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Welcome to the ValorosoIT channel, the channel dedicated to retrocomputers and vintage electronics. I am in Tradate, at the Varese Retrocomputing 2023, an event of vintage computers, but also of modern computers! With me is Giuliano Mingarelli who will now give us a nice presentation of a very particular computer.
What you are seeing displayed here is a Nuova Elettronica computer. It's basically a computer that came in an assembly kit. This in assembly kit. Yes, exactly. It was assembled using different kits: it was modular. It started with the power supply, then a BUS and had additional cards that could be put on this BUS. We started from the CPU card. Ok, which is equipped with a Z80, Z80 microprocessor from Zilog or SGS, which was the second brand that built this microprocessor. And then there was a hexadecimal keyboard version, of an educational type, and which was used precisely to learn the main programming notions. How was this planned? This one was programmed with the teaching kit in hexadecimal machine language. Okay. Then the operating system which could be used with various memory expansions and also with drives that read floppies; the operating systems were MSDOS, which was a proprietary MSDOS, then also CP/M. Okay. Yes. Well, in fact, the Z80 supports CP/M. Yes, he supports it, okay.
But is this actually the kit that was released by Nuova Elettronica? Yes, let's say that the user had the possibility to purchase only what was of interest to his project. It was a project that could be started and completed as needed and there were various options that could be purchased. There is the case rack, where the power supply is contained inside, this is handcrafted because each user then customized it. Could the power supply also be customized? Let's say, the main part is standard, then different components were added to improve it. Okay. Depending on the operator's experience.
Instead is it the motherboard, is this the card? This is the motherboard, this here is the CPU. Yes, exactly. Here you can see an external one. So this is the same one? Yes, it's this card here. Okay. Here you can also see the photo in the magazine, it is very similar. Okay.
Then there was the interface for the hexadecimal keyboard, which is this one here. This one, exactly. And already with this initial kit, therefore power supply, BUS, CPU card, hexadecimal keyboard interface, hexadecimal keyboard, you could start to have the first notions of machine language programming in hexadecimal.
Nuova Elettronica, in the magazine, gave examples of how to program and explained in a very simple way how it worked and what results could be obtained. Indeed, Nuova Elettronica was a fantastic magazine for its time. I remember that I had read a lot of them too. And everything I know about electronics, basically, they taught me. Yes, I confirm, many electronics people, including computer scientists, have had this experience.
What I was saying, the important thing about this kit: Nuova Elettronica told those who made the product that if it didn't work, they had a free repair guarantee. They bought the kit, assembled it, couldn't make it work, sent it back to Bologna and it was practically repaired for free.
Reading the various stories, including those written by Nuova Elettronica, most of the problems were due to cold soldering (classical), components inserted backwards. Those break too! Cold solder, again still, can you fix it without changing anything. Maybe an integrated circuit backwards, if you reverse the + with -... An integrated circuit backwards, or resistors of incorrect value... Because then, what happened, many didn't buy the kit, but bought the separate parts, perhaps they weren't of good quality, like the integrated circuits, if they didn't come from Nuova Elettronica, perhaps they were poorer and there were these problems here.
And what is this one instead? This here is the monitor, drive and keyboard. It has, let's say, no electronic parts. But is it always relative to this? Yes, it is always relative to the project: and the first version. It is the case of the keyboard, monitor and drive. Okay. So, this one doesn't have electronics inside, doesn't it contain the CPU? It does not contain the CPU. It does not contain, say, the logical parts that are contained in the rack. Okay. Instead, in here, there is only the monitor, the drive with the electronics, its electronics, clearly the monitor with its electronics, the keyboard with its electronics, but there is no logical part.
So this one contains the monitor (and the monitor electronics), the drive (and the drive electronics) and the keyboard with its electronics. Then through cables, there was the keyboard cable, the drive cable and the video signal cable, they then end up in here, exactly, in the rack. It was later divided into parts. There is a second version which has the separate parts. So, there's the separate keyboard, here now I didn't bring it today because... Ah, why do you have that too? Yes. Fantastic. This one here is the first version, the other is this one, which always has the rack cabinet with the power supply and logical parts inside. The monitor is separate and the drive unit, floppy drive, is separate, the keyboard is separate. That they could also be bought separately? Yes, exactly.
Instead, this one probably would have been a one-off kit. A unique initial kit, because they produced it this way at the beginning. Then, clearly, for maintenance needs, to have a more versatile product, it was divided into parts. Also to have double drive. In this case here, how could I put the double drive? No, exactly. Then there was also electromagnetic interference, the drive had to be shielded well from the monitor. So, maybe he inserted a metal plate internally. Yes, inside. Yes, there was a plate that acted as insulation between the monitor and the drive itself.
Well, the whole system is very heavy. You can see, it's all metal. Yes, in beautiful metal, in heavy sheet metal. This is sheet metal, let's say, a little less thick, but it's still heavy. Some aluminum parts. The rack is also made of metal. Then there is a transformer. Yes, everything is heavy here. Heavy, yes. It's certainly not as light as the Commodore 64. Let's put it that way, okay. Here, they are products that I have recovered in recent years.
I never managed to assemble it, initially, because I was a kid. It would have had an absurd cost. It had costs that were truly not accessible to everyone. Well, you've made up for it, I'd even say abundantly, since you got two! But I have several… I have three, even! Three. I have a third version, I call it the Valenza Po. And why? And because it was assembled by a goldsmith, a goldsmith who assembled it and used it in his company and was subsequently used by his daughter to learn computer science. Then she also graduated in computer science, using this Nuova Elettronica computer. Doing experiments, programs. These are the real programs! Then you could use Basic, DOS (which was a proprietary DOS) and then also CP/M. Okay.
Then the product started to be sold in the years 79 to 85. Subsequently there was the Genoa company that designed it - because it was not a Nuova Elettronica project - no, it wasn't theirs, but it was entrusted to a Genoa company that designed it - and then subsequently this company, when Nuova Elettronica no longer produced peripherals, additional cards, this company here produced them and also created a club where you could continue to use the computer in some way. There were changes to be able to improve it.
Thank you very much for the presentation. It was a pleasure. It was all very clear. For other videos related to Varese Retrocomputing, search the @ValorosoIT channel. I won't describe them all for you. Eh, maybe I'll put some of them there, but you can go and look for the others. HI.