$1000 CASE?! - Reacting to Old Computer Magazines
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- Опубликовано: 26 апр 2024
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Join us on a trip down memory lane where Linus looks at some of the greatest and latest PC tech circa 2004. These old issues of Maximum PC are filled with tons of hilarious takes, strange forgotten products, and beloved childhood favourites!
Discuss on the forum: linustechtips.com/topic/14287...
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Intro: Laszlo - Supernova
Video Link: • [Electro] - Laszlo - S...
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Outro: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High
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Intro animation by MBarek Abdelwassaa / mbarek_abdel
Monitor And Keyboard by vadimmihalkevich / CC BY 4.0 geni.us/PgGWp
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CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
1:58 Dream Machine 2004
4:49 Logitech Z-680 Speakers
5:32 $10 Mouse Pad
6:03 Questioning MaxPC
6:47 Funny Ads
8:25 Creative Monster
9:09 '07 GOAT Tech
12:25 Tunic Tower 120
12:35 GearOTY 2005
13:08 Zalman Resorator
13:49 CM Stacker 830
14:26 Blunders of the Year
15:41 Dream Machine '08
17:54 THE MEME
18:51 Outro 
Наука
i still have the physical copies of these exact magazines. i didnt realize it at the time but some of the magazines (PC World) were absolutely saturated with thick paper ads from Dell and Compaq around 1999. every time you flipped, it would land you on a Dell Dimension Pentium III 500 MHz ad. It was because times weren't tough yet. When the recession hit around 2002, the magazines got a lot thinner and those thick paper ads became infrequent. By 2008, you could tell time was up-- digital was where it was all heading. but that pre-2004 era was for sure a different and special time
nice to see you here!
A country invented the Internet. This is what happened to its print industry
Shame that magazines never made a full recovery ;)
Emia, meaning presence in blood.
didn't expect to see you here
"Displays on the front of computer cases were stupid"
And now we have displays on CPU coolers instead 🤣
Similar to steam engines being more popular for showing off the actual process of locomotion, I foresee LCD braided cables animating a depiction of the flow of data in conjunction with LCDs on CPU, GPU, chips et and memory.
I will say. A display of temperature on a cpu cooler, keyboard, etc. Has a functional use.
A relatively massive display which functioned as just any other display hidden behind a plastic cover for your drives, that's a lot harder to find a functional use for
@@kuyans3889 Wrong,it is *_even more_* useless.
@@kuyans3889 they’re not useless. Temperature readouts provide practical use. Plus, the display is actively visible and not hidden behind a plastic drive cover
@@kadragon3764 ..... What do you think the displays did? They were generally for temp/fanspeed readouts, with programs similar to rainmeter to set the display. Touchscreen display would also function as a quick fanspeed/oc controller. They were just ahead of their time.
I remember my first overclocking experience on an early socket A AMD CPU. The CPU was locked, but to unlock it all you had to do was draw a line with a lead pencil to short two contacts on the top of the chip. AMD caught on and put a small trench between these contacts and if you connected to that then you bricked the chip. People figured out you could fill the trench with a crayon and then short the contacts. That is what I had to do.
That's how I overclocked mine, thanks for the memory!
Wow. Amazing the things you would risk for a little more speed.
Wow man. That's totally old school. I remember taking that Celeron 300 and overclocking it to a $1000 600mhz cpu. Oh the good old days.
Imagine someone telling you they overclocked their CPU with a crayon and or pencil and then finding out it was true
i still have one of those here. Was my first own PC. Never did OC myself cause i was too young but i read about it.
i feel like they could've used Linus' original Intro for this one.
also i really want to see the Resorator being used for a modern system!
BREAKING: Linus Sebastian, Coworkers Die in Mysterious Boiler Explosion. More at 10!
I just watched this video on a system cooled by a Zalman Reserator 1 Plus. The pump has been running almost non-stop for around 14 years and it is still as quiet as it was when it was new. If you can ever get a used one, you should. This kit still screams quality. When was the last time you saw actual mirror-finish gold-plated water block? Even the silicone hoses are holding up great.
I think he turned his pool into a Resorator.
modern cases still have the holes that look like soda lids with the rubber covers that have the slits in them.
