 22:19.400]  And so, I spent some time doing a little research.
[22:19.860 --> 22:26.200]  Again, the theme here, you read about the pantheon of computers.
[22:26.460 --> 22:28.800]  You've got your this, you've got your this, you've got your this, you've got your this.
[22:28.920 --> 22:30.100]  It's never that simple.
[22:30.280 --> 22:32.600]  Just like human evolution, it's not that simple.
[22:32.700 --> 22:35.540]  There wasn't a Neanderthal, then a Homo sapiens and so on.
[22:35.740 --> 22:37.140]  The same goes with computers.
[22:37.140 --> 22:40.620]  There wasn't just this computer, then this one came out.
[22:40.720 --> 22:43.180]  Everyone just threw the one away that they had and made another one.
[22:43.280 --> 22:47.580]  There were people who didn't necessarily take the consumer route.
[22:47.720 --> 22:50.060]  They didn't necessarily take the advertising route.
[22:50.180 --> 22:51.380]  They just made a computer.
[22:51.680 --> 22:53.920]  So, there's a lot of that kind of activity going on.
[22:54.520 --> 23:04.660]  And amongst those people were the real engineers who were taking these early microprocessors and making computers out of them.
[23:05.860 --> 23:13.280]  Never publicized, never talked about in Byte Magazine or Kilobot or some of these other popular kinds of magazines.
[23:13.420 --> 23:15.360]  These are the heavy-duty engineers.
[23:15.680 --> 23:18.760]  And this one on the screen right here is RCA's Cosmax system.
[23:19.100 --> 23:23.960]  This was built, you know, 72, 73 or something like that.
[23:24.060 --> 23:25.440]  And it was a full-blown computer.
[23:26.140 --> 23:33.640]  But it's really pretty much unknown because it wasn't sold to consumers and it probably cost about, you know, $7,000, $8,000, $9,000.
[23:34.260 --> 23:38.700]  But you could boot the thing up and you could get to a teletype and you could get to a prompt and it was ready to go.
[23:40.980 --> 23:44.320]  But this was the one that really got me interested in the subject.
[23:44.640 --> 23:48.880]  This is called the Process Computer Systems Micropack 80.
[23:51.000 --> 23:54.640]  The original lead engineer of the Micropack 80 computer, his name is Rick Barnage.
[23:55.080 --> 23:56.300]  And I tracked him down.
[23:56.580 --> 23:57.580]  He's still alive.
[23:57.700 --> 23:58.860]  Well, not that he's that old, I'm sure.
[23:58.860 --> 24:01.960]  But I tracked him down for an informative phone interview.
[24:02.140 --> 24:09.720]  And this is really what kind of, what really consolidated my understanding of where some of these really early PCs came from.
[24:10.460 --> 24:16.440]  He makes a reasonable case that this was the first commercial computer that used the Intel 8080 microprocessor as a CPU.
[24:17.420 --> 24:28.540]  The Micropack was originally designed and built to be used as an interface for the HP 2000 series, the DEC PDP, and the data general minicomputers using the minicomputer as a CPU.
[24:29.340 --> 24:35.840]  But Rick and his team realized that their Micropack could be used as a standalone computer if they had the appropriate microprocessor.
[24:36.640 --> 24:43.920]  So what happened here is that was a company who was doing the servicing of minicomputers using front panels.
[24:44.260 --> 24:50.740]  And they said, why don't we just throw a microprocessor on one of our diagnostic front panels and turn it into a computer?
[24:50.920 --> 24:52.060]  And that's what this is.
[24:53.080 --> 24:57.020]  You can see the front panel is up at the top.
[24:57.160 --> 25:00.720]  It's not... this is the only known picture of this thing that I've ever found.
[25:00.720 --> 25:02.480]  It doesn't exist anywhere on the web.
[25:03.140 --> 25:07.800]  And the only reason I found this was just by looking through the phone... not the phone book, looking through online.
[25:07.980 --> 25:08.960]  I found... maybe I need to use the phone book.
[25:09.320 --> 25:12.200]  But just tracking this guy down relentlessly.
