For a lot, probably majority, of people computer is a machine which runs Word, Excel, and nothing else "What's even the point of computer, if Word isn't installed on it"?
I started with windows 3.1 as well. Man seeing this again feels like re-watching my own life. Its crazy how far and beyond technology evolved in such a short time.
My frustration is that despite mind boggling advances in the speed and complexity of the underlying hardware, Microsoft seems to be able to bring any hardware to a sluggish standstill. The colors are brighter, and the graphics are higher resolution, and lots more meaningless bells and whistles, but the perceived speed of a computer for things like booting, opening an application, or doing a needed function seems as slow and sluggish as it did 20 years ago.
Dam it , you got it first. But it is truely sad that with all the power of new computers that they seam to be slower. only thing that runs faster , downloads
@Doughknot Lump . . Windows 7 was the last fairly usable operating system from Windows, however I have been forced to upgrade to windows 10. It appears to be impossible to get Cortana to go away and die, and no matter what I do with those little tiles in the start menu, invariably microsoft undoes it, and brings back bloated adware. The problem is they are trying to be a tablet and a desktop at the same time, and are doing both jobs poorly. I would say Windows NT/2000 was the best operating system microsoft came out with as far as snappiness and stability. By far the worst were Windows 95, Windows 98 ME, Windows Vista (perhaps the all time worst), and now Windows 10 is giving Windows Vista a run for its money as far as all time worst. The only reason I am still on windows is I have one program that I use a lot, Wirecast, which will not run on Linux. I look forward to one day entering the Post-Microsoft phase of my life
A 64 bit data bus on a 32 bit CPU running a 16 bit OS based on an 8 bit design with a 4 bit keyboard made by a "2 bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition".
@@TheDewaltBoy Half a million subs can be very little to some people and to others it can be a lot, hell some people consider having 1000 subs "a lot", it is purely subjective, most of the views on the channel aren't that much, the actual amount of views the videos get are very little in my opinion, which is why I said the channel was underrated coz it deserves more views that it is getting, its not a matter of "mathematics"
Thank you for this nice video! I amit 47 years old, and I also builted and mainteranced old computers. This is a real technical history. This is nice for my Heart! Kind regards from Hungary Budapest. (Excuse me for my poor English)
The first computer I built used a Motorola 6800 running Mikbug, and by build I don't mean attaching a motherboard to a case and plugging in the CPU/memory, I mean physically wiring individual chips together from a paper drawn schematic. I wonder how many on here will have any clue what that was without looking it up. Now that's really a retro computer.
This brings back childhood memories of when the pace of DOS games actually could go too fast and you had to make sure your pc wasn´t too fast for the game. Having a button like this would have been a luxury to just press instead of changing settings a lot.
you know, that those computers are their work over last 30 years, right? Of course, you only want to take them, and "impress" them. But no, it will never happen, because it is their work, and they deserve to be impress by their own progress, all battles that they won.
Those were the days of setting IRQ jumpers every time you added a new card. Wow. Takes me back. Of course I liked and subscribed, but also enabled the bell notifications. Thank you!
96 Pc starting Photoshop, 8 seconds, Ryzen 3 starting Photoshop 8 seconds. Some things just don't change, even if the computer is thousands of times faster.
programmers are lazy to optimize now. In those time, who understood computers good, was something like master. They had to optimalize everything in assembler, because memory was precious. Now they are just wasting with ram and resources, because they are lazy to think like geniuses of optimalization. Even my mouse software are taking 100mb from ram, it drives me crazy. They are using .bmp files, like thousadns of them. Unbelievable (it is a4tech, I already emailed them, that it is piece of amateur programming work)... I could do same mouse software into 5 mb.
Wow, thanks for rustling up memories! My first PC was a 386DX-33 with the built-in math co-processor. I've been building PCs since 1990 and you did a great job highlighting how much things have changed!
And tech has progressed from the point where you HAD to know what you were doing to use a computer, or at least set one up / reload windows. Nowadays it's so much friendlier which can be a bit boring, but it gets it to more people's hands and saves time.
@@volvo09 you would be surprised majority of people still do not know how to reinstall windows. and once they find out they have to reload all drivers/software/files they just give up lol
Aliens gives us the technology. There are no smart people lol. You think all of sudden in 18th century there are so many genius born out of thin air in west and made this world at its current stage ? Nice bullshit.
@@ChrisBrown-ir6sf Technology evolved dependend on the state of human society as a whole. For thousands of years we used primitive tools because humans lived in small communities, small tribes until they began farming and settle. When settle happend, cities started to happen and the general population lived at one place for longer or their entire lives. When that happend, the overall human population grew and it grew expotentially. In 1970 we had 4 billion people.In 2021 we have more than 8. Thats double in 50 years. Point being is that technology evolves by its needs. If you want to feed 1 million people you need other tools than a horse walking down a field. So you invent machines. And the thing about machines is that they can build itself more effectivly and precise than a human can do. A human invents, builds a machine, then that machine is used to build the next machine and so on. As such computer technology is possible.
@@ExplainingComputers Can't wait to see that cooling setup Bud!!! Keep cranking out your infinite Computing wisdom!!! Happy to learn from you my friend!!!
@@ExplainingComputers You have build a cooling pipe to your creek in the backyard ...? I've bought a nice solution: acrylic case + fan for 4$ The 5 V fan was a bit noisy so I checked the pi-4 temperature : 11° C above ambient temp So I thougt to reduce noise by giving just 3,3 instead of 5 V and that meant close to silence ... and 20° above ambient temp at 80% cpu .. Quite a great solution regarding price point + value that meets the pi 4 intension cause buying a pi 4 for 40€ and a 20€ cooling solution is not my thing.
Lol, at IBM where I worked on mainframes the floor was raised so chilled air was blown from the perforated floor tiles to keep the mainframes cool so we were alway freezing but good thing we had lab coats to wear.
You have amazed me sir, I liked this video as fantastic as your other videos I enjoyed before. It reminded my old and early days of my profession which I am still continuing. Your neat and clean videos help us a lot. Carry on successfully Sir.
Another wonderful video ... thank you! seeing autoexec.bat and config.sys brought back memories of configuring these files for certain games that require high memory etc and just editing and creating batch files. all good memories !
