When I was a kid, my parents delayed buying a (much needed) new car to buy a home computer. They bought a Leading Edge Model D. Paid something like $500 extra to get the full 640k of RAM. Our was dual 360kB floppies. Later my dad brought home an IBM PC-XT from work to be his "work from home" computer (MDA video card, 20 MB hard drive plus dual 360kB floppies,) so the Leading Edge got to come to my bedroom instead of the basement/family room. I bought a Hard Card (20 MB hard drive on an ISA card) and a modem for it, and BBSed the nights away! We even had two phone lines - the second one so my dad could dial in to work (yes, in the late '80s!) I got caught BBSing in the middle of the night on the main phone line, so I ended up illicitly running a phone cable from the basement to the upstairs to my bedroom through a furnace duct/vent so I could BBS on the second phone line. Between then and high school in the '90s, my parents brought home from their work a Compaq Portable II (to keep, it was being replaced by an early laptop) a PS/2 Model 50 (replacing the XT as my dad's work-from-home computer,) and a PS/2 Model P70 (the "luggable" model with the large red-gas-plasma screen - also to keep as it was replaced by a laptop) which replaced the Leading Edge in my room (plugged in to a VGA monitor I bought myself so I could have color.) In high school, the "family PC" got upgraded to a later Leading Edge 486. (My dad's work PS/2 got moved to another desk.) The 486 wasn't very impressive. (Although I did end up upgrading the RAM, hard drive, modem, and video card myself.) Leading Edge had been bought by that point, and was just yet another generic PC maker by that point. (They were one of the earliest "low cost PC clone" makers back when we got our first one.)
Don't underestimate the keyboard!!! Many people still think IBM model Ms were the best, and they were bundled with Personal System/2. $400 and up for them now, which in most cases now is much more than the rest of the PC.
@@squirlmy Model Ms routinely sell for $50. There was a time not long ago where they were all $150+ though. There are millions of them out there, and a lot of people don't particularly like them (they have their diehard fans). Even the superior Model F can still be had for less than $400. These Leading Edge boards are worth good money for their switches alone. The DC-2014 keyboard in this video is guaranteed to have SKCM blue Alps switches, which are probably hunted by enthusiasts second only to IBM's beamsprings. I rarely see them sell for less than $200-300 anymore.
They were much less integrated then. The Model D was more tightly integrated than the XT class machines before it, that allowed them to undercut many others in price. Of course by modern standards, it's still a ton of chips.
All of the discreet logic was eventually reduced into the north / south bridge chips we have in todays modern chipsets. Much easier to diagnose and repair with distinct chips if nothing else. :)
Oh god... Its the Leading Edge PC!! That was my first PC that I ever owned from the late 1980s running on an 8086 CPU. I remembered that computer and had fond memories. I remember being able to put MSDOS, and all my utilities into one 360K boot up disk before I got the 1.44M floppy drive. Who would ever forget the Leading Edge Word Processor program? The glow of that green CRT monitor still brings back memories. I remember trying to code color ANSI screens for a BBS. It looked okay on a green monitor, but when I first saw it on an EGA monitor, boy, those ANSI screens were ugly! Even though I had a C64, that IBM PC was used a lot more due to BBSes in that era. Those were the good old days.
Adrian, the leading edge model D was revolutionary for its time. I still remember my father’s friend who got one. These were affordably priced quality PCXT clones. They had a smaller case than the IBM PC, they had front mounted power/reset buttons and keyboard connector, a real first for it’s time. They sold thousands if not millions of these things during the mid 80s. Leading Edge even sold their own branded word processor as well.
The LEWP--Leading Edge Word Processor. I had to support students using it in our library's computer lab (20 Model D's) as part of my campus job in 1987. I preferred Wordperfect.
@@markuslvic A relative of mine had a Leading Edge Model D, with LEWP. It also came bundled with a Lotus 123 look-alike, which as far as I could tell was an exact copy of 123, except for its brand name. Which appropriately enough, was... "Twin". :-D
Adrian, I’m so happy you came across the model D! This was the first PC I ever used at school and learned how to type on. This brings back a lot of memories for me.
My family had a Leading Edge XT 640k just like that in 1988. Our second machine after the C64. I somehow expected it to come up here sooner or later :D Thanks for the memories!
One of my first memories is my dad buying a Leading Edge 286 sometime in the late 80's. He ended up returning it because of some incompatibility (likely Lotus 1-2-3) and swapped it for a NEC 286. For some strange reason that distinctive Leading Edge logo stuck in my head, and I was able to figure out what brand it was as an adult. Strange what memories stick in your head from early childhood.
I really enjoyed this one, and would love to see you poke around the other 486. The twist ending where you finally get the XTIDE to work was very satisfying.
I worked for Leading Edge and my first project was the the Model D from prototype stage. It was one of the most popular computers in the US esp. after Consumer Reports endorsed the PC. The computer had 640k, 4.77/7.16, CGA/Hercules all one big motherboard (even before the IBM PS/30). The designer was Steven Khang who went on to found power computing, a Macintosh computer mfg.
" The computer had 640k," - You sure about that one? All (3) Model D's I knew of personally, one that was mine, two belonging to friends, required an expansion card to get 640k, it wasn't all on the motherboard.
This was my family’s first computer. Ours came bundled with a tiny amber monitor but my Dad got a CGA monitor later. Kicked off my fascination with computers and gave me a computer literacy that has served me well my whole life. Computers like the Model D were not easy to use. They were cryptic and difficult to understand, so you really had put time and effort into getting anything out of them
My very first family computer was a CGA model D with two LD 5.25’s and an 8088. Never thought I would see this thing on your channel, awesome! Very special. Thanks for all the great content, Adrian.
I'm glad you got that one figured out and I'd definitely like to see what's inside the mini-tower as well. Sometimes seeing some of those old setups is amazing. Looks like that hard drive was well used by the folks that owned that computer!
I'm pretty sure I saw one of these at a yearly city recycling event. The line of cars was long, so I didn't want to hold up the whole line trying to ask them if I could buy it and/or try to root around for the DC-2014 keyboard that was probably tossed along with it. I already have two of those boards anyway though.
HAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I actually did but there was nothing interesting in them at all just a small snippet of a basic computer program ..... and then I try to keep the channel "G" rated for the kids, etc.
@@adriansdigitalbasement It's always interesting because there's a story behind every computer and what someone did with it long ago. Finding an old hard drive is like finding an old ship's log and learning about its voyages. Obviously even with 30+ year old computers the original owners might still be alive and it's good form not to dox them if there's extremely personal information (i.e. finding a diary instead of a ship's log), but I hope old hard drives do get preserved well enough that 50+ year old ones can tell stories from the dead in the same way we learn about the lives of our ancestors from old books.