[25:12.800 --> 25:18.180]  Finding somebody named Rick Barnick that would answer my questions and, you know, seem to know what I was talking about.
[25:18.280 --> 25:20.960]  But eventually, he did confirm this story.
[25:22.140 --> 25:24.920]  So what they did was they made this computer.
[25:25.140 --> 25:29.040]  They finished the whole thing before the 8080 processor came out.
[25:29.340 --> 25:30.940]  They contacted Intel.
[25:31.380 --> 25:32.980]  They said they'd like a processor.
[25:33.200 --> 25:40.700]  They understand... they already had the engineering specifications for the prototype version of the 8080, which was called the S910.
[25:41.180 --> 25:43.360]  And they built the whole thing around it.
[25:43.480 --> 25:50.280]  And they waited for Intel to finally ship them in early 1974, this chip.
[25:50.280 --> 25:52.140]  And they took the prototype chip.
[25:52.280 --> 25:52.960]  They put it in.
[25:53.060 --> 25:53.560]  It worked.
[25:54.420 --> 25:56.560]  Very, very, very little voltage changes.
[25:56.700 --> 25:59.180]  Rick said they had to make a minor voltage change to something.
[25:59.320 --> 26:00.780]  But other than that, the thing worked perfectly.
[26:01.060 --> 26:24.060]  So, very interesting that the contribution that the technicians made and the connection between how technicians who were just doing their diagnostic job with computers that didn't have front panels and how that led to the creation of accidentally microcomputers.
[26:27.950 --> 26:29.550]  You can see here some of the specs.
[26:29.730 --> 26:31.010]  Front panel, teletype I.O.
[26:31.030 --> 26:35.650]  storage, built-in ROM, finished in December of 73, and then sold in early 74.
[26:36.890 --> 26:40.710]  If you recall, the Altair was sold in January of 1975.
[26:40.710 --> 26:43.170]  So, this is almost a year before that.
[26:45.430 --> 26:45.910]  Okay.
[26:47.410 --> 26:49.570]  Now, there's one more connection for you.
[26:50.550 --> 26:51.270]  Let me see.
[26:51.270 --> 26:52.170]  How am I doing on time?
[26:52.450 --> 26:52.810]  Pretty good.
[26:52.990 --> 26:53.110]  Okay.
[26:55.010 --> 26:56.450]  This one's a little bit more fun.
[26:56.590 --> 27:04.230]  But the point here is that I really want to illustrate that you don't want to get your knowledge and your information from Wikipedia.
[27:06.490 --> 27:11.710]  And it's really important that you really go and dive into whatever it is that you're interested in yourself.
[27:12.750 --> 27:14.150]  Can you rewrite the Wikipedia?
[27:17.290 --> 27:19.390]  Well, that's all I'd be doing all day, I suppose.
[27:19.810 --> 27:28.370]  But what I will do, and I do do, is publicize this information on my website, which is called vintagecomputer.org, if you want to write that down.
[27:28.470 --> 27:30.310]  I didn't put it anywhere to publicize myself.
[27:30.710 --> 27:37.690]  But that's where I do all this work, vintagecomputer.net and vintagecomputer.org, both point to the same site.
[27:39.310 --> 27:41.150]  I have not publicized this anywhere.
[27:41.550 --> 27:44.030]  This information that you're about to hear has never been heard.
[27:44.450 --> 27:47.870]  So this is the first time knowledge for everybody.
[27:48.470 --> 27:55.690]  But really, it's a little bit of a stretch in that it does have to do with technology, but it's more of just for fun.
[27:56.130 --> 27:59.930]  I have nothing against the people from Ghostbusters or Dan Aykroyd or any of those.
[27:59.970 --> 28:12.830]  But what I am going to do is I'm going to show you how I used my investigations to determine that, indeed, Dan Aykroyd may not have actually written the story of Ghostbusters and who actually did.
[28:14.570 --> 28:16.770]  Ghostbusters story was nominated for Oscars.
[28:16.990 --> 28:21.590]  This is the 30th anniversary this summer of the Ghostbusters movie.
[28:22.650 --> 28:29.570]  It's considered to be the 28th of the funniest movies of all time, according to the American Film Institute.
