NABU (Pre-Internet Networks)

Back from London, Camila tells Ana about Canada's NABU network which  operated via cable television services. It also could be considered one of the first examples of a 'streaming' subscription model for entertainment! The girls discuss the progression of streaming services, video game development, and their love of computer history museums. 

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Main research for the episode was done by Camila. Ana audio edited.
Music by Nelson Guay (SoundCloud: fluxlinkages)

References:
- Barr, Greg. “Nabu Network dream fades” The Citizen, Ottawa, July 29 1986
- Duhcharme, Jim. “The NABU Network: The Internet before the Internet.” PC World, December 4, 2005
- Lungu, Dov, and Stachniak, Zbigniew. “Following TRACE: The Computer Hobby Movement in Canada.” Scientia Canadensis, vol.34 no. 1, 2011
- Sutcliffe, Mark. “NABU Network an idea well ahead of its time.” The Ottawa Citizen, April 25, 2009
- https://techpolicyinstitute.org/publications/miscellaneous/the-nabu-network-a-great-lesson-but-not-about-openness/
- http://www.cse.yorku.ca/museum/collections/NABU/nabu.htm
- https://todayinottawashistory.wordpress.com/2015/11/07/the-nabu-network/
- https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/nabu
- https://www.ewh.ieee.org/reg/7/millennium/telidon/telidon_nabu.html
- https://ottawarewind.com/2018/12/02/joystick-the-untold-story-of-ottawas-coke-fueled-1980s-video-game-industry/
- https://doughenningproject.com/2021/08/12/nabu-computer-network-doug-article-advertisement/

Transcript

0:14

Hello. Welcome to our friend. The computer. A computer history podcast. I am Camila. This is Ana. Hi. We're back on other sides of the world. I'm back for my. My visit to London. London? Is that a good accent? Yeah, I think that you've really picked it out. You. Thank you. Yeah. I missed the Queen's Jubilee by one day, which maybe was good. Yeah, I know it was good, But you were there for the. The entire setup of it, which I think I saw. That's what it's all about. And all of the flags. Yeah. The chaos, the hassle of setting things up is basically what the jubilee. But you went wild for the Jubilee and you got a cold. I went or I went pretty wild for the. For the party jubilee. No, I'm kidding. We're not we're not going to call it that. No, I mean, we yeah, we just went I just went on a night out and then got really sick the day after. So. Just like a very extended hangover. But I don't know, my immunity just went really low. And then I caught a cold, and it's my first cold, and probably, like, five years, Like, it's. I feel very pathetic right now. I feel very like I feel very sorry for myself, But I. I feel fine. I'm fine. You're fine. I'm fine. Get over it. Recover. Yeah, I am over it. What are you talking about? Oh, yeah. Sorry, everyone. If I'm a little bit sniffly in this one, but also, I actually. You know what? It's fine if people are sniffly in podcast. I was thinking about this today and I was like, Oh, no. Like, maybe our listeners will hate it if, like, because, you know, with COVID and everything, people are hypersensitive to like sniffling and sneezing and that kind of nasally voice now. But I think we should just normalize stuff and embrace it. And maybe our listeners will be really into it. Are you insinuating that, like, freaks? Yeah, maybe. Hopefully. I hope so. But yeah. No. Excited for this one now, Boo. Never. Never. Yeah. So we're going to talk about something that's like. I, I wrote that it was like an extension of the teletext video text networks that we've been exploring in recent episodes. That's not really like it's. It's very different, but it is different, which is exciting. It's so it's got the Nabu Nabu Network and a B you. And it came out of Ottawa, Canada in the early eighties and it stands for Natural access to bi directional utilities. But it's also a reference to the Babylonian god of wisdom and writing. How good's that? I know they just made up that name like the natural or natural access, because why is it natural? Natural? And like what? Utilities? Yeah, I don't, I don't know. But I like the. It's got these two. Yeah. It could just be bi directional access, you know what I mean? Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Just. Just by the. I could tell that this episode with you in your code is going to be interesting. Yeah, I'm definitely going to excuse. I love it. So. So there's a quote from, like, a computer museum that wrote about it, saying that it was an innovative attempt to radically reshape the principles of personal, computer based public access to information and to and entertain it. And the thing that I found really, like, unique to it in the context of these other like early computer networks is like wide area networks. And the thing that drew me to this was that it sort of operated almost as an early subscription streaming service that was kind of like a Netflix model. And we'll get to how that sort of plays out later. But yeah, I don't know. It's fascinating to me is that because it like operated over cable TV as well, or do you just mean like the system? It operated on cable TV networks, so you needed a cable TV subscription to access it, but it had games. It had like game streaming