Ugh! I will never get tired of those biceps and darn smile. I am still just mesmerized by your patience with these old devices. I built so many baby AT systems in those cramped cases, but I really enjoyed doing the work.
Mike! Watching the video now, just want to say how much I enjoy your presentation style and the way you dive into the systems you explore!! Such a blast. Cheers!
I love how you take us along the journey and expose yourself to the innards of these systems the same time you do. No sneak peeks for you prior, just open them up as you record and use that footage. So genuine, Mike!
Such a big, strong, handsome man yet so gentle, tender, patient and loving towards those babies! He will make a great dad one day. He treats those baby(ATs) so well!
I really love that third system. Three digit CPU clock displays were a pretty short-lived phenomenon, but they were a great marketing tool. It was like having a light-up badge on the case that said "look how fast I am!"
You are a fantastic baby at daddy! You care for their power supplies making sure they are fully healthy, you are gentle while cleaning their ports, and you certainly make bath time lots of fun! In all seriousness, thanks for the videos, I look forward to them each week!
My week is not complete until Mike voids some warranties. Nice retro selection today. Don't be afraid to put the dirty bezels and cases in the dish washer.
These baby systems take me back. My brother had one though college in the mid 90s running Windows 3.1 and a 2x CD-ROM drive. I don't even remember how big the hard drive was. It was so slow, I feel bad for him. But it survived like a champ.
Tomorrow I'm going to replace the processor in my old PC from 2008. It's supposed to rain here in Poland, so there will be time to replace them. I learned a lot from you. Thanks . Regards . Jutro mam zamiar wymienić procesor w moim starym PC z 2008 roku . U nas w Polsce ma padać deszcz , więc będzie czas na wymianę . Dużo od Ciebie się nauczyłem . Dzięki . Pozdrawiam . I wrote in Polish for better translation. Napisalem po Polsku dla lepszego tłumaczenia . 🤗🤝👍🍂
Hi MikeTech. Thanks for another trip down memory lane. I used and upgraded one of the CWI computers, back in 1999, which belonged to a friend of mine. The name on it wasn't CWI, but some brand which was used in the UK, where I live. The PC in question had a Pentium 120 CPU, which I upgraded to a 166 MMX. The O/S was the first iteration of Windows 95, which I upgraded to the 'C' version, which was a significant improvement. I offered to let him have my 'old' copy of Win 98, after I bought the 98SE version, but he declined. I well remember upgrading my COMPAQ DeskPro 4000 with some larger EDO RAM sticks; from 32 Mb to 128 Mb. Tech has definitely advanced and improved since then. My first PC - an Apricot 286 Workstation - came with Win 3.1. I still have the complete set of 10 Floppy disks and the DOS 5 Boot disk, all safely wrapped in foil and stored inside a tin. I've got an old Laptop which is no longer usable, so may install 3.1 on it, just for the fun of it.
I bought so many of these from thrift stores and garage sales in the 90s. it was great learning about old systems and not being afriad to destroy them, especially because new computers back then were outrageously expensive compared to today.
I don't think that first machine actually had OpenOffice. Rather when you install certain versions of Microsoft Office it will add two icons to the Start menu, the one you picked up on is called "Open Office Document" and it just means that it will allow you open a document made with MS Office. Also that first machine had a 2.5 GB drive, and with early versions of Windows 95 only having FAT16 and thus a maximum partition size of 2048 MB, it's possible that the first drive has about 500 MB of unpartitioned space. Worth checking out. I guess even today hooking up your CDROM drive to a sound card if possible is a good idea. This way, you can have one drive on each of the primary IDE channels and not have them being slowed down by a CDROM drive. So one internal drive on the primary and an external CF or SD card for copying files to the PC on the secondary is a good option. Great video as always.
The doubling up of characters in the copyright message at the start of the BIOS is so that if the contents are split into odd and even images (e.g. for programming into two ROMs) then each ROM gets a copyright message at the start of it.
Hah, I noticed the thumbnail after watching the video. That's funny. 😂 Great installment and excellent repairs too. It is pretty great seeing the care and attention given to these venerable machines.
