Mike,To remove a face plate like the one on the Tiger Direct case, try using a socket wrench socket that is the same size as the tabs. It will compress the tabs allowing you to remove the face plate without breaking them
Back when WD were something we could rely on. I used to swear by WD only. Now it's just dog juice, false advertising, paper bearings and R/W heads, worst consumer service available, etc. A bit like MSi nowadays. Such a shame, those brands used to be so good only 15~20 years ago. Now they are trash.
Mike, I can't explain how much peace your videos bring to me. I took a break from following the channel, and now that I've returned, I remembered how good your videos are and how cute you are. Please continue with the great work.
Just catching up on old videos, I really love your videos Mike! ❤ Your whole style, your calm presentation, I personally love when you repeat stuff from previous videos (DS clocks and how to fix them, PSU warnings, CMOS battery replacements) so for me, please continue with that. I just love your videos and you uploaded one while watching another, so awesome! ❤
I had a cd shatter to pieces in my drive. I'll never forget that terrible sound thinking I destroyed the whole drive. I was eventually able to get every tiny bit of it out and had no problems for many years after, but every time time I used it had flashbacks of it happening again.
Fun watch, these things really bring me back... I love living vicariously through your videos, man, thanks for taking the time to share your adventures in old hardware.
I have the exact same feeling, that feels kind of nostalgic, satifsfing but also strange, where did all those years go and why is life going so freaking fast? cheers mate and thanks for sharing, I really enjoy this peaceful retro community I found out about lately! best regards from bavaria in germany
That TigerDirect system brought so many memories. I used to get the TigerDirect catalog and some of their systems were nicely configured. The Yamaha sound card would have been great for both DOS and Windows games. Loved your jokes about that poor CPU fan and loved that sticker on the power supply.
There's something about these comments that creeps me out. And I am a gay man, so its not the gay thing. Its the whole anonymous strangers on the internet ogling over someone's body in elaborately subtle ways that gets me. I can't tell what it is that separates us... I wonder if its age factor, netiquette experience, dating life situation/desperation, or what. But I wouldn't keep on doing what you all are doing. Kudos to this guy for not being put off by it to the point he stops putting out videos altogether. But it feels like you all will keep pushing until he gets to that edge of unease.
I don’t why I felt you saying “I don’t wanna” in my heart. I still love working on computers, but darn it, sometimes I just don’t feel like doing certain things.
I didn't realize TigerDirect built computers under their own brand. Our second computer when I was a kid was a Systemax, which I thought was TigerDirect's in house brand, but it turns out Systemax bought TigerDirect in 1996.
Yeah, Systemax used to own all sorts of brands and some of the computers they built back in the day were pretty sweet. Systemax just had very questionable business practices.
I got an AT system the other day. The case was pretty banged up. I think it was some sort of old CyberPower computer. With the motherboard model being 586ITBD which is in great shape besides a cap that's about to explode.
I can honestly say that I wish removable motherboard trays were a feature in modern PC cases. Especially with M.2 SSD's becoming the norm, there's no reason not to bring them back. It would making building so much easier.
They still are present in a few modern towers, but it's essentially the most expensive or premium ones, like some from Fractal Design or Be quiet!, that often cost more than 200 €/$... Such a shame, because a tray for the mobo is a must have imho. A true life changer.
Thanks to you and a couple other RUclipsrs doing retro stuff, I got 2 HP Elitebooks new old stock to goof off with. The memories of playing with XP, Vista, and 7!
Another awesome video Mike 👍🏻 Brings back memories when I used to build my own systems in the 90’s to early 2000’s. 🤞🏻 That you reach your goal. Just think, no more out of hours on-call…. been there and got the T-Shirt 👕
I loved those trident cards back when I ran a computer store cus windows always had drivers and I never had to hunt for them. Late 90s, early 2000s if you didn’t have the driver disk there was a good chance you weren’t gonna find it online.
Talking about CD drives breaking disks, I've had a couple of times where both CD and DVD drives have gone rogue and spun up so fast that disks have shattered into hundreds of pieces. Needless to say those drives quickly went in the bin as I don't like optical drives spinning faster than the speed of light.