[28:30.650 --> 28:38.610]  And, you know, personally, I can't remember when I've actually last watched this movie, but it definitely is a classic movie.
[28:39.030 --> 28:42.890]  And it is pretty much in our popular culture.
[28:42.910 --> 28:44.230]  Who are you going to call and all that stuff?
[28:46.210 --> 28:51.590]  So Wikipedia says that Ghostbusters was written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis.
[28:51.590 --> 28:53.890]  And you can see them in the slide on the screen.
[28:54.250 --> 29:02.830]  It also stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ramis, and were both in New York City and they started a ghost-catching business.
[29:07.750 --> 29:10.070]  And here's some other stars from the film.
[29:10.430 --> 29:13.450]  You've got Sigourney Weaver.
[29:15.310 --> 29:20.570]  You've got the EPA inspector who tried to shut them down and so on.
[29:21.370 --> 29:22.490]  And so what?
[29:22.590 --> 29:22.930]  Who cares?
[29:23.070 --> 29:23.930]  It's just the movie, right?
[29:24.810 --> 29:37.190]  But this, again, is a story about how Dan Aykroyd wanted to publicize his knowledge of science and so on.
[29:37.250 --> 29:42.910]  He wanted to kind of make himself look like he was sort of like a quirky genius kind of person.
[29:43.450 --> 29:47.790]  And the story about traveling through time and space and other dimensions was right up his alley.
[29:51.450 --> 30:04.810]  When you look into the Ghostbusters story, in particular, the term ectoplasm, which is also referred to as ghost slime, an ectoplasmic residue, when you're slimed, it's a substance that comes from ghosts and other outwardly beings.
[30:05.010 --> 30:08.830]  So when you would go after one of these ghosts, you would get slimed as they would go through you.
[30:10.090 --> 30:13.510]  Ectoplasm is a slimy, greenish substance, but sometimes just a green glow.
[30:14.790 --> 30:19.830]  And all ghosts and paranormal activities are considered to be ectoplasmic by Ghostbusters.
[30:21.730 --> 30:27.250]  Ectoplasmic is the state of being, which is the outwardly creatures and ghosts and demons, in order to enter our realm.
[30:27.350 --> 30:31.190]  They have to be ectoplasmic in order to come into the earth.
[30:35.530 --> 30:49.850]  The word ectomobile was only used in the song cleaning up the town from the film's soundtrack, but everybody knows this thing as the hearse that the Ghostbusters rode around in to chase after the ectoplasmic ghosts in New York City.
[30:51.670 --> 30:56.890]  This is a 1959 Cadillac Miller Meteor, limo-style combination car.
[30:57.450 --> 30:59.090]  It's like an ambulance that was converted.
[30:59.510 --> 31:01.270]  And why am I saying all this stuff?
[31:01.490 --> 31:02.290]  Just hold on.
[31:02.430 --> 31:04.070]  It's a little bit of a stretch, but you'll see.
[31:04.290 --> 31:12.390]  Okay, so we've got the ectoplasm, we've got the green slime, we've got the 1959 Ghostbusters ectomobile.
[31:12.630 --> 31:29.170]  We've got the whole concept of going after them with the guns that would shoot the rays at them and that would disturb the ectoplasm and then capture them by capturing the ectoplasm, putting them in a box and ridding the world of these ghosts for whatever reason.
[31:30.170 --> 31:33.330]  Okay, now, got me thinking.
[31:34.530 --> 31:37.490]  One of the things about collecting... Not collecting.
[31:37.630 --> 31:44.370]  But one of the things about my hobby, I guess you'd call it, is when I go to a person's house, I'll get a call.
[31:44.530 --> 32:01.170]  I'll say, you know, somebody or another just died, or my, you know, I got to get this junk out of my house or whatever, I would go to a house and I'd bring a truck or whatever and I'd unload whatever crazy computer collection some guy had for 50 years in his house.
[32:01.830 --> 32:04.630]  And then I would take those items, and I'd look through them all.
[32:04.750 --> 32:06.650]  I'd catalog them as a collection.