Would love to see a video on the other machine. I would watch pretty much anything you do! Keep up the excellent videos and thanks for for taking the time to make them.
I absolutely love watching these kinds of videos. I could easily watch this all day long! It's also the exact thing that gets me in the mood to get elbow deep inside my own computer projects. Sometimes I'll queue up your videos and proceed to spend ours debugging the most silliest of problems on an old computer, and have the best time doing it 😁
Ooh, that's the version of Tetris we had on our school RM Nimbus machines in the early 90s! I'm glad to see it, I had forgotten the exact version it was - thanks for showing it!
I love the format. Continue the archives. As soon as you said the XTide Bios was not compatible. I immediately thought "Change the board bios" and that was your fix later in the video. I guess I'm learning. Thanks for the videos. It has fueled my computer collecting and has helped my repair skills with my Arcade Machine collection. Thanks.
This was my first computer as a kid. Ours only had two 5.25" floppy drives (we later added a 3.5"). When we added that drive, we accidentally broke one of the pins on the integrated floppy controller and had to buy one of the slot-based floppy controllers as a replacement. We also upgraded the RAM from 512K to 640K. Great machine for the time! This is the first time I've seen one since we got rid of ours. Thanks for doing this.
Oh, my goodness---_the D did color!_ The Leading Edge Model D 8088 was my dad's first computer. As I recall, Dad bought the D in 1986, surely based at least partly on Consumer Reports' enthusiastic recommendation. His configuration included one 5.25" floppy drive, and he also purchased an optional 20 MB hard drive. (Unfortunately, the hard drive never worked reliably.) I'm reasonably sure the keyboard was identical to the one you've got here. Dad also got a monitor that could display every color . . . as long as it was green. Indeed, until now, I had no idea the Model D offered any color capability whatsoever. Now I can rest easy!
Videos of this type for dinosaurs computers are always appreciated for those of us who don't get rid of old machines just pack them away. Please keep them coming. Thanks
Picked up a slightly newer version of this pc (has the mhz switch). I had no idea it was the machine from this video, and I immediately remembered all of the shenanigans you had to deal with when it was first published. The info here is a treasure trove for restoring these important machines.
I have a couple of these things. I bought one from a company in Tampa. that one came without a keyboard, but it has a VGA card and a hard drive. I later bought one from a guy in Boston. It was in the original box with the keyboard and an amber monochrome display. I've only ever powered on the Tampa machine with the KB from the Boston machine. I didn't know they had batteries inside, so now I have a project to get them out. I bought them out of curiosity. I have an older brother that had a Leading Edge clone that he used to do his doctoral thesis. Also, I went to a Leading Edge dealer with my dad in the mid 1980s where we looked at these machines. I was just a teenager with an Atari 800 at the time, so I don't think I understood what I was looking at. Thanks for the teardown!
Great video. I remember the trials and tribulations of manually setting jumpers and dipswitches on cards! I love the idea of touring random old PC clones, there's a lot of variation and interesting things for sure.
This was my family's first computer. My mother ran a typing business, and part of her selection criteria was the quality of the keyboard! She started with LEWP, but moved to Wordperfect within a few months. Our system originally had dual 360k floppies, but later had a 5.25" 30MB hard drive installed. Interesting bit about the dual CGA and MDA ports: you could hook up two monitors to the system and switch between them with the DOS mode command. I had a CGA monitor for my games, and my mother kept the monochrome monitor for her word processing.
Very much enjoyed this!! I grew up with DOS and ran a Bulletin Board on a DOS machine for many years. Started with DOS on a Heathkit H-89. Those were the years. Learn to write assembly DOS drivers too I’d love to see you keep on with this series. It’s great!!
That's awesome! I actually have the Leading Edge PC (retroactively called the Model M) which was the first computer sold by Leading Edge and was made to directly compete with the IBM PC.
one of your best videos IMHO. we got some history, some troubleshooting and a really great example of an xt clone that you dont see on yt. please do more of these videos and for sure do one on the other pc you picked up
Adrian, I know PC's aren't necessarily your favorite type of retro computers, but this is some serious quality PC retro content; it makes me go "oooh" at every revelation about a computer of which the basic specs have been known for 35 years.
This was great. Definitely do a video on the other PC as well. The most interesting part to me was the motherboard BIOS issue. The fact that you were able to utilize another BIOS from a completely different machine is just fascinating. Those old PCs were so similar to each other. You could never do that today with a modern PC.
I love these troubleshooting vids, going through the process of working out what's wrong, frustration, trying a new idea (repeat x times until working).
Please keep making the awesome archaeological computer videos, it's very interesting to see old computers still kicking in this time they probably still have a lot to teach us and very useful to play with.
I feel like I need to call attention to just how beautiful the layout of the motherboard is for the Leading Edge machine. As someone who dabbles in PCB layout, this is a beautiful example of how to use all the available space.
I actually had one of these. Well not that one, but a Leading Edge 286 that came to me with a bad motherboard, so my Dad and I swapped it out for a 386 DX25, that I kept until I was out of high school. When you discovered how the case opened forward, it brought back all kinds of memories. I even put my 486 DX4 120 in there, and stood it up like a tower as the cool kids did! :) Thanks for the nostalgia!
I really appreciate that you document all the fails and foulups as well as the successes. It makes us mere mortals with lesser technical aptitude feel just a tad less inferior, knowing that anybody can make mistakes. That said, your fix of the ROM issue was borderline witchcraft! Well done all around.
It's always nice to see a "HardCard". In aroundabout 1984, The first IT job I had was working for a small company in the UK "XTec UK" that used to buy in hard disks and controllers, re-programed the on card BIOS and mounted both on the hardware bracket, hard formated, softformeded repacked and sent out. The hardcard we called the "Insider". Some times we used OMPI and sometimes WD controllers.
Great Video. I demoed Minix 1.5 on my Leading Edge Model D 2011 at VCF Pacific NW 2019. Back in the day, not every PC/XT clone was 100% IBM compatible. When I was researching Minix, I found an old Info Sheet that mentioned the Model D worked well with Minix. Great System - I swapped out the onboard UART with a 16550A and put in the XT-IDE Card. If you google, there is an 8088 BIOS called Super XT. I run that now and it works great. Only downside is that the built in Video doesn't work.
I wrote a previous comment that the new BIOS would disable the 16 color mode, but to my utter astonishment, it still seems to be working even with the new bios that you swapped in. I have no explanation for this, but I'm glad everything's all working for you!