That Western Digital coming back from the dead is something we don't see often, even more nowadays. Back then, WD drives were something we could rely on. I used to swear by WD only. Now it's just dog juice, false advertising, paper bearings and R/W heads, worst consumer service available, etc. (remember the WD Caviar Green 1GB HDDs disaster ? Back in the day I almost lost my job and thousands of € because of them). A bit like MSi nowadays. Such a shame, those brands used to be so good only 15~20 years ago. Now they are trash. BTW, thanks for the time you put in your videos, mate ! I'm reaching 40 yo this year, I've made my first steps in computers with a 166 MMX and I have huge waves of nostalgia when I watch each one of your videos =)
Interesting sights, Mike. I always watch your videos with curiosity and I always learn something new. Best regards and see you next time. Ciekawe zabytki , Mike . Zawsze z ciekawością oglądam Twoje filmy i zawsze dowiaduję się czegoś nowego . Pozdrawiam i do następnego .🤩🤗🤔
Gosh seeing the 123 Free Solitaire game brought back some memories of my grandfather, he played that all the time on his old PCs right up until he passed away in 2011. He actually used a 733 MHz P3 system with Windows 98 until 2006, at which point he got a bargain basement LGA775 Celeron D based system that ran XP so poorly that the P3 would have done a better job. I actually ran an 800 MHz P3 system as my own PC until 2009 with XP installed that did just fine lol.
Mike, I too am having a moment over that Creative Audigy sound card - it is still SOoooo impressive. Yes, I was ecstatic when I finally got one as well. It served me well for many years. As I recall the software that came with them was quite good as well.
No wonder the CPU fan in system #3 still sounded great, it must have been on vacation regularly - note the "Bali Bearing" [sic]. 😉 System #1 has a Tyan board, some good taste right there. (It might have been cobbled together for a young person at some point.) That Mitsumi 4X drive brought me right back, we used to have one just like that back in the day. Peak 1995/96. Not very good for ripping CDs, those were the very early days of DAE. A 4X/4X/24X burner would have been about average for 1999, I remember that we bought a Ricoh MP7040A of that spec in 1998. (It should still be among my old retro systems in my parents' basement.) System #2 clearly belonged to an aspiring hobby musician, presumably of working age (20s-30s most likely). I wonder what the guy is up to now? 50:03 Also known as "carbon fiber towel" in the world of M539 Restorations. ;)
*cracks knuckles* System 1 - yes, that is EXACTLY how we accessed the socket lever back in the day. same tool, too. System 2 - TD wasn't exactly a manufacturer or SI in the way you'd think of it. The systems were actually built by someone else and rebadged at the factory, much like TriGem actually built eMachines. I'm pretty sure that someone else was Systemax, who bought TD a couple years after this machine would have been built. Systemax also went on to buy out the remnants of both CompUSA and Computer City. "How good was OCR in 1996?" Well, when I was asked back in 1996, I had to try REAL hard not to laugh in the customer's face. System 3 - Holy yellowing, Batman!
I bought a NOS case 2 years ago, identical to system 1. The button was sticky having never been used, remains sticky with every cleaning or lubrication I have tried. The only solution I haven't tried yet is a replacement spring.
Lesson learned: Need big strong arms so you can wrangle oversized PC cases like Mike does Having both AT and ATX power connectors is a sure telltale of an early PCI v1 board, which ran on 5v timing, and not 3.3v like v2
Man, I haven't thought about TigerDirect in like 15 years, what blast from the past... Can we take a moment to reflect on the blessings of this gigantic InWin case: plenty of space to manipulate components, excellent motherboard tray, and providing Mike an opportunity to give us a gun show. Thank you InWin gods.
My home server lives into the same model of that InWin case, the only difference from the one in the video is that mine doesn't have the ventilation holes on the top. I rescued it from the junkyard more than 10 years ago and it's still in use, it's a very nice and well built case.
I’m unsure if this is true for an old PC but I had a 1993 Buick with a factory GM CD player. If you burned CD-Rs at 4x or whatever the slowest speed was in Vista and used Verbatim or Maxell CD-Rs it would play them. I never had a cd burner at the same time I had 486/Pentium pcs to see what impact that made on those machines.
Your videos are always so good! Interesting how those different looking systems all ended up being socket 7 and also everything worked aside from that one stick of RAM! Also that 7 segment display with 3 full digits, that must be really uncommon, I think most just had a 1 for the 3rd digit if it even had 3 digits at all, so that’s a nice find! The WD drives from that era often seem to like having tantrums like that one, but I’m glad it recovered as the stuff on it was quite interesting! I wish the hard drives weren’t so often gone from the systems though I understand why that’s the case.
