Retro PC: Amstrad Integra Compaq Clone | Nostalgia Nerd
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- Опубликовано: 29 мар 2018
- Welcome to the Retro PC; this time from the mid 90s. The Amstrad Integra is an IBM PC Compatible from 1996. Modelled on machines such as the Compaq Presario 425, and their later models, it's an all in one affair, sporting a 15" SVGA monitor, a quad speed CD-ROM drive and a 3.5" floppy drive. Under the hood lurks a potent Pentium 100Mhz, along with a Soundblaster (clone), TV card and even a modem. This is Amstrad at their finest, copying something others have done, but making it cheaper and more feature packed.
In this video, I'll give you a bit of the Amstrad back story, have a look around the Integra and then fire it up for some work and some PLAY... in the form of 90s video games naturally.... because... Retro Gaming.
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For those confused about analogue transmissions... you can still send (and tune into) an analogue signal using a device such as a VCR, without requiring signals to be passing through our skulls. It's even possible to transmit your own signal using the same process as demonstrated here... ruclips.net/video/-tuIFYkDDVA/видео.html
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No, no. Thank you for your comment and taking the time to watch them!
I loved the long pause waiting for the CPU speed rating, complimented by the RUclips fade to black for an ad. Very well done.
Thanks!
I can't help but to love the way the motherboard pulls out of the computer yep that was a 90s plus even though it's not that convenient cuz it's pretty massive that was quite a luxury to have at the time great video man
15:40 NOW ITS SAFE TO TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER. \\\ I do so miss this message so hard...
Mmmm..those beautiful, red-ish letters...
I dearly began to miss that message from the day our family moved from a Win98 Packard Bell to a WinXP Dell Dimension.
And I'm just realizing that was 16 years ago. Hhhhh ;-;
You can still see those letters to this very day.
That same screen is still with in the kernel file
You do not see this message anymore as all PCs are ACPI compliant which turns itself off when the S5 command is given
You just need to find a way to disable ACPI on the motherboard
I always wanted to hack some win 98 machines and subtly change it to read "IT IS NOT SAFE TO TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER"
It creeped me as a kid, I found it skeletal and stuff
Your videos are like watching a TV programme, they are really well made and very interesting.
The background music rocks!!!! Thank you for the good content you produce!
Great video as usual , Alan Sugar looks like Rory McGrath
Man, that sound of the hard drive spin down as the computer is shut off is priceless! It brings back some beautiful memories. Back then even IT life was simple.
Not gonna lie, I'm always jealous of you having all these old PCs.
What an awesome machine. I love my Compaq 425 (and made a video of it) and it would be awesome to find more classic all in one computers. I didn't know Amstrad created these though! (Fat chance of finding one of these in Australia though). Great video mate!
I love this. I still have an old Amstrad laptop.In original bag,with books and both power units for car and home use.Also it takes a bunch of D cellbatteries for travel.2 floppy drives,one for OS,the other for data[hard drive]
Ah the Mega PC, loved mine! Some nice b-roll shots of the machines there :)
There had also been all-in-ones like the PS/2 Model 25. An 8086 with MCGA graphics. As someone who had been trapped with an 8088 with CGA, that was quite a step up!
Hello mate. I got a couple of Fujitsu Intecra P2-66 's. Seriously cool. Pentium 2 333mhz and 8Mb integrated graphics. However there are two PCI slots so any PCI GPU, up to a PCI Geforce 5500 SFF can be installed for powerful graphics. There is also an ISA slot. So Soundblaster heaven. 6 Gb hdd as standard. Cost a pretty penny when new. Flat screen. Nice. I have followed and admired all your work. Thank you for all your hard work. It is appreciated.
Thanks. I've always heart of the Amstrad.
I actually remember as a kid having 2 similar PCs, a 386 with Windows 3.1.1, that was still one of the old horizontal style casings, and later a Pentium 166 with Windows 95 (which was only available in english, I was like 6 and german, still navigated it pretty proficiently), that was the more modern vertical casing. The latter one was plenty upgraded though to 96 MB RAM (32MB originally) and had a 16 MB video card (dont ask me which), so it was a beast at running some pretty fancy racing games, one of the games was even designed for a Pentium II and still ran...technically. There was that one race with a time limit that was simply unbeatable because the game ran more slowly than it should due to the CPU while clock ran against normal speed, so no matter how much boost I would pick up, I would never get past the third checkpoint before running out of time. Ah, the times. The nostalgia.
I picked up one of those G3's at a thrift store for $4.99. And it works. Amazing. One thing I didn't realize about them is that they are friggin' HEAVY. I mean, for such a small machine (although, a little bulky like you said) they are incredibly heavy.