This is the first PC I ever used! I played Basstour and LEWP (Leading Edge Word Processor) and Nutshell (database I think) on my grandfather’s Model D! I had no idea it would support a 3.5 floppy drive, we were told since it was a clone it wouldn’t support one, but we did put a 80MB SCSI drive in it Thanks for the trip down memory lane! Love your videos
Ah, Nutshell. When I worked at LE in the mid-'90s, we were still using Nutshell internally to look up part numbers, figure out which models came with which options, and the like.
My grandfather worked for a chemical company, and in the 80s they introduced payment plans to buy computers to increase computer literacy for their employees, my grandfather bought a Leading Edge Model D and a NEC Multispeed which I used for years, unfortunately I had a mishap with the NEC and some ROM chips and never got that machine working again, and the Leading Edge was donated, but the old machines just had a certain charm to them
Great video! My first PC was a leading Edge 486 SX25, now long gone. After getting into the retro computer kick a few years ago I surfed eBay for a bit and was able to find two of them, as well as a 386, and Leading edge keyboard, VGA monitor, and mouse. One of these days I'll get around to cleaning them up...
As always, your ‘short’ videos are fascinating to watch, and beautifully narrated by your good self.... One day I’d like to see a ‘long’ video from you... 😀 Lovely stuff... thank you for all your content, and have a wonderful Christmas, and my best wishes for the coming New Year! 🙂
Hey Adrian --nice job getting that computer running, and figuring out the BIOS. I've been working on computers since the early 80's. Cool seeing these machines running again. That RLL drive brought back some memories.
Hi Adrian, have just been clearing out my garage and found an old "Sunshine" Eprom programmer which uses an XT style card, looks like it programs the old 25/21 volt Eproms, comes with the original 5.25 floppy and instructions, yours if you are interested. I'll throw in any other XT stuff too just to fill up the box. And many thanks for the years of helpful info on how to keep these old machines running.
Adrian, you, sir, are a genius! Nice to see that you've unlocked the Leading Edge Model D for use with XT-IDE. Wow! These were a low-cost alternative to their IBM counterpart as I recall. We had one in our house! My mother would spend hours on end writing BASIC programs on it!
Well, this takes me back. WARNING: LONG-WINDED MIDDLE-AGED REMINISCENCES AHEAD I worked in Leading Edge's warranty hardware support department in the mid-'90s, at the tail end of the Daewoo era. The Model D was long out of warranty by then, but it was still legendary within the company (albeit not quite as legendary as the Model M, which was downright mythical). Unfortunately, by the time I came along, manufacturing quality had taken a pretty substantial dip, so my colleagues and I were pretty busy. Just as one example, at the time LE sold a computer called the WInPro 486, which was notable for a) not shipping with enough RAM to run Windows, b) not being professional-grade in any way, and c) not really having a 486 in it (it was one of those stupid Cyrix processors that was really a 386SX with the 486 instruction set). Things picked up somewhat quality-wise toward the end of my time there, circa the summer of 1995--the last generation of Leading Edge PCs were pretty good--but the writing was on the wall by then. Leading Edge was getting its lunch eaten by other manufacturers, mostly with "Packard" in their names, and the product improvements came too late. I got out when Daewoo extended a hiring freeze to include not making up for attrition, causing the support department workload to spiral out of control. I remember one day we in Hardware Support all went to a big meeting with a Daewoo bigwig who'd come over to HQ in Westborough, and one of my coworkers asked if we could please at least hire to replace people who left, because we were really getting hammered. He stared at us while his young flunky translated, then scowled, pointed at us, and said without going through the flunky: "The rest... you work harder." FYI, since you note at the beginning that you didn't know whether Leading Edge ever made 486es: they did! And not just the Cyrix faux 486es, they had proper Intel ones in the last few generations (including a minitower very similar to the generic one you have there). In fact, when I bailed, the company had just started shipping its first (and probably last) Pentium model. That's another horror story, in fact; the computer itself was fine, but the Corporate Masters had decided to revamp the company's image, so they abandoned the triangle logo for something painfully generic and branded the Pentium line "Fortiva". This was at around the same time that IBM launched their "Aptiva" product line, and a brand of yogurt called "Activia" appeared on the market. So that went about as well as you would expect. By then I was on my way to the exciting world of supporting ISP infrastructure equipment instead of PCs, anyway. Finally, a fun fact: the last generation of Leading Edge laptops were made by Lenovo! That was before they bought the ThinkPad brand from IBM and started selling laptops themselves instead of being an anonymous OEM for other manufacturers. So they were actually quite good... not that that helped them sell very well.
"...at the time LE sold a computer called the WInPro 486, which was notable for a) not shipping with enough RAM to run Windows..." I'm getting flashbacks to the first year after Vista launched.
@@MyNameIsBucket Not much, unfortunately. I worked for Leading Edge 30 years ago, and like I say, the Model D was long out of production even then. Anything with a processor earlier than a 386 was before my time.
I worked for a local computer store that sold Leading Edge Products... solidly built machines, but not people's first choice when going to buy a computer. I had the 286 model of that machine. I worked there in the early 90s.
I was the Director of Purchasing for a company that was the largest distributor of Leading Edge computers back in the late 80's. We actually "owned" Leading Edge briefly, when they filed for bankruptcy around 1989, although later the bankruptcy court took the name away from us. Originally, Leading Edge sourced the products from Mitsubishi (hence the names Model M and MH) and then later, to lower costs (plus Mitsubishi tired of Michael Shane's tendency to pay late) and for better credit terms they sourced from Daewoo (hence the Model D, D2, etc.). Quite popular at the time, maybe even more popular than any one of the models was the Leading Edge Word Processor, which came bundled with each computer and was also sold separately. Daewoo sold us the remaining Leading Edge computers directly but wanted to market directly in the US under their own name after that, so we turned to Mitac computers (AKA American Mitac) as the 3rd suppliers for Leading Edge branded computers. But that sort of quantity and branding took time, and several months later the bankruptcy court took the LE name away so we rebadged them under our own name, and while they were actually quite nice, we never sold them in the numbers we sold Leading Edge computers under, since the dealer network had either collapsed or moved on to a more stable supplier. We survived, as it was just one piece of our business, but a lot of smaller dealers went under as Michael Shane (the original owner of Leading Edge) would often extract full payment or large deposits before shipping computers to dealers (often late). Shane's dicey business practice is kind of how we became such a large distributor - we didn't demand those terms and reliably shipped on time and still gave dealers 35% off retail in large quantities - and when Shane was up against the wall, he'd sell us huge quantities of machines for 50% off if we paid COD, which we could. Shane was almost operating a Ponzi scheme at some point, in my estimation.