I once accidentally convinced a fledgling engineer that the word ‘cromulent’ was an actual technical term in networking. Wasn’t even trying, it just happened from sheer casual use. Then I realized that episode is older than these kids…
You could tile a couple of walls with all those dial-up modems you've collected! Another fun video. Watching this made me cringe with all those sharp, finger and wrist slicing metal panels. I don't miss the days of building and working on these things!
Always love your one-liners Mike - the first system was the ultimate nostalgia trip for me pal, my first system ever was almost identical, case and all ! Great vid as usual 🤗
Love the video. A note about early CD-ROM Drives. I too used to think that the sound card connectors were due to protocols, and that is partially true. It actually has to do with the nature of the original IDE standard. The use of cylinders, tracks, and sectors was required on IDE, but didn't translate to the world of CD-ROM. As a result, CD-ROMs used the same communications standard as SCSI (which were later incorporated into EIDE and ATA-1). So, for all intents and purposes, our sound cards were doing quadruple duty, as a sound I/O card, MIDI Interface, Controller Port, and SCSI controller. Pretty impressive for a device that could be only $50. The use of the SCSI communication standards continues today with SATA and MVmE, as both show as SCSI devices in most hardware trees.
I've never seen your videos but kudos for the thumbnail image for this vid! And thanks for speading the love for these systems and safekeeping them, so they are not lost.
I have a Baby AT hanging out in my room, love their mid-90's vibes! I do enjoy those old Caviar drives but definitely not the Varta barrel batteries. I've noticed the NiCD ones tend to be much worse! I know the motherboard maker PCChips did fake cache chips, ugh!
When you checked the auto bulb and said it had "a crazy low resistance", bear in mind that a cold bulb filament has a MUCH lower resistance than it does when it's white hot. I did a little math based on you saying it was a 60 watt bulb that runs at 12 volts, and determined that it draws 5 amps of current, and its resistance when lit is actually 2.4 ohms, not the 0.3 ohms your meter shows when testing it cold
Hey Mike, in case you aren't familiar with the G4 iMacs shown in your last video, just want to make sure you are aware they can be tricky to work on without damaging anything. Not much room inside so it's easy to pinch wires. If you take apart the LCD, make sure to look up how to do it without breaking the plastic rivets
I had a variant of that first case, and some of those exact stickers. I couldn't remember if mine had the display in it though some of these would have the hole and mounts for one . but the sticker in the front would be blank in that area. so who knows. I did notice that you decided to start opening up the power supplies. might be a good call rather than leaving things to chance.
bru you give life to 2nd hand hardware like it was brand new ! damn it you're too skilled haha wish to see you in featuring with Cathod Ray dude for exemple !
Good bit about the programmer :) thanks for dumping the BIOS. I bought one myself, it saved me hundreds of dollars on bad BIOS flashes so it paid for itself. Very handy when you do need one.
good morning, just quickly commenting to say how much I appreciate you and your videos, very therapeutic for the mind. I will watch this after work on the big screen! Have a great weekend.
I love you brother. Just subscribed to your Patreon. I've watched every one of your videos. So much fun in so many ways. I wrote my first program when I was 15 in 1968 on an Olivetti Underwood Program 101. Seen it all since then, Mainframes, minicomputers, PCs and Macs. Thanks for all your hard work. Mark
The reason the characters of the copyright string are doubled (or in one case I've seen, quadrupled) in the BIOS is a holdover from when the BIOS was a pair of chips. That way, the copyright is preserved in full on both chips.
I am always envious of finding the first chassis you showed off. That by far was my favorite AT chassis design of the day. Surprising to find an X5-P75 in that system, given that a lot of SiS 471 motherboards didn't have support for a x4 multiplier.
The missing LED panel - there's an article on hackaday where someone filled that hole with a small OLED screen ("OLED Display Lets Vintage PC Engage Turbo Mode In Style").
Great video as usual Mike! I'm in the middle of a crazy cross country move so much of my own PC treasure trove is being boxed up for transportation and storage! Your channel is helping me get my PC tinkering fix in the meantime! Thanks! I love all your little trivia and history comments as well!
There were some HP Vectra models that also used a similar inverted style as well as a few dell's that used a odd layout like that also. There was even a custom tower by silverstone I think called the Reeven that used an odd layout always fascinating to see what some manufacturers have done to change up the old style so to speak.
