#digital computer controls

Usagi Electric, Forgotten Machines, & Nevets at VCF Southwest 2025

[Usagi Electric], [Forgotten Machines], and [Nevets01] collaborated on a massive exhibit of unique old hardware.

[Usagi Electric] had an interactive exhibit with his recently rebuilt PDP 11/73 running examples of spectroscopy analysis using a Bomem vector processor. [Usagi] also demonstrated a Data General Nova 1210 running BASIC.

[Forgotten Machines] had a variety of old terminals, computers, and peripherals on display. He was on-hand throughout the show to help anyone image and preserve their old magnetic media.

[Nevets] had an interactive exhibit with a Data General Nova 1200 running BASIC alongside a (sadly non-functional) Digital Computer Controls D-116, a clone of the Nova 1200.

General Instrument rebranded Digital Computer Controls D-116/17

This clone of a Nova 1200 came out of a supermarket and has a number of 60 channel I/O cards in order to talk to all of the cash registers and scanners and check against the product pricing database. This is an incredibly decked-out system.

Digital Computer Controls D-116 and Tektronix 4014-1 vector terminal running a simple drawing program. I drew the Z Labs logo on it!

A variety of blown-out Data General Nova and Digital Computer Controls power supplies, courtesy of Forgotten Machines.

My Data General Nova 1200 (right) meets its old coworker from Jackson Type (a typesetting operation in Michigan), a Digital Computer Controls D-116 that belongs to my friend Nevets. The DCC-116 is a direct clone of the Nova 1200, so the two are functionally identical and can use the same cards.

The cool part is that both of our machines are now running modern power supplies that we worked together to design and implement. Mine was partially broken at the show, and we spent some time debugging, before I realized the parts I need weren't going to be available at the show. Meanwhile, my friend's DCC-116 ran great all weekend long, running BASIC from an ASR-33 teletype.

I spent some time entering a fun demo program, which he punched to paper tape for me to take home after the show. That third front panel between our two machines belongs to Forgotten Machines, and was running a front panel tester board in a demo mode.