Monthly Archives: December 2023

River Raid for the MSX ported to the NABU Computer

Thanks to brijohn from the NABU Community we now have the classic Activision game River Raid converted from the MSX version to the NABU Personal Computer which is now available using the NabuNetwork.com v2.0 software and is located in the Game Room section.

NABU PC Game Activision River Raid

NABU PC Game Activision River Raid

River Raid is a video game developed by Carol Shaw for the Atari Video Computer System (Atari 2600) and released in 1982 by Activision. The player controls a fighter jet over the River of No Return in a raid behind enemy lines. The goal is to navigate the flight by destroying enemies while collecting fuel and not crashing.

If you haven’t tried it, be sure to check out our NABU Network Internet Adapter software and play some classic video games!

To find out more about MSX game ports like River Raid and other NABU games projects, please check out the NABU Network Github resources page under the “Other Fun NABU Software Projects” section.

Deep Dungeon Adventure NABU Computer Game

Thanks to E.E. Johnson from the Nabu Community we have the MSX game Deep Dungeon Adventure ported to the NABU Personal Computer which is now available using the NabuNetwork.com v2.0 software and is located in the Homebrew Software section.

NABU PC Game Deep Dungeon Adventure

NABU PC Game Deep Dungeon Adventure

Deep Dungeon Adventure is a Rougelike dungeon crawling game. It was originally created for the MSX by ARTRAG, John Hassink and Huey of Trilobyte. Deep Dungeon Adventure won the MSXdev08 competition.

This port is based on the source code release of the enhanced version. It has the full features of the original, including the easter egg.

As an added bonus to the NABU open source community, the NABU port source code is available from E.E. Johnson’s Github.

Here is a video from E.E. Johnson’s YouTube channel showing the game in action:

If you haven’t tried it, check out our NABU Network Internet Adapter software.

To find out more about other MSX game ports to the NABU computer like Deep Dungeon Adventure, please check out the NABU Network Github resources page under the “Other Fun NABU Software Projects” section.

A brief history on the 2022 NABU Computer Fever

I found out about the NABU PC from Adrian (Adrian’s Digital Basement) on November 15, 2022, and ordered my first NABU unit (he had also ordered one) with the idea it might be useful for parts down the road.

Adrian’s first NABU video on YouTube went public on November 26, 2022. It was up earlier, on November 20, 2022, for his Patreon supporters. Adrian found out about the NABUs for sale on eBay from another retro computer friend.

Adrian's Digital Basement November 20, 2022 Patreon post about NABU computers

The sales of the new old stock NABU’s had passed around in a few forums and other social media places on a limited scale during this time prior to Adrian’s video being created. James (PellMill eBay seller) had also been selling them on his local Craigslist.

Leo Binkowski, an ex-NABU computer programmer (1982–1986) informed the NABU Community of the following earlier today (December 12, 2023):

“This is actually my third try to resurrect NABU. I tried by myself in 1995. Then when I found out York University was trying to recover the project in 2009, I recovered most of the titles you see today. I was told a book was being written about NABU at that time, and all of the software I recovered stayed locked up at York U.

Tim Ranger, the author of Laser Attack, NABU Galaxian, and NABU Q*Bert with me was actually the one who emailed me about Adrian Black’s video, around the time it came out. I had long given up searching the internet for mentions of NABU.”

DJ Sures first video about NABU on his YouTube channel was posted on November 22, 2022, when it arrived at his place, so it seems Adrian, myself, and DJ all ordered within a day or two of each other based on when we received them.

Leo Binkowski reached out to DJ Sures in the comment section of his first NABU video, introducing himself to DJ, and DJ replied in part, “Really great to meet you, Leo,” then asked Leo in a follow-up comment, “If you can share your software, my project would be very appreciated!”.

Leo and DJ meeting November 2022

Basically, once Adrian’s original video hit his 100K+ subscribers on November 26, 2022, the NABU craze really took off, and once Leo started providing a few of us with his original NABU software cycles from 1984, which was first provided to the York Museum back in 2009, it was like pouring gas on a fire.

As shown on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine for December 3, 2022, Leo’s nabu.ca domain name was still pointed and redirecting to the York Musuem website:

December 3, 2022 NABU.ca pointing to York Musuem

It was around December 7, 2022 when Leo started pointing his nabu.ca domain name away from the York NABU Museum page and let DJ Sures put up his NABU-related site to showcase his “RetroNET cloud server” Network Adapter emulator software project:

December 7, 2022 NABU.ca Archive

On December 5, 2022 this NABU Network (NabuNetwork.com) website was launched to help expand and spread the NABU computer knowledge reach.

One year later, many of us have created all sorts of cool NABU stuff (Internet adapter software, floppy drive controllers, serial cards, etc.). Without Leo providing the cycle software, none of this would have happened, at least not as quickly, for sure.

-Sean

Happy One Year Anniversary NABU Network

One year ago today we launched NabuNetwork.com to celebrate all things NABU Network, NABU Computers and so much more! Here are some of the highlights from the past year:

If you’d like to help with the NabuNetwork.com preservation project, feel free to get in touch as we are always looking to improve things around the site. Remember, NABU Forever!!!