Great thumbnail! I love the baby AT systems. I know a little about Reveal computers, I believe they were a subsidiary of Packard Bell. I don’t believe they were around long. Maybe a few years. I never saw an inverted computer before. That was a new one for me. I like strange things though, it appeals to me. Once again your sense of humor shines through. Can’t wait to see all the other computers you have. I wonder if I will recognize any of them.
Just found your channel - nice zippy pace! Subscribed! I loved these baby ATs too because computer tech was evolving so rapidly. The unmistakable sound of the metal shell coming off! Where's that Matrox card? Which slot for this VLB SCSI adapter! This thing is maxed out! :)
Nice to come home from work and see another good retro computing video. If you ever get a Pentium 60 machine you need to run chkcpu to see if its a rare one with the floating point bug that did not get replaced.
I thought the motherboard in that first system looked familiar until you full uncovered it. I have an almost identical Socket 3 M-Tech motherboard that came with a 486-DX100 and 52Mb of RAM. I think mine's a little newer, it has 3 PCI slots, 4 ISA slots, and IDE/Floppy/Serial/Parallel are built into the motherboard. The best part, it uses a CR2032 as the clock battery! It also came with an S3 Trio32 video card and an ESS Audiodrive sound card. Someday I'll turn it into a Windows 95 machine when i get an appropriate Baby AT Case.
Excellent videos Mike, keep up the good work. I am myself now going to rebuild my original and first PC (that i luckily still have the original case, 3.5 drive and power supply for), a Baby AT case as well with a Turbo button and 3 number display. (was there not btw some socket 7 ones that supported the Turbo function??) It used to be a 486 AMD DX2-66 with 1 MB Vesa graphics, 8 MB RAM, and a Ultrasound MAX amo, sadly i am missing the motherboard back plate for the case. I will be using a socket 7 motherboard (QDI P51430VX/250DM Explorer II v.2.1S) with the same AMD pentium 133 mhz as in your video, and also a cache module. Not sure about what parts i will use for the rest? hmm. That second case has a motherboard plate would work on my Baby AT case as well with a just couple screw holes added i believe (have some pics of the correct one for the case).
Why they ever stopped with the removable motherboard trays I will never understand. Such a GREAT thing back then.. I'm actually pretty sure I had a system at one time pretty much identical to this one.. I never had that hdd cover on the 5 1/4 bay, but basically the same motherboard i/o cards, sound card with the matching cdrom.. man, the good times. I really miss the 90s.
I admit, I'm a sucker for baby ATs as well. You have to be careful around those things because they multiply the more vintage computer shows you go to.
Thank you for explaining everything. I found a fresh tube of yellow unused (golden) UV curable solder mask at the dump. Now I know how long it takes to cure!
It would make an interesting subject for a short video. The IDE controller in system 1 has both! The IDE connector on the left is marked 'VL-IDE' whereas the one on the right is marked 'ISA-IDE'.
Thank you for another awesome video. I found two dell Vostro 3902s in the dumpster and took them home. I tested them and they worked fine. I have one problem though. they did not have power supplies and I've been looking everywhere for one with no luck. Do you have any suggestions on any other power supply I can use even if its not a dell one?
@@jeffb6786 Well, actually the Pentium's data bus was 64 bits wide, and the 72-pin SIMM's data path was only 32 bits wide. Thus, you needed a matched pair of them to create one memory bank with a 64-bit data path.
Great video Mike as usual. Regarding a use for a pile of modems, this video might give you some brain food for ways of inter-networking them within a VLAN or something for a cool retro comm project: v=lTHYDzqjTvE TL, DR: Guy uses modem on ancient PC to dial into a slightly less ancient PC which is actually on a LAN and routes through that for internet access using a phone-line switch. He also sends himself a fax like an absolute Analogue Chad.
I happen to have a similar system like your first one but no real way to test the PSU outside of the machine. I turned it on for a minute and it works. If the PSU was bad, would it start smoking or doing stuff after say 5 minutes of it being on?
Maybe you should simply swap the cases between the first two systems. That would seem to solve the issues you have (lack of 7 segment display on the first one and loose board on the second one).