essentially. Okay. So yeah, like a Netflix subscription streaming service for games. And so in it was just like the late seventies, early eighties, the Canadian federal government's Department of Communication in Ottawa began a financial grant program to fund emerging computer technology development. So tell Gordon, which was a teletext video text network in Canada that we've talked about. I think really maybe in the Eduardo Cuts episode that we did that was started through this program as well. And so from the success of Tell it on sort of emerged this NABU network where instead of linking home terminals via telephone lines, it linked home personal computers, TVs via cable television networks. And because of the different type of cables, data could be transmitted way faster through these cable networks than the telephone lines. So we're talking like 6.4 megabytes per second, which made information sort of almost instantly accessible and programs kind of partly downloadable as well, which was really unique. And this network was largely government funded, but also funded through the government's science research tax credit program, which encouraged private investment in tech startups. So it was it had government funding, but then it also had this like private funding that was, I guess, subsidized through tax through government tax credits. Was it faster than Minotaur and the previous video tax network? Oh, yes, it was. But I give everything. Yeah. So it was started by Bruce Hemphill and John Kelly and it launched to the public in October 1983. And something that I love was that it was promoted by a Canadian celebrity intuition coach, Doug Henning, and the ads used for lines Computer magic. And there was an article by Kelly Egan that's titled Nabu Looks to Magician to make Buyers appear. And there was a quote in that from Jim Yates, the general manager, and he said, We plan to put together a number of marketing programs for the personal computer. And those involving Doug will, I'm sure, be concerned with the magic theme, like something so never is available as an add on for cable television subscribers originally through the Ottawa Cablevision System and eventually expanded to multiple cable television services. So if you already had a cable TV subscription that was connected to the network, you could add the NABU Network, which was being touted as an interactive online environment. Hmm. I was looking through some of the ads for NABU and just through Google Images, and one of them called NABU, the Smart TV. And I thought that was really interesting because it's just like a total precursor to today's Smart TV, like you mentioned, with Netflix and the subscription model, but in a completely different way because now we have streaming apps that are developed on browsers and they are subsequently being linked up to TV screens via things like Chromecast and Apple TV. Yeah, it's like we skipped a whole production opportunity for online networks only on TVs or specifically coding things for TVs rather than also coding them for the computer first and then the TV. What do you mean? Like we we like we as humanity skipped. Yeah, like that. Maybe that was an opportunity here that we didn't. Yeah. Because now we've only like Netflix was basically first meant to just be seen on your computer screen because it was like a streaming and online. Well firstly it was physical disks being mailed, right? Yeah. But then like, streaming became a thing, downloading videos became a thing, and you would watch things on your computer screen rather than your TV. And then Netflix was specifically designed for the for the computer screen, for the laptop screen, but then it transitioned to TV eventually because it sync up with Chromecast and Apple TV and whatever. So but it wasn't originally designed for a TV screen, if you know what I mean. And I feel like maybe there could have been so many more things you could do as like a TV coder. Well, only just thinking about video streaming, but like other things like gaming or I don't know, but this was access on computers, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But it was sort of use screen. Yeah. Like the TV as a display. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess like we had to wait for TVs to catch up, like the tech of TVs to catch up because I guess it was it's the Chromecast stuff, but also I think before Chromecast, it was like the smart TVs that had like apps that you can log into, which still, you know, which we still have. But then I guess like they had to develop like change up things. Yeah. And it's still really awkward to sync up your computer to your TV. It's still extremely Yeah, it's just a fast. Yeah, but it sounded like maybe it was seamless. Right? Well, I guess I'm saying this that it was really like, not very cheap to set up like. So to access the network, you had to buy or rent a NABU home microcomputer like, like that they made and a set top box like network adapter that and then I think you would use your TV set as like the display monitor and if you were let me so if you were buying the hardware set up outright, it costs 950 CAD, which was a similar price to a Commodore 64 computer. And then you paid an additional monthly subscription