Instead, they ended up on eBay, at a bargain-basement price of $59.99 each. And when the modern retro computing community turned them on, what they found was something worth bringing back to life.
It took a while for anyone to notice these stylish metal-and-plastic machines from 1983. First, information spread like whispers in the community of tech forums, Discord servers, and Patreon channels where retro tech collectors hid.
But then, a well-known tech YouTuber, Adrian Black, did a video about them, and these eBay machines, slapped with the logo of a company called NABU, were anonymous no more.
The NABU is an incredibly interesting story, but I would like to take this time to highlight Adrian Black, one of the very finest retro computing YouTubers out there. He’s incredibly knowledgeable and capable, kind, calm, and takes his time to fix and showcase the hardware he works on. He’s the Mister Rogers of retro computing, and living proof that no, not all YouTubers are flashy, algorithm-chasing airheads.
I very nearly bought a NABU, but ended up down my own rabbit-hole of forgotten weirdness, in the shape of the RCA MS2000, equally as forgotten and of the same vintage. Sadly, whilst there’s 2200 NABU’s floating around, the MS2000 seems to be incredibly rare, with my example being possibly the only one in a hobbyists hands. However, despite it’s obscurity, it’s fairly well documented.
The NABU however, seems to be quite an interesting machine. With decent graphics and sound capabilities, along with a ubiquitous Z80 CPU, plus reasonable expandability, it was almost like it was built to be forgotten about in a barn and hacked at in 40 year time. The community that has build around it is probably one of the most active at the moment, with all sorts of hardware additions appearing for it on an almost weekly basis.