That Canvas X drawing system from Deneba in Miami started in 1987 for Apple Macs. I never used it or Macs, only later IBM OS/2 Warp, Windows 95 and some early Linux distros to start with. But it was for academic use and pros, unlike CorelDRAW or Adobe Illustrator that were for home users, too. 35 years or so later, (it was bought by a Canadian company and became a Windows-only thing plus the Mac version with a different name), it's still available for some really big companies and such, I think. This history trip is quite cool.
I fold office paper over a credit card, IPA it, and plug it in and out of sockets, and when the pins stop making black marks on the white paper, it's clean - lol -.
lol "AMD and VIA" I too knew this combo back then, and about this time I had upgraded from my Pentium 233 MMX to an AMD K6-2 400, but I did end up with a friend's leftovers with a first gen K6 CPU but never bought one for myself :)
Hi Mike, Your comments and observations after: 47:40 were so comical! 😂 at: 50:55 you mention that you wouldn’t want a disk to explode but you’ve heard stories of it happening to others, I have a Shuttle PC which is similar to the one in one of your other Videos and I inserted a genuine Microsoft XP Disk and the drive started making a horrendous noise and then the Disk shattered, It didn’t half make me & my Female friend jump at the time, First & only time it’s ever happened to me and wouldn’t want it happening again! I can’t believe all 3 of those Systems had no Thermal Paste on the CPUs, Think I’ve actually had one of those “Power Man” PSU’s and my first ever CD-Writer was a HP but a little bit different to the one in System 3, You also mention retro-bright for System 3, I did it with a few of my Cases back in 2020 during Lockdown & was happy with the results, I used Cara White which I bought here in the UK from eBay, Apparently it’s also used for Caravans & Motorhomes (Trailers or RV’s in the US & Canada) 🇬🇧
41:29 WAIT! Could it be? Well, I'll be darned 😀 IT IS an IWILL P55XB2 aka my first build sep. 1997 😍 (VER: 1.2.1) And SHE's still alive - MAXED out of course (K6-III AHX 400MHz) 😛 Only bad thing is the 512KB Cache. 64MB max.if speed! And i only have a 128MB SD stick. Why the K6-III(256KB L2). PS. So AMD CPUs were/are for poor folks only, Mike? (Boooh)
That seven segment display... And THREE DIGITS! Mercy! I vote to bring that back (with live speed updating, of course). The plastic motherboard standoffs and molex connectors? Those can stay dead!!
In my experience most drives except really really old drives(proprietary interface to maybe 8x IDE) read CD-Rs well although it helps if you burn your CD-Rs at a lower speed usually, The problem I've had is the DVD optics on drives just dying, like they'll read CD-Rs and CD-RWs fine but any type of DVD is a no go, I've got a few DVD drives where their ability to read RWs has gotten margnial, they'll read +/-R and -ROM fine but really struggle with RWs, and cleaning lasers on optical drives and cleaning and regreasing slides only helps on rare occasion.
AMD and VIA was the early 2000's equivalent of AMD and ASRock in the late 2000's. Everyone else was rocking a Core 2 Duo (or Core 2 Extreme if they were big spenders) when I was stuck with an Athlon x2.
Seeing that Umax software brought back memories. I used to work for them in 96. OmniPage and Presto ( I think this was a basic publishing app, don't quote me though) were bundled with the consumer scanners. VistaScan was the driver. And OCR was pretty good back then too. Had to be a nice clear original though. I mainly supported the Pro stuff, but was pulled in to help the consumer side when thay were busy. Great video as always Mike. Keep up the good work :-) By the way, that SCSI card is what Umax used to ship with their scanners. Before they made USB and parallel port versions. I used to install an internal header to control SCSI CD-ROMs.
I own the third computer case. It came with a Pentium 133Mhz cpu and motherboard and "piss" colour plastic just like yours. It would not brighten up with Retrobrighting so I sprayed it with Rustoleom Gloss Almond (I couldn't get matt) and it looks so much better than "piss".
Thanks Mike, another AWESOME vid, i've got a soft spot for Socket 7 systems myself, the first PC i ever built was a Pentium 200 MMX using the exact same case as the last one you showed here only mine was the mini tower version and yyyyep I still have it!! 👌👌
I did have a CD explode on me one time. I was playing Red Alert 2 Yuri's Revenge with a friend. suddenly there was a immensely loud tap sound, but everything kept running. We looked at eachother a bit scared, but quickly focussed back on the game. About three minutes later his PC froze. When we opened the CD-ROM player, a million pieces fell out. i disassembled the drive and with a tooth brush cleaned everything out. especially around the teeth of the tray. Got the drive back to working order again. But we had to buy a new Yuri CD ofcourse.
