This was my second PC when I was a kid! My dad bought it for me to do my school exam revision but I mainly just played games 😂 My parents divorced when I was younger and I spent every weekend as a teen at my dads house. I’d diligently put the Cordata back in the box each Friday after school, load it in my dads car and take it there for the weekend 😂 Sunday afternoon - reverse process! Never been much around about Cordata and to finally see the PC I loved on the modern-day screen - wow! 🙏 My first PC before this was manufactured by Vision Computer Inc. It was Korean I think - the Yungdon Company (or something like that.) Never found anything about them. Around the early 90’s but I still have the leaflet in the loft! 😊
100% that pop and the smell is a rifa x type capacitor across the mains input inside the power supply, it's not needed electrically which is why the computer still works perfectly fine. You can run the computer without it installed or replace it with a modern x type power line capacitor. But don't run it with the blown capacitor still inside.
Ah, I remember my first 386 I cobbled together from used parts found at one of our local PC repair shops. It was also a 386 SX 16. I think it may have been the same time I got my own VGA monitor as well. Good times!
“It might have been stored in a warehouse or a barn somewhere.” Mind immediately cuts to that Seinfeld episode where George and his dad were selling computers.
This is fantastic new/old stock. I was just telling my wife last night my first computer was a Tandy 286 in 1991 because 386 computers were still sooo expensive.
Cool that it has a Lechmere sales tag on it. Being from New England I fondly remember Lechmere, They sold appliances, and electronics among other things. Kind of a fore runner to Best Buy I would think. The tag was dated 1994, and unfortunately Lechemere was gone by 1997. Very cool find.
Oh, unboxing of an early 90's Korean PC clone. They had a cool look. Keep it out of the UV or it will soon look old (like me). The capacitors are showing their age even if they've never been subject to heavy heat and use. If it were me I'd replace that clock battery before going any further either. As for the company, Corona was a private firm from Westlake Village, California that was founded by Robert S. Harp. Don't hold me to it but if I remember they started out selling a hard disk systems compatible with Apple systems in about 1980 or 1981? For certain they were a pioneer in IBM compatible systems and by 1983 they were making products for others including Olivetti, Philips Information Systems, Sperry and others. All their stuff was made in their Newbury Park plant with corporate offices in Westlake Village. In 1984 Corona moved corporate headquarters to a larger facility in Thousand Oaks, kept Westlake as the development center and really ramped up production to go after a much larger slice of the PC compatible machine realm. I remember those days were really UGLY with the patent and copyright suits. No wonder that time was the basis for "Halt and Catch Fire". In 1985 Corona was still trying to find investment capital to expand. That summer Harp sold a large stake to Daewoo for $20 million and they changed their name to Cordata. As you shared, Daewoo was making many parts for Corona. Cordata was trying to carve a niche into the PC-AT CAD market but struggled to find a footing with domestically produced machines. As time progressed the cost of supplies made it very hard for Corona to make a profit. Really, profits were slim to no none in those days. Having sold the soul of the company to Daewoo for investment, Daewoo pushed to make it profitable. While Harp was still the principle investor, Daewoo was in the driver's seat. In the summer of 1987 Harp resigned as CEO after Daewoo voted to consolidate Cordata's staff into Daewoo's Compton, California headquarters. Robert said the move was essentially killing the company. At that time he owned about 17% while Daewoo owned 70%. It really was a blow for Robert as Cordata was his baby. It got so ugly that during the meeting on consolidation Harp was said to have punched a Daewoo executive Hayo Im. At the time Harp would only say of the incident, "... it went beyond a verbal disagreement." Oh, those were the days in the Wild West of computing.
The first computer I owed. It's weird to see it again. In a good way. Hours making spreadsheets with SuperCalc. We had a whole 10 MB hard drive, just for ourselves. We thought we could never fill it up.
Pretty sure my first computer was a Cordata 286-16 - AT Cyrix clone bought off of Tiger Direct or some source like that. 40 MB HD, 14" display, 2X CD-ROM,, slow modem. Bought it in 1991.
Cork feet, that's not something I'd expected to see on a computer. Nice to see an environmentally friendly and durable alternative to plastic rubber! Cardboard inserts in 5.25" drives are not something I knew about because I never had a 5.25" drive, I suppose they keep dust from gathering on the internal parts. Seeing them in place just reinforces the nice feeling of "this is a brand new computer", just as if we'd been opening it up with anticipation 30 years ago :) It's interesting for me, who didn't own a PC until circa 2000 and in '91 we had just bought an Amiga, to see that the 5.25" drive was not only being issued with new machines but had a higher capacity than my Amiga disk drive (880K). The only Amiga to come as standard with a higher density was the A4000 of 1992 (I think it was 1.44MB). I had thought of 5.25" as being very old tech by 1991 standards and would have thought it would be a much lower capacity. Was it common to get much new software in 5.25" form at this time, or was it only for legacy software that an existing PC user might be expected to already have?
My IBM PC has cork feet. It also has a cardboard insert for the 5.25” drive. I believe the purpose is to keep the head from banging around during transport. When I got a 486 in 1993 I had them include a 5.25” drive (1.2 MB) because I still had a bunch of 5.25” diskettes from my IBM PC although it could only support up to 360KB diskettes. Funny thing is I never had a bad 360K diskette but I’d have constant problems with 1.44MB 3.5” diskettes
Are.they 256mb ram sticks or 128mb with 512k on-board? I would check if it could be upgraded to 640k on-board and then aim for at least 4mb total. Helps with software compatibility in my experience.
Sure glad that RAYOVAC Battery did not leak and corrode anything!