@@miketech1024 🤣🤣🤣 That first system was nicely equipped for it's time. Would make quite the Dos gaming machine. Thou shall not speak ill of the intel Pentium 😉 That 3rd one. Don't think I've ever seen a inverted AT case lol
Curious why do you cut through the sticker over the fan bearing rather than lift the whole sticker? Usually been pretty successful myself lifting the entire sticker, lubing it up, cleaning up any extra oil and putting the original sticker back down.
I rarely have great luck getting old adhesive to stick properly after it's been removed. It's just faster to cut my way in than to peel and clean the old adhesive.
I sold those Reveal drives and sound cards in the mid 90s. Or maybe I should say the store I worked at carried them. We all used our employee discounts to get name-brand cards so we assumed the Reveal cards were just cheap junk. Today we know better, that those cards were actually really good.
S2 - Yep, PC Chips M507. I had one of those exact boards, fake cache slugs and all. The COAST makes it not an issue though and it just becomes a bog-standard Triton I based Socket 7 board (which does have the 'header' for replacement VRMs on the right of the CPU socket but good luck finding one). 'Fun fact' about it though, it doesn't have a PS2 header despite having the pads there for one. Why? Because the IO chip has a bug that makes it so it stops responding when it receives input from both the mouse and keyboard at once. So you're relegated to serial mice with this one.
@@miketech1024Ebay! There are only 2 more of them left on ebay and i managed to haggle a "good" price with the seller. Safe to say my neighbors didn't enjoy it when the package came to them because i wasn't there😂 48 pounds.
Ugh! I will never get tired of those biceps and darn smile. I am still just mesmerized by your patience with these old devices. I built so many baby AT systems in those cramped cases, but I really enjoyed doing the work.
Easy there 😂
Same thing, these biceps are nice._
I have to agree I am a nerd who also can't look away from a nice bicep and same goes for the bf. Never seen tech videos we could both enjoy 😂😂😂
I watched for the computers, stayed for the qt 😅
I absolutely love that "computer" case badge on the first machine!
Mike! Watching the video now, just want to say how much I enjoy your presentation style and the way you dive into the systems you explore!! Such a blast. Cheers!
I am with chris on this thought. And your channel growth is reflecting that.
I love how you take us along the journey and expose yourself to the innards of these systems the same time you do.
No sneak peeks for you prior, just open them up as you record and use that footage.
So genuine, Mike!
Such a big, strong, handsome man yet so gentle, tender, patient and loving towards those babies! He will make a great dad one day. He treats those baby(ATs) so well!
🤮 gag
I really love that third system. Three digit CPU clock displays were a pretty short-lived phenomenon, but they were a great marketing tool. It was like having a light-up badge on the case that said "look how fast I am!"
Every upload from Mike is a feast for the eyes, technology that's looked after so well by Mike and of course the hottest man on RUclips (Mike)
You are a fantastic baby at daddy! You care for their power supplies making sure they are fully healthy, you are gentle while cleaning their ports, and you certainly make bath time lots of fun! In all seriousness, thanks for the videos, I look forward to them each week!
My week is not complete until Mike voids some warranties. Nice retro selection today. Don't be afraid to put the dirty bezels and cases in the dish washer.
I've been tempted to run a motherboard through there. 🤣
These baby systems take me back. My brother had one though college in the mid 90s running Windows 3.1 and a 2x CD-ROM drive. I don't even remember how big the hard drive was. It was so slow, I feel bad for him. But it survived like a champ.
guitar picks- the number one tool for retro tech
All my desktops are true AT. Love seeing them on here.
The thumbnail is 13/10.
37:18 this is so goofy I love it.
Tomorrow I'm going to replace the processor in my old PC from 2008. It's supposed to rain here in Poland, so there will be time to replace them. I learned a lot from you. Thanks . Regards . Jutro mam zamiar wymienić procesor w moim starym PC z 2008 roku . U nas w Polsce ma padać deszcz , więc będzie czas na wymianę . Dużo od Ciebie się nauczyłem . Dzięki . Pozdrawiam . I wrote in Polish for better translation. Napisalem po Polsku dla lepszego tłumaczenia . 🤗🤝👍🍂
16:40 now THAT'S some beautiful caviar! This needs to be top shelf in a display case.
