Why This Monitor is Seared into your Brain | Nostalgia Nerd

Here then, is the story of Microvitec and their Cub monitors.

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0:00 Introduction
0:49 The BBC Micro
4:57 The Microvitec Cub Story
14:26 Is it a Good Monitor?
16:26 SurfShark
17:46 Microvitec After the Cub
19:22 Credits

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Some material in this video may be used under Fair Dealing / Fair Use. Where under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 (UK: Sections 29 and 30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988), allowance is made for purposes including parody, quotation, criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, education and research. Fair Dealing / Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

[Nostalgianerd]

Apologies to my non UK viewers. This monitor may not be specifically *seared* into your brains (although Cub monitors did make it to various countries). But I hope you enjoy the story, nevertheless.
If I can obtain an Apple II and a Sanyo monitor in the future, then maybe I can address the balance for those across the Atlantic.

[VenturiLife]

Getting computers into schools was one of the most forward looking things the UK government ever did.

[sierraboney]

The CUB monitors were and are excellent monitors. They sometimes get used by arcade cab owners to decase and use them in, as they do really have fantastic image quality (you have to mod a couple of bits on the chassis to change it from TTL to analogue RGB). I picked up a cocktail cab a few years ago which has one in. Also had an upright midi cab which had one in, the chassis had something faulty on it (badly sparking driver transformer if I remember correctly) and I didn't have a spare part at the time so I just replaced it with a compatible 15khz arcade chassis, produced a brilliant picture. I have a 14" CUB in storage, but I also have a 20" CUB as well which is nice, didn't see many of those back in the day, and I haven't seen another one for years. I also have a multisync Acorn AKF monitor for testing 15khz, 24khz and 31khz arcade pcbs on, which I believe is built by Microvitec. I'm glad to own them!

[jamesnewman]

In 1982, when i was 12 we only had a ZX81 with the 16k pack and a Vic 20 with the 3k Superexpander in school. When my school upgraded to the C64 and Speccy 48k, the Vic was offered at a very small price (50 quid i believe) to any parents whose children were at my school. My dear old dad bought it for me and now i have it in a display cabinet here in the lounge. Thanks for this video, loved it 👍

[letsmooch]

I worked at Microvitec 1994-97 - great times before being made redundant due to LCD screens becoming the rage and unfortunately they never kept up with the changing times.

[dr_jaymz]

I just brought two of these babies back to life on my channel. They are very easy to work on and built so well. The other point to mention is that there are many British components internally which seems odd now. They are too important to lose. I love its lack of subtlety. It's literally a cube, its handy for putting things on top. I love it and it'll be burned on my memory forever.

[LordSandwichII]

It sort of saddens me that I grew up in a kind dark age when it comes to coding. The 70s and 80s had microcomputers in just about every school which, due to their limited processing power and storage, necessitated interaction via command line alone, and required kids to learn how to code in order to use them.

In the 90s and early 2000s (when I grew up), computers had GUIs, and almost all of our school instruction involved using that to do what we wanted. I really tried to get into coding. I joined the coding club at school, but it was mostly aimed at the older students, so I didn't understand what was going on. I also tried to learn coding myself, but it's hard to do something self-motivated like that when you're an adult, let alone just a child. I remember my IT teacher beaming with delight when he discovered that I had used a simple set of If statements in an Excel based form that was tasked with, because doing any actual "programming" was well above the requirements - _of my GCSE ICT course!_

In the late 2000s, I remember hearing on the news that they were going to reintroduce coding into the national curriculum - after I left school. "Good for them!" I thought, but felt jealous and even a little bitter that I also couldn't have that experience for myself. If coding is the new literacy, then I'm a 17th century peasant. 😥

[mattyfrommacc]

I had my own Beeb B in the early 80s, as well as our school having 1 or 2, my Dad was a teacher so he brought home the cub monitor and 5" disc drives/ games at the weekends, That monitor used to give a right powerful static shock and weighed an absoulute ton!

[zamiadams]

Aaah the memories of playing "Frogger" on a BBC micro then after school heading down to the video Club to rent "Cannibal Holocaust" or any other "video nasties" best days of my life.

[WillMorgan]

Had these in the classroom when I lived in Germany (British army school). We had one Windows PC and about 5 of these! Oh the memories!

[FireballXL]

Hi there,
I worked for another monitor manufacturer in the UK which was formed in 1976, we did do a cub equivalent but was more expensive so did not sell that many.
The company was called "Digivision" and was based in Leicester were were more an industrial supply company which supplied monitors to British rail, London Underground the national coal board and British Steel, we also supplied lots of mutlisync monitors (Yes we were early in doing multi standard monitors) for the yuppies in dealer desks in London this was really the cause of the company failure during the 1986 financial crash. Most of our orders disappeared over night the company was bought out in 1990 and the name was no more.

[ColinHoad]

Superb! Back in the day I always assumed those Cub monitors simply came as standard with a Beeb, don't think I ever saw a Beeb connected to any other display in my school! Great to hear the story behind them, thanks for making this 😀

[thisolesignguy]

This is so interesting because I grew up with Commodore, the Apple IIe and the IBM 8086/8088, and have never seen the BBC micro before. I had no idea it existed. Very cool

[dunebasher]

3:22 - it's interesting to note that The Computer Programme's first broadcast run was mid-afternoon, 3.05pm. It was repeated on Sunday mornings, and it wasn't until its third outing that it was finally shown in the evenings, but it was one of the last programmes of the day, typically between 11pm and midnight.

[thesteelrodent]

in Denmark we had RC Piccoline forced upon schools (and they came with RC monochrome monitors) - RC is an akronym for "Regnecentralen", the state department probably best known for creating DASK. Not entirely sure what the hardware was in the Piccoline, but almost every Danish kid who went to public school in the 80s was exposed to them, and to us they're possibly just as iconic as your BBC Micro

[stevietech]

I remember the massive static shock I would get leaning over the monitor to reach the power switch on the back. Happy primary school memories :)

[stephenrobertson]

I remember these with much fondness, as I used them at school in Computer Studies O'Level classes on the BBC Micro. What stood out to me was how sharp they were and how bright the colours were compared to the blurry black and white image of my ZX81, or the dot-crawling, blurry colour TV picture of my friend's issue 1 ZX Spectrums.
Of course the most use I got out of them was playing the Acorn arcade rip-offs Planetoid, Snapper, and Rocket Raid at lunchtime in the School computer room, and these games truly looked arcade quality on them. Fun times!

[dragonheatgaming]

Got sick of the electric shock if you touched metal case and turned the monitor off or on

[rockincherubtv]

wow brings a lot of memories studying Computer Science in the 90s

[mUbase]

I was in Primary school from 1980 to 1986 (where I passed my 11+ and went to Grammar). I remember the BBC Micro, the CUB monitor and the disc drives with a Vivid fondness . VERY vivid memories as these were my first intro to computing and computers. 1984 I seem to remember. x. Another excellent video. Thanks. :)