Am I the only one that remembers the NABU Network?

[FiftyQuid]

We got this through my local cable company and I remember playing some great games on it. I have never seen someone that has one of these consoles. Probably because the cable companies typically rented them out and the system is absolutely useless now as all the games were sent over cable lines to your home. I assume most have been destroyed.

I specifically remember playing Miner 49er.

Awesome times!

Found a picture!


[EDIT] Just searched and found an old thread on this;
http://cgcc.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20 ... light=nabu

Yippee! Others do remember!

[scogon]

Yeah, so fun!! I used to have a joystick from it

[awhite2600]

I think the Personal Computer Museum recently acquired a NABU system. Perhaps Sydric can confirm.

[FiftyQuid]

Yeah, so fun!! I used to have a joystick from it

I don't remember ever using a joystick with it. I only ever remember using the keyboard. It made the games more difficult to play, but I still remember enjoying it.

[scogon]

yeah, they were the same as the Fairchild sticks. Maybe they were an add-on you had to buy rather than rent?? no idea...

I also recall they had a stocks webpage, bio-rhythms, restaurant reviews, horoscopes... it was like a mini-internet in there! plus all the games of course and leader boards for all the games. very cool system.

[Komb']

Here's some info on it. From York U.

http://www.cse.yorku.ca/museum/collecti ... U/nabu.htm

My Brother actually pick-up a controller from one. It was actually the same shell as the Channel F controller, but the twist and smack actions were disabled. A fire button was installed on the side/front.

He used it on his C64 for many years.

...

Thought they had more!

http://www.cse.yorku.ca/museum/research/NABU.htm

Enjoy!

[nintendan]

George Lucas remembers....

[ghsqb]

Necro-bump but was googling NABU and found this.

I had one of these back in the day. I lived in Ottawa, east of Bank St. so I was with Skyline Cable.
That was significant because Skylines network was bi-directional (those living in Ottawa West were with another cable provider that offered only single direction.)

As a kid I was a carrier for the Pennysaver, and they must have setup a partnership with NABU, because there was an announcement that all Pennysver carriers would get NABU computers. IIRC the computer was no charge and came with a very basic package with a few software titles and I think one game. One of the things that was included was a message board of sorts for all the Pennysaver carriers. Pennysaver would use this to send notifications to the carriers.

You could choose to subscribe to a package that provided a bunch of games and more software titles and we had that subscription.

I loved that system. I remember choosing a game from the menu and having this tone get increasingly higher in pitch while a bar scrolled across the bottom of the screen as the game loaded.

Then NABU went under and we had to return everything to Skyline Cable.

About 10 years ago, I went in to a pizza place in Hull, Qc that was near my work to grab lunch.
As I'm waiting for my pizza, I look around and I see a dozen NABU boxes stacked off to the side. I couldn't believe what I was seeing it was the most random thing.
I asked the lady that was working there and she didn't seem to have the faintest idea what they were.

I bought one from her for $10 IIRC, so now I have an NIB NABU computer that is functionally useless but a very cool souvenir from my childhood.

No one that I know seems to remember NABU so it's cool to find threads like this with others that knew this great system that was way ahead of its time.

[jasonec]

Wasn't this network only in Ottawa?