If you want easy cleaning, use an Australian classic eucalyptus oil! Will clean it right up!
Gotta love that WD Click Of Death...
The last one I had, I filled it with water and a few drops detergent, made a transparent top. Bubble bubble ...
Hi MikeTech. Thanks for another trip down memory lane. I used and upgraded one of the CWI computers, back in 1999, which belonged to a friend of mine. The name on it wasn't CWI, but some brand which was used in the UK, where I live. The PC in question had a Pentium 120 CPU, which I upgraded to a 166 MMX. The O/S was the first iteration of Windows 95, which I upgraded to the 'C' version, which was a significant improvement. I offered to let him have my 'old' copy of Win 98, after I bought the 98SE version, but he declined. I well remember upgrading my COMPAQ DeskPro 4000 with some larger EDO RAM sticks; from 32 Mb to 128 Mb. Tech has definitely advanced and improved since then. My first PC - an Apricot 286 Workstation - came with Win 3.1. I still have the complete set of 10 Floppy disks and the DOS 5 Boot disk, all safely wrapped in foil and stored inside a tin. I've got an old Laptop which is no longer usable, so may install 3.1 on it, just for the fun of it.
One of the key aspects of these videos that make them so great is that you can tell how much Mike enjoys doing this. Excellent video! Thank you. ❤️
RUclips just recommended me your channel. I love it. Good job and thank you for the nice content!
I miss these old school cases... I'm such a sucker for switches/buttons of all types and ESPECIALLY having an LED readout of the CPU's frequency.
I bought so many of these from thrift stores and garage sales in the 90s. it was great learning about old systems and not being afriad to destroy them, especially because new computers back then were outrageously expensive compared to today.
I don't think that first machine actually had OpenOffice. Rather when you install certain versions of Microsoft Office it will add two icons to the Start menu, the one you picked up on is called "Open Office Document" and it just means that it will allow you open a document made with MS Office. Also that first machine had a 2.5 GB drive, and with early versions of Windows 95 only having FAT16 and thus a maximum partition size of 2048 MB, it's possible that the first drive has about 500 MB of unpartitioned space. Worth checking out. I guess even today hooking up your CDROM drive to a sound card if possible is a good idea. This way, you can have one drive on each of the primary IDE channels and not have them being slowed down by a CDROM drive. So one internal drive on the primary and an external CF or SD card for copying files to the PC on the secondary is a good option.
Great video as always.
The doubling up of characters in the copyright message at the start of the BIOS is so that if the contents are split into odd and even images (e.g. for programming into two ROMs) then each ROM gets a copyright message at the start of it.
I have that exact same 2nd case! I recently obtained it on eBay for $75 and turned it into a 486 DX4-100 DOS gaming machine! 👍😁
This brings back memories. I started building PC's in the 486 era. We had an AMD 486 DX2 100 with 12 megs of ram. It did not run Windows 95 well.
0:30 My first PC case. 386 DX/33 with 4MB Memory & 40 MB HDD.
That first system was pretty maxed out for 1995-6! VLB disk controller. Bring on PCI! Excellent little machine.
27:00 yes, keep us up-to-date. and wow, refreshing fix I really enjoyed it.
Mike: "Hello everyone"
Me: "Hello beautiful" 😏
😍
He’s soo dreamy 😍
My grandpa had one VERY like that first one in his RV. Played 'the incredibly machine' for the first time on it. Windows 3.1, those were 'the' days
24:00 well hot damn! it works! love to see it!
Hah, I noticed the thumbnail after watching the video. That's funny. 😂
Great installment and excellent repairs too. It is pretty great seeing the care and attention given to these venerable machines.
1:30 beautiful sound.
I'm sure this was also heard in a galaxy far, far away in a trash compactor : )
37:57 "the funhouse inversion continues in the back" LMAO MIKE XD
13:40 - I'm using this word in my everyday vocabulary.... starting Monday. "Cromulent". 🧐😉
I once accidentally convinced a fledgling engineer that the word ‘cromulent’ was an actual technical term in networking. Wasn’t even trying, it just happened from sheer casual use. Then I realized that episode is older than these kids…
I absolutely love your videos
It’s honestly great to see these vintage machines again
20:17 I'd love to see the process on adding that clock sometime Mike!