This is great stuff Adrian, I enjoyed the archeology. :) Don't worry about the videos running long! Looking forwards to your digging into the other machine you found.
I know this type of video isn't your cup of tea, but I absolutely loved it. This is the era of equipment I learned to disassemble PCs as a young child when this hardware was very old (1995ish). Have you ever heard of a WANG PC? I haven't come across one since. Thanks for the time you have put into this! Will we get to see the other mini tower as well? The first PC that I refurbished and sold for a small profit was a Leaning Edge 386 that ran Windows 3.1 in 1996/1997ish. I always thought leading edge was a local outfit building clones. Very cool to see this!
I used a Leading Edge Model M up until 1990. the Leading Edge Word Processor helped me write a lot of school work. I remember playing Pool of Radiance on it. it was so over the specs for the machine i'd start loading it when i got home from school and go watch half an hour of cartoons. Great memories of that machine, I should poke around I may have some of the software yet.
Nice classic DOS C:\ Ember vide. Leading Edge was a curious combination of no-name parts with quality like the keyboard using great switches. Also, nice to see you cover your mistakes as well as your successes. Lets people know that everyone can struggle when working on classic computers.
What have we learned Adrian? If we remove an EPROM, then we dump its core before replacing it. Even if you don't screw it up, it may help someone that did and needs a copy.
I remember having a hardcard like that. It was a Miniscribe 20MB hard drive. Used it in my IBM PS/2 30 that I bought without a hard drive (back in 1993).
One of my first computers was 386sx. Those old things make me return in my school years, it was great time :) If you make more videos like that, i think it would be great. Thanks a lot for this one.
My first taste of DOS machines, helping out on the school computer lab. Configuring cylinders and heads to get the HD to work and adjusting dip switches to get a sound card to not conflict with something else. This really brought back memories of those days. Very enjoyable and I'm even more curious about that second "multimedia" age PC since it is possibly right around the age of computer where I had to fight to get ethernet cards to work in an already crowded computer with very little resources remaining. A time when plug and play, was more plug and pray.
You should try to filter out the high pitched noises when filming running CRTs. Many people don't hear them, but I immediately noticed something when you switched the monitor in the end :-)
Another fantastic video, I really love these old PC restoration processes. I really admire your perseverance ! Please consider to do another video with the second PC you got ! And when the sun is coming back you should redrobright this Daewoo so that it will shine again like when it was brand new !! Keep up with this fantastic work ! ;)
After an insane amount of fiddling, I was able to get my model D connected to a very early version of AOL back in 1995. I remember it having an EGA monitor and I think I installed a 14.4 modem. Could get it on the main AOL screen but functionality was all but non-existent. Don’t think I was able to access web pages. Frustrated, I built a Cyrix 166 white box, 16MB RAM, and a 1.7GB Seagate HDD, win 95 and that was my first internet machine. Thanks for rekindling this memory!
man, you've triggered off some memories here in me. My second computer was a Leading Edge Model D2. It was a 286 and I ran a boatload of DOS games on the thing. Mostly though finding out that I was a better level designer in Doom than I was playing it. Ah well.
Shoutout to Ron and Heidi! :p I love videos like this, I once bought an Atari 800 from a guy on craigslist, the disks that it had with it included a guy's diary from 1984, I was able to track him down on Facebook and I sent him the contents of it by printing it to my AtariMax virtual printer. Apparently he got a new computer in the late 80s and left the Atari with his college roommate...
How totally cool. Brought me back to summer before last when I found an XT and an AT locally. Pretty much mirrored your xtide adventures. Great stuff, love the small formfactor too!
Our home PC when I was a kid was a PCjr, but my dad, being an architect, borrowed a friend's PC for a while to take a look at the early versions of AUTOCAD. It was a Leading Edge machine complete with one of those early optical mice that needed a metal pad with a dotted tracking surface. Needless to say, I wasn't allowed anywhere near it.
Oh, I forgot about SideKick and parking a hard drive. I was reminded about Check-it on another channel a few weeks ago, but I'm glad to see you go through it. Too bad about that floppy controller, but good to see you got the XTIDE to work. I would watch a video on the other PC.
When I was a kid, my parents delayed buying a (much needed) new car to buy a home computer. They bought a Leading Edge Model D. Paid something like $500 extra to get the full 640k of RAM. Our was dual 360kB floppies. Later my dad brought home an IBM PC-XT from work to be his "work from home" computer (MDA video card, 20 MB hard drive plus dual 360kB floppies,) so the Leading Edge got to come to my bedroom instead of the basement/family room. I bought a Hard Card (20 MB hard drive on an ISA card) and a modem for it, and BBSed the nights away!
We even had two phone lines - the second one so my dad could dial in to work (yes, in the late '80s!) I got caught BBSing in the middle of the night on the main phone line, so I ended up illicitly running a phone cable from the basement to the upstairs to my bedroom through a furnace duct/vent so I could BBS on the second phone line.
Between then and high school in the '90s, my parents brought home from their work a Compaq Portable II (to keep, it was being replaced by an early laptop) a PS/2 Model 50 (replacing the XT as my dad's work-from-home computer,) and a PS/2 Model P70 (the "luggable" model with the large red-gas-plasma screen - also to keep as it was replaced by a laptop) which replaced the Leading Edge in my room (plugged in to a VGA monitor I bought myself so I could have color.) In high school, the "family PC" got upgraded to a later Leading Edge 486. (My dad's work PS/2 got moved to another desk.)
The 486 wasn't very impressive. (Although I did end up upgrading the RAM, hard drive, modem, and video card myself.) Leading Edge had been bought by that point, and was just yet another generic PC maker by that point. (They were one of the earliest "low cost PC clone" makers back when we got our first one.)
I could watch Adrian open random old computers all day long. This is top tier stuff!
Yes!
Yup
You need to get a life.
I loved this video. Have a look at the other machine. Please.
Yes, we would likely more.
Yes please!
Yes, please do! 👍
Ditto ⬆️
Please, sir. I want some more.
"Why is this Leading Edge PC so good?" "Well, the keyboard is a big plus."
It must have been designed in Sweden.
That's certainly a key element of its success.
Don't underestimate the keyboard!!! Many people still think IBM model Ms were the best, and they were bundled with Personal System/2. $400 and up for them now, which in most cases now is much more than the rest of the PC.
@@squirlmy Model Ms routinely sell for $50. There was a time not long ago where they were all $150+ though. There are millions of them out there, and a lot of people don't particularly like them (they have their diehard fans). Even the superior Model F can still be had for less than $400. These Leading Edge boards are worth good money for their switches alone. The DC-2014 keyboard in this video is guaranteed to have SKCM blue Alps switches, which are probably hunted by enthusiasts second only to IBM's beamsprings. I rarely see them sell for less than $200-300 anymore.
