Bringing a Centurion Vintage Minicomputer from 1980 Back to Life
On Usagi Electric, David bought a minicomputer from 1980 on Facebook Marketplace for $100. It’s been a year of hard work, from picking the machine up (which turned out to be heavy and huge with lots of stuff) to cleaning and repairing to reverse engineering some of the code.
I have been following the series and it’s been a fascinating (and kind of exhausting to watch) jouurney. I love that we nerds have this kind of curiosity and dedication to the exploration of technology, past and present, and what makes it all tick.
In episode 11, he finally gets it running the original Centurion code.
See his channel to watch all 11 videos in the series.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