You could tile a couple of walls with all those dial-up modems you've collected! Another fun video. Watching this made me cringe with all those sharp, finger and wrist slicing metal panels. I don't miss the days of building and working on these things!
Yep, built a baby ATA K6-300 back in the day. I love these style cases.
Always love your one-liners Mike - the first system was the ultimate nostalgia trip for me pal, my first system ever was almost identical, case and all ! Great vid as usual 🤗
Your thumbnails are always something to look forward to hehehe. I needed a laugh this morning, so burnt out from work…
Love the video. A note about early CD-ROM Drives. I too used to think that the sound card connectors were due to protocols, and that is partially true. It actually has to do with the nature of the original IDE standard. The use of cylinders, tracks, and sectors was required on IDE, but didn't translate to the world of CD-ROM. As a result, CD-ROMs used the same communications standard as SCSI (which were later incorporated into EIDE and ATA-1). So, for all intents and purposes, our sound cards were doing quadruple duty, as a sound I/O card, MIDI Interface, Controller Port, and SCSI controller. Pretty impressive for a device that could be only $50.
The use of the SCSI communication standards continues today with SATA and MVmE, as both show as SCSI devices in most hardware trees.
28:46 cache on a stick
I've never seen your videos but kudos for the thumbnail image for this vid! And thanks for speading the love for these systems and safekeeping them, so they are not lost.
I have a Baby AT hanging out in my room, love their mid-90's vibes! I do enjoy those old Caviar drives but definitely not the Varta barrel batteries. I've noticed the NiCD ones tend to be much worse! I know the motherboard maker PCChips did fake cache chips, ugh!
When you checked the auto bulb and said it had "a crazy low resistance", bear in mind that a cold bulb filament has a MUCH lower resistance than it does when it's white hot. I did a little math based on you saying it was a 60 watt bulb that runs at 12 volts, and determined that it draws 5 amps of current, and its resistance when lit is actually 2.4 ohms, not the 0.3 ohms your meter shows when testing it cold
7:50, ahh beautiful BIOS ROM
Another amazing video ! You must have a time machine, I haven't seen such a vintage stations for a decades🙂
Hey Mike, in case you aren't familiar with the G4 iMacs shown in your last video, just want to make sure you are aware they can be tricky to work on without damaging anything. Not much room inside so it's easy to pinch wires. If you take apart the LCD, make sure to look up how to do it without breaking the plastic rivets
Yeah, those were some good ones.
24:30 very cool! Disco Disco!
21:44 AHH the sound of childhood!
Just like the very first PC rig I ever created in the mid 90's. Good times.
Baby ATs are my favorite
I had a variant of that first case, and some of those exact stickers. I couldn't remember if mine had the display in it though some of these would have the hole and mounts for one . but the sticker in the front would be blank in that area. so who knows. I did notice that you decided to start opening up the power supplies. might be a good call rather than leaving things to chance.
bru you give life to 2nd hand hardware like it was brand new ! damn it you're too skilled haha wish to see you in featuring with Cathod Ray dude for exemple !
love your channel and your type of humor, Mike :) just finished my 2003 build, hope i'll find older systems too
Heloo Mike ! I'm already watching. Post-video commentar . Już oglądam . Komentarz po filmie . 🤭🤗
As always, fantastic stuff! As an hobby archivist myself, thanks for uploading the BIOS!
Good bit about the programmer :) thanks for dumping the BIOS.
I bought one myself, it saved me hundreds of dollars on bad BIOS flashes so it paid for itself. Very handy when you do need one.
good morning, just quickly commenting to say how much I appreciate you and your videos, very therapeutic for the mind.
I will watch this after work on the big screen! Have a great weekend.
starting to feel like getting into this, maybe not as old but 2010 upwards such as alienware retro and sony vaio for starters.
I love you brother. Just subscribed to your Patreon. I've watched every one of your videos. So much fun in so many ways. I wrote my first program when I was 15 in 1968 on an Olivetti Underwood Program 101. Seen it all since then, Mainframes, minicomputers, PCs and Macs. Thanks for all your hard work. Mark
Thank you so much!