"The Computer Chronicles is made possible by Leading Edge"
Leading the way to the Information Age!
@@bhickenbottom Same!
I see comments on these with how much of a headache these machines were
@@rartolak Yes, as I recall, the hard disk on my dad's system didn't work reliably.
And BYTE magazine!
It is always amazing to me seeing how many chips are on these old motherboards.
They were much less integrated then. The Model D was more tightly integrated than the XT class machines before it, that allowed them to undercut many others in price. Of course by modern standards, it's still a ton of chips.
It's also interesting how straight forward the design is. Well within one's ability to understand.
All of the discreet logic was eventually reduced into the north / south bridge chips we have in todays modern chipsets. Much easier to diagnose and repair with distinct chips if nothing else. :)
Makes me think of the Micro8088 project and how few chips it uses...
Oh god... Its the Leading Edge PC!! That was my first PC that I ever owned from the late 1980s running on an 8086 CPU. I remembered that computer and had fond memories. I remember being able to put MSDOS, and all my utilities into one 360K boot up disk before I got the 1.44M floppy drive. Who would ever forget the Leading Edge Word Processor program? The glow of that green CRT monitor still brings back memories. I remember trying to code color ANSI screens for a BBS. It looked okay on a green monitor, but when I first saw it on an EGA monitor, boy, those ANSI screens were ugly! Even though I had a C64, that IBM PC was used a lot more due to BBSes in that era.
Those were the good old days.
Adrian, the leading edge model D was revolutionary for its time. I still remember my father’s friend who got one. These were affordably priced quality PCXT clones. They had a smaller case than the IBM PC, they had front mounted power/reset buttons and keyboard connector, a real first for it’s time. They sold thousands if not millions of these things during the mid 80s. Leading Edge even sold their own branded word processor as well.
The LEWP--Leading Edge Word Processor. I had to support students using it in our library's computer lab (20 Model D's) as part of my campus job in 1987. I preferred Wordperfect.
I remember LEWP... It sucked.
@@markuslvic Or Wordstar before that.
Anything but Edlin!
@@wishusknight3009 Was the best WP for it's day... and only one that supported long-file names in DOS
@@markuslvic A relative of mine had a Leading Edge Model D, with LEWP. It also came bundled with a Lotus 123 look-alike, which as far as I could tell was an exact copy of 123, except for its brand name. Which appropriately enough, was... "Twin". :-D
P.S. Do more PC archeology! We like the deep dive into mystery! :D
More archeology please!
Adrian, I’m so happy you came across the model D! This was the first PC I ever used at school and learned how to type on. This brings back a lot of memories for me.
My family had a Leading Edge XT 640k just like that in 1988. Our second machine after the C64. I somehow expected it to come up here sooner or later :D
Thanks for the memories!
That's a downgrade.
One of my first memories is my dad buying a Leading Edge 286 sometime in the late 80's. He ended up returning it because of some incompatibility (likely Lotus 1-2-3) and swapped it for a NEC 286. For some strange reason that distinctive Leading Edge logo stuck in my head, and I was able to figure out what brand it was as an adult. Strange what memories stick in your head from early
childhood.
I remember commodore 286 systems, the horror... especially if you have none of the system floppies
I really enjoyed this one, and would love to see you poke around the other 486. The twist ending where you finally get the XTIDE to work was very satisfying.
I worked for Leading Edge and my first project was the the Model D from prototype stage. It was one of the most popular computers in the US esp. after Consumer Reports endorsed the PC. The computer had 640k, 4.77/7.16, CGA/Hercules all one big motherboard (even before the IBM PS/30). The designer was Steven Khang who went on to found power computing, a Macintosh computer mfg.
" The computer had 640k," - You sure about that one?
All (3) Model D's I knew of personally, one that was mine, two belonging to friends, required an expansion card to get 640k, it wasn't all on the motherboard.
I just asked this question further down but do you know the names of the games that came with it? I’m trying to resurrect a memory.
@@lesliebernstein7287 No games came with the machine, just the Leading Edge Word Processing and I believe Nutshell database on some machines.
Great video, early PC stuff is absolutely my jam, so PLEASE do the other one, and many more. :)
There's something very comforting about the old beige box.
This was my family’s first computer. Ours came bundled with a tiny amber monitor but my Dad got a CGA monitor later. Kicked off my fascination with computers and gave me a computer literacy that has served me well my whole life. Computers like the Model D were not easy to use. They were cryptic and difficult to understand, so you really had put time and effort into getting anything out of them
My very first family computer was a CGA model D with two LD 5.25’s and an 8088. Never thought I would see this thing on your channel, awesome! Very special. Thanks for all the great content, Adrian.
I'm glad you got that one figured out and I'd definitely like to see what's inside the mini-tower as well. Sometimes seeing some of those old setups is amazing. Looks like that hard drive was well used by the folks that owned that computer!
Crazy: A PC XT clone in such a good condition at a recycle center !!
Even crazier is that they didn't wipe the corporate files from the hard drive.
I asked my local recycling centre, but they won't let me in the back to look at the computers.
Looks like it spent 30 years in storage. Probably got replaced after the harddrive failed?
I'm pretty sure I saw one of these at a yearly city recycling event. The line of cars was long, so I didn't want to hold up the whole line trying to ask them if I could buy it and/or try to root around for the DC-2014 keyboard that was probably tossed along with it. I already have two of those boards anyway though.
I'm so disappointed that you didn't look at the files named "SHIT" and "JUNK". Those are the ones I would've immediately gravitated to. xD
HAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I actually did but there was nothing interesting in them at all just a small snippet of a basic computer program ..... and then I try to keep the channel "G" rated for the kids, etc.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that!
@@performa9523 There was also SHIT2 LOL
@@adriansdigitalbasement It's always interesting because there's a story behind every computer and what someone did with it long ago. Finding an old hard drive is like finding an old ship's log and learning about its voyages.
Obviously even with 30+ year old computers the original owners might still be alive and it's good form not to dox them if there's extremely personal information (i.e. finding a diary instead of a ship's log), but I hope old hard drives do get preserved well enough that 50+ year old ones can tell stories from the dead in the same way we learn about the lives of our ancestors from old books.
@@NozomuYume as a man who just finished imaging an mfm bbs server I encountered in scrap, I concur :)
"Oh, let's look what kind of switches the keyboard has."
Just the most sought after Alps switches, very expensive. :))
Yeah, not bad for his first clicky Alps board. The DC-2014 was also my own first Alps board.
Would love to see a video on the other machine. I would watch pretty much anything you do! Keep up the excellent videos and thanks for for taking the time to make them.
