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In a fascinating discovery, a treasure trove of 2,200 vintage computers has been unearthed from a barn in Massachusetts. This remarkable find has sparked excitement among tech enthusiasts as these machines offer a glimpse into the early days of computing. The computers were part of the Canadian-born NABU Network, a precursor to services like Compuserve and Prodigy.
The NABU was made by NABU Manufacturing Corporation in Ottowa, Canada and they were designed to connect to a cable network. This allowed the user to access online features like education, games, and home management. The goal was to test early networked computers.
The NABU network existed from 1982 and 1985 and ran the Z80 processor chip.
The NABU computers found in that Massachusetts barn went for $59 on eBay until they recently sold out. Collectors bought these new-old-stock devices just to experiment on this wild machine. The owner, a man named James Pellegrini, said he bought the machines to build a phone network for a client.
In the late 80s, Pellegrini had an idea to create a telephone exchange system for small businesses using an old computer as a base. A Surplus Traders flyer seemed to perfectly fit his need: “Bankruptcy sale: 1,500 home computers, new and original cartons, red-hot.”
“I ordered a couple of samples and honestly, I just really fell in love with the way they looked at the time,” Pellegrini recalls. “I thought they were the coolest-looking computers I’ve ever seen.”
He ended up buying the entire NABU stock, marked down significantly from their original price of $950 CAD (the equivalent of $769 in USD, around $2,383 with inflation). While not sharing the exact price he paid in 1989, Pellegrini says he got a good deal.
The machines, appearing in three separate trailer-truck deliveries, were something of a logistical nightmare.
“We’d spent a whole lot of time just unloading them and putting them into the storage units,” he says. “So we did that with the three shipments, and … there they sat for quite a long time.”
Ernie Smith has a great article on the NABU if you want to learn more. Sadly, it looks like all these lovely-looking machines are sold out so you might need to go scouring another barn to discover a similar unique cache.