OCR in 1996 was terrible. I remember trying to scan some documents with my bosses HP Vectra 90 and a high-end HP table scanner, never got anything useful out of it.
You mentioned at the end about wanting hard drives in every system. I have like 50 old hard drives most of them below 10 GB in capacity. If you want, I could mail them to you.
I just had to pause this video 90 seconds in Mike. Never in my life have I seen a computer with a Firewire port and no USB. Capital W.T.F. on that one.
Tiger Direct was the Newegg/Amazon of computer parts of its day. The first system I built was a Tiger kit with a similar case everything came in boxes and I had to put it together myself. Later on they sold prebuilt systems in place of the kits.
The SCSI card in the third system looks like a typical OEM one that was intended just for a scanner. Those were pretty common in the early-mid 90s. That's why it doesn't have an internal header.
Ahh yeah I, too was obsessed with those SB Audigy cards. I still remember ordering my Audigy 2 right when they came out, I still have it in one of my parts drawers in fact.
the 2nd system looks like it was heavily used on the internet back them. might be worth a shot to see if it has any Windows update that hasn’t been preserved yet (Windows Update Restored is a project that aim to preserve those, if you wanna check them out ^^)
Mike is single handedly keeping the CR2032 battery industry afloat
😂
Mike,To remove a face plate like the one on the Tiger Direct case, try using a socket wrench socket that is the same size as the tabs. It will compress the tabs allowing you to remove the face plate without breaking them
Good idea! I use that trick to remove the IBM PS/2 faceplates.
I used to buy TigerDirect's bare-bones systems for clients back in the day. They were actually built fairly well. Thanks for the flashback!
The best part of these videos is the OS exploration. I’m so happy that WD drive came back to life.
Back when WD were something we could rely on. I used to swear by WD only. Now it's just dog juice, false advertising, paper bearings and R/W heads, worst consumer service available, etc. A bit like MSi nowadays. Such a shame, those brands used to be so good only 15~20 years ago. Now they are trash.
Mike, I can't explain how much peace your videos bring to me. I took a break from following the channel, and now that I've returned, I remembered how good your videos are and how cute you are. Please continue with the great work.
Just catching up on old videos, I really love your videos Mike! ❤ Your whole style, your calm presentation, I personally love when you repeat stuff from previous videos (DS clocks and how to fix them, PSU warnings, CMOS battery replacements) so for me, please continue with that. I just love your videos and you uploaded one while watching another, so awesome! ❤
Your commentary cracks me up, especially Power Man lol 8:34
That SCSI card, from a little googling, looks like it was originally supplied as a companion card top a Mustek SCSI scanner.
I had a cd shatter to pieces in my drive. I'll never forget that terrible sound thinking I destroyed the whole drive. I was eventually able to get every tiny bit of it out and had no problems for many years after, but every time time I used it had flashbacks of it happening again.
Another Saturday, another video to entertain us! 😃
That second system had a BETA Socket 7 ZIF.
I just love your videos! I started saving these systems mainly because of you!
I love coming to the comments to count the thirst posts. You could have an entire harem, and put them to work resoldering caps
I normally lurk here but got a good laugh from your comment! 😂 Checking the thirst in the comments is the bonus content to every one of Mike's videos.
Fun watch, these things really bring me back...
I love living vicariously through your videos, man, thanks for taking the time to share your adventures in old hardware.
I have the exact same feeling, that feels kind of nostalgic, satifsfing but also strange, where did all those years go and why is life going so freaking fast? cheers mate and thanks for sharing, I really enjoy this peaceful retro community I found out about lately! best regards from bavaria in germany
That TigerDirect system brought so many memories. I used to get the TigerDirect catalog and some of their systems were nicely configured. The Yamaha sound card would have been great for both DOS and Windows games. Loved your jokes about that poor CPU fan and loved that sticker on the power supply.
Inwin q500. First computer case i ever bought. What a beast! I believe i picked it up because maximum pc recommended . Still got it!
It's like you went to Socket 7 heaven in this video. Maybe not so much that 2nd system though, it went to Rust City!
Those biceps pulling the case open are giving me the vapors!
Indeed. 🥵
glad I'm not the only one who swoons over MikeTech
Mike is, how these youngsters say, bae. Those biceps and that smile just melt my heart.
There's something about these comments that creeps me out. And I am a gay man, so its not the gay thing. Its the whole anonymous strangers on the internet ogling over someone's body in elaborately subtle ways that gets me. I can't tell what it is that separates us... I wonder if its age factor, netiquette experience, dating life situation/desperation, or what. But I wouldn't keep on doing what you all are doing. Kudos to this guy for not being put off by it to the point he stops putting out videos altogether. But it feels like you all will keep pushing until he gets to that edge of unease.
@@GGoAwayy a okay when it happens to a woman though?
I don’t why I felt you saying “I don’t wanna” in my heart. I still love working on computers, but darn it, sometimes I just don’t feel like doing certain things.
I didn't realize TigerDirect built computers under their own brand. Our second computer when I was a kid was a Systemax, which I thought was TigerDirect's in house brand, but it turns out Systemax bought TigerDirect in 1996.
Yeah, Systemax used to own all sorts of brands and some of the computers they built back in the day were pretty sweet. Systemax just had very questionable business practices.
I got an AT system the other day. The case was pretty banged up. I think it was some sort of old CyberPower computer. With the motherboard model being 586ITBD which is in great shape besides a cap that's about to explode.
LOVE THIS CONTENT! KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK!
Yes! Amazing 👏
For such a large case, its surprising that there's one 3.5" hard drive slot.
You truly are the Steve1989 of vintage computing.
One day he's gonna dismantle a system and get it out onto a tray... nice!
nice
I've always found furniture polish really good for sticky switches..
I can honestly say that I wish removable motherboard trays were a feature in modern PC cases. Especially with M.2 SSD's becoming the norm, there's no reason not to bring them back. It would making building so much easier.
They still are present in a few modern towers, but it's essentially the most expensive or premium ones, like some from Fractal Design or Be quiet!, that often cost more than 200 €/$... Such a shame, because a tray for the mobo is a must have imho. A true life changer.
Yay another episode! Let's tear into these! ❤
PowerMan was In-Win's inhouse PSU brand for PSUs that shipped with their cases and they were usually made by FSP, they're quality PSUs
I remember using Canvas very briefly back in the day
Wayback Machine might be able to help with at least some of the dead URLs
System two Tiger Direct Bare bones. i used to see the advertisement in all the PC magazines.
I’ll always say it, this guy is a dream boat
Love the 5.25 disk on your pegboard :) Need some HDD platters too!!
Thanks to you and a couple other RUclipsrs doing retro stuff, I got 2 HP Elitebooks new old stock to goof off with. The memories of playing with XP, Vista, and 7!
Another awesome video Mike 👍🏻 Brings back memories when I used to build my own systems in the 90’s to early 2000’s. 🤞🏻 That you reach your goal. Just think, no more out of hours on-call…. been there and got the T-Shirt 👕
I loved those trident cards back when I ran a computer store cus windows always had drivers and I never had to hunt for them. Late 90s, early 2000s if you didn’t have the driver disk there was a good chance you weren’t gonna find it online.
Ohh, I remember the horrors of not finding what I needed on driverguide.com in those days. Thrown to the wolves!
Talking about CD drives breaking disks, I've had a couple of times where both CD and DVD drives have gone rogue and spun up so fast that disks have shattered into hundreds of pieces. Needless to say those drives quickly went in the bin as I don't like optical drives spinning faster than the speed of light.
I can't wait to see the PCs you dig up!
That Western Digital coming back from the dead is something we don't see often, even more nowadays. Back then, WD drives were something we could rely on. I used to swear by WD only. Now it's just dog juice, false advertising, paper bearings and R/W heads, worst consumer service available, etc. (remember the WD Caviar Green 1GB HDDs disaster ? Back in the day I almost lost my job and thousands of € because of them). A bit like MSi nowadays. Such a shame, those brands used to be so good only 15~20 years ago. Now they are trash.
BTW, thanks for the time you put in your videos, mate ! I'm reaching 40 yo this year, I've made my first steps in computers with a 166 MMX and I have huge waves of nostalgia when I watch each one of your videos =)
Interesting sights, Mike. I always watch your videos with curiosity and I always learn something new. Best regards and see you next time. Ciekawe zabytki , Mike . Zawsze z ciekawością oglądam Twoje filmy i zawsze dowiaduję się czegoś nowego . Pozdrawiam i do następnego .🤩🤗🤔
You can also use vinegar but you will have to give it a few days.
43:40 SL27S isn't the stepping, it's the part number. Stepping is the core revision (for exemple this chip uses a B1 stepping core).
The K6 is a pc-chips board. I built thousands of systems like this. These were cheap, low-cost... Maybe about $450 new.
Gosh seeing the 123 Free Solitaire game brought back some memories of my grandfather, he played that all the time on his old PCs right up until he passed away in 2011. He actually used a 733 MHz P3 system with Windows 98 until 2006, at which point he got a bargain basement LGA775 Celeron D based system that ran XP so poorly that the P3 would have done a better job. I actually ran an 800 MHz P3 system as my own PC until 2009 with XP installed that did just fine lol.
powerman indeed :3 (also that shirt makes you cuter
Mike, I too am having a moment over that Creative Audigy sound card - it is still SOoooo impressive. Yes, I was ecstatic when I finally got one as well. It served me well for many years. As I recall the software that came with them was quite good as well.
After always having to use cheap and on-board sound cards for recording, I was… floored by the noise-floor on the Audigy card!
No wonder the CPU fan in system #3 still sounded great, it must have been on vacation regularly - note the "Bali Bearing" [sic]. 😉
System #1 has a Tyan board, some good taste right there. (It might have been cobbled together for a young person at some point.) That Mitsumi 4X drive brought me right back, we used to have one just like that back in the day. Peak 1995/96. Not very good for ripping CDs, those were the very early days of DAE. A 4X/4X/24X burner would have been about average for 1999, I remember that we bought a Ricoh MP7040A of that spec in 1998. (It should still be among my old retro systems in my parents' basement.)
System #2 clearly belonged to an aspiring hobby musician, presumably of working age (20s-30s most likely). I wonder what the guy is up to now?
50:03 Also known as "carbon fiber towel" in the world of M539 Restorations. ;)
Enjoyed that, love those MMX 233 chips.
*cracks knuckles*
System 1 - yes, that is EXACTLY how we accessed the socket lever back in the day. same tool, too.
System 2 - TD wasn't exactly a manufacturer or SI in the way you'd think of it. The systems were actually built by someone else and rebadged at the factory, much like TriGem actually built eMachines. I'm pretty sure that someone else was Systemax, who bought TD a couple years after this machine would have been built. Systemax also went on to buy out the remnants of both CompUSA and Computer City. "How good was OCR in 1996?" Well, when I was asked back in 1996, I had to try REAL hard not to laugh in the customer's face.
System 3 - Holy yellowing, Batman!
i like the motherboard from system 2 for 3dfx system built.
Scrunched ball of aluminum foil dipped in water can be good for removing rust
Loving these retro teardowns.
edit: Have you checked the browser histories of these old pc's?
I bought a NOS case 2 years ago, identical to system 1. The button was sticky having never been used, remains sticky with every cleaning or lubrication I have tried. The only solution I haven't tried yet is a replacement spring.
20:10 yes, Tiger did build clone systems a long time ago... I believe you could get them as barebone or have it completed
Lesson learned: Need big strong arms so you can wrangle oversized PC cases like Mike does
Having both AT and ATX power connectors is a sure telltale of an early PCI v1 board, which ran on 5v timing, and not 3.3v like v2
Great video! 🎉
Man, I haven't thought about TigerDirect in like 15 years, what blast from the past...
Can we take a moment to reflect on the blessings of this gigantic InWin case: plenty of space to manipulate components, excellent motherboard tray, and providing Mike an opportunity to give us a gun show. Thank you InWin gods.
Nor have I. Last time I even thought of them was probably 2006 or so. LOL these giant towers do make it hard for me to stay out of the shot!
I got my first 64 bit CPU from tiger direct. AMD Athlon 64 with 2gb of ram. Remember only paying like 150 bucks for it shipped.
My home server lives into the same model of that InWin case, the only difference from the one in the video is that mine doesn't have the ventilation holes on the top. I rescued it from the junkyard more than 10 years ago and it's still in use, it's a very nice and well built case.
PowerMan? Sounds hot.
I had the mid-tower version of your Inwin case. I paid too much for it (new), but I remember it being a nice case.
I'm pretty sure I had the InWin A500.
Wow! June 16, 1997 - the BIOS date on that last system - I had been in college for a full week by that point. Man, those were the days. 😊
OMG i hated floppy and IDE cables... was glad when we got sata
Despite how nostalgic they make me now, I couldn’t stand them back in the day. Terrible for airflow and I was too broke to spring for the round ones.
I wonder what system 1 had originally, that a C6 could be considered an upgrade? 🤣
My first PC I ever built was literally that same full sized tower that weighed like 100lbs🤣🤣
I’m unsure if this is true for an old PC but I had a 1993 Buick with a factory GM CD player. If you burned CD-Rs at 4x or whatever the slowest speed was in Vista and used Verbatim or Maxell CD-Rs it would play them. I never had a cd burner at the same time I had 486/Pentium pcs to see what impact that made on those machines.
meanwhile i want that first case with the slide out tray
Your videos are always so good! Interesting how those different looking systems all ended up being socket 7 and also everything worked aside from that one stick of RAM! Also that 7 segment display with 3 full digits, that must be really uncommon, I think most just had a 1 for the 3rd digit if it even had 3 digits at all, so that’s a nice find!
The WD drives from that era often seem to like having tantrums like that one, but I’m glad it recovered as the stuff on it was quite interesting! I wish the hard drives weren’t so often gone from the systems though I understand why that’s the case.
That Canvas X drawing system from Deneba in Miami started in 1987 for Apple Macs. I never used it or Macs, only later IBM OS/2 Warp, Windows 95 and some early Linux distros to start with. But it was for academic use and pros, unlike CorelDRAW or Adobe Illustrator that were for home users, too. 35 years or so later, (it was bought by a Canadian company and became a Windows-only thing plus the Mac version with a different name), it's still available for some really big companies and such, I think. This history trip is quite cool.
I fold office paper over a credit card, IPA it, and plug it in and out of sockets, and when the pins stop making black marks on the white paper, it's clean - lol -.
5:27 oh you have no idea what you unleashed when you said "bird"...
OH WELL BIRD, BIRD BIRD, BIRD BIRD'S THE WORD!
I love that Inwin case. That first machine is awesome, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a 14.4 modem.
TirgerDirect system, kinda looks like Enlight was the OEM for the case.
lol "AMD and VIA" I too knew this combo back then, and about this time I had upgraded from my Pentium 233 MMX to an AMD K6-2 400, but I did end up with a friend's leftovers with a first gen K6 CPU but never bought one for myself :)
Hi Mike, Your comments and observations after: 47:40 were so comical! 😂 at: 50:55 you mention that you wouldn’t want a disk to explode but you’ve heard stories of it happening to others, I have a Shuttle PC which is similar to the one in one of your other Videos and I inserted a genuine Microsoft XP Disk and the drive started making a horrendous noise and then the Disk shattered, It didn’t half make me & my Female friend jump at the time, First & only time it’s ever happened to me and wouldn’t want it happening again! I can’t believe all 3 of those Systems had no Thermal Paste on the CPUs, Think I’ve actually had one of those “Power Man” PSU’s and my first ever CD-Writer was a HP but a little bit different to the one in System 3, You also mention retro-bright for System 3, I did it with a few of my Cases back in 2020 during Lockdown & was happy with the results, I used Cara White which I bought here in the UK from eBay, Apparently it’s also used for Caravans & Motorhomes (Trailers or RV’s in the US & Canada) 🇬🇧
41:29 WAIT! Could it be? Well, I'll be darned 😀 IT IS an IWILL P55XB2 aka my first build sep. 1997 😍 (VER: 1.2.1)
And SHE's still alive - MAXED out of course (K6-III AHX 400MHz) 😛
Only bad thing is the 512KB Cache. 64MB max.if speed! And i only have a 128MB SD stick. Why the K6-III(256KB L2).
PS. So AMD CPUs were/are for poor folks only, Mike? (Boooh)
That seven segment display... And THREE DIGITS! Mercy! I vote to bring that back (with live speed updating, of course). The plastic motherboard standoffs and molex connectors? Those can stay dead!!
"how good was OCR in 1996??".
It depends,Mike.
CasMate had an excellent OCR.
In my experience most drives except really really old drives(proprietary interface to maybe 8x IDE) read CD-Rs well although it helps if you burn your CD-Rs at a lower speed usually, The problem I've had is the DVD optics on drives just dying, like they'll read CD-Rs and CD-RWs fine but any type of DVD is a no go, I've got a few DVD drives where their ability to read RWs has gotten margnial, they'll read +/-R and -ROM fine but really struggle with RWs, and cleaning lasers on optical drives and cleaning and regreasing slides only helps on rare occasion.