I actually find this older one way more interesting then the more generic tower PC, really nice repair process!
Oh god I am crossing all my fingers and toes for you to find the BIOS for that precious Floppy controller.
Yeah that is just heart breaking... Crossing them here too!
Yeah, that was really cringy!
Yes, uncharacteristically careless of Mr Black. Must have been distracted 😢
My very first computer was a Leading Edge Model D. That keyboard really brings me back.
Those Leading Edge computers were pretty popular when I was in college, lo these many years ago... A pretty solid business computer for the time.
I absolutely love watching these kinds of videos. I could easily watch this all day long!
It's also the exact thing that gets me in the mood to get elbow deep inside my own computer projects.
Sometimes I'll queue up your videos and proceed to spend ours debugging the most silliest of problems on an old computer, and have the best time doing it 😁
Love this PC archeology format. Clearly a lot of work went into this one.
I don’t know why exactly, but I’ve come back to these two computers when I’m relaxing far more often than any of your other backlog.
Yes. Work on the next one. I love videos about these older computers!
One of the best recent videos, please keep'em coming :)
Ooh, that's the version of Tetris we had on our school RM Nimbus machines in the early 90s! I'm glad to see it, I had forgotten the exact version it was - thanks for showing it!
I love the format. Continue the archives. As soon as you said the XTide Bios was not compatible. I immediately thought "Change the board bios" and that was your fix later in the video. I guess I'm learning. Thanks for the videos. It has fueled my computer collecting and has helped my repair skills with my Arcade Machine collection. Thanks.
This was my first computer as a kid. Ours only had two 5.25" floppy drives (we later added a 3.5"). When we added that drive, we accidentally broke one of the pins on the integrated floppy controller and had to buy one of the slot-based floppy controllers as a replacement. We also upgraded the RAM from 512K to 640K. Great machine for the time! This is the first time I've seen one since we got rid of ours. Thanks for doing this.
Oh, my goodness---_the D did color!_
The Leading Edge Model D 8088 was my dad's first computer. As I recall, Dad bought the D in 1986, surely based at least partly on Consumer Reports' enthusiastic recommendation. His configuration included one 5.25" floppy drive, and he also purchased an optional 20 MB hard drive. (Unfortunately, the hard drive never worked reliably.) I'm reasonably sure the keyboard was identical to the one you've got here.
Dad also got a monitor that could display every color . . . as long as it was green. Indeed, until now, I had no idea the Model D offered any color capability whatsoever. Now I can rest easy!
Videos of this type for dinosaurs computers are always appreciated for those of us who don't get rid of old machines just pack them away. Please keep them coming. Thanks
Picked up a slightly newer version of this pc (has the mhz switch). I had no idea it was the machine from this video, and I immediately remembered all of the shenanigans you had to deal with when it was first published. The info here is a treasure trove for restoring these important machines.
I have a couple of these things. I bought one from a company in Tampa. that one came without a keyboard, but it has a VGA card and a hard drive. I later bought one from a guy in Boston. It was in the original box with the keyboard and an amber monochrome display. I've only ever powered on the Tampa machine with the KB from the Boston machine. I didn't know they had batteries inside, so now I have a project to get them out. I bought them out of curiosity. I have an older brother that had a Leading Edge clone that he used to do his doctoral thesis. Also, I went to a Leading Edge dealer with my dad in the mid 1980s where we looked at these machines. I was just a teenager with an Atari 800 at the time, so I don't think I understood what I was looking at. Thanks for the teardown!
Great video. I remember the trials and tribulations of manually setting jumpers and dipswitches on cards! I love the idea of touring random old PC clones, there's a lot of variation and interesting things for sure.
This was my family's first computer. My mother ran a typing business, and part of her selection criteria was the quality of the keyboard! She started with LEWP, but moved to Wordperfect within a few months. Our system originally had dual 360k floppies, but later had a 5.25" 30MB hard drive installed. Interesting bit about the dual CGA and MDA ports: you could hook up two monitors to the system and switch between them with the DOS mode command. I had a CGA monitor for my games, and my mother kept the monochrome monitor for her word processing.
That was a real #doscember video :D Very nice!
Very much enjoyed this!! I grew up with DOS and ran a Bulletin Board on a DOS machine for many years. Started with DOS on a Heathkit H-89. Those were the years. Learn to write assembly DOS drivers too
I’d love to see you keep on with this series. It’s great!!
I loved this archaeology video! I have done it myself on vintage computers and would love to see the other one in a video!
That's awesome! I actually have the Leading Edge PC (retroactively called the Model M) which was the first computer sold by Leading Edge and was made to directly compete with the IBM PC.
Thank you for beeing here. Regards from Poland.
This was such a nice way to spend a winter afternoon, please keep making them
one of your best videos IMHO. we got some history, some troubleshooting and a really great example of an xt clone that you dont see on yt. please do more of these videos and for sure do one on the other pc you picked up
Adrian, I know PC's aren't necessarily your favorite type of retro computers, but this is some serious quality PC retro content; it makes me go "oooh" at every revelation about a computer of which the basic specs have been known for 35 years.
This was great. Definitely do a video on the other PC as well. The most interesting part to me was the motherboard BIOS issue. The fact that you were able to utilize another BIOS from a completely different machine is just fascinating. Those old PCs were so similar to each other. You could never do that today with a modern PC.
I love these troubleshooting vids, going through the process of working out what's wrong, frustration, trying a new idea (repeat x times until working).
Please keep making the awesome archaeological computer videos, it's very interesting to see old computers still kicking in this time they probably still have a lot to teach us and very useful to play with.
Well, I would certainly enjoy seeing a full video on that other computer. I enjoyed this one. I love seeing old PCs that are built like battleships.
I feel like I need to call attention to just how beautiful the layout of the motherboard is for the Leading Edge machine. As someone who dabbles in PCB layout, this is a beautiful example of how to use all the available space.
I actually had one of these. Well not that one, but a Leading Edge 286 that came to me with a bad motherboard, so my Dad and I swapped it out for a 386 DX25, that I kept until I was out of high school. When you discovered how the case opened forward, it brought back all kinds of memories. I even put my 486 DX4 120 in there, and stood it up like a tower as the cool kids did! :) Thanks for the nostalgia!
I really appreciate that you document all the fails and foulups as well as the successes. It makes us mere mortals with lesser technical aptitude feel just a tad less inferior, knowing that anybody can make mistakes. That said, your fix of the ROM issue was borderline witchcraft! Well done all around.