The reason the characters of the copyright string are doubled (or in one case I've seen, quadrupled) in the BIOS is a holdover from when the BIOS was a pair of chips. That way, the copyright is preserved in full on both chips.
I am always envious of finding the first chassis you showed off. That by far was my favorite AT chassis design of the day. Surprising to find an X5-P75 in that system, given that a lot of SiS 471 motherboards didn't have support for a x4 multiplier.
The missing LED panel - there's an article on hackaday where someone filled that hole with a small OLED screen ("OLED Display Lets Vintage PC Engage Turbo Mode In Style").
Great video as usual Mike! I'm in the middle of a crazy cross country move so much of my own PC treasure trove is being boxed up for transportation and storage! Your channel is helping me get my PC tinkering fix in the meantime! Thanks! I love all your little trivia and history comments as well!
There were some HP Vectra models that also used a similar inverted style as well as a few dell's that used a odd layout like that also. There was even a custom tower by silverstone I think called the Reeven that used an odd layout always fascinating to see what some manufacturers have done to change up the old style so to speak.
Great thumbnail! I love the baby AT systems. I know a little about Reveal computers, I believe they were a subsidiary of Packard Bell. I don’t believe they were around long. Maybe a few years. I never saw an inverted computer before. That was a new one for me. I like strange things though, it appeals to me. Once again your sense of humor shines through. Can’t wait to see all the other computers you have. I wonder if I will recognize any of them.
Love the new chip mat! So satisfying
The sound of chip foam is one of those things that simply make life worth living.
Just found your channel - nice zippy pace! Subscribed! I loved these baby ATs too because computer tech was evolving so rapidly. The unmistakable sound of the metal shell coming off! Where's that Matrox card? Which slot for this VLB SCSI adapter! This thing is maxed out! :)
Hey mike I had a pentium 100 system from 96 that had a tower with the optical drive at the bottom, which made more sense when kept on a desk.
Nice to come home from work and see another good retro computing video. If you ever get a Pentium 60 machine you need to run chkcpu to see if its a rare one with the floating point bug that did not get replaced.
Computer-brand computer, for all your computations large and small.
I thought the motherboard in that first system looked familiar until you full uncovered it. I have an almost identical Socket 3 M-Tech motherboard that came with a 486-DX100 and 52Mb of RAM. I think mine's a little newer, it has 3 PCI slots, 4 ISA slots, and IDE/Floppy/Serial/Parallel are built into the motherboard. The best part, it uses a CR2032 as the clock battery! It also came with an S3 Trio32 video card and an ESS Audiodrive sound card. Someday I'll turn it into a Windows 95 machine when i get an appropriate Baby AT Case.
Excellent videos Mike, keep up the good work. I am myself now going to rebuild my original and first PC (that i luckily still have the original case, 3.5 drive and power supply for), a Baby AT case as well with a Turbo button and 3 number display. (was there not btw some socket 7 ones that supported the Turbo function??) It used to be a 486 AMD DX2-66 with 1 MB Vesa graphics, 8 MB RAM, and a Ultrasound MAX amo, sadly i am missing the motherboard back plate for the case. I will be using a socket 7 motherboard (QDI P51430VX/250DM Explorer II v.2.1S) with the same AMD pentium 133 mhz as in your video, and also a cache module. Not sure about what parts i will use for the rest? hmm. That second case has a motherboard plate would work on my Baby AT case as well with a just couple screw holes added i believe (have some pics of the correct one for the case).
Why they ever stopped with the removable motherboard trays I will never understand. Such a GREAT thing back then.. I'm actually pretty sure I had a system at one time pretty much identical to this one.. I never had that hdd cover on the 5 1/4 bay, but basically the same motherboard i/o cards, sound card with the matching cdrom.. man, the good times. I really miss the 90s.
I admit, I'm a sucker for baby ATs as well. You have to be careful around those things because they multiply the more vintage computer shows you go to.
Thank you for explaining everything. I found a fresh tube of yellow unused (golden) UV curable solder mask at the dump. Now I know how long it takes to cure!
You should get some drive belts for these CD drives, that'll make them open right up without a fight!