"It's limited production run isn't the only reason it's hard to come by" I instantly thought "Yeah, it's made by Amstrad. It'll fall to bits if you looked at it the wrong way."
The Tommy Walsh Tool Time screwdriver set is a must have.
Sounds of old hardware is such a nostalgic thing.
That takes me right back ...
I love your video style
3:44 Sweet Spot to sort your smokes and ashtrays out.
No smokes... no sale.
I miss 3d maze I wish I could get back
I had that same Sony CD drive which showed a green light when powered on and Amber for any activity. I also had that exact Quick Shot joystick bundled with my Time Computer. All the memories this video brought back. And my Sis video card also suffered the same limitation where 1024x768 dropped it back to 256 colours. Interestingly yours didn't have a 24bit colour at 640x480 mode...
Pity about the composite video not working on TV Tuner (I did spot a V1 and V2 button in the program alongside the tuner option itself, maybe that is the composite input). That Pentium really could have done with a nice hardware decoder for full frame video (I had a 166+ and I remember how choppy the Buddy Holly music video on the Windows 95 CDROM was if I dare full screen at 800x600 or more.
Great vi's!
I'd rather have an Acura Integra.
But can an Acura play Worms?
That seems like a good system to play 1995/1996 era dos games on such as Alien Trilogy. I bet it would be the ideal system to play some early windows games such as the quirky Venom Spider-Man Separation Anxiety game that was released in 1995. It was one of the first directx games and it has compatibilty quirks.
That button on the front did function when new from factory in shoebury, Essex but I can't remember what we had it do..
My first PC was an IBM. It was a gift from my aunt and uncle.
My first PC I bought, was a Compaq Presario 486.
During your disassembling sequence I spotted some brown sockets in the mobo. @Nerd, I guess you can pump up your beautiful Integra with some hefty 256KB of SRAM cache chips. And then watch these brilliant MPEG1 clips, finally :))
those are DRAM sockets for S3 Trio, all they offer is a possibility of 1024x768 at 16 bit color, ZERO speed influence on a Trio card, ~10% speed bump on Virge which is meaningless as Virge was a Decelerator.
rasz hmmm, I guess you're right. But maybe there are sockets for SRAM cache as well? Worth to take a glance :)
I actually liked the idea of a tv card video!
Ahh.. The 90's... When 10 frames per second on that new game you got was cause for celebration! "It runs! It runs!" My how times have changed.... (Also we said "frames per second" instead of "FPS." You kids and your lazy acronyms!)
Stanley Scalf My first pc was a 94 pentium 100 Packard bell and it was more like watch it go full blast with no issues. But yeah definitely experienced the 386 guessing game before as well. Great times.
Try playing Driller on the C64 - it achieves a frame rate of 1 frame per 3 seconds.
I honestly don't get the obsession with wanting everything to be at 60FPS nowadays. A couple of games I have are apparently at 30FPS but I just haven't noticed and some games aren't really going to benefit from being much higher anyway.
Same. For example, Quake runs at about 20fps on my NEC Ready 7022 (75/100Mhz P1) and honestly I still find it quite enjoyable to play like that, and RollerCoaster Tycoon often runs at single digits on a P166MMX machine I have and I also find that to still be playable and a really fun experience.
TV-card issue: is it a PAL-I compatible? (there were a few incompatible versions of PAL)
The Commodore Pet was an early all-in-one computer. At least when it came out in 1977 - when GPIB floppy drives became available later they were external.
Jecel Assumpção Jr
And it still looks like a sci-fi prop
I have a Compaq Presario from this same year and it actually uses a short little VGA monitor cable to attach to the port on the back! Same with the mic and speaker jacks.
So theoretically I could upgrade the video and sound hardware, though I'd be stuck with an ISA sound card because you only get 1(!!!) PCI slot.
Maybe swapping out the godawful s3 Trio for a 3dfx Voodoo Rush would put some pep in that machine.
At any rate, great video as always.
Love the nudge into Settlers II!
Cant believe those apples were 20 years ago. Still look good
I see you shiver with antici...............pation!
I love the Amstrad designs. They had their own look. I have a couple including a PCW with a 3 inch drive. Have you done any PCW videos?
Playing Quake with the Arrow keys like a champ!
8:37 Ah the memories of doing this when I had a ball track mouse>
I even done it during my gaming sessions, yup removed the ball cleaned it and the wheels and put it back together in 15 seconds.