It's always nice to see a "HardCard". In aroundabout 1984, The first IT job I had was working for a small company in the UK "XTec UK" that used to buy in hard disks and controllers, re-programed the on card BIOS and mounted both on the hardware bracket, hard formated, softformeded repacked and sent out. The hardcard we called the "Insider". Some times we used OMPI and sometimes WD controllers.
Great Video. I demoed Minix 1.5 on my Leading Edge Model D 2011 at VCF Pacific NW 2019. Back in the day, not every PC/XT clone was 100% IBM compatible. When I was researching Minix, I found an old Info Sheet that mentioned the Model D worked well with Minix. Great System - I swapped out the onboard UART with a 16550A and put in the XT-IDE Card. If you google, there is an 8088 BIOS called Super XT. I run that now and it works great. Only downside is that the built in Video doesn't work.
I wrote a previous comment that the new BIOS would disable the 16 color mode, but to my utter astonishment, it still seems to be working even with the new bios that you swapped in. I have no explanation for this, but I'm glad everything's all working for you!
This is the first PC I ever used! I played Basstour and LEWP (Leading Edge Word Processor) and Nutshell (database I think) on my grandfather’s Model D! I had no idea it would support a 3.5 floppy drive, we were told since it was a clone it wouldn’t support one, but we did put a 80MB SCSI drive in it
Thanks for the trip down memory lane! Love your videos
Ah, Nutshell. When I worked at LE in the mid-'90s, we were still using Nutshell internally to look up part numbers, figure out which models came with which options, and the like.
My grandfather worked for a chemical company, and in the 80s they introduced payment plans to buy computers to increase computer literacy for their employees, my grandfather bought a Leading Edge Model D and a NEC Multispeed which I used for years, unfortunately I had a mishap with the NEC and some ROM chips and never got that machine working again, and the Leading Edge was donated, but the old machines just had a certain charm to them
Great video! My first PC was a leading Edge 486 SX25, now long gone. After getting into the retro computer kick a few years ago I surfed eBay for a bit and was able to find two of them, as well as a 386, and Leading edge keyboard, VGA monitor, and mouse. One of these days I'll get around to cleaning them up...
Please sir, may I have some more.
As always, your ‘short’ videos are fascinating to watch, and beautifully narrated by your good self.... One day I’d like to see a ‘long’ video from you... 😀
Lovely stuff... thank you for all your content, and have a wonderful Christmas, and my best wishes for the coming New Year! 🙂
Hey Adrian --nice job getting that computer running, and figuring out the BIOS. I've been working on computers since the early 80's. Cool seeing these machines running again. That RLL drive brought back some memories.
That Leading Edge was my first PC! Fond memories of playing Jill of the Jungle and War in Middle Earth on it.
Hi Adrian, have just been clearing out my garage and found an old "Sunshine" Eprom programmer which uses an XT style card, looks like it programs the old 25/21 volt Eproms, comes with the original 5.25 floppy and instructions, yours if you are interested. I'll throw in any other XT stuff too just to fill up the box. And many thanks for the years of helpful info on how to keep these old machines running.
Would love to see the other PC in as much detail as this one! Awesome job!
Adrian, you, sir, are a genius! Nice to see that you've unlocked the Leading Edge Model D for use with XT-IDE. Wow! These were a low-cost alternative to their IBM counterpart as I recall. We had one in our house! My mother would spend hours on end writing BASIC programs on it!
i love that it isn't just a quick video. delving into these and tweaking them is fascinating stuff.
Well, this takes me back. WARNING: LONG-WINDED MIDDLE-AGED REMINISCENCES AHEAD
I worked in Leading Edge's warranty hardware support department in the mid-'90s, at the tail end of the Daewoo era. The Model D was long out of warranty by then, but it was still legendary within the company (albeit not quite as legendary as the Model M, which was downright mythical). Unfortunately, by the time I came along, manufacturing quality had taken a pretty substantial dip, so my colleagues and I were pretty busy. Just as one example, at the time LE sold a computer called the WInPro 486, which was notable for a) not shipping with enough RAM to run Windows, b) not being professional-grade in any way, and c) not really having a 486 in it (it was one of those stupid Cyrix processors that was really a 386SX with the 486 instruction set).
Things picked up somewhat quality-wise toward the end of my time there, circa the summer of 1995--the last generation of Leading Edge PCs were pretty good--but the writing was on the wall by then. Leading Edge was getting its lunch eaten by other manufacturers, mostly with "Packard" in their names, and the product improvements came too late. I got out when Daewoo extended a hiring freeze to include not making up for attrition, causing the support department workload to spiral out of control. I remember one day we in Hardware Support all went to a big meeting with a Daewoo bigwig who'd come over to HQ in Westborough, and one of my coworkers asked if we could please at least hire to replace people who left, because we were really getting hammered. He stared at us while his young flunky translated, then scowled, pointed at us, and said without going through the flunky: "The rest... you work harder."
FYI, since you note at the beginning that you didn't know whether Leading Edge ever made 486es: they did! And not just the Cyrix faux 486es, they had proper Intel ones in the last few generations (including a minitower very similar to the generic one you have there). In fact, when I bailed, the company had just started shipping its first (and probably last) Pentium model. That's another horror story, in fact; the computer itself was fine, but the Corporate Masters had decided to revamp the company's image, so they abandoned the triangle logo for something painfully generic and branded the Pentium line "Fortiva". This was at around the same time that IBM launched their "Aptiva" product line, and a brand of yogurt called "Activia" appeared on the market. So that went about as well as you would expect. By then I was on my way to the exciting world of supporting ISP infrastructure equipment instead of PCs, anyway.
Finally, a fun fact: the last generation of Leading Edge laptops were made by Lenovo! That was before they bought the ThinkPad brand from IBM and started selling laptops themselves instead of being an anonymous OEM for other manufacturers. So they were actually quite good... not that that helped them sell very well.
"...at the time LE sold a computer called the WInPro 486, which was notable for a) not shipping with enough RAM to run Windows..." I'm getting flashbacks to the first year after Vista launched.
this is a longshot but i've found a desktop for sale. the model is dc-2012 which isn't actually documented anywhere. know anything about it?
@@MyNameIsBucket Not much, unfortunately. I worked for Leading Edge 30 years ago, and like I say, the Model D was long out of production even then. Anything with a processor earlier than a 386 was before my time.
I worked for a local computer store that sold Leading Edge Products... solidly built machines, but not people's first choice when going to buy a computer. I had the 286 model of that machine. I worked there in the early 90s.
Remember any of them having Western Electric memory chips in them? Those are the ones labeled "WE".
The cut from the LCD to that 1084 was immensely satisfying. How all pre 21st century PC's should be displayed: on a good old CRT
This is the first computer I owned model D brings back a lot of memories thanks
I was the Director of Purchasing for a company that was the largest distributor of Leading Edge computers back in the late 80's. We actually "owned" Leading Edge briefly, when they filed for bankruptcy around 1989, although later the bankruptcy court took the name away from us. Originally, Leading Edge sourced the products from Mitsubishi (hence the names Model M and MH) and then later, to lower costs (plus Mitsubishi tired of Michael Shane's tendency to pay late) and for better credit terms they sourced from Daewoo (hence the Model D, D2, etc.). Quite popular at the time, maybe even more popular than any one of the models was the Leading Edge Word Processor, which came bundled with each computer and was also sold separately. Daewoo sold us the remaining Leading Edge computers directly but wanted to market directly in the US under their own name after that, so we turned to Mitac computers (AKA American Mitac) as the 3rd suppliers for Leading Edge branded computers. But that sort of quantity and branding took time, and several months later the bankruptcy court took the LE name away so we rebadged them under our own name, and while they were actually quite nice, we never sold them in the numbers we sold Leading Edge computers under, since the dealer network had either collapsed or moved on to a more stable supplier. We survived, as it was just one piece of our business, but a lot of smaller dealers went under as Michael Shane (the original owner of Leading Edge) would often extract full payment or large deposits before shipping computers to dealers (often late). Shane's dicey business practice is kind of how we became such a large distributor - we didn't demand those terms and reliably shipped on time and still gave dealers 35% off retail in large quantities - and when Shane was up against the wall, he'd sell us huge quantities of machines for 50% off if we paid COD, which we could. Shane was almost operating a Ponzi scheme at some point, in my estimation.
I like these style of videos. I hate troubleshooting old pc's but enjoy watching others doing it. :)
This is great stuff Adrian, I enjoyed the archeology. :)
Don't worry about the videos running long!
Looking forwards to your digging into the other machine you found.
Absolutely loved this "archeology" video. Please keep up the great work. I've learned so much watching your channel. Cheers man!
I like this video. Very well done. I am looking forward to seeing the other computer that you picked up.
I know this type of video isn't your cup of tea, but I absolutely loved it. This is the era of equipment I learned to disassemble PCs as a young child when this hardware was very old (1995ish). Have you ever heard of a WANG PC? I haven't come across one since. Thanks for the time you have put into this! Will we get to see the other mini tower as well?
The first PC that I refurbished and sold for a small profit was a Leaning Edge 386 that ran Windows 3.1 in 1996/1997ish. I always thought leading edge was a local outfit building clones. Very cool to see this!
I used a Leading Edge Model M up until 1990. the Leading Edge Word Processor helped me write a lot of school work. I remember playing Pool of Radiance on it. it was so over the specs for the machine i'd start loading it when i got home from school and go watch half an hour of cartoons. Great memories of that machine, I should poke around I may have some of the software yet.
Nice classic DOS C:\ Ember vide. Leading Edge was a curious combination of no-name parts with quality like the keyboard using great switches. Also, nice to see you cover your mistakes as well as your successes. Lets people know that everyone can struggle when working on classic computers.
Glad you saved this PC! I love recycling, but not for old PCs. It breaks my heart thinking people will just leave stuff like this for scrap.
What have we learned Adrian? If we remove an EPROM, then we dump its core before replacing it. Even if you don't screw it up, it may help someone that did and needs a copy.
I saw the DC-2014 keyboard in the thumbnail and I immediately knew what you had there. Very awesome keyboard!
I remember having a hardcard like that. It was a Miniscribe 20MB hard drive. Used it in my IBM PS/2 30 that I bought without a hard drive (back in 1993).
One of my first computers was 386sx. Those old things make me return in my school years, it was great time :)
If you make more videos like that, i think it would be great.
Thanks a lot for this one.
My first taste of DOS machines, helping out on the school computer lab. Configuring cylinders and heads to get the HD to work and adjusting dip switches to get a sound card to not conflict with something else. This really brought back memories of those days. Very enjoyable and I'm even more curious about that second "multimedia" age PC since it is possibly right around the age of computer where I had to fight to get ethernet cards to work in an already crowded computer with very little resources remaining. A time when plug and play, was more plug and pray.
You should try to filter out the high pitched noises when filming running CRTs. Many people don't hear them, but I immediately noticed something when you switched the monitor in the end :-)
I'd like for you to do more along this, but really, anything is great and I appreciate all your content. :)
really cool to see this old tech and more so that it is still functioning all these years since it was built.
Another fantastic video, I really love these old PC restoration processes. I really admire your perseverance ! Please consider to do another video with the second PC you got ! And when the sun is coming back you should redrobright this Daewoo so that it will shine again like when it was brand new !! Keep up with this fantastic work ! ;)
I love this channel just learning how to fix things has been a immense help to me. I love learning all about older computers
After an insane amount of fiddling, I was able to get my model D connected to a very early version of AOL back in 1995. I remember it having an EGA monitor and I think I installed a 14.4 modem. Could get it on the main AOL screen but functionality was all but non-existent. Don’t think I was able to access web pages. Frustrated, I built a Cyrix 166 white box, 16MB RAM, and a 1.7GB Seagate HDD, win 95 and that was my first internet machine. Thanks for rekindling this memory!
Your voice is so soothing, even when you're getting frustrated. They should play your videos to quell prison riots.
man, you've triggered off some memories here in me. My second computer was a Leading Edge Model D2. It was a 286 and I ran a boatload of DOS games on the thing. Mostly though finding out that I was a better level designer in Doom than I was playing it. Ah well.
Shoutout to Ron and Heidi! :p I love videos like this, I once bought an Atari 800 from a guy on craigslist, the disks that it had with it included a guy's diary from 1984, I was able to track him down on Facebook and I sent him the contents of it by printing it to my AtariMax virtual printer. Apparently he got a new computer in the late 80s and left the Atari with his college roommate...
How totally cool. Brought me back to summer before last when I found an XT and an AT locally. Pretty much mirrored your xtide adventures. Great stuff, love the small formfactor too!
Our home PC when I was a kid was a PCjr, but my dad, being an architect, borrowed a friend's PC for a while to take a look at the early versions of AUTOCAD. It was a Leading Edge machine complete with one of those early optical mice that needed a metal pad with a dotted tracking surface. Needless to say, I wasn't allowed anywhere near it.
Oh, I forgot about SideKick and parking a hard drive. I was reminded about Check-it on another channel a few weeks ago, but I'm glad to see you go through it. Too bad about that floppy controller, but good to see you got the XTIDE to work. I would watch a video on the other PC.
The program menu table took me back, I used to use special ASCI graphics to spice mine up! Another great video Adrian