[32:06.990 --> 32:09.270]  Because I really wanted to understand, what was this person doing with them?
[32:09.330 --> 32:12.110]  What magazines was this person reading when he was working on this?
[32:12.210 --> 32:14.990]  And what was the context behind this?
[32:15.010 --> 32:16.290]  What did this guy do for a living?
[32:16.430 --> 32:16.930]  And so on.
[32:17.350 --> 32:33.470]  Clean these items up, and then very often what I would do is I would catalog them, and then I would just take them to the Mid-Atlantic Retrocomputing Hobbyist Museum in Wall Township, which isn't that far from here, and that's where a lot of this stuff now exists.
[32:34.590 --> 32:40.470]  But in my travels, I came upon this comic book.
[32:41.410 --> 32:47.850]  And if you look at it, this is a 1963-1964 comic book.
[32:47.930 --> 32:48.850]  What does that look like to you?
[32:49.270 --> 32:51.290]  Does that guy look like he's doing some ghost busting?
[32:53.010 --> 32:54.350]  It does to me, doesn't it?
[32:54.730 --> 32:57.290]  So I started saying, hmm, what's going on here?
[32:57.510 --> 32:57.910]  Why?
[32:58.030 --> 32:58.490]  I don't know.
[32:58.490 --> 33:03.170]  But I felt as if there was a story to uncover.
[33:04.410 --> 33:06.750]  So this is the Adventures into the Unknown.
[33:07.490 --> 33:14.810]  And this is a story, this is basically how, you know, by saving this stuff and holding onto it, you never know.
[33:15.130 --> 33:19.290]  Really, my interest in this was looking for computer ads, like the Geniac and the Brainiac and all.
[33:19.430 --> 33:23.470]  But this cover really struck me, and I just kind of put it aside and said, huh, this is interesting.
[33:24.990 --> 33:28.670]  But eventually, I read into it a little bit.
[33:29.490 --> 33:34.670]  And the more I read, the more I started thinking, hey, this is the Ghostbusters story.
[33:35.910 --> 33:37.810]  You've got Ghost Killer Who Vanished.
[33:38.150 --> 33:41.350]  You can see the original author is Koreto Osaki.
[33:41.470 --> 33:43.450]  Here's the only picture I could find of the guy.
[33:44.770 --> 33:45.430]  Right there.
[33:45.630 --> 33:46.750]  I don't think that's real, though.
[33:46.810 --> 33:47.930]  I think that's a self-portrait.
[33:49.370 --> 33:51.270]  But this was written in 1963.
[33:51.270 --> 33:52.970]  It was submitted for publication.
[33:53.570 --> 33:56.810]  Late 1963, it appeared in early 1964 on newsstands.
[33:56.830 --> 33:57.630]  But just remember that.
[33:57.750 --> 34:00.990]  We're talking about 1963, there is a Ghostbusters story.
[34:01.130 --> 34:04.690]  They're calling it Ghost Killer, but essentially it's a Ghostbusters story.
[34:06.930 --> 34:12.150]  You can see things like bombardment by a combination of infrared and gamma rays.
[34:12.290 --> 34:13.510]  This is Dr. Johnson.
[34:13.510 --> 34:18.290]  He's working on his ectoplasm detector, and ectoplasm blaster devices.
[34:21.960 --> 34:30.120]  He tells the academia, just like they did in, just like they were doing in the Ghostbusters story.
[34:30.580 --> 34:35.380]  Ghosts consist of an emanation called ectoplasm, rays of high penetrating power.
[34:35.540 --> 34:38.700]  So he's telling this to the academic community.
[34:39.340 --> 34:43.500]  He shows them the detector that he invented.
[34:43.720 --> 34:45.040]  And of course they laugh at him.
[34:45.040 --> 34:47.260]  Who was laughed at in Ghostbusters?
[34:47.380 --> 34:47.820]  Bill Murray.
[34:48.820 --> 34:51.820]  And all of a sudden the story is getting a little bit more serious, isn't it?
[34:52.560 --> 34:53.040]  Yes.