Kinda want to see an "updating" video of this; later video cards, maxing out ram, faster cpu; just to see how good it COULD be.
Or at least Tomb Raider with gfx drivers... Yknow, something it should be able to do out of the box (as in without modifying hardware)
You could slam a better processor in it, and probably hack an updated video card in, but I think this thing should stay at it's current specification. I'll save the upgrades for more accessible systems.
would be cool to build a new pc in that Integra shell ^^, And even maybe put in a Lcd screen in there. I would love a video where you are doin that ...:) Would be like a sleeper car.
My family used to have a PC with that same model of CDROM back in the early 90s. It was normal that the light was on all the time. It was one of those dual-mode lights that became popular on CD-Writers in later years. In the case of these things, Green meant "Power" or "Ready" and orange meant "Reading". Same as CD Writers used to have Green to mean "reading" and any other colour to mean "Writing"
It was you who coined the term limitating :) good word
Thanks!
Ahh, the original iMac. I just happen to have one. Anyways, Those AIOs from the mid 90s are something to behold. Just so quirky. that's why I like them.
I remember the Jan 2000 issue of PC Gamer coming with a mouse cleaner, although I didn't know this until I bothered to read the editor's column months later. It looked like a little model microphone.
I remember the first time I saw a computer that had a vertical tower and thought it was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen because you couldn't set the monitor on top of the CPU, like even my Daddy's cobbled together PC could do. When my school got a couple of GSs, it was like a revolution that the whole system could be seem "compact" like the Mac while the IIC+s and what not that made up most of the computers had a bulk to them.
wow, id love one of these
i learned everything i know about sex from grolier and encarta
Those old Compaqs were oddly built. Ive had several of them starting with Deskpro 386/20
Used to have a Compaq 520CDS (or was it CDS 520?) in the 90s, many hours of Doom were played on that thing!! And later when working at a computer shop, I acquired a later 5520 with a Pentium processor in it, but the monitor went bang, so, yeah, that went away sadly... :(
"Dongle" is one of my favorite computer related terms. Tied with SCSI, I think.
One of my first PC's that I didn't have to share with the house was a Pentium 133mhz (100 with turboi off). I remember having a blast with Duke 3d, Doom, Rise of the Triad, MIRV, Age of Empires and Warcraft 2 :)
Installing DosBOX as I type this :P
This setup would work best with Windows 3.11. Awesome video.
I wonder if the "rubber" connecting that plug to the VGA socket on the back actually contains the wiring to get the VGA signal up to the edge connector. If so a lovely hacky solution.
I was wondering if the internal monitor was plugged with the dongle thing
I doubt that . The VGA Connector has a few commonly unused pins (4, 11 & 12). I am pretty sure the dongle just bridge 2 of those together to tell the integrated card to use a different output, in this case the build in Monitor.
donpalmera- Yep thats my thought too. Amstrad were cheap that they would do that over more elegant engineering design choices
Yeah, I'm betting that it's just a custom VGA cable that runs up to the integrated monitor. I really doubt that the signal runs through that edge connector.
I was part of the pc division at Amstrad and the VGA port dongle runs under the system board and pops out at the front and plugs into the TV board as rj45 type connector as you'll notice when he shows the tray removed
One VERY minor quibble...a 33.6Kbps modem is actually only 3429 baud. Only 300 baud and lower modems always have equal baud/bps values rates.
That VGA "DONGLE" Is actually the VGA plug connection for the internal monitor, which I assume is just a commodity monitor put inside of a bespoke case.
You could probably use a really tiny VGA cable to hook into the dongle and get a nice fancy video card.
If the TV card is similar to one I used to own, it wouldn't be able to record video. It simply routed video from the composite input or tuner to the PC's screen, either full screen or in a window. Some of these cards also had built-in teletext decoders too - handy for watching several sports pages simultaneously.
I have a PC exactly the same as that one in the video. What upgrades would you recommend for it so I can play the latest fps games on ultra detail? Thanks
I had an old CD-ROM drive back in the day that the light was always on, and it would blink off when there was activity, opposite of what you would expect. It was weird.
I think I sold this machine on eBay last year. The missing buttons and MPEG card that doesn't work.I replaced the Dallas CMOS battery and made a volume knob out of a screwdriver handle. Is the power button sticky?
that background music is hell..
Early Sony optical drives had a two-color LED. It was lit green when the drive has power and changed to amber indicating activity.
I know this behavior by the Sony CDU561 in an external SCSI case. I didn't know that even internal drives did this.
To be fair these types of computers didn't cease to exist, they just took a different shape. The iMac is the obvious directly related along with some of the other all in ones like the Surface Studio and other technical all-in-ones, but I'd argue some of the desktop replacement style laptops that weigh a ton and take up and obscene amount of space for a laptop could be compared to this style of computer. Similar limitations on upgrading parts and it is technically an all-in-one.
Kind of doesn't make sense to pull a normal rubber bung out for the built in display to kick out like that. So I am curious, is that rubber bung in the back covering the VGA port actually just a cheap passthrough that actually connects the build in monitor to the motherboard?
I don't like jazz on it's own, but I appreciate it on background. Gives me comfy 90's vibes.
Agreed.
That vga port would allow you to stick a voodoo 3d accelerator card in that machine.
I had one of these brand new in 1995 running a dx2 80 the cd rom was much different there was only a flap that opened on the front leaving a flush front and the button thats missing was a standby button for the tv and the dongle on the back was a flat cable to the front connector
Just a quick note to say that the button on the left hand side above the sound,headphone jack and other things is in fact the button you can use for turning off the computer screen. I thought that I would inform you seeing as you said that you didn't know what it was for
S3 Trio 32/64 card lacks the needed power for mpeg videos. I suspect it hadn't the proper hw acceleration. At those times (end of '90 and after), I had upgraded my previous Cirrus Logic 5428 1mb with an ATi Mach 64 VT 2mb, and finished with a Tseng Labs ET6000 + Voodoo1 3d dedicated card. OMG nice times! Cheers, M
yeah those cheap ati cards were the best for smooth dvd playback
I miss my old Amstrad PC1512DD! I went from my Color Computer 2 to the Amstrad in 1991 and decked it out with a 40 meg hard card, a 2400 baud modem, and a Media Vision Thunder Board. I played hookie from school one day to install and play with MS-DOS 5.0. Those were the days. Computers were so much more enjoyable back then before they began fully catering to the masses instead of the true computer people.
...despite being always on, CD-ROM's light changes its color though
It does indeed.
I had to go to the library to do homework. Has to photocopy the research at 20c a copy .
Why you didnt use M+look for quake (since your mouse was connected..)?
P.S: Decent video as always..
Yeah, this beautiful beast definitely needs SRAM cache to be installed...
My Dad had a similar machine (but much earlier, I think it had win3.1) but it was more a TV with a computer added to it as you had to switch it to the computer channel to use it.
Spent so much time playing Star Trek 25th anniversary and judgement rights on it.
I wish I could remember the model or make as I can't seem to find anything with random google searches.
Also had to comment because, Settlers 2 is the best game ever!
Hmm, interesting PC. I do find that front panel a bit ugly with the dark coloured speaker covers and that recessed control panel for the monitor controls. Why did Amstrad put the power button on the back of the system case? Why?
2:10 Wait, THERE WAS A PC THAT PLAYED MEGA DRIVE GAMES?! Could you do a video on it, as I have literally never heard of this before. I've pretty much seen ever other system that can play Genesis/Mega Drive games that was released through the 90's, but not this.
It had a white Megadrive pad branded Amstrad too. There was also another one made by IBM / Sega called the Sega TeraDrive.
The nVidia NV1 could run Saturn games:
ruclips.net/video/jChtlWNIAL4/видео.html
There were two in fact.
An Amstrad (Amstrad Mega PC) one (released in Europe only), and a Sega one in Japan only (Sega TeraDrive).
The Amstrad model is a much better PC, but the Japanese one is about an order of magnitude more interesting.
The Amstrad is basically just a PC and a Mega Drive jammed into a case together.
The Teradrive is a 286 PC and a Mega Drive on the same motherboard, which share components, to the point that you can write code on the PC portion and immediately send it to the Mega Drive hardware, use the sound chip for PC Audio, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
The Teradrive gives the impression of having been built to be used as a Mega Drive dev kit, but then adapted to be a consumer product after the fact.
(I've been hoping to get hold of a Teradrive for a while... But they're expensive. Like, seriously.)
The Mega PC is really just a cheap trick; Jam both things into one case.
Neither did very well.
The TeraDrive did badly because... Well, it was a 286... And a rather weak one at that, being sold around 1993-1994. So it was just... Awful as a PC compared to what was available at the time.
The Amstrad Mega PC failed because... Well, it's a dodgy gimmick and you basically gain nothing from it.
From what I remember you can't even share displays; you need a different display for each.
(the TeraDrive came with an optional monitor that could handle both 15khz and VGA signals, allowing the use of both halves of the system on the same monitor.)
Interesting curiosities, but not much else. XD
I've just had the board for it repaired by Back office show, so hopefully I'll be able to film that video soon.