This was my second PC when I was a kid! My dad bought it for me to do my school exam revision but I mainly just played games 😂 My parents divorced when I was younger and I spent every weekend as a teen at my dads house. I’d diligently put the Cordata back in the box each Friday after school, load it in my dads car and take it there for the weekend 😂 Sunday afternoon - reverse process! Never been much around about Cordata and to finally see the PC I loved on the modern-day screen - wow! 🙏
My first PC before this was manufactured by Vision Computer Inc. It was Korean I think - the Yungdon Company (or something like that.) Never found anything about them. Around the early 90’s but I still have the leaflet in the loft! 😊
100% that pop and the smell is a rifa x type capacitor across the mains input inside the power supply, it's not needed electrically which is why the computer still works perfectly fine. You can run the computer without it installed or replace it with a modern x type power line capacitor. But don't run it with the blown capacitor still inside.
That is good advice!
Ah, I remember my first 386 I cobbled together from used parts found at one of our local PC repair shops. It was also a 386 SX 16. I think it may have been the same time I got my own VGA monitor as well. Good times!
“It might have been stored in a warehouse or a barn somewhere.”
Mind immediately cuts to that Seinfeld episode where George and his dad were selling computers.
OMG! I would kill to be able to unbox a brand new 386-SX today! A little recapping and that system will be up and running in no time.
Waiting for the update on this
This is fantastic new/old stock. I was just telling my wife last night my first computer was a Tandy 286 in 1991 because 386 computers were still sooo expensive.
Cool that it has a Lechmere sales tag on it. Being from New England I fondly remember Lechmere, They sold appliances, and electronics among other things. Kind of a fore runner to Best Buy I would think. The tag was dated 1994, and unfortunately Lechemere was gone by 1997. Very cool find.
Oh, unboxing of an early 90's Korean PC clone. They had a cool look. Keep it out of the UV or it will soon look old (like me). The capacitors are showing their age even if they've never been subject to heavy heat and use. If it were me I'd replace that clock battery before going any further either.
As for the company, Corona was a private firm from Westlake Village, California that was founded by Robert S. Harp. Don't hold me to it but if I remember they started out selling a hard disk systems compatible with Apple systems in about 1980 or 1981? For certain they were a pioneer in IBM compatible systems and by 1983 they were making products for others including Olivetti, Philips Information Systems, Sperry and others. All their stuff was made in their Newbury Park plant with corporate offices in Westlake Village. In 1984 Corona moved corporate headquarters to a larger facility in Thousand Oaks, kept Westlake as the development center and really ramped up production to go after a much larger slice of the PC compatible machine realm. I remember those days were really UGLY with the patent and copyright suits. No wonder that time was the basis for "Halt and Catch Fire". In 1985 Corona was still trying to find investment capital to expand. That summer Harp sold a large stake to Daewoo for $20 million and they changed their name to Cordata. As you shared, Daewoo was making many parts for Corona. Cordata was trying to carve a niche into the PC-AT CAD market but struggled to find a footing with domestically produced machines.
As time progressed the cost of supplies made it very hard for Corona to make a profit. Really, profits were slim to no none in those days. Having sold the soul of the company to Daewoo for investment, Daewoo pushed to make it profitable. While Harp was still the principle investor, Daewoo was in the driver's seat. In the summer of 1987 Harp resigned as CEO after Daewoo voted to consolidate Cordata's staff into Daewoo's Compton, California headquarters. Robert said the move was essentially killing the company. At that time he owned about 17% while Daewoo owned 70%. It really was a blow for Robert as Cordata was his baby. It got so ugly that during the meeting on consolidation Harp was said to have punched a Daewoo executive Hayo Im. At the time Harp would only say of the incident, "... it went beyond a verbal disagreement."
Oh, those were the days in the Wild West of computing.
The first computer I owed. It's weird to see it again. In a good way. Hours making spreadsheets with SuperCalc. We had a whole 10 MB hard drive, just for ourselves. We thought we could never fill it up.
Beautiful machine! I wonder if you could run Windows 3.0 on it, or if you’d have to upgrade the memory first?
Pretty sure my first computer was a Cordata 286-16 - AT Cyrix clone bought off of Tiger Direct or some source like that. 40 MB HD, 14" display, 2X CD-ROM,, slow modem. Bought it in 1991.
Cork feet, that's not something I'd expected to see on a computer. Nice to see an environmentally friendly and durable alternative to plastic rubber! Cardboard inserts in 5.25" drives are not something I knew about because I never had a 5.25" drive, I suppose they keep dust from gathering on the internal parts. Seeing them in place just reinforces the nice feeling of "this is a brand new computer", just as if we'd been opening it up with anticipation 30 years ago :) It's interesting for me, who didn't own a PC until circa 2000 and in '91 we had just bought an Amiga, to see that the 5.25" drive was not only being issued with new machines but had a higher capacity than my Amiga disk drive (880K). The only Amiga to come as standard with a higher density was the A4000 of 1992 (I think it was 1.44MB). I had thought of 5.25" as being very old tech by 1991 standards and would have thought it would be a much lower capacity. Was it common to get much new software in 5.25" form at this time, or was it only for legacy software that an existing PC user might be expected to already have?
My IBM PC has cork feet. It also has a cardboard insert for the 5.25” drive. I believe the purpose is to keep the head from banging around during transport. When I got a 486 in 1993 I had them include a 5.25” drive (1.2 MB) because I still had a bunch of 5.25” diskettes from my IBM PC although it could only support up to 360KB diskettes.
Funny thing is I never had a bad 360K diskette but I’d have constant problems with 1.44MB 3.5” diskettes
The cardboard insert is to protect the drive heads from vibration during shipping.
Are.they 256mb ram sticks or 128mb with 512k on-board? I would check if it could be upgraded to 640k on-board and then aim for at least 4mb total. Helps with software compatibility in my experience.
256 or 128mb ram sticks on 386?
remove that old battery before it leaks.