depending on the level of service you wanted, but like roughly $10 a month because it's like an add on to your cable subscription. Yeah, that seems like a silly purchase when you can buy a whole new set of hardware along with the purchase of a computer instead. Yeah. And so like the video text networks that we've discussed previously never had services like online banking and shopping, but the highlight of the network were its games and kind of like educational services that were akin to games. So it's like learning to type and maths programs. And I think some of the like business services they had were also a little more like accounting and that sort of sort of software. But what I find really interesting about this network is it was the kind of the first entertainment subscription streaming service for games. I found this article 1984 and PC magazine, which was right at the end of the NABU Network's live, and they were trying to get to this, but they were trying to expand into the U.S. So that was ultimately fail. But that's what this article is referencing because NABU, the home computer network, doesn't plan to sell any software, only rented using a link between cable television and home computers, working like an optional cable TV service such as MTV. The NABU Network lets customers subscribe to tiers with different libraries of software for education, including logo, entertainment and personal productivity, including word processing and stock analysis programs. By paying a flat monthly fee, subscribers to a tier can have unlimited use of its programs on their home computer, but only while connected to the one way cable system. Neighbors programs can't be saved by customers for later use. Data, however, can be stored on disks and used again when connected to the networks programs. That's so cool. So you could basically just have like steam and computer games and then see them through quite a big screen because it would be linked to your TV. Yeah, that's that's pretty amazing. I saw this like Reddit thread earlier. It was a link to a video game which was a NABU created video game, and the title of it is in the early eighties. Canada had an early Internet games download system like Steam Cleaner Food Network. So that's exactly what I thought as well. Yeah, that's the first time I read about it. Yeah, it's I think the way it worked was that like the programs would launch via the cable network modem, but then I guess you still had you had data on the computer like it just needed it for the launching and for the program. But then like you had your local data. But I think that there was also some ability for like remote data storage, like, I don't know, I sort of found a little reference like kind of like cloud computing or maybe not even like just, I guess like on their net on the network because they also had some like electronic mail ability, I think. But yeah, I mean, most of the research I found was about the gaming. So games were like the big drawcard of the network. And I guess because it's on a cable TV subscription kind of thing, that's like entertainment, video, entertainment. And so I guess like games being the draw card makes sense. But to sort of look at this, we need to understand how the company was structured. So the NABU company and full disclosure, I found this very confusing. So we'll see how we it had a couple of different names over the years, including the NABU Manufacturing Corporation, but they were essentially creating their own computer network from scratch. So they had to make everything. They made the hardware and they made the software and they were the first Canadian company to produce microcomputers for home use. And they also had like a corporate computer division where they would make computers for businesses. And at least at the start, the NABU network, which was how you access the software, was entirely tied to their proprietary hardware, their microcomputer, which you could buy or rent. And this made the network very expensive and labor intensive because they had to build everything themselves. It's funny, I think as an as an investor, someone that would want to start up that business, it could either be an extremely rewarding business model to have like your software and hardware only link up to itself such as Apple, or it can just like pivot the completely other direction where you just lose a lot that had lost on all sides of the spectrum of your business. Like it's such a risky business model. I think especially at a time when this was such a new thing, I'm not sure if it was out of like ego or necessity, you know, like I'm I just wasn't anything else. Yeah, they were the first company making microcomputers in Canada like that, and the new network was kind of unique. So at the start, at least, it seems like they didn't really have another option. And then I guess just the way that investment and growth happened in the company, it sort of, yeah, maybe to get to like the success of Apple, you have to kind of reach a critical like mass of users. Totally. Yeah. So they were trying to create like something new and different because they were doing that. They also approached software development in quite an idiosyncratic way. So the head of the NABU Games division