@@TyrDrum - only in the summertime. During the winter, he just sticks his PC in the window he just sticks his PC out the window because nothing can cool a system quicker than a Canadian winter!
Honestly, I would watch more of these. Having Linus talk about old tech he was selling back in the day and is super knowledgeable about is really interesting.
He should start a channel just for this
@@deviantv1ral Hmmm something like Linus Tech Tips??
@@kornkernel2232 Linus Retro Tips
This should be a weekly episode.
I love the backdrop Linus has. I know he's at home sick, which is why it's his backyard, but it's really nice. Can we occasionally have more nature backdrops?
There's one right outside your house?
same here, and they lighting looks great!! 💛 bet it took a sec to get down
That's in the Sun Room with camera pointing outdoor out the large windows. Not the best lighting setup to be back lit but they somehow made it work.
4:14 My brain paused for a second here
My Ryzen 2600 PC is still mounted in a Thermaltake Xaser VI (first image shown) that I picked up second-hand a few years ago for practically nothing because I didn't have any budget left. I remember being like "An old high-end case for $15? That's free real estate!" before realizing how *gigantic* the thing is.
Never disappointed by the features though! Full ATX with plenty of room, four 180mm fan slots, five 5.25" drive bays (3 of which can be used by a _built-in watercooling circuit_ ) and a slide-out motherboard tray for easy access.
Not to mention the deliciously old-school over-the-top design, with wedges and fins everywhere and a big X-shaped power button. A very cool case if you don't mind carrying around a 10 kgs box!
tbh iam happy we dont live in the times of those over the top designs any more. And that you can get a good lets say neutral looking case with good airflow without having to sell a kidney.
Need part 2, you should do a weekly show going through each issue
You guys should get ahold of a Resorator and other external rads from that era and hook em up to a modern waterblock(for compatibility) and see if they still hold up on today's super hot cpus! That's at least a video or two.
Yo this legit needs to be a video. Would love to watch something ridiculous like that. Especsially after watching that video about that super old water cooling kit a few months back.
Hell yeah, that would be wild to cool 250W CPU with those babies
I use a modified car radiator in much the same way as an external radiator. Works great as long as you never have to move the computer. Carrying both the computer and the radiator is very awkward.
External radiators used to mount on top of the pc, they were pretty cool
No video needed, I still have a pair in use today. One isn't really able to tame a modern CPU under load without the addon fan but then they always needed that to tame high end CPUs, anything over 100w would/will throttle eventually as the coolant gets up to temp (and it takes a while as there's a lot of it). I have two of them plumbed in parallel (never link them in series) currently cooling a 5950X, a 6800XT and an Asrock X570 Aqua motherboard with the aid of a 240mm slim rad (the fans only turn on under heavy load, outside of gaming the reserators can cool the system fine).
I would love to see some of the 'senior' and 'younger' people at LTT look through more of this stuff. Good times.
Maximum PC magazine is still going strong, despite (or because of?) not having a proper website for current issues.
Linus should have made this clear to his audience early in this video.
Maximum PC managed to keep publishing throughout the pandemic, which was not true of some more well known and well funded tech magazines.
The staff is engaged, mostly young (though not exclusively), and has expanded on what it covers. Linux now sits alongside Windows in its articles. Gaming hardware is a focus, but other applications of PC hardware are covered too. And true to its origins it shows how to emulate pre-PC devices on a PC and does in-depth stories on new technology.
It also remains one of the best resources for people interested in building their own computer, and takes the time to respond to its reader's questions and suggestions.
Is this a troll post? Pretty sure MPC died about 3-5 years ago. If they still exist they are almost impossible to find online.
@@Starscreamious The very first result of a google search is a place to subscribe to them. They are still active in print.
@@Starscreamious i was subbed from 2019-2021 when i first got into pcs; they're still doing just fine.
@@SappyJupiter37 I feel like I'm being trolled.
@@Starscreamious I still have my subscription going! but the lack of an online presence is because their website merged / was taken over by PCGamer
Would love to see more and more of the late 90's early 2000's techs, brings me so much nostalgia
Also the early Windows 8 era where manufactures made wild and wacky 2 in 1 laptops. Especially that asus "4 in 1" where they had both windows 8 and android on one device.
When I was kid, there wasn't a lot of spare money to splash on magazines.