That Tiger case was made a minimum of a year before the system was assembled. The AMD K6 wasn't even launched until April of 1997.
AMD and VIA was the early 2000's equivalent of AMD and ASRock in the late 2000's. Everyone else was rocking a Core 2 Duo (or Core 2 Extreme if they were big spenders) when I was stuck with an Athlon x2.
Seeing that Umax software brought back memories. I used to work for them in 96. OmniPage and Presto ( I think this was a basic publishing app, don't quote me though) were bundled with the consumer scanners. VistaScan was the driver. And OCR was pretty good back then too. Had to be a nice clear original though. I mainly supported the Pro stuff, but was pulled in to help the consumer side when thay were busy. Great video as always Mike. Keep up the good work :-) By the way, that SCSI card is what Umax used to ship with their scanners. Before they made USB and parallel port versions. I used to install an internal header to control SCSI CD-ROMs.
personally, I'd be swapping out boards and bringing these systems up to date except for the AT case....
Ya know, Mike, in that first computer, I really was hoping there'd be SIMMs in that thing. I take a dimm view of what was actually installed.
I own the third computer case. It came with a Pentium 133Mhz cpu and motherboard and "piss" colour plastic just like yours. It would not brighten up with Retrobrighting so I sprayed it with Rustoleom Gloss Almond (I couldn't get matt) and it looks so much better than "piss".
Thanks Mike, another AWESOME vid, i've got a soft spot for Socket 7 systems myself, the first PC i ever built was a Pentium 200 MMX using the exact same case as the last one you showed here only mine was the mini tower version and yyyyep I still have it!! 👌👌
You overclock that Pentium MMX 233 @ 300 MHz and it'll be the very definition of speed itself. :)
Audigy 1 is great for dos games. Audigy 2 are terrible. Definitely gave up support for Dos in Audigy 2.
I did have a CD explode on me one time. I was playing Red Alert 2 Yuri's Revenge with a friend. suddenly there was a immensely loud tap sound, but everything kept running. We looked at eachother a bit scared, but quickly focussed back on the game. About three minutes later his PC froze. When we opened the CD-ROM player, a million pieces fell out. i disassembled the drive and with a tooth brush cleaned everything out. especially around the teeth of the tray. Got the drive back to working order again. But we had to buy a new Yuri CD ofcourse.
the background for that free solitaire game is questionable 🤣🤣🤣
Tiger/TigerDirect always had huge ads in PC magazines back then. Then they went into catalogs. They were known for selling lesser equipment.
OCR in 1996 was terrible. I remember trying to scan some documents with my bosses HP Vectra 90 and a high-end HP table scanner, never got anything useful out of it.
I'm pretty sure Tiger Direct preceeds NewEgg by a long, long time (in computer time).
You mentioned at the end about wanting hard drives in every system. I have like 50 old hard drives most of them below 10 GB in capacity. If you want, I could mail them to you.
The third machine probably used the SCSI card for a scanner or maybe a Jazz or tape backup.
I just had to pause this video 90 seconds in Mike. Never in my life have I seen a computer with a Firewire port and no USB. Capital W.T.F. on that one.
Tyan computing, that's high end server stuff from back in the day. I used to lust after their 8x Opteron mother/daughterboard sets.
Tiger Direct was the Newegg/Amazon of computer parts of its day. The first system I built was a Tiger kit with a similar case everything came in boxes and I had to put it together myself. Later on they sold prebuilt systems in place of the kits.
The SCSI card in the third system looks like a typical OEM one that was intended just for a scanner. Those were pretty common in the early-mid 90s. That's why it doesn't have an internal header.
Ahh yeah I, too was obsessed with those SB Audigy cards. I still remember ordering my Audigy 2 right when they came out, I still have it in one of my parts drawers in fact.
the 2nd system looks like it was heavily used on the internet back them. might be worth a shot to see if it has any Windows update that hasn’t been preserved yet (Windows Update Restored is a project that aim to preserve those, if you wanna check them out ^^)
44:57 lmfao at the giant ass European conformity mark. They were real proud of that.
this labway isa sbpro clone is an audician 32 plus with both... how are these called, I can not remeber - lucky find in system 2!!