that they hired was a guy named Michael Bates, and he had no experience making games, but he had a lot of experience playing them. He was a Pac-Man champion in Ottawa and he was doing interviews and he was featured on local TV programs and things. And then one of the NABU founders saw him and he was like, That'd be a good lead guy for the game development department. They just hired him to keep us as a kind of Hollywood story. I feel like it sounds very Canadian. Yeah, but then like they hired actual game programmers and developers under him, but he was sort of the lead. But they also made this, like other interesting structural choice of the Games division. So under the senior programmers, they hired high school students in part time positions. So, so these were high school students that essentially run this like government funded computer camp in Ottawa, the 1982 Ottawa Board of Education computer camp, which I want to go through now. We were trying to make the network, I guess, had a family friendly, family oriented like the teen market, I guess, and they felt that these teens would understand that audience and what they want. I guess that they were right and they games sort of became hits and the graphics were like above and beyond what was available on consoles and things at the time. So they did really well. I think they really knew what they were doing because, I mean, even from the start it sounded like they were targeting a young audience, even with like their ads that you pointed out with the magician, you know, and obviously making a lot of their products be centered around games and entertainment, like why not get the teens involved? And yeah, really cool. It's I would be imagine like I mean they must have already been pretty cool teens because they were like running the computer camp. Yeah so yeah but I think it's kind of they were never were trying to develop something really different and unique and yeah. Approaching it in these strange ways. I mean it works that way and you know, I'm sure the, the labor was cheap too, so. Oh yeah, I didn't think about that. Okay. I changed my mind with teens unionized. So the the games were actually quite popular, but the problem was they were locked to the network and they never really got into selling their games as cartridges or like, really made them available on other consoles. I think this was mainly because game consoles were the big competition to the Napoli network and the network was the thing that they were really trying to develop. Even though the games were the thing that were popular and they ended up splitting. So like the game division ended up splitting from the neighboring network and the game division became tech digital entertainment. So they still made games for the Neighbor network, but then they also made cartridge games. They made a side scroller called Quest for Tigers, which had originally been developed for and played on the Napoli network. But it became the first cartridge video game made in Canada and it won a bunch of awards. So in 1984, the NABU company, whatever it was called at the time, was looking to expand outside of Canada and they attempted to launch the network in so Japan and then also in Alexandria, Virginia, in the United States. And even though these trials seem to be going well, particularly the Virginia expansion really seemed like it was going to be successful in a really sort of unexpected turn, never failed to get government funding for the expansion and then a key Canadian investor pulled out. And at this point, John Kelley had already put$500,000 dollars of his own money into the network and didn't have anymore. And it just like crumbled. They were a publicly traded company in Canada, and I think they essentially went bankrupt and closed on the market. And the service just sort of ended in 85, 86. I think the final day looks like it was about like August 31st, 86. It's quite frustrating that that failing to get government funding turns investors away and that it's such a key component to a good looking business model because it's very unfair. It's because because that's the whole point of private investment, right. And it funds things that the government can't or won't. But a lot of the times it's very contradictory like that. It's a real darn shame. Yeah. I'm not sure what percentage was government funded funding and what percentage was private, but it's also like if there was like a large investor, even if it was a private investor, that I'm sure that would like scare the other investors. Of course, especially like at a key moment where they were trying to expand. Oh, I thought it was the government funding was just something that was additional or just that made them look good on paper. And then I didn't know that it was like actually like a prominent part of I think it was right. Yeah. Yeah. So after they kind of what while they were sort of going bankrupt, I guess. So they had these like different hardware software divisions. So the gaming had branched out on its own, so they tried to reinvent their home microcomputer with a converter so it could be used the used for like standalone use and not tied to the now non-existent NABU network and like trying to sell the computers they had in warehouses