Amstrad Mega Pc, it had a 386sx 25mhz, VGA graphics 256colors, SBAudio. And, a Megadrive onboard. You switched systems via an external panel, used to hide the cartridge slot. Only one system at a time can be powered on, afaik.
You'll have a heck of a time doing any actual-telly-watching with that TV tuner card, now the UK has gone fully Freeview (being the UK brand-name for the move to digital broadcast tv). You might succeed if running some other video source through an RF modulator, maybe?
A lovely item! If I had to choose (today) though I think I'd rather own the mega pc :o
Nice computer room ? or was the video shot at work or in a rented space like LGR does
It's a rented studio space where I do all my filming now. It also means stuff isn't just lumped in a pile, getting damaged. Video to follow.
Hmm, beautiful isn't really the first thing that comes to mind. ;)
I see a theme here. I love it personally.
The TV tuner software was notoriously flakey.
Little side note i was the last one to leave the PC Division and spent my remaining time at Amstrad training the Viglen helpdesk bods based in wembley the Amstrad products
When I saw the picture for this video, a little bit of wee came out. Oh, and I got told off for shouting “yay!!!!”
I wonder if you could install a video card or a VooDoo card and connect it it to that dongle. Is that a piece of rubber or a flat cable?
I'm thinking it's not a dongle, and not a piece of rubber to hold the dongle in place, rather a VGA male connector and ribbon leading to the monitor. Great video by the way, I didn't know this even existed...Around this time everything in my local PC World was Packard Bell.
Oh and I am guessing it's a Haupage (sp?) TV Card. I must have bought about 5 of them through the years, they always seemed like a great idea, they always had trouble working.
Nah, it's just a flimsy piece of rubber, it just locks in place on the case. The dongle must bridge some connections to tell the board where to put the VGA signal.
I'd actually have discounted the Lisa from the AIO list as it spent most of its production run being sold with an external HDD pack. But yeah the AIO design has been Apple's bread and butter since the Macintosh first launched, although having said that the internal expansion possibilities on some of those machines wasn't as limited as people think; it's a shame that's a really damn expensive rabbit hole these days though :(
In the late 80s early 90s there was a Honda Integra that was a really good car!
dude the integra lasted well into the 00's with the DC5
Brilliant
If there's one computer to collect, one you like to look at all the time in person (truly regret selling mine), would be, Apple's: Color Classic
The cutest of them all.
FYI, I would be intrigued by a dedicated video capture-card video actually. They weren't uncommon in the 90s, and evolved rapidly into the 2000s. I'm not sure what their state is now, but all the more reason to investigate.
usb dongles £8 on ebay does dab fm and dvb-t
2:06 KNIGHTS OF LEGEND CAMEO APPEARANCE!
And the map?
But no built in megadrive! 😭
lol. No. But the Amstrad one was terrible anyway.
KuraIthys maybe so, but didnt stop me wanting one back in the day 😂 👍
mmh. XD
I do remember seeing it in a shop once, and I found it amazing back then.
Nowadays I'd rather try and get a TeraDrive. Much worse as a PC, but much more unique otherwise, since the PC and Mega Drive halves can actually talk to one another...
That's next.
While it wasn't one of these specifically--I'm in the States, so getting Amstrads in the 90s wasn't a thing--I owned a computer very similar to this one. Packard Bell had an entire line of all-in-ones, the Spectria. I paid $1500 in early 1995 for a Spectria 144 (a 486DX2 with 8M RAM, 420M disk, 2X CD-ROM, 1M VRAM, 15" monitor), which looked almost like the Integra here, with a bit of 90s styling on the bottom and the speakers mounted onto the sides of the monitor instead of the lower casing.
It had so many flaws I can't count them. The speakers were unshielded and interfered with the monitor constantly. It had no way to turn off the monitor without killing the PC as well, and no mute button. No reset button. Where the Integra routed the VGA internally and blocked the port, the Spectria had a 4" VGA cord that you had to plug into the backplane. The mouse broke in six months. The internal bay was too short for ISA cards, so they instead provided a riser card that mounted ISA cards horizontally. The PSU was mounted inside the monitor, and was not replaceable. This also meant the power was supplied to the mainboard via a proprietary edge connector, so you couldn't run the PC at all unless it was completely reassembled, and you needed a lot of force to get the power connected. And like most Packard Bell kit in the 90s, it ate itself alive inside of two years. The monitor lasted near 20 years though.
I saw an old Amstrad CRT monitor (one with a handle on the top) in the dump a few months ago, would have saved it if I had the room :(