[34:53.320 --> 35:03.680]  But just like all academics that get laughed out of their institutions, there's always somebody in the movie especially who's willing to hire you and believes that your crazy story will actually work.
[35:03.680 --> 35:12.780]  So our doctor or professor Johnson starts a small business in the field of using this device to track down ghosts.
[35:16.170 --> 35:19.470]  And just as with the Ghostbusters, the device is tested in the field.
[35:20.730 --> 35:23.090]  Ghosts registering in...
[35:23.810 --> 35:24.490]  Let's see here.
[35:24.610 --> 35:25.510]  I'm trying to read what that says.
[35:25.630 --> 35:28.630]  Oh, it's registering more and more as if the ghost had come out of the pictures.
[35:29.870 --> 35:31.530]  You can see the device.
[35:33.090 --> 35:34.530]  And you can see him shooting it.
[35:35.430 --> 35:35.730]  Okay?
[35:37.130 --> 35:37.610]  So...
[35:38.490 --> 35:40.650]  This is really starting to make a case of...
[35:42.510 --> 35:44.850]  That the Ghostbusters story came from this comic book.
[35:44.990 --> 35:46.370]  That's reasonable to say, right?
[35:46.570 --> 35:48.310]  But let's not get too hasty.
[35:48.610 --> 35:48.890]  Okay?
[35:49.150 --> 35:50.130]  Let's just assume...
[35:50.130 --> 35:51.510]  This is just an amazing coincidence.
[35:51.650 --> 35:58.490]  Let's just assume for right now that we're not proving anything other than the fact that two people came up with a very similar story.
[35:58.490 --> 35:59.050]  Okay?
[36:00.230 --> 36:02.010]  So I decided to push further.
[36:02.510 --> 36:03.870]  And what I did...
[36:04.490 --> 36:05.830]  Was I took a look...
[36:05.830 --> 36:07.810]  At my hacked version...
[36:07.810 --> 36:09.490]  Of the Ghostbusters video game...
[36:10.170 --> 36:12.090]  That came out in 1984.
[36:16.820 --> 36:18.260]  Here's a picture of the screen.
[36:19.200 --> 36:21.460]  Now here's something interesting about this story.
[36:22.120 --> 36:23.660]  What Activision had done...
[36:25.540 --> 36:26.140]  Was...
[36:26.140 --> 36:27.060]  They...
[36:27.060 --> 36:30.580]  They were given the job of making this game...
[36:30.580 --> 36:33.040]  At the same time this movie was being produced.
[36:33.940 --> 36:35.660]  And like most comedian type movies...
[36:36.260 --> 36:38.380]  They have a general script that they work with.
[36:38.600 --> 36:39.960]  And then as they make the movie...
[36:39.960 --> 36:41.640]  They kind of change things around a little bit.
[36:41.880 --> 36:42.300]  But...
[36:42.300 --> 36:45.060]  The Activision people got the original script.
[36:45.260 --> 36:46.160]  The original information.
[36:46.400 --> 36:48.260]  And they incorporated that into their game.
[36:48.680 --> 36:48.920]  Okay?
[36:49.440 --> 36:49.920]  So...
[36:49.920 --> 36:50.860]  In parallel...
[36:50.860 --> 36:51.860]  You've got one...
[36:51.860 --> 36:53.800]  One Activision team making the game.
[36:54.160 --> 36:56.400]  And then you've got the movie actually being produced.
[36:57.260 --> 36:57.940]  So...
[36:58.660 --> 36:59.340]  Um...
[36:59.340 --> 36:59.860]  So that's...
[36:59.860 --> 37:00.920]  Those are occurring in parallel.
[37:01.260 --> 37:01.880]  Now...
[37:01.880 --> 37:03.720]  Once you've loaded this game up...
[37:03.720 --> 37:04.200]  Guess what?
[37:05.700 --> 37:07.820]  You have a choice...
[37:07.820 --> 37:08.420]  Of...
[37:08.420 --> 37:10.700]  An unspecified subcompact...
[37:10.700 --> 37:13.360]  An unspecified station wagon...
[37:13.360 --> 37:15.640]  An unspecified high performance sports car...
[37:15.640 --> 37:16.060]  Or...
