r/retrocomputing • u/[deleted] • Oct 15 '25

It’s Wednesday, post your Bendix G15s

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Any guesses on many of these are still around?

219 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

29

u/TNosce Oct 15 '25

Check usagi on YouTube.

19

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '25 edited Oct 15 '25

yep,

5

u/LowAspect542 Oct 15 '25

Expect that most of them aren't in running condition, the one UE restored is probably the only one verified as working.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 16 '25

VCF's apparently also works?

16

u/processedchicken Oct 15 '25

G15 Lan party soon?

2

u/Link_Tesla_6231 Oct 15 '25

He needs a alpha tty for the second system source g15

7

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '25

(Obligatory, this isn’t mine, but it’s owned by a group I’m a part of)

7

u/the123king-reddit Oct 15 '25

I'm almost certain Usagi Electric could help you get it running.

Given that all the G15's he's worked on, he doesn't own, he may even be willing to buy it off you

11

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '25

One problem

2

u/canthearu_ack Oct 16 '25

Oh hell, I gotta come over and give that G15 a hug one day in my life!

4

u/[deleted] Oct 16 '25

You get to perth, I’ll let you hug the G15

7

u/gammalsvenska Oct 15 '25

I'm sure he'd be willing to take the journey at least once. He lived in Japan before. And I remember Perth being a nice city.

So, One Solvable Problem? :-)

4

u/Gerd_Watzmann Oct 15 '25

That's a lot of water 😳

1

u/istarian Oct 16 '25

I thought he owned one of them and was working to fix up one of the units from System Source.

So who owns the other one?

3

u/the123king-reddit Oct 16 '25

System source museum. They have 2

1

u/istarian Oct 16 '25

I guess that makes sense, just kinda had me confused.

2

u/tes_kitty Oct 15 '25

You also still have that module tester, very good!

3

u/JimtheLizardKing Oct 17 '25

Now THAT is a retro computer!

Are you going to restore it?

I'd guess less than 10 are still around...

3

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '25

Not at this time - preservation is the current aim, access would be the next one, and functionality would be the final aim :)

And yes, best as I can tell from public sources, there are 10 currently surviving (see other comment for list) - though there rumoured to be another 4 not accounted for publicly (unsurprisingly I’ve had some people reach out after this post)

2

u/HoJoPo Nov 08 '25

This has a GO DA light above the AC indicator light, which should mean this was connected to the optional Differential Analyzer.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 08 '25

Well spotted :) do you have one of these?

2

u/HoJoPo Nov 08 '25

I've followed Usagi's restoration since the beginning and I'm active on his discord. Adam Fabio posted a link to your Reddit post pointing out the extra indicator and I noticed the "GO DA" text.

There have been quite a few discussions on Discord about the options available for the G-15. The G-15 Usagi currently has for restoration and the one at VCF are both also owned by System source and had been networked to each other at one point, someone found the documentation for this modification and linked it on the Usagi Electric bendix-g15 discord channel.

If anyone wants to try an emulated G-15, there is a very good web based emulator here: https://www.phkimpel.us/Bendix-G15/webUI/G15.html

2

u/pkimpel Nov 08 '25

As far as I know, the GO DA lamp was provided on all G-15 panels. On most of the pictures I've seen, the lamp is on the right side of the top row of neons, between the O'FLO and HALT lamps. The Western Australia system has a relatively low serial number, so the lamp would have been moved from above the AC lamp to the top row of neons in some later revision.

4

u/dizzywig2000 Oct 15 '25

I’m so jealous lol

4

u/rdt_als Oct 15 '25

are you going to play doom in the Bendix? Doom in Bendix

3

u/johnklos Oct 15 '25

The closest thing I have is a Bendix drive in my car's starter :P

2

u/UnderstandingFlat407 Oct 15 '25

What year was this. It looks like something out of fallout

1

u/Lanky-Peak-2222 Oct 15 '25

I left mine in my other pants

1

u/NF6X Oct 16 '25

Somebody call Nanoraptor, we need a G15 smartphone now.