The Newbury Newbear, the computer you couldn't buy.

Newbear 77-68: replica or original? A working 1977 Motorola 6800 kit computer, built in 2025 from the original plans, and put to work running a depressed talking weighing machine. In April 1977 Tim Moore published his design for a 6800-based computer in the Amateur Computer Club newsletter. Newbury Labs took it up, and as the Newbear 77-68 it became one of the earliest machines in British hobbyist and home computing: a computer you couldn't buy, because what you bought was the design. This is a not-so-serious look at a genuine non-original new old Newbury Newbear. It covers sourcing the parts, building the single-sided CPU, monitor and RAM boards, booting from paper tape with a soft monitor, and finally giving it a voice as a computerised "Speak Your Weight" machine for Retrofest 2026 at the Great Western Railway Museum in Swindon. Along the way there's 1977 Britain, the Altair, Apple 1, Scrumpi, MK14 and Nascom, the story of Tim Moore and the Newbear Computing Store, and the 1978 Horizon documentary that was sure microcomputers would take all our jobs. Chapters 00:00 Introduction: the Newbear 77-68 00:36 Tim Moore's 1977 design 01:14 1977: setting the scene 01:58 Britain vs the US: Altair, Apple 1 and Scrumpi 03:40 Newbury Labs and the Newbear Computing Store 04:04 Building the CPU board 06:48 Trainer or Altair? Comparisons 08:11 Bear Bags: but no kits 08:39 The MON-1 board and soft monitor 09:58 Newbear Prototype Monitor 10:39 Memory Boards 11:37 Rack, backplane and front panel 12:31 Booting from paper tape 15:23 The talking Speak Your Weight machine 16:14 Retrofest 2026 17:57 Tim Moore, and others involved in the Newbear 19:39 Replica or original? Trigger's broom 20:58 1978, Horizon and closing #newbear #retrofest #retrocomputing Retro Computing Playlist:    • The Newbury Newbear, the computer you coul...   Attributions: Grant, H. (2026, May 08). Uncollected Trash During Dustmen's Strike, Camden. World History Encyclopedia. Stranglers in the Park This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Sex Pistols in Norge, 1977 odd.amundsen@gmail.com http://commons.wikimedia.org/ Album Cover with Green Border Public Domain http://commons.wikimedia.org/ Teleprinter (Video) Curtesy of David Williams. Amazon Warehouse Exterior Photo © Copyright Lewis Clarke and licensed for reuse under a cc-by-sa/2.0 Creative Commons Licence. Amazon Warehouse Inside Picture by Chris Watt and licensed for reuse under a cc-by-sa/2.0 Creative Commons Licence. Unemployment Manchester and licensed for reuse under a cc-by-sa/2.0 Creative Commons Licence. Chinchilla Steet Party 1977 (2 images) Copyright A.C.Burgess and licensed for reuse under a cc-by-sa/2.0 Creative Commons Licence. Apple II Author Marcin Wichary and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. http://commons.wikimedia.org/ CBM 3016 By Raimond Spekking and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org BBC Logo on Wall by Sebastiandoe5 and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. https://commons.wikimedia.org BBC OB Lorry By kitmasterbloke and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.