[37:16.060 --> 37:17.760]  A 1963 Hurst.
[37:18.000 --> 37:19.920]  Which looked exactly like the Ecto-1.
[37:20.880 --> 37:21.560]  Coincidence?
[37:25.480 --> 37:26.440]  I think not.
[37:30.180 --> 37:30.660]  So...
[37:30.660 --> 37:31.480]  Again...
[37:31.480 --> 37:31.720]  By...
[37:31.720 --> 37:34.040]  By dipping into these crazy alleys...
[37:34.420 --> 37:35.020]  Taking them...
[37:35.020 --> 37:35.700]  You should do it.
[37:35.900 --> 37:36.080]  It's...
[37:36.080 --> 37:36.840]  It's fun...
[37:36.840 --> 37:38.640]  And you never know what you're gonna find.
[37:38.800 --> 37:38.980]  Right?
[37:40.400 --> 37:40.880]  So...
[37:42.120 --> 37:42.600]  You...
[37:42.600 --> 37:43.460]  You build your car.
[37:44.200 --> 37:46.180]  Note how it says 1963 Hurst.
[37:47.840 --> 37:48.320]  Um...
[37:48.320 --> 37:48.480]  You...
[37:48.480 --> 37:48.920]  You...
[37:48.920 --> 37:51.060]  Basically you're using this Hurst to travel throughout the game.
[37:55.690 --> 37:57.130]  Here's the game board itself.
[37:58.490 --> 37:58.850]  Um...
[37:58.850 --> 38:01.830]  What you would do here is you would, um...
[38:01.830 --> 38:02.210]  You would...
[38:02.210 --> 38:02.530]  You would...
[38:02.530 --> 38:03.150]  You would...
[38:03.150 --> 38:05.290]  You would use your joystick and you would find where those...
[38:05.290 --> 38:06.070]  The ghosts are.
[38:06.230 --> 38:06.870]  And you would drive...
[38:06.870 --> 38:07.550]  You would move your...
[38:07.550 --> 38:07.910]  Your...
[38:07.910 --> 38:09.390]  Your cursor to the...
[38:09.390 --> 38:10.030]  To the...
[38:10.030 --> 38:11.050]  Like those yellow ghosts.
[38:11.230 --> 38:12.490]  And then you would hit the button.
[38:13.290 --> 38:15.490]  And then you would go on the road in your yellow...
[38:15.490 --> 38:16.170]  I mean in your...
[38:16.170 --> 38:16.770]  In your...
[38:16.770 --> 38:17.490]  In your...
[38:17.490 --> 38:17.770]  In your hearse.
[38:19.010 --> 38:19.750]  Traveling down the road.
[38:19.870 --> 38:21.190]  And you could move it, go from left to right.
[38:21.330 --> 38:22.690]  And you could run over ghosts with it.
[38:22.690 --> 38:24.210]  If they happen to show up on the screen.
[38:24.430 --> 38:27.490]  It's pretty advanced for a game in 1984.
[38:29.410 --> 38:36.110]  And then finally you would show up, you would lay down your ecto traps and so forth.
[38:37.370 --> 38:41.990]  And you would use these to capture the ghosts and all that.
[38:42.170 --> 38:44.270]  So this basic story was put together.
[38:44.490 --> 38:51.810]  The only real difference is that for whatever reason, in the movie they chose to use a 1959 hearse.
[38:51.810 --> 38:55.310]  But in the video they used the 1963 hearse.
[38:55.430 --> 38:56.570]  Were they feeling guilty?
[38:56.870 --> 38:57.570]  Probably not.
[38:58.250 --> 38:59.650]  Were they trying to hide something?
[39:00.290 --> 39:01.130]  Probably not.
[39:01.850 --> 39:04.970]  Did they actually come up with this by reading the magazine?
[39:09.120 --> 39:15.620]  Well, I think it's reasonable to say that they had a copy of this magazine lying around when they were doing their work.
[39:18.300 --> 39:23.220]  So, Activision was building the game in parallel with the movie based on the unfinished script.
[39:23.220 --> 39:25.740]  The comic book story is from 1963.