for relatively cheap. It wasn't like they were making new ones. They were just trying to like make some money off this stock. And then they like included word processing and spreadsheet software like in so you don't have to connect to the network. But I don't think that was really like a market for their hardware long term. It had a lot less memory than other home computers and not as much software available for it because it was designed to be connected to this network where you could, you know, stream stream stuff. So it didn't so the computers didn't need to have as much memory. And I feel like there's a world where it could have continued in some form and like even flourished. But in the end, because it was such a closed ecosystem, they needed a lot of funding and time to keep up with the demand for new programs and services, particularly because games were a major component of the services offered. And there was this high demand for new content because of the subscription model in order to keep subscribers, they need to constantly add new content. One article from the time says that NABU would sign up 200 new subscribers each month but lose 225 that same month because they became bored with the software that was available. And I think we're seeing that now with Netflix, right? Like people I mean, they're making it more expensive, but like all of a subscription. Well I think particularly Netflix now that now that the library isn't as strong as, you know Disney and Paramount and whatever, I like taking their stuff off it so their own streaming services that they're needing to like put more and more money into creating new content every couple of months so that people will say, Yeah, well that's the whole thing. Is that the reason why Netflix is bad now is just because they have to keep churning out new things and they literally just say yes to every single, every single half good producer that that pitches something to them. And so so their quality just like declines a little bit. But yeah, I also heard that or I think maybe you told me they actually delete a lot of stuff because they only have like a limited amount of cloud storage. Oh, I don't know about the cloud storage. I think I said that. Okay. Yeah, no, that was just a little bit wild to me that it's not actually a library. Like it's not there's no archive. It's just a way to watch, to watch movies and series and like it is almost like in a in a sense, like a, like live TV, but like slowed down a little bit. Things are put up and launched and then there's a certain amount of time when people binge watch it and then it's kind of taken down again. Once the numbers are low, my stomach's rumbling. Sorry, Sorry for. Well, I hear. Yeah, I think you're hearing the sirens outside of my window. Oh, I can't hear them. Okay. Um, is. Yeah, Are you, like, imagining, like, the Internet Archive, how they have, like, a building on it? Yeah. Yeah, they should keep it. Developer Oh, well, they're still developing. They still do like, like disc mailing, Right. It was, I feel like they do now. Like update is a DVD plan. Yeah. They're also production company and they're also basically just TV. Like it's not always on demand you know you might want to watch friends. Mm hmm. A month ago and it was there and now it's not there anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And I think they take them down also because you know, they have to pay for the rights to have if it's not there and stuff to have things and like if it's too expensive or I guess they have to make decisions every month about what will be popular. You know, things get taken down and then they make choices, other choices with their money. But yes, if you want to join the Netflix DVD plan, you still can do that. No way. Yeah. So. Well, never had this like, technical possibility of being a to a network. It was actually kind of limited in terms of growth by the cable TV networks that it ran on. So for the network to sort of expand and continue gaining users, the infrastructure probably would have needed to be upgraded, but there weren't enough NABU subscribers to kind of justify this insurmountable investment. I think at its height now, we've had around 100 services available and 1500 subscribers in Ottawa and 700 in Virginia. And the the network relied on cable companies for its subscribers. It wasn't just available for anyone. So like Minato was really popular because it it was sort of largely available to anyone that that wanted to use it. But NABU had a limited market and within that also a sort of it was like smaller because it was only people with a certain amount of money, because it's not just cable TV subscribers. It and also it was cable specific cable TV subscribers, but it was the people that had the money to rent or buy the hardware and do the additional like $10 a month subscription. So the I feel like there wasn't that much room for growth. Yeah. And also, as we've seen in other networks that were accessed via TV screens, it was hard for users to differentiate between traditional TV programing and these new service providers. And they had a preconceived notion of how TV fit into their lives. And it was hard for interactive services to break that mold. But then also home