Abusing a 90's Brother Word Processor

The Brother Super Power Note 386 was one of the worst laptops of the late 90's, and in the previous video, I absolutely fell in love with it! So of course, I bought the Brother's brother - the GeoBook NB-60 - and we're going to see just how much we can hack this thing up.

Linux? Games? Who knows! But I bet they'll all run terribly!

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#GEOS #386 #shakerandspoon

This video was sponsored by Shaker & Spoon

[joelavcoco]

As for the general low power of this thing in 1997, you have to remember that everybody's Grandma (literally) was being told they needed a computer and email. They always said they didn't want anything 'complicated' or 'fancy' -- they just wanted an appliance that 'just worked' without any confusing options. That's who this kind of thing was aimed at. They didn't want to run Wolfenstein 3D. They just wanted to do simple, basic stuff. And, realistically, a '386/SX with 4M of RAM was probably enough to do that. Of course, sometimes getting the 'simple', 'basic' thing to interoperate with the real world can get very complicated.

As someone else mentioned, you might see if the SOC has UART pins, and then you can hook up a serial terminal for Linux. Also, if you can figure out the parallel port pinout, you might be able to rewire it, or build a dongle to get some of your parallel port devices to work, depending on how weirdly nonstandard it is.

[darkwinter]

You’re probably going to need to generate a custom scan code map and re-compile the kernel to get it working with Linux.

[ChartreuseKitsune]

Those F5 and F8 shortcut keys are actually features of MS-DOS (At least in MS-DOS 6 but I also believe it is part of 5). They're for when you mess up your Config.sys and want to diagnose or repair your errors. Nothing special for the geobook, but nice that ROM-DOS still has those and didn't disable them.

[rmcdudmk]

The fact that it ran a 386 into what looks like a childs toy amazes me. These would be great to use as a case for a home made Raspberry Pi portable system.

[drstkova]

We ported our web browser to GEOS (jee oss) in the mid 90s and had several of these laptops. At the time companies were searching for accessible devices that weren’t computers to allow normal humans to use the internet. Magic cap, Sony, and brother all had competing devices. GEOS was a nightmare to code. So much so we had a song about it. “Put another arrow in, indirection hooligan. Lock but don’t unlock again…”

[RynoDBones]

I bought one of these at an auction in 1999 for $15. Gave it to my girlfriend at the time because she didn’t have an actual computer. It was really pretty great for what it was needed for.

[segaboy]

Honestly, I think there was some value there. When I was a kid, I had a Brother Word processor in my room and in those days, and my grandma had one too! Sire, I wanted something that would play games, but in 1998, we really just needed a reliable word processor! 😀 These were reliable machines that came with a warranty.

[storydtechtiverobertjones]

I recently found one of those impossible to find NB-80C models. They were not available in any of the electronics stores—at least near me at the time. There were plenty of the NB-60 models. I used one back when it was still possible to use with dial up connection. I used it for email and word processing mainly, as the browser was not capable of showing pictures on the web. It was text only and slow as heck, even in the 90s. The NB-80C was capable of viewing photos…though not so much now! It has taken me years to track down a working model. I loved using it for my early writing projects, and it was mainly nostalgia that kept me searching for the higher end model. Thanks for the video!

[grimmpickins]

I really appreciate the fact that you double-downed on this one, because, wow, trying to use these...

I am starting to miss the retro-Apple shenanigans... and despite being a fan of those shenanigans, it isn't all I do either. I have a guilty love for early 2000-2010s tech (my favorite Macs are the g4 MDD and 5, 1 Mac Pros...). I love word processors (I used ones before this that we're much, much worse), because, when you're writing, the rest is a distraction - so my oldest computers are 'writing systems' and, honestly, I just smile at the old school layout.

I really appreciate the new "ad sponsor". As a Country Club type chef, Saturdays are one of those few days where I don't have late days, or dinner services (yeah, it sounds weird to me too). The first thing I do when I get home on Saturday is crack a beer (or cider, or etc.) and look for your Saturday video. Cheers, buddy!

[Cowclops]

I'm thankful that you have the guts to do in-video sponsorships that aren't for gray market windows keys or VPN services, those kinds of sponsors are huge mismatch between "way over played" and "not really a desirable product."

[boneske]

Can't wait to see what you do next with these portables.

[ctrlaltrees]

Sad to see that the Wolfenstein gods weren't smiling on you on this occasion... Maybe next time.

Ah... LOADLIN... Now that takes me back! 😎

[sebastian]

When loading Linux, there were no stuck key? The ones with scancode 70 and 6a(112 and 106 in decimal that do not exist on regular IBM keyboard)? Try a (BASIC) program to see the scancodes for your keyboard. Maybe the kernel hunged up because it tried to figure what to do with that keyboard input(s); you got buffer overflow from the keyboard at one point and the error message came when you pressed a key.

[aziztcf]

Got a romdump of the BIOS? Would love to check if those scancodes could be easily converted to a standard format.

[jimian]

I once thought computers dedicated to be 'word processors' are limited to Japan, and I'm quite surprised they were sold outside of Japan as well! Sometimes these vintage word processors would appear in Japanese dramas.

[AnonymousFreakYT]

Pretty much all parallel storage devices and PCMCIA devices need drivers to work in DOS. Not just MSCDEX.EXE, but also <something>.sys in CONFIG.SYS.

[xenotiic]

I appreciate the honesty of "I just wanted to make cocktails" XD

[jeremygregorio]

I had GEOS for the commodore 64 and used to write School papers with Geo write. I bought it as a kid into this day I couldn't tell you why but I just really wanted it.

[singletona]

the funny thing is? So long as those produced files on disks word perfect could open atschool? I'd have loved either of those in the 90s. Bonus points for infocom games or the like.

[monkeyman]

Loving the looks into these weird little machines, amazing the functionality that GEOS manages to squeeze out of it's relatively poor specs