My first build was a 286 AT; can't say I miss the fiddling with dipswitches, IRQ's and DMA's, though, or config.sys and autoexec.bat, for that matter. Let alone setting up an I/O-card or an internal modem.... But, yeah, the race between soft- and hardware is still going on to keep the actual speed of PC's at the same level, irrespective of the CPU-speed.
I remember the first PC we had at home. It was also around 1996 and the printer was the noisy Dot Matrix one that'll wake up everyone sleeping at home whenever we print something.
We did not have a computer at home until 2002 or so. But my grandfather used to work as an accountant, so he had a PC running MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 (later also Windows 95). He also had an Epxon LX-300 dot matrix printer (9 needles printing on continuous paper and noisy as hell). Some 15 years later I used the same model of printer in physical chemistry labs to print out some measurement results and calculations -- i believe they were partial molar volumes of water-iPrOH mixtures. These things were pretty much indestructible, although the printing head was extremely hot when printing.
@@g-r-a-e-m-e- I remember the daisy wheel, which was later replaced by a 9-pin OKI dot matrix (it can print graphics!!). And yes, people would almost certainly be up regardless of time when using those.
This brings back so many memories, I have built the Ryzen computer following your instructional videos and I have never had such a fast and powerful pc, thank you so much for your video content it's very much appreciated.
I miss 1996! Nothing like a night in installing Win95 from 20 floppies. Those were the days! Thanks for the trip down memory lane. My jaw dropped at 5:26
@Erik Mikkelsaar not true. even oem windows 95 had a minimum requirement of an 386dx. i've run it sucessfully on 386dx/33 with 8mb ram and 256k 2nd level cache with no hacks
I worked as a software engineer and the team coded applications super efficiently, in some cases checking the assembly output of compiled C code to make sure it was pukka. With windows 98 things were pretty good, office applications were slick and quick to load. Office apps.....Funny how nothing has really changed that much on the face of it, just more elaborate user interfaces. If anything, features were easier to find. However, games have made significant progress and simulations using mathworks tools execute much faster now. Computers back then were just as effective, it's the software and connectivity that has grown out of proportion.
@@guywilkinson yeah, i am totally agreeing with you on that point. MS Office used to fit on a few diskettes while now it barely fit on a dvd. Not that many new features though ! OS's have, on the other end, so many new features i can understand them becoming bigger, although they may have dramatized a bit too.
Heck yeah, I was watching some old episodes yesterday for nostalgia, and one was building a computer in 92, and the big features where how much was being integrated onto the motherboard/mainboard instead of expansion cards, along with showing a computer trade fair/swap meet/flea market, or what ever you want to call it for guys to haggle, and get parts cheaper. lol! man how times have changed.
That was very enjoyable! Yes, I remember the days of Windows 3.1, when making a shortcut on the desktop was via ms-dos. My first computer was a Intel 80386DX 16 MHz with a 100 MB HDD, 2 MB of ram expandable to 4 MB & some shareware games. Thanks for such a great share!
they had to produce quality components, because prices were so high, that only keyboard costed about 200$ after counting inflation. Average computer could costs like $5000 for our money today. They could not use to include cheap plastic and garbage manufacture like today, to spare 5-10$. Who in those time buy a computer, they wanted something like good quality car. Everything had to last long and have feeling of quality. That's the reason, why all keyboard at begining was mechanical, even had PBT plastic. Now even mechanical keyboard are using cheap ABS plastic.
I love the fastfoward of you solitaire and the Paintbrush don't save comment 😂 the more I watch, the more I learn, the more like the content. I just can't get over it you made explaining computer since mid 2000.
Thanks for this. Brought back loads of memories. Those old beige cases were so horrible. And if you added a cd rom or floppy disk to the front, they were never the same colour of beige or they were black. And those ribbon cables were terrible, and when you had 2 drives attached to the same cable you had to set the master/slave jumpers on the disks to get it working. As far as dos was concerned, to get some games working you had to mess with the config files to ensure you had enough memory to run them. himem.sys etc. Those were the days.........
I remember my first pc I inherited from my grandfather when he died in 1996. His computer was his pride and joy. He had so much money into that thing. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I loved those days besides losing my grandpa at such a young age. I was only 12 at the time.
Absolutely adored the subtle humour! I must be older than you, because my first build, straight off selling my Commodore Amiga 3000, was a 486 (DX/2?) ... with a VESA Local Bus video card. I still have my DOS and Windows 3.1 install floppies too.... amazing they still work.
again... another wonderful video dude........ seeing that old relic machine.... makes me proud to be a pc tech for the past 30 plus years...... makes me feel my age too...... i still have one of those old tin can pc units..... my nephew uses it to play all my old games.....
I doing something like that with and old DELL Pentium 4 system I salvaged from the local recycle drop off, for a retro Win98/XP build, I just need to find a case big enough for the build. I even found a period correct ULTRA branded modular 500 Watt PSU for the build to add some early - mid 00's Bling on the inside, and yes it was brand new in the box with the original shrink wrap, and it's never used, and the caps, etc.. are all in good condition.
@@ayuchanayuko Yep, but trouble is finding them in good condition, and at a decent price in my area, as when I come across one on eBay, they always want some crazy amount for shipping the thing.
@@ayuchanayuko Trust me I'm always on the hunt, but it's bare beyond some ugly AF HP cases from the early - mid 00's that are also overpriced. My local Goodwills rarely put PC's out on the sales floor, it seems, and the Salvation Army is 80% clothing items, and what other they have is usually overpriced, yes I've checked others, but again no luck. part of It is because we have free recycle drop off locations around the area, you just have to show your state ID with your address on it, and I've even checked there, but not a ton of luck as of late, beyond a Yamaha keyboard I'm cleaning up for my nephew.
Oh, that early HP CD writer. I remember my pops bringing it home from work to test. And at that time making copies of CD's, people be like haha, that is impossible.
My first computer was a screamin' fast 386/25! 80 meg hard drive, 4 megs of memory. At the time, a hot rod computer. My friends were jealous! Thanks for a trip down memory lane. Well done Chris!
You earned a new sub today, thanks for the memories. I ran win3.1 on my Amiga 2000 with a pc hardware card. I loved having a windows window open on my Amiga desktop with Solitaire while I was playing Amiga demos in another. I guess I could say those were the days. Thanks for all this hard work. You kept your old pc pretty clean.