computers were not widely used in the mid eighties. I think even people in the tech industry weren't sure if they were going to be a big thing. So this whole everything about this network was like a really new concept. Yeah, I mean, the entire ergonomic aspect of a TV is that it's not a personal computer, right? It's not a little screen that needs to be close to you. It doesn't have a keyboard, a remote attached to it. You watch it kind of at a distance because you share it with people. It's social. So to suddenly start, I don't know, gaming on a TV or doing interactive things in the middle of like your grandma's soap opera is very unsociable. So yeah, you need to have different hardware for that. It's a whole new thing. I think relying on cable TV to be able to provide the service is probably not a good idea. There needs to be a whole new type of hardware attached to it, which I guess is what they were doing. But to keep up with that production line must be pretty intense. I think also it's like we, you know, we have hindsight, but at the time it's I mean, through looking at all these networks, it really does seem like sort of unintentional trial and error to learn the ways that we can that we exist with computers and that we sort of naturally where we naturally gravitate to sort of having them in our lives and the types of relationships we have with with TV and computers. And it's changed a lot, but it's what we have now has come about through like all of these. I guess, failed attempts to see what types of networks or what types of uses work best in our lives and also to understand that software and hardware is just inherently linked. You know, the service, there's a service which is in software, but then there's a whole kind of ergonomic hardware aspect to it that needs to be addressed. Yeah, sounds like they were struggling on that on that side a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I guess like if you look at, you know, always going back to minute Hall because it existed for so long, it was so popular, but originally they had specific hardware, specific terminals. But then over time other companies came in and, and built like fancier terminals that you could use. And then later there were adapters so that you could access them in a tell tell a tell network via your personal computer. And something with NABU is that they failed to develop an adapter that would allow other home computers to connect, to connect to the network. It was always through their proprietary hardware. And then there were also issues like we saw with built from text of security that were not being addressed, like it wasn't encoded in any way, which I guess isn't like so much of an issue with games and entertainment. But they did have like more sensitive services like banking and stocks and things. So, you know, that was also an issue. And then also towards the mid eighties, there was competition not only from like other gaming consoles, other gaming options like PC software and things, but also other data networks like AOL, which was available to a large range of people. Yeah, it sort of had this little moment. Well, I didn't know that it yeah, it kind of dovetailed into the AOL era. That's that's quite cool. Yeah. That it was like really important for its time. There's a quote from the York University Computer Museum, which houses and Naboo archive and so like a reconstruction project they said the never network's public launch in 1983 marked their creation of the first commercial computer network to provide high speed access to information and services directly to homes of personal computer users. And then the quote that I had up top, I just want to like bring it back the also from the York University Computer Museum saying that it was an innovative attempt to radically reshape the principles of personal computer based public access to information and entertainment. I think it was like a really unique idea at the time that I haven't seen really like explored through other networks. Definitely. Wow, what a cool story. We have to visit the user can images can either mean we've been on a computer museum rampage when Carmilla was here in London and we went to a social well, we went to a couple, but we went to two. But then I would read the specifics of like three days. Yeah. And I yeah, I would love to see something like NABU Yeah, of Revenants just to kind of see the hardware that they were using. So some of the games, maybe when we went to the computer museums, like I felt like we saw so much old tech that people would just kind of throw out. And it was I kept referring to it as this like graveyard of tech. And in a sense, that's really what it was, because it was the ending of the business and it was the ending of a story. And it's just interesting to see those hard materials, those skeletons that remain after after a whole like business story and innovation has come to an end or like changed into something different. So yeah, maybe York University Museum is where yeah, I'd love to go see it because I think that like a lot of this stuff is like, I know when I was, I did a project about common sense, the common where in the world has come and San Diego games. I was talking to some people that do like