[39:26.200 --> 39:35.460]  The original Ecto-1 must have been described as a 1963 hearse in that documentation, which matches the comic book date.
[39:35.460 --> 39:39.440]  So the publication of the date matches the year of the hearse.
[39:39.800 --> 39:45.480]  And the movie producers could not find a suitable 1963 hearse, so they just settled on whatever they could find in 1959.
[39:46.560 --> 39:48.360]  So my question for you...
[39:48.360 --> 39:49.820]  Whoa, what just happened?
[39:50.960 --> 39:51.480]  Oh.
[39:54.720 --> 39:55.520]  One second.
[40:07.710 --> 40:08.930]  Can you see that okay now?
[40:09.930 --> 40:10.450]  Okay.
[40:10.930 --> 40:11.530]  We're back.
[40:11.770 --> 40:13.950]  All right, so the question I have for you then is...
[40:16.150 --> 40:18.210]  Kuro Osaki, who are you going to call?
[40:19.410 --> 40:21.390]  I say you should call a copyright lawyer.
[40:24.210 --> 40:24.890]  It's reasonable.
[40:25.090 --> 40:27.830]  So if there are any lawyers in the house, go get them.
[40:28.890 --> 40:31.310]  Actually, honestly, I have no idea if the guy is still alive.
[40:31.430 --> 40:31.710]  I don't know.
[40:31.870 --> 40:34.230]  I could not find him anywhere.
[40:34.490 --> 40:37.570]  Another interesting thing about this is I searched the web.
[40:38.970 --> 40:46.490]  This artist has credits for dozens and dozens of comic books that he's made, covers and so on.
[40:46.750 --> 41:01.070]  There's not one copy anywhere on the web, in Google, of the cover that I showed you about the ghost killers comic book cover.
[41:03.790 --> 41:05.050]  Isn't that kind of strange?
[41:05.050 --> 41:12.890]  So it really makes you wonder if there actually were lawyers and people who actually knew all this stuff and actually suppressed this information.
[41:13.190 --> 41:13.950]  Well, the truth must be known.
[41:18.220 --> 41:22.240]  And I just think that, you know, this is a really interesting story.
[41:22.840 --> 41:24.340]  I'm happy to share it with you.
[41:24.880 --> 41:32.080]  And, you know, really all I can tell you is that next time you watch this movie, which is the 30th anniversary, spread the word.
[41:33.520 --> 41:34.400]  See what happens.
[41:34.640 --> 41:35.280]  You never know.
[41:35.460 --> 41:36.000]  You never know.
[41:36.000 --> 41:39.460]  I'd love for this guy, Karato Osaki, to get credit.
[41:39.940 --> 41:46.400]  My guess is that he's either not with us anymore or he just didn't know what Ghostbusters was.
[41:47.020 --> 41:51.620]  You know, it seemed almost impossible for me to imagine unless there was hush money involved.
[41:51.780 --> 41:52.860]  I think there's a conspiracy.
[41:54.320 --> 41:59.080]  And that's really just making me think more about, you know, almost everything now.
[41:59.080 --> 42:02.020]  So, if Ghostbusters isn't real, is America real?
[42:02.780 --> 42:03.380]  You know?
[42:06.120 --> 42:08.340]  I can feel it's all sinking into you right now.
[42:10.400 --> 42:17.240]  So, that actually, I was actually going to talk about one other thing, but I was afraid I was going to run out of time.
[42:17.240 --> 42:18.960]  So, that's really the end of my talk.
[42:19.180 --> 42:26.720]  But I'm certainly happy to answer any questions about vintage computing, anything that has to do with computers, how...
[42:28.060 --> 42:35.880]  More details about the connections between these front panels, about the origin of calculators, and, of course, about the Ghostbusters story.
[42:35.880 --> 42:36.040]  Judge Daniel and Daniel, thank you for it.
[42:36.040 --> 42:36.160]  Hold on words a little bit again.
[42:36.160 --> 42:36.280]  Wait.
[42:36.600 --> 42:36.840]  ...sort of...
[42:36.840 --> 42:36.860]  Wait.