Slightly late to the party, but fantastic video, removing the old case in one huge section bought the memories back! Love your videos and how beautifully easy they are to watch! Cheers Chris.
This brings back some wonderful memories. My first machine was a Packard Bell pentium 100mhz computer and I loved it. I would reformat my computer every weekend because I usually screwed something up in the registry. These were the days when I had all the time in the world to fool around with my computer and my buddies playing the very early online games like duke nukem in dos. Great times!
Oh, and thanks very much for making this video, it was really enjoyable to watch, I could boot up a bunch of older computers for hours and it would really be fun
Pressing the turbo button to change from ‘Hi’ to ‘Lo’ and back again, you could play with that for hours... suddenly I have visions of Peter Griffin doing that for a good 5 minutes in the next episode of Family Guy!
This was the best video, reminding us of the early days. We were using the Windows 3.1 system at work. I was playing around with Red hat Linux at home in the late '90s
I remember my first PC build. It was a 533Mhz Cyrix CPU based machine with 64MB RAM. I still have an old 1Ghz Pentium 3 knocking around. Not sure what to do with it though.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane. I haven't ever kept my older computer systems, and there are definitely times I wish I had. Thanks for another great video Chris!
I had a Heathkit dual Z80 and 8086 -- 1984. What was the clock? There were many variants, some with advanced graphics like the DEC Rainbow. They were of desktop type. And of course tiny ones like the Sinclair-Timex ZX nes. or TI's weird T99 one. And the Trash 80 -- Radio Shack's entry. Staying within the desktop arena. I remeber when the 4040 came out, the ads in the computer papers of the day. I used to count, and on one hand the number of IC's (intergrated circuit devices) in our household before that late 1970's explosion of silicon waferosity.
Amazing video Chris, so much nostalgia, even those uglies ide cables bring some childhood happiness/awe while discovering the computer world. Thanks man
@@samuelschwager 56 kb/s was the ultimate voice band modem. My original one had two modes of operation: 300 b/s duplex or 1200 b/s down and 75 b/s up. I went through three or four generations of modem before reaching 56 kb/s.
It is coincidence that you have uploaded this. Thank you for the effort it took. I have recently been messing around with older versions of Windows using virtual machines and emulators. Sadly, I don't have my first couple of PC's. The oldest one I kept was a late Pentium 4. I have managed to get it running Windows XP, but if I show it Windows 95 or 3.1, they just stare blankly at each other. I got the feeling that I was trying to wedge a carthorse in a Chrysler. Same technology, wrong era.
PS/2 connectors on the Ryzen?! That's actually cool! My first build was a 486SX that I built for Doom. While I did not build my current PC, I did have to replace the motherboard and processor. :(
Thank you so much for the trip down memory lane. Perhaps you could go back even further as I remember reading your articles in the Bits and Bytes magazine back in the 1980s. I would also like to thank you for a great channel... and your writings (both past and present).
@@ExplainingComputers I know that feeling all too well. I remember the days of hitting up the one or two guys in my department with MSDN to get a 95 license. :)
@@ExplainingComputers this reminds me of my Win 95 machine, one of those cheap Tiny computers. I spent hours and hours on POD and Fury3.....and exploring dial-up internet. I had Encarta but found it lacking even then. A couple of sites like IMDB and BoxOfficeMojo have barely changed since then...
@@pdacore My first attempt at installing Windows 95 was a train wreck. It took forever before I finally saw a completed 95 install. Windows 98 SE was so much more satisfying. Of course, my hardware was more up to date by the time second edition arrived.
+William: "Cool video but I am curious, if you built it in 96, why not load Windows 95 on it? Was it an expense issue or architecture?" ==He has a Pentium 120 MHz. You can certainly install Win 95 on it. You can even install on a 486 and I think 8 MB RAM is the minimum. I think I saw a youtube video where a guy installed on a 386. As long as it is a 32 bit CPU, Win 95 can handle it. I don't know if Win 95 actually uses 486 instructions or Pentium instructions. Perhaps it does if it detects you have one of those CPUs.
I learned a lot about ancient relics of the past today, great video! Nice to see you so excited about your 1996 desktop, it encourages me to get back into pc building myself!
I love your videos. You don't overdo things like a lot of those other review channels. You remain humble in your explanation and I also love the fact that I can relate to the old technologies as well. I started building PC's around the same time. Haven't build a PC in more than 10 years though. Will do one soon
That old HP cd writer. Tip: Keep it! I got the same ora very similar model myself around. They're great for backing up CD's with the most notorious copy protections. It chews through em with no effort at all.
I recently came across the nostalgia nerd and getting all these emotions back i had back in the 80's when I was on the frontier of this technology and wish I can go back to that era, cos life sucks now and where r headed for doom n gloom as google wants to rule the world and is looking like they will be the next skynet by they're behavioral patterns over the last 10 years. They are acquiring everything in the technology space , just by doing simple research and connecting the dots is seems that google has a new mission statement which is "Lets do evil onto the whole world" as they don't seem to be answerable to any government on the planet and everyone else seems oblivious to that fact. Anyway i am gonna load up solitaire right now and go to my nostalgic oblivion mood cos i want to check out of this reality for a while.
Yes! We were very happy in 80's and 90's but didn't know it... Now, I think our generation is perhaps the only one that may stop Google intentions... the older never liked the technology and the younger grew with it, thinking is the way it should be... but it shouldn't...
You want to go back to when AOL wanted to rule the world? 😂 Look Google can do what they want as people do what they want and eventually they will be as redundant as gas lamps.
With some difficulty! This is the first video I've done it in, as it's a challenge I've been meaning to crack for some time. I had a VGA to HDMI converter with a frame buffer in (a non-trivial bit of kit!), and then fed that into an HDMI splitter, and then the output of that into a BlackMagic Design 4K recorder (into which I also connected an XLR microphone). This gave me ProRes files, which then required very significant post processing. But I am very pleased with the result. Sadly I still cannot record a DOS screen from a VGA card of this age, so there was a lot of messing around at that part of the video.
@@ExplainingComputers Wow, that's a lot to figure out! Thank you so much for your effort. Your dedication is reflected in the end product. It looks amazing!
Thanks for this -- especially as somebody else here was just commented how this video demonstrates the decline in production quality in this channel . . .
@@ExplainingComputers Well, then either they have some extra sense nobody else has or they're just trolls because I couldn't notice any decline in production quality. I'd bet it's the latter.
Considering the magnitudes of difference in processing power, the efficiency of modern CPUs is monumentally more efficient than that p120. I started professionally making and selling PCs right at the entrance of the Socket 7....did a lot of things since then...and am now again making and servicing PCs again professionally. I still enjoy it, even after having done it for like 25 years. Great video!!! Thank you for the moment of reminiscence!
Guess I'm showing my age here but I remember XT machines which were so slow they _didn't_ have the button (circa 5Mhz CPU). And I remember going into the offices of a well-known financial institution and seeing two men at an original IBM; one was reading out some text while the other was hunting for and pecking each key. Given how fast they were going I reckon they must have reached the giddy heights of at least 6 words a minute...
You'd have to carve up the case to do it. Those 386s and 486s and even first Pentiums were all on the old AT-type boards. Virtually everything since is built on the ATX spec. Newer cases can accept older boards by just omitting the IO shield, but the reverse requires heavy case mods.
Wow.. you had quite a monster back in 1996. My late 1995 rig initially had only 16MBs of EDO RAM. CPU was 100Mhz which I overclocked to 133Mhz by fiddling with the jumpers. Thanks a lot for the video.
I used to think the same -- and still have a BluRay burned in my video editing rig for archival purposes. But things evolve. I used to think a PC was not a PC without a floppy drive and a parallel port. :)
I like how I thought the computer was given to you but instead its the one u used. I got my first PC with win95. Only played games and installing junk from a magazine CD i bought from school. I knew even then that thing is the pinicle of human invention. Today I still play games and nothing else. What a life
I'm no expert but my guess is that the Ryzen 3 system is faster.
Well yes, though what it is being asked to run is a lot less efficient.
For a lot, probably majority, of people computer is a machine which runs Word, Excel, and nothing else
"What's even the point of computer, if Word isn't installed on it"?
no shit sherlock? :)
You are an idiot, AMD is not better than Intel....
just a bit yes )
I started with windows 3.1 as well.
Man seeing this again feels like re-watching my own life.
Its crazy how far and beyond technology evolved in such a short time.
My frustration is that despite mind boggling advances in the speed and complexity of the underlying hardware, Microsoft seems to be able to bring any hardware to a sluggish standstill. The colors are brighter, and the graphics are higher resolution, and lots more meaningless bells and whistles, but the perceived speed of a computer for things like booting, opening an application, or doing a needed function seems as slow and sluggish as it did 20 years ago.
Oh so sadly true.
Not the case with xfce4 though!
use SSD NVMe and it will be fast XD, trust me
Dam it , you got it first. But it is truely sad that with all the power of new computers that they seam to be slower. only thing that runs faster , downloads
@Doughknot Lump . . Windows 7 was the last fairly usable operating system from Windows, however I have been forced to upgrade to windows 10. It appears to be impossible to get Cortana to go away and die, and no matter what I do with those little tiles in the start menu, invariably microsoft undoes it, and brings back bloated adware. The problem is they are trying to be a tablet and a desktop at the same time, and are doing both jobs poorly.
I would say Windows NT/2000 was the best operating system microsoft came out with as far as snappiness and stability. By far the worst were Windows 95, Windows 98 ME, Windows Vista (perhaps the all time worst), and now Windows 10 is giving Windows Vista a run for its money as far as all time worst.
The only reason I am still on windows is I have one program that I use a lot, Wirecast, which will not run on Linux. I look forward to one day entering the Post-Microsoft phase of my life
Thank you for this trip down the nostalgia lane
A 64 bit data bus on a 32 bit CPU running a 16 bit OS based on an 8 bit design with a 4 bit keyboard made by a "2 bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition".
Lol catchy
You win a 2^n trophy!
Russ ....do you mean Apple?
Got confusing but was funny as hell..😭
Nice
I feel this channel is totally underrated and deserves more attention than it is getting.
Yes really underrated with only 500k subs
First time here. Nostalgia you know.. but after seeing that cable management in the Ryzen, cannot subscribe really.
ENDITA KAMWENESHE half a million subs underrated? Wtf math you do?
@@TheDewaltBoy Half a million subs can be very little to some people and to others it can be a lot, hell some people consider having 1000 subs "a lot", it is purely subjective, most of the views on the channel aren't that much, the actual amount of views the videos get are very little in my opinion, which is why I said the channel was underrated coz it deserves more views that it is getting, its not a matter of "mathematics"
as more of us age into pc dinosaurs, it will catch up ;)
Thank you for this nice video!
I amit 47 years old, and I also builted and mainteranced old computers.
This is a real technical history.
This is nice for my Heart!
Kind regards from Hungary Budapest.
(Excuse me for my poor English)
That Encarta disk brings back memories of all the hours I spent using it as a kid! My first PC was a Pentium 166 MHz running Windows 95.
The first computer I built used a Motorola 6800 running Mikbug, and by build I don't mean attaching a motherboard to a case and plugging in the CPU/memory, I mean physically wiring individual chips together from a paper drawn schematic. I wonder how many on here will have any clue what that was without looking it up. Now that's really a retro computer.
i took my glasses off and let my astigmatism anti-alias the image for me... yep... its a cheetah...
Same.
Same. (1)
Applause
got very nostalgic :) nice video thanks for upload
It bring a lots of memories back when in my days at the college thank u for this video.
No. This was 1993, not 1996. In 1995 we had windows 95 to work with. Required more RAM, but modern PCs were using it by then.
This brings back childhood memories of when the pace of DOS games actually could go too fast and you had to make sure your pc wasn´t too fast for the game. Having a button like this would have been a luxury to just press instead of changing settings a lot.
The first pc you built back in 1996 looks in fairly good condition and works well. Getting more intetested in your episodes.
very yellowed plastic haha
Once thing i’ve always wanted to do would be to bring a modern pc to the 80s and watch scientists flip their shit.
Same even by grabbing my crappiest Lenovo Thinkpad X120e laptop from a decade ago, and some of my old Android phones, and blowing their brains.
Yeah, that would be a sight to see!
you know, that those computers are their work over last 30 years, right? Of course, you only want to take them, and "impress" them. But no, it will never happen, because it is their work, and they deserve to be impress by their own progress, all battles that they won.
Imagine someone from 2050 doing the same to you.
That's hilarious you can play with the turbo button for hours. I love that sarcastic humor
Surely he can't possibly press the button for hours
Shall we ask Mr. Scissors?
very English, indeed!
Chris may genuinely enjoy that.
I giggled so much watching that.
Those were the days of setting IRQ jumpers every time you added a new card. Wow. Takes me back. Of course I liked and subscribed, but also enabled the bell notifications. Thank you!
96 Pc starting Photoshop, 8 seconds, Ryzen 3 starting Photoshop 8 seconds. Some things just don't change, even if the computer is thousands of times faster.
programmers are lazy to optimize now. In those time, who understood computers good, was something like master. They had to optimalize everything in assembler, because memory was precious. Now they are just wasting with ram and resources, because they are lazy to think like geniuses of optimalization. Even my mouse software are taking 100mb from ram, it drives me crazy. They are using .bmp files, like thousadns of them. Unbelievable (it is a4tech, I already emailed them, that it is piece of amateur programming work)... I could do same mouse software into 5 mb.
Wow, thanks for rustling up memories! My first PC was a 386DX-33 with the built-in math co-processor.
I've been building PCs since 1990 and you did a great job highlighting how much things have changed!
Early PCs were often just as efficient as modern ones for basic tasks, like word processing. If you didn't try to upgrade the software.
So true. My Athlon X4 870K is flying with Windows 7 and 2010 software.It would be really borderline unusable sluggish with latest software.
This hit the nostalgia organ hard, especially the Encarta portion.
Technology progress is amazing. hard to imagine there are so many smart people who make this possible.
And tech has progressed from the point where you HAD to know what you were doing to use a computer, or at least set one up / reload windows. Nowadays it's so much friendlier which can be a bit boring, but it gets it to more people's hands and saves time.
@@volvo09 you would be surprised majority of people still do not know how to reinstall windows. and once they find out they have to reload all drivers/software/files they just give up lol
Aliens gives us the technology. There are no smart people lol. You think all of sudden in 18th century there are so many genius born out of thin air in west and made this world at its current stage ? Nice bullshit.
@@ChrisBrown-ir6sf ...
@@ChrisBrown-ir6sf Technology evolved dependend on the state of human society as a whole.
For thousands of years we used primitive tools because humans lived in small communities, small tribes until they began farming and settle. When settle happend, cities started to happen and the general population lived at one place for longer or their entire lives.
When that happend, the overall human population grew and it grew expotentially.
In 1970 we had 4 billion people.In 2021 we have more than 8.
Thats double in 50 years.
Point being is that technology evolves by its needs. If you want to feed 1 million people you need other tools than a horse walking down a field. So you invent machines.
And the thing about machines is that they can build itself more effectivly and precise than a human can do.
A human invents, builds a machine, then that machine is used to build the next machine and so on.
As such computer technology is possible.
Do a video on using a raspberry pi 4 4gig ram for a week
I may well. Especially when you see the cooling rig I have on it next week! :)
@@ExplainingComputers Can't wait to see that cooling setup Bud!!! Keep cranking out your infinite Computing wisdom!!! Happy to learn from you my friend!!!
@@ExplainingComputers cool
Then compare it to this 1996 computer.
@@ExplainingComputers You have build a cooling pipe to your creek in the backyard ...?
I've bought a nice solution: acrylic case + fan for 4$
The 5 V fan was a bit noisy so I checked the pi-4 temperature : 11° C above ambient temp
So I thougt to reduce noise by giving just 3,3 instead of 5 V and that meant close to silence ... and 20° above ambient temp at 80% cpu ..
Quite a great solution regarding price point + value that meets the pi 4 intension cause buying a pi 4 for 40€ and a 20€ cooling solution is not my thing.
5:30 We used to call it "the shirt". On a hot summer's day, everyone in the office took the shirt off their computers...
Lol, at IBM where I worked on mainframes the floor was raised so chilled air was blown from the perforated floor tiles to keep the mainframes cool so we were alway freezing but good thing we had lab coats to wear.
Corvette Dude seems like you had a cool job, did anyone tell you to chill out for any reason?
Fascinating video. Very much like the computer I built in 1996 when my Amiga died.
So glad technology has improved since then!
It was an amzing to see Windows 3.1 again, thank you for sharing this video
You have amazed me sir, I liked this video as fantastic as your other videos I enjoyed before. It reminded my old and early days of my profession which I am still continuing. Your neat and clean videos help us a lot. Carry on successfully Sir.
Thanks.
Good afternoon from Germany, keep on with the good work!
Greetings from the UK. :)
Another wonderful video ... thank you! seeing autoexec.bat and config.sys brought back memories of configuring these files for certain games that require high memory etc and just editing and creating batch files. all good memories !
My first build was a 286 AT; can't say I miss the fiddling with dipswitches, IRQ's and DMA's, though, or config.sys and autoexec.bat, for that matter. Let alone setting up an I/O-card or an internal modem....
But, yeah, the race between soft- and hardware is still going on to keep the actual speed of PC's at the same level, irrespective of the CPU-speed.
2001 was my first build. In 2021 I am planning on building a new PC for my 20's anniversary.
I remember the first PC we had at home. It was also around 1996 and the printer was the noisy Dot Matrix one that'll wake up everyone sleeping at home whenever we print something.
I liked that noise. Of course you could have printed during the day, when people were up!!
Lmao yup. my parents had a windows 3.1 pc I think was a 486 and I played the crap out of games like ultra pinball, chops challenge and many more.
We did not have a computer at home until 2002 or so. But my grandfather used to work as an accountant, so he had a PC running MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 (later also Windows 95). He also had an Epxon LX-300 dot matrix printer (9 needles printing on continuous paper and noisy as hell).
Some 15 years later I used the same model of printer in physical chemistry labs to print out some measurement results and calculations -- i believe they were partial molar volumes of water-iPrOH mixtures. These things were pretty much indestructible, although the printing head was extremely hot when printing.
I've still got my Epson FX80.
@@g-r-a-e-m-e-
I remember the daisy wheel, which was later replaced by a 9-pin OKI dot matrix (it can print graphics!!). And yes, people would almost certainly be up regardless of time when using those.
This brings back so many memories, I have built the Ryzen computer following your instructional videos and I have never had such a fast and powerful pc, thank you so much for your video content it's very much appreciated.
Great to hear that you had success with the Ryzen build. :)
How to watch ExplainingComputers:
1/like the video
2/start watching
Trip down memory lane. Win 3.1 DOS 6.22 ? IRQ, DMA. Himem.sys Floppy drive. 23 years has pass. Dune 2.
get pcem!
What would a channel as this one be without nostalgia?
@Erik Mikkelsaar Yes, I remember oakcdrom.sys to get a CD drive to run in dos and Win 3.1.
Yeah, the old driver sardaukar.sys
@Erik Mikkelsaar The Real PC Wizards had an autoexec.bat that prompted for what you wanted the PC optimized for.
IDE cables were freaking dust magnets!! god I miss the old days😂😂🤣
I miss 1996!
Nothing like a night in installing Win95 from 20 floppies. Those were the days!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. My jaw dropped at 5:26
32 MB of RAM was plenty in 1996 ! Consumer computers were more around 8 MB, plenty enough for Windows 95 and most software of that era.
Guillaume Gaudin i was thinking the same thing! I had a pentium 100 in 1996 with 8mb of ram that i thought was pretty slick. it cost me $6000
@Erik Mikkelsaar not true. even oem windows 95 had a minimum requirement of an 386dx. i've run it sucessfully on 386dx/33 with 8mb ram and 256k 2nd level cache with no hacks
I worked as a software engineer and the team coded applications super efficiently, in some cases checking the assembly output of compiled C code to make sure it was pukka.
With windows 98 things were pretty good, office applications were slick and quick to load. Office apps.....Funny how nothing has really changed that much on the face of it, just more elaborate user interfaces. If anything, features were easier to find.
However, games have made significant progress and simulations using mathworks tools execute much faster now.
Computers back then were just as effective, it's the software and connectivity that has grown out of proportion.
@@guywilkinson yeah, i am totally agreeing with you on that point. MS Office used to fit on a few diskettes while now it barely fit on a dvd. Not that many new features though ! OS's have, on the other end, so many new features i can understand them becoming bigger, although they may have dramatized a bit too.
Half way to a million now my friend.
You deserve it! You're a superb educator and entertainer.
Thanks. :)
It may be old for the kid's this day's but for us who live in 1990s it has a good value and memories.
This video brought back many memories of building computers and installing software over the years
didn't makes you feel like watching computer chronicles again.
Heck yeah, I was watching some old episodes yesterday for nostalgia, and one was building a computer in 92, and the big features where how much was being integrated onto the motherboard/mainboard instead of expansion cards, along with showing a computer trade fair/swap meet/flea market, or what ever you want to call it for guys to haggle, and get parts cheaper. lol! man how times have changed.
That was very enjoyable! Yes, I remember the days of Windows 3.1, when making a shortcut on the desktop was via ms-dos. My first computer was a Intel 80386DX 16 MHz with a 100 MB HDD, 2 MB of ram expandable to 4 MB & some shareware games. Thanks for such a great share!
back in 1996 PC build like a tank compared now
Yup. Metal sheets were much thicker and plastics were of much higher quality, despite the yellowing.
they had to produce quality components, because prices were so high, that only keyboard costed about 200$ after counting inflation. Average computer could costs like $5000 for our money today. They could not use to include cheap plastic and garbage manufacture like today, to spare 5-10$. Who in those time buy a computer, they wanted something like good quality car. Everything had to last long and have feeling of quality. That's the reason, why all keyboard at begining was mechanical, even had PBT plastic. Now even mechanical keyboard are using cheap ABS plastic.
I love the fastfoward of you solitaire and the Paintbrush don't save comment 😂 the more I watch, the more I learn, the more like the content. I just can't get over it you made explaining computer since mid 2000.
Thanks for this. Brought back loads of memories. Those old beige cases were so horrible. And if you added a cd rom or floppy disk to the front, they were never the same colour of beige or they were black. And those ribbon cables were terrible, and when you had 2 drives attached to the same cable you had to set the master/slave jumpers on the disks to get it working. As far as dos was concerned, to get some games working you had to mess with the config files to ensure you had enough memory to run them. himem.sys etc. Those were the days.........
I remember my first pc I inherited from my grandfather when he died in 1996. His computer was his pride and joy. He had so much money into that thing. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I loved those days besides losing my grandpa at such a young age. I was only 12 at the time.
Almost started to cry, realizing how old I am... Had one similar..
I absolutely love old computers! Great fun to play around with. Fantastic video as usual.
Hope to see another comparison after 20 years, Ryzen 3 vs Quantum PC
I will try to be around to make such a video. :)
Absolutely adored the subtle humour! I must be older than you, because my first build, straight off selling my Commodore Amiga 3000, was a 486 (DX/2?) ... with a VESA Local Bus video card. I still have my DOS and Windows 3.1 install floppies too.... amazing they still work.
In 1996 I have built my second PC based on Pentium 75 MHz straightly overclocked to 100MHz with 16 MB of Ram at that time it was quite expensive build
again... another wonderful video dude........ seeing that old relic machine.... makes me proud to be a pc tech for the past 30 plus years...... makes me feel my age too...... i still have one of those old tin can pc units..... my nephew uses it to play all my old games.....
i honestly would have died laughing if you opened the old PC and inside was a Ryzen 9 with 5700 xt
I doing something like that with and old DELL Pentium 4 system I salvaged from the local recycle drop off, for a retro Win98/XP build, I just need to find a case big enough for the build. I even found a period correct ULTRA branded modular 500 Watt PSU for the build to add some early - mid 00's Bling on the inside, and yes it was brand new in the box with the original shrink wrap, and it's never used, and the caps, etc.. are all in good condition.
A Pentium 3 era case should do it -- ATX mobos really havent changed a lot
@@ayuchanayuko Yep, but trouble is finding them in good condition, and at a decent price in my area, as when I come across one on eBay, they always want some crazy amount for shipping the thing.
@@CommodoreFan64 check your local surplus shop, especially the Storage Wars kind that keeps old stuff.
@@ayuchanayuko Trust me I'm always on the hunt, but it's bare beyond some ugly AF HP cases from the early - mid 00's that are also overpriced. My local Goodwills rarely put PC's out on the sales floor, it seems, and the Salvation Army is 80% clothing items, and what other they have is usually overpriced, yes I've checked others, but again no luck. part of It is because we have free recycle drop off locations around the area, you just have to show your state ID with your address on it, and I've even checked there, but not a ton of luck as of late, beyond a Yamaha keyboard I'm cleaning up for my nephew.
Oh, that early HP CD writer. I remember my pops bringing it home from work to test. And at that time making copies of CD's, people be like haha, that is impossible.
My first computer was a screamin' fast 386/25! 80 meg hard drive, 4 megs of memory.
At the time, a hot rod computer.
My friends were jealous!
Thanks for a trip down memory lane. Well done Chris!
I miss the early days. You learned a whole lot more back then.
You earned a new sub today, thanks for the memories. I ran win3.1 on my Amiga 2000 with a pc hardware card. I loved having a windows window open on my Amiga desktop with Solitaire while I was playing Amiga demos in another. I guess I could say those were the days. Thanks for all this hard work. You kept your old pc pretty clean.
Thanks for the sub, welcome aboard. :)
Back in the days, when cases lasted, because they built them like tanks out of thick aluminium.
Slightly late to the party, but fantastic video, removing the old case in one huge section bought the memories back! Love your videos and how beautifully easy they are to watch! Cheers Chris.
Glad you enjoyed it!
This brings back some wonderful memories. My first machine was a Packard Bell pentium 100mhz computer and I loved it. I would reformat my computer every weekend because I usually screwed something up in the registry. These were the days when I had all the time in the world to fool around with my computer and my buddies playing the very early online games like duke nukem in dos. Great times!
Oh, and thanks very much for making this video, it was really enjoyable to watch, I could boot up a bunch of older computers for hours and it would really be fun
I still have a working 286/10 on which you need to run ‘park’ before switching it off. I often switch it on to play Strip Poker in CGA mode 🤗
Wow, brings back so many memories. Great video!
Pressing the turbo button to change from ‘Hi’ to ‘Lo’ and back again, you could play with that for hours... suddenly I have visions of Peter Griffin doing that for a good 5 minutes in the next episode of Family Guy!
This was the best video, reminding us of the early days. We were using the Windows 3.1 system at work. I was playing around with Red hat Linux at home in the late '90s
I remember my first computer mod was a "jiffy dos" board on my C-64 which later had a 1Ghz chip, man I'm old. Thanks for the memories
Back in the day in 1996, PCs looked daunting and so modern, since only handful of people knew how to use them...
I remember my first PC build. It was a 533Mhz Cyrix CPU based machine with 64MB RAM. I still have an old 1Ghz Pentium 3 knocking around. Not sure what to do with it though.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane. I haven't ever kept my older computer systems, and there are definitely times I wish I had. Thanks for another great video Chris!
My first built PC was, i386 16 MHz CPU, 1 MB Ram, No HDD .. back in the 1992 ..
I had a Heathkit dual Z80 and 8086 -- 1984. What was the clock? There were many variants, some with advanced graphics like the DEC Rainbow. They were of desktop type. And of course tiny ones like the Sinclair-Timex ZX nes. or TI's weird T99 one. And the Trash 80 -- Radio Shack's entry. Staying within the desktop arena. I remeber when the 4040 came out, the ads in the computer papers of the day. I used to count, and on one hand the number of IC's (intergrated circuit devices) in our household before that late 1970's explosion of silicon waferosity.
Amazing video Chris, so much nostalgia, even those uglies ide cables bring some childhood happiness/awe while discovering the computer world. Thanks man
Glad you enjoyed it!
So many good memories of the 90s. That feeling when you got online for the first time and had no idea what to do :)
I thought everyone connected to a Usenet news server and scoured alt.binaries.pictures for pr0n.
@@johnm2012 Was too young to be interested in that ;) Plus 56kb modem.
@@samuelschwager 56 kb/s was the ultimate voice band modem. My original one had two modes of operation: 300 b/s duplex or 1200 b/s down and 75 b/s up. I went through three or four generations of modem before reaching 56 kb/s.
Thanks, Chris! That was fun!
it would be more interesting to compare PC 1996 vs Raspberry pi 4.
yes
Rpi 4 will beat even a 10-years old machine, without even speaking about 25 years old one.
Yes totally should be a video specially benchmarks if it’s possible
Thank you for the memories ! Great video, thank you for posting.
Som retrobright is in order i think :)
Also. The encarta timeline shows human origins at 15 mio. years ago. Strange.
it's England - the hardly have sunshine!
It is coincidence that you have uploaded this. Thank you for the effort it took. I have recently been messing around with older versions of Windows using virtual machines and emulators. Sadly, I don't have my first couple of PC's. The oldest one I kept was a late Pentium 4. I have managed to get it running Windows XP, but if I show it Windows 95 or 3.1, they just stare blankly at each other. I got the feeling that I was trying to wedge a carthorse in a Chrysler. Same technology, wrong era.
Mr. Custard is the newest addition to the EC family.
PS/2 connectors on the Ryzen?! That's actually cool!
My first build was a 486SX that I built for Doom. While I did not build my current PC, I did have to replace the motherboard and processor. :(
We had 8GB and 4 cores in 2009 it's really a budget PC
Yeah I felt it was odd that the 2019 one is fairly low spec for the year, even decade
yes, but 8GB of DDR4 and 4 Ryzen cores are a lot faster than 8GB of DDR2/3 and 4 Core 2/1st gen i7 cores
Just discovered the channel and it is amazing.
Thanks. :)
How about a speed comparison. Maybe a prime number search?
Thank you so much for the trip down memory lane. Perhaps you could go back even further as I remember reading your articles in the Bits and Bytes magazine back in the 1980s.
I would also like to thank you for a great channel... and your writings (both past and present).
Cool video but I am curious, if you built it in 96, why not load Windows 95 on it? Was it an expense issue or architecture?
I had access to DOS and Windows 3.1 disks. :) Eventually I upgraded to Windows 98 with the second or third motherboard in that case.
@@ExplainingComputers I know that feeling all too well. I remember the days of hitting up the one or two guys in my department with MSDN to get a 95 license. :)
@@ExplainingComputers this reminds me of my Win 95 machine, one of those cheap Tiny computers. I spent hours and hours on POD and Fury3.....and exploring dial-up internet. I had Encarta but found it lacking even then.
A couple of sites like IMDB and BoxOfficeMojo have barely changed since then...
@@pdacore My first attempt at installing Windows 95 was a train wreck. It took forever before I finally saw a completed 95 install. Windows 98 SE was so much more satisfying. Of course, my hardware was more up to date by the time second edition arrived.
+William:
"Cool video but I am curious, if you built it in 96, why not load Windows 95 on it? Was it an expense issue or architecture?"
==He has a Pentium 120 MHz. You can certainly install Win 95 on it. You can even install on a 486 and I think 8 MB RAM is the minimum. I think I saw a youtube video where a guy installed on a 386. As long as it is a 32 bit CPU, Win 95 can handle it. I don't know if Win 95 actually uses 486 instructions or Pentium instructions. Perhaps it does if it detects you have one of those CPUs.
I learned a lot about ancient relics of the past today, great video! Nice to see you so excited about your 1996 desktop, it encourages me to get back into pc building myself!
Wow,that pc looks more yellowish than white.
And I like it
Welcome to the 90s/early 2000s
I love your videos. You don't overdo things like a lot of those other review channels. You remain humble in your explanation and I also love the fact that I can relate to the old technologies as well. I started building PC's around the same time. Haven't build a PC in more than 10 years though. Will do one soon
I used to have a Amstrad MegaPc 386 pc one side and a megadrive on the other , ahhhh the memories
That old HP cd writer. Tip: Keep it!
I got the same ora very similar model myself around. They're great for backing up CD's with the most notorious copy protections. It chews through em with no effort at all.
I recently came across the nostalgia nerd and getting all these emotions back i had back in the 80's when I was on the frontier of this technology and wish I can go back to that era, cos life sucks now and where r headed for doom n gloom as google wants to rule the world and is looking like they will be the next skynet by they're behavioral patterns over the last 10 years. They are acquiring everything in the technology space , just by doing simple research and connecting the dots is seems that google has a new mission statement which is "Lets do evil onto the whole world" as they don't seem to be answerable to any government on the planet and everyone else seems oblivious to that fact. Anyway i am gonna load up solitaire right now and go to my nostalgic oblivion mood cos i want to check out of this reality for a while.
You should really check out the 8bit guy then if you haven't!
@@iodreamifythankssssss m8
Yes! We were very happy in 80's and 90's but didn't know it... Now, I think our generation is perhaps the only one that may stop Google intentions... the older never liked the technology and the younger grew with it, thinking is the way it should be... but it shouldn't...
You want to go back to when AOL wanted to rule the world? 😂 Look Google can do what they want as people do what they want and eventually they will be as redundant as gas lamps.
lgr
retro man cave
retro hardware
retrospector87
and many more even I do not know of yet....
feel free to expand the list
I really like the keyboard used with this vintage PC, I wouldn't mind seeing this layout more often this days.
Agreed. I particularly appreciate the full-size cursor keys. :)
Hello Chris, how did you capture the screen on Windows 3.1?
Probably with a VGA capture card.
With some difficulty! This is the first video I've done it in, as it's a challenge I've been meaning to crack for some time. I had a VGA to HDMI converter with a frame buffer in (a non-trivial bit of kit!), and then fed that into an HDMI splitter, and then the output of that into a BlackMagic Design 4K recorder (into which I also connected an XLR microphone). This gave me ProRes files, which then required very significant post processing. But I am very pleased with the result. Sadly I still cannot record a DOS screen from a VGA card of this age, so there was a lot of messing around at that part of the video.
@@ExplainingComputers Wow, that's a lot to figure out! Thank you so much for your effort. Your dedication is reflected in the end product. It looks amazing!
Thanks for this -- especially as somebody else here was just commented how this video demonstrates the decline in production quality in this channel . . .
@@ExplainingComputers Well, then either they have some extra sense nobody else has or they're just trolls because I couldn't notice any decline in production quality. I'd bet it's the latter.
Considering the magnitudes of difference in processing power, the efficiency of modern CPUs is monumentally more efficient than that p120. I started professionally making and selling PCs right at the entrance of the Socket 7....did a lot of things since then...and am now again making and servicing PCs again professionally. I still enjoy it, even after having done it for like 25 years. Great video!!! Thank you for the moment of reminiscence!
The 1996 computer is also signed with personalised CJB insignia.
Wow...Felt nostalgic when watching the cheetah video. Always wondered what it was chasing lol. Great video, mate
Hoooly cow, when I was 7 in 1997 I remember my dads PC having that Turbo Hi Lo button, man the nostalgia hit me like a sack of potatoes.
Guess I'm showing my age here but I remember XT machines which were so slow they _didn't_ have the button (circa 5Mhz CPU).
And I remember going into the offices of a well-known financial institution and seeing two men at an original IBM; one was reading out some text while the other was hunting for and pecking each key. Given how fast they were going I reckon they must have reached the giddy heights of at least 6 words a minute...
Wow, perfect! I completely forgot about Encarta until this, but I used it so much for school.
Put the Ryzen stuff inside of that 1996 PC
You'd have to carve up the case to do it. Those 386s and 486s and even first Pentiums were all on the old AT-type boards. Virtually everything since is built on the ATX spec. Newer cases can accept older boards by just omitting the IO shield, but the reverse requires heavy case mods.
Wow.. you had quite a monster back in 1996. My late 1995 rig initially had only 16MBs of EDO RAM. CPU was 100Mhz which I overclocked to 133Mhz by fiddling with the jumpers. Thanks a lot for the video.
Am I the only one that doesn't call a PC complete if it doesn't have a DVD (CD, Blu ray) drive?
I used to think the same -- and still have a BluRay burned in my video editing rig for archival purposes. But things evolve. I used to think a PC was not a PC without a floppy drive and a parallel port. :)
Yes
Who puts in 2019 on a modern pc a cd or dvd drive?
@@TONI-bi1lg People who have windows 7 compatibile with old games on DVDs (also, some companies provide drivers on DVDs)
@@peppa1492 you know it is like 2019, is the last year of windows 7 updates. Dvd driver maybe for a 'Retro' pc
I like how I thought the computer was given to you but instead its the one u used. I got my first PC with win95. Only played games and installing junk from a magazine CD i bought from school. I knew even then that thing is the pinicle of human invention. Today I still play games and nothing else. What a life