game conservation and archiving and I really learned a lot about how it's not just about conserving and archiving the like the physical properties of a game or like the esthetics or even the the gameplay. It's actually so much about even the social aspects of a game or or where that game fit into people's lives and society. The setting of it. Yeah. Architecture around it. Well, it's also it's like I think with Carmen San Diego. So I was talking to and speaking specifically about Rhiannon, the TVA and she, she's amazing and she did a lot of work on where in the world has come in San Diego? I mean, we've come in San Diego. It's it was largely played in schools, so even though it was a single player game, it was often a group of children around a computer playing the game. And like the difference in importance of like recognizing and archiving that in some way versus just like a play through with the game. Yeah. And I think that that is what's interesting here as well because all about computer museums that yeah like you don't want it to just be a graveyard because that doesn't it's good for people to go and remember their experiences. But at some point those people won't be around anymore to the end and will miss the actual kind of cultural and personal significance of these things. It's very weird to put to place them in a museum and in a pedestal and then kind of like a box that you can't touch and yeah, totally remove it from its context and from a, you know, the history of it, but also be the social context that it was in and how people interacted with it at the time, which is why we're doing this book. But I guess that's also quite funny to link it back to Naboo again and the fact that it was displayed on a TV screen like earlier, I criticized it for taking over the passive social watching of TV, but actually you could have just done the PlayStation situation where you invite some of your friends around and you play a game together and it's very social and it's at a distance. And actually TV screens are very applicable in that sense. And so yeah, I guess there is a difference there where they were maybe making PC games, but for hardware that should be doing PlayStation games. And I also just I was thinking it's also with the like conservation or the reconstruction project and stuff, we saw this with the wider cuts in total artworks. That's like, well, how do you reconstruct something that existed on a network that doesn't exist anymore? Yeah, you know, it's like I haven't looked at how they did it. I think they are trying to like, build up the network in some way, but I think that there's the reconstruction projects is so important because it does. Yeah. Allow you to sort of experience truly all is as close as you can to atmosphere what it like and you know the computer museums a lot of the sort of both the ones that we went to together had large like gaming computer games sections that were playable. Yeah. And that I think that because we still have video games, it's easy to sort of understand like, oh, sit down at this. And even though it might be like a weird console, like a weird way of playing or something, you can kind of work it out. So yeah, that's true. I originally thought it was just a busy way to get kids involved and kids were their main audience for these museums that actually you're right. I think it's more just to do with the fact that it's a lot more playable and a lot more easy to understand for any visitor. But yeah, it was fun. I like the interactive, the interactive parts I found a little things like, Oh, I don't want you know, I just like the interactive things. But, but yeah, like these things. That is what these things are. Yeah. And the tours, like the tours, the tours were good. I mean, they were interactive and that's what I loved about them. Yeah, we got to ask questions and talk and real human beings, not some robots. All right. Well, thank you so much. That was fabulous. Really, really, really listening. I You get better. Thank you. I'm already feeling better. And I see, like, definitely put a smile on my face. Oh, I'm being. So the next one is going to be working at work, right? Yeah, That's, uh. That's your one. That's my one online network that was used a lot for activist organization purposes during the apartheid in South Africa. And it used a similar system to medical, actually, but it was its own derivative of that for various reasons that I'll get into. But, um, yeah, I'm really, really excited for that one. So yeah, and where we're heading, we're almost at the end of this like season of pre-Internet networks though I think like season, you know, we're going to move on to a sort of another topic, but I think we might still bring up. Yeah, if we find something interesting, we could do a little special episode every now and then for sure. So I'm going to go off and start researching new things. Q I'm going to go off and take a nap. So yeah, maybe I've got a meeting in a second. All right. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. It's nice to be. Well, as I say, it's nice to be back in a normal location, but I would prefer to be in London. That's true. I would prefer that to. Mm. But. All right. Well, cheerio. Cheerio. Goodbye. See you guys later. I.