I wonder if an I/O controller on the VLB makes a hard drive connected to it faster than one connected to a controller on ISA
It would make an interesting subject for a short video. The IDE controller in system 1 has both! The IDE connector on the left is marked 'VL-IDE' whereas the one on the right is marked 'ISA-IDE'.
Even the keyboard needs a BIOS on the motherboard? This is definitely new for me.
Thank you for another awesome video. I found two dell Vostro 3902s in the dumpster and took them home. I tested them and they worked fine. I have one problem though. they did not have power supplies and I've been looking everywhere for one with no luck. Do you have any suggestions on any other power supply I can use even if its not a dell one?
Great Video.
Loving your videos. I built way too many of those back when. Love your watch face by the way.
33:33 - The light bulb probably triggered overload protection because the cold filament draws more current than hot._
41:10 I'm guessing that in Pentium systems that used 72-pin SIMMS for RAM, the SIMMS had to be installed in identical pairs.
Nope, you could have just one stick of RAM if that's all you had. There was no dual-channel back then, and RAM was incredibly expensive.
@@jeffb6786 Well, actually the Pentium's data bus was 64 bits wide, and the 72-pin SIMM's data path was only 32 bits wide. Thus, you needed a matched pair of them to create one memory bank with a 64-bit data path.
34:10 Power supply and light bulb. If the power supply can't handle a 20W or even a 40W light bulb it isn't going to serve a Pentium very well.
Great video Mike as usual. Regarding a use for a pile of modems, this video might give you some brain food for ways of inter-networking them within a VLAN or something for a cool retro comm project: v=lTHYDzqjTvE
TL, DR: Guy uses modem on ancient PC to dial into a slightly less ancient PC which is actually on a LAN and routes through that for internet access using a phone-line switch. He also sends himself a fax like an absolute Analogue Chad.
I happen to have a similar system like your first one but no real way to test the PSU outside of the machine. I turned it on for a minute and it works. If the PSU was bad, would it start smoking or doing stuff after say 5 minutes of it being on?
Maybe you should simply swap the cases between the first two systems. That would seem to solve the issues you have (lack of 7 segment display on the first one and loose board on the second one).
Engaaaageeeee the turbooooo button
Hope you have enough formula and diapers lol
That first case is kinda neat looking
These kids are expensive!
@@miketech1024 🤣🤣🤣 That first system was nicely equipped for it's time. Would make quite the Dos gaming machine.
Thou shall not speak ill of the intel Pentium 😉
That 3rd one. Don't think I've ever seen a inverted AT case lol
Curious why do you cut through the sticker over the fan bearing rather than lift the whole sticker? Usually been pretty successful myself lifting the entire sticker, lubing it up, cleaning up any extra oil and putting the original sticker back down.
I rarely have great luck getting old adhesive to stick properly after it's been removed. It's just faster to cut my way in than to peel and clean the old adhesive.
Sorry getting to you late today... work related things took longer then normal ❤
I sold those Reveal drives and sound cards in the mid 90s. Or maybe I should say the store I worked at carried them. We all used our employee discounts to get name-brand cards so we assumed the Reveal cards were just cheap junk. Today we know better, that those cards were actually really good.
Reveal was indeed low-cost step in multimedia kits. The better more known brand kits where very expensive in those days from which i can remember.
S2 - Yep, PC Chips M507. I had one of those exact boards, fake cache slugs and all. The COAST makes it not an issue though and it just becomes a bog-standard Triton I based Socket 7 board (which does have the 'header' for replacement VRMs on the right of the CPU socket but good luck finding one).
'Fun fact' about it though, it doesn't have a PS2 header despite having the pads there for one. Why? Because the IO chip has a bug that makes it so it stops responding when it receives input from both the mouse and keyboard at once. So you're relegated to serial mice with this one.
That board is hilarious!
In third computer are interesting ram sticks with alpha and omega signs
Nice video as always. Yesterday i got a 14" IBM 3370 HDD!
WOW! How on Earth do you happen upon such a thing!?
@@miketech1024Ebay! There are only 2 more of them left on ebay and i managed to haggle a "good" price with the seller. Safe to say my neighbors didn't enjoy it when the package came to them because i wasn't there😂 48 pounds.