But there was a weekend market that sold magazines that are 3-6 months old, with a 80-90% discount on the original price.
I used to love looking through the huge selection of computer magazines and then taking them home to read and play the demos on the CDs.
Nice throwback!
The demos were the best part of the gaming magazines
And I guess Linus forgot the "L" for high school. Or maybe this video was sponsored by the letter "L" lol
@@sakenu16 he's too cool for L
Oh, them demo CDs ... that brings back memories
@@mandelbro777 It does still have a few.
I was honestly sad when this video ended, this was a great one. Linus is really in his element when he does old tech and he really vibed with Adam.
I also appreciated Adam's insightful comments about Half-Life vs. Doom vs. Quake, and the significance of USB. Good dialog between the two - this could easily have degenerated into "young = stupid" or "uphill both ways in the snow", but didn't.
I used to be moderator on the old maximum PC forums. This brings back memories. I would be down for a series of vids like this
Ah I still have a few of their demo cd's. Loved those.
This brings me memories, but still looks "recent". I remember I was a kid and would be drooling over the 3dblaster multimedia kit. Which I found out years later it was not only a multimedia kit, but would make your PC into a 3DO.
3:38 - The Silverstone case itself was $270, the custom paint job cost a whopping extra $800. (See the notes at the bottom-right)
Love the "where is my motherboard?" with a baby inside a pc lol
@@adhilahammed4085 yeah
@@adhilahammed4085 yeah
that baby is like 20 now
I'm not sure how they could pull that off without someone getting cut by the case.
Crazy to think that baby is in college now.
I Remember early 2000s. Being like 6 years old and seeing my uncle's setup with like 8+ monitors. Not for gaming. He did software engineering. But to see multiple sets of double and triple CRTs was astounding
I love this, it’s amazing hearing Linus talk about his memories and both contemporary and modern perspectives on the stuff.
This could be a great video series: Linus and a Younger employee just going through some sort of archive of nerd lore.
I love how much the tech industry both overestimated itself and underestimated itself back then
Schrodinger's Estimation
nothings changed in that aspect, other than the fact its more public so it cant be buried or spun as easily as say... The huge antitrust legal fights between IBM and MS over the OS market throughout the 80s and 90s.
@@ArtOfTheRamble I don't know what you mean there, antitrust cases would be between the government and companies, not between each other. The only entry IBM ever had in the PC OS market was OS/2 (not to be confused with Microsoft's OS/2).
Oh my heart, holy nostalgia this brought back so many memories from that time period holy shit. I remember going to B&B alll the time and grabbing handfuls of mags to just sit and read for hours, Maximum PC was ALWAYS in the pile. As well as surfing & bodyboarding mags, paintball, all the hardcore/heavy metal mags, tattoos, and maybe a gun mag or two. LOOL. Oh my heart...i loved this.
This is a brilliant video. I remember here in the UK it was PC Format I used to get all the time. It’s great seeing all the old trends again, I had a 5.1 surround setup for my PC setup in like 2005. Thanks for this little trip down memory lane!
8:58 God, I remember that, how even the sound of the CPU handling your mouse movements would cause EMI sound on the built-in audio. So horrific.
And don't forget the speakers making a noise before you cordless phone or cell phone rang.
Watching this video and reading your comment made me realize that it used to be a normal thing to have CPU noises when moving the mouse.
I was wondering if this was a sign that an old pc I got was dying 😆
I still had that like.. a year ago? Since my first PC up until recently that mouse movement buzz was always there, because I always used on board audio with analogue output.
Different motherboards had little effect but different cases did (I think it was a grounding issue?)
But now I've finally ditched analogue for digital output - HDMI carries my speaker signal and bluetooth APTX for headphones
@@Tigerskunk *tic-tic-tic-tic* RINNNNGG!!!
Waiting for Maximum PC's monthly editions was like waiting for Christmas back in the day... Waaaay before sites like AnandTech, Tom's Hardware, HardOCP, PCPer and others became popular sources of PC content!
And the legendary Gordon Mah Ung (now at PC World) was one of the main reasons why that magazine was so fricking cool! Their "Maximum PC No BS Podcast" was also a trailblazer in the PC gaming hardware podcast scene. Good times!
Man I have been trying to download all the No BS podcast but can't find them all. There are some on RUclips and stitcher, but the earlier episodes aren't readily available. I know they were on the CD ROM that came with each magazine, but I can't get them downloaded. :(
@@HAFBeast91 Well, the internet archive comes to the rescue! It seems it has all the episodes from the show starting with the very first one in September 2012 with Will Smith (who was the Editor-in-Chief at the time and later went to "Giant Bomb" and "Tested") and Gordon. Just Google "maximum pc no bs podcast archive" and the Internet Archive link should be the first result.
Later on in the show's run, Gordon created a skit called "Gordon Mah Ung's rant of the week" that was absolutely epic (with some definitely not "family friendly" language😂)!!!
Maximum PC actually started around the same time as AnandTech (1997) and Tom's Hardware (1996). Maximum PC was originally named "boot" and it launched in early 1996. They renamed to Maximum PC in 1998. I remember seeing the first issue of boot on the magazine stand and was blown away. I even wrote in a question (that got published) to the ask the editors section asking if they would ever start reviewing motherboards, because they were reviewing pre-builts and add-in cards in the beginning. This was in contrast to AnandTech and Tom's Hardware who were reviewing motherboards in the early days.
You could argue about whether Anandtech and Tom's Hardware were "popular", but in those days they were very popular with the enthusiast community and we would talk about them in the hardware newsgroups.
@@benw3768 Oh, I know AnandTech and Tom's Hardware are pioneers and have been around for the longest time... But back in the 90's, getting online was actually difficult even for many PC enthusiasts (dial-up on 56 baud was still a bit of a luxury! XD). And that's why computer magazines were way more popular than websites.
That all changed in the 2000's of course, as more and more people had access to broadband. It was actually pretty brave of Future Publishing to continue to print Maximum PC and PC Gamer (both PC Magazine from Ziff Davis and PC World from IDG, for example, stopped printing years ago).
Seeing the 08 Dream Machine again is an absolute fever dream, I remember reading this exact magazine and drooling over this PC as a young nerd.
I would love to see a ton of these vids. Often the best part of live Linus streams is when he just starts rambling about his old days at NCIX or building his first computers or even early LTT, and the man knows EVERYTHING. It's incredible how many specific products he remembers with incredible detail. This is just all of that condensed, and it's great. Make this a whole series. Maybe get other tech RUclipsrs on the other end of the line for different episodes. Geeking out and discussing with different guests would bring a ton of great a varied stories and energy.
This is such a nostalgia trip as a Millennial that got into PC hardware during the mid-late '00s. Things have certainly come a long way. For the longest time, the HDD was the biggest bottleneck of the system and people had to invest in 10k RPM Velociraptors if they wanted fast storage. Now, SATA SSDs are dirt cheap and ubiquitous. It's like the transition between dial-up and broadband, a night and day difference.
Yeah, and now even very fast m.2 drives aren't particularly expensive
I still have quite a few of my Electronic Gaming Monthly magazines. What a time it was to see Ocarina of Time on a Magazine cover.
EGM was the best. Great reviews… Hsu and Chan… Seanbaby… Psycho Letter of the Month!!
@@coprographia I LOVED the psycho letter lmao. Such a throw back.
Sushi-X!!
EGM was awesome. I would get a gift subscription every year for my birthday as a kid and it was the best gift I got every year
Dude. I hope you have that framed on your wall or something.
More of this stuff with Linus, build reactions, more throwback gear, more old stories
Displays on the computer case were the 2000's version of RGB. It was never meant to mimic an actual OS display. It was for showing temps, CPU meters, or visuals like Winamp Milkdrop. It can still have a use in a headless server situation where you just need to tweak a bios setting or view a boot error.
PLEASE do a long form video going through a ton of these, I got in the game late and would love a look into past hardware
Have you ever looked at LGR? Shows lots of older hardware.
I loved Maximum PC and used to get it in eBook format after it stopped being in print (too bad as an eBook I never actually read it anymore).
Huh? I still get the physical magazine every month.
@Michael Skinner tweets
@@FakeChannel4 Agreed, wondering why everyone is acting as if Maximum PC magazine no longer exists
7:30 no screw you! The keyboard tray is awesome. It cleans up your entire desk for soldering, crafts, placing a MIDI keyboard or a full fledged synth. I am actually still figuring out how to mount a decent tray on my current desk. I hate having my keyboard take up useful space :x It's not like you have to look at it anyways.
It was so unergonomic though, I see good riddance.
@@Sjoerd1993 depends on the hight of your desk. Mine is hight adjustable so when I have a tray I'll simply set it a bit higher to compensate 👍🏻
What an awesome trip down memory lane. I was working in a video game store back then and I as soon as the latest copy of this came into the store I was reading it. Good times :) I miss those days.
Being an old guy myself, I really enjoy these trips down memory lane.
I do love a time traveling adventure. Can we do old gaming magazines next? Maybe some cached pages from the early internet?
Game pro
5:40 On the topic of desktop speakers, I have fond memories of the BeoLab 4s. The Bang & Olufsen phone handset was also SO sick, a staple of interior decor at the time.
Holy memory lane trip. This was the exact magazine that got me into tinkering/building computers.
I had a subscription for this mag for about a decade starting in the early 2000s, and also PC Gamer...so many demo disks, lots of fun in my nerdy teen years.
💯💯💯
I'm always amazed how these magazines managed to be inspiring and popular, despite the fact most of the products were so far beyond what a regular person could afford. Like, you'd see a complete pc setup with peripherals and go: "yeah, I'm getting a mouse now and next year I'm buying the rest". It never ended up happening because next year there was a new "ultimate" setup and you'd get some other part of that instead
I guess this channel (and other tech channels like it) are similar in that respect; it's just enthusiasm about tech in general that draws eyes, even if most won't ever see the items IRL.
I can't afford probably 99% of the tech LTT showcase but I like watching it when i want to tune out life.
Back then you couldn't open up YT and watch infinite tech you can't afford for free. The magazines were the only way you'd even know this exist, so that is why.
nah when you built your machine you were happy with it and might upgrade one or two parts, but the hobby was all around very accessible $$$ wise when these were printed. Now in the 90's it was far more like that.. think about it, how much different really is your current noctua cooler than the one shown here?
That magazine was litterly LTT in printed form. We didn't have RUclips back then.
I could watch hours of this. Really enjoy this trip down memory lane. Still can tell the specs of my first self build PC by heart, you just never forget something like that :D
Seeing City of Villains at 12:44 really brings me back...used to play COH all the time with my friends.
when i built my first computer i was like "no way im gonna use this tiny little case we bought from aldi, i want a new cool case." and i ended up buying a server tower because it was insulated and looked so tiny on the picture.
i could use that tower as a leg for my desk and it was so heavy, when i went to a lan party and asked people to help and let them choose before opening the trunk: 19" crc monitor or my pc? i was hoping they would choose the pc, because it was about 30+ kg with those hard drives i cramped in there... had some good laughs and was never invited to lanpartys again shortly after :(
I'm so impressed by Linus's memory. This guy has made hundreds and hundreds(maybe thousands? Idk) of hours of content and reviews and still remembers most of the tech specs of those items.
Clearly he's much more than just a pretty face and talented presenter. 🤣
From trying to promote/advertise for his former computer parts supplies company, he has gone through hell and highwater to get to where he is at, he should be able to remember up the tech that we now forget, because God our brains are not built to remember planned and obsoleted products of the bygone era.
That I can still remember two desktop PCs that myself and my siblings had (both are Acer Aspire computers, released 8 years apart, one was a 1997 Pentium MMX 200Mhz, the other was a 2006 Athlon XP 64 of indeterminate GHz) meant that I still have some capacity to explain to new generation, of a time we were so hyped over new tech, because the Asian Financial Crisis and the Great Recession were shit crises that we had to cope and seethe through if we don't want to fall into despair and suicide.
Passion and enthusiasm really helps with remembers the small details.
Yep this proves how much he really established LTT through hardwork and actually knowledge and skills. He wasn't all about memes.
By 2018, he literally has the money to settle down and let LTT run on its own with the writers and producers. He'll still be earning lots of money to this day but he chose to be an engaging CEO by leading the company, writing his own scripts and does his own research for his videos and still has a lot of screen time. He loves his passion in reviewing tech and giving tips to everyone. That's why he's successful and well-respected in the community because his commitment to his passion.
he forgot people/ things easily. his head is full of PC hardware names.
I love going through old tech magazines from this era. I was alive back then, but I was too young to really have any insight into this stuff, so seeing what I missed is quite a lot of fun. What's interesting is that it seems like a lot of companies were way less risk-averse back then. They pretty much threw whatever ideas they had at the wall to see what would stick. I can see why playing it more safe is a better idea, but I can't help feeling like it's also a little boring.
Honestly amongst the other high tech content, this was a really nice, nostalgic video.
Should definitely do more
The "Stacker" - I worked in a PC store when these existed and people would order them to fill 'em with CD burners.
They should do a live stream of Linus going through these and just telling stories
yeah, this video is awesome.
(17:34) I loved my Velociraptors! I even got the next edition of them for video editing since they were so big compared to SSDs at the time. Still have a pair in RAID0 on a machine around here somewhere. 😎🤘
Oh, definitely need another one of these videos. Really took me down memory lane, man.
Linus Media Group needs to bring back pc magazines. Even if its just a quarterly or heck even twice a year, it would be really cool.
Maximum PC is still in print, you can have it mailed to your house
@@Cyberso1 Print and Digital or both if you really want too!
This reminds me of this time when I was at my grandparent's house and found this book called "How to clean up your pc in a weekend". I opened it on a random page and read "These days most software is written for Windows 98, so if you are still on Windows 95 or Windows 3.1 you might want to consider upgrading."
Yeah back then when they still made books for PC stuff like that.
@@mrn234 Yep like the Dummies Guide to "Whatever" and the copycat Idiots Guide to "Whatever" with many of them being tech based. I've seen so many of them at my local Goodwill stores over the years, and reading them brings back so many memories of people asking me the most basic computer questions, as living in a small southern US town, I was, and still am a lot of times the goto tech person.
Oh man this was fun, I want to see more of these with some of the other young staff!
Would love another episode of you reviewing these magazines. It is hilarious!
“Ah, those were the days”
-me, who wasn’t alive back then
True
"Get off my Lawn"
-me, who is old and curmudgeonly.
What year are they talking about.
I was born 1998 and was a lil kid then if they talk about 2004
Now I feel really old, all my first PC stuff was a decade before this, with an orangescale 386 toshiba laptop, then a 486DX before getting a P166. My Dad was interested in it, so we were usually at the bleeding edge (SCSI was a nightmare, but doing really early DV video it was a necessity in terms of capture and storage). Every monitor was an iiyama, they were amazing in the CRT age.
SCSI, the name I haven't heard for probably a decade now... Yeah, good riddance.
Don't feel too old. It was 1987 for me... 😋
Friend got P166 too, I waited year and bought 333mhz Celeron overclocked to 416mhz, what an upgrade..
@@jirkak5998 I remember we definitely got a P2 266 (MMX!) after that. Every generation would be a crazy jump in performance.
I also remember buying a Voodoo 2 add-on card and thinking it was surely going to be the most expensive graphics card I was ever going to buy - how naïve I was...
I remember when Chieftec released the Dragon series of computer cases that were some of the first that broke the trend of grey/beige cases and also were easy to build in and supported more internal drives. And then for like 20 years half of the cases were just that case with a different or slightly modified front. I think you can still find cases based on that case in stores
I actually still have a keyboard tray, my desk is an elegant looking desk you'd see in a lawyer's office. I got it for free from my grandmother, built like a tank, solid oak. I honestly would prefer a standing/adjustable desk but this old law desk is my baby, I game on it all the time.
I remember Maximum PC, their DIY issues were always amazing. I still remember the issue that they did on painting your PC case, I might not of had the high-end spray booth and automotive paint that they used, but I was still proud of what I created in my parents garage. Sure, the hardware from the late '90s to early '00s might have been a bit outlandish, but it was still interesting.
Came back to add, I'm pretty sure the silver case on the "Dream Machine 2002" cover in the thumbnail is the case they painted in the issue on case painting I used.
The magazine is still around. I've been subscribed for years
I had a 3 monitor setup in the late 90s. 3 SGI IRIX 4D systems that were networked together each with a 21" monitor I think. The tank and flight simulator on it was awesome. Just think of the huge bezels as large a pillars. Still a huge fan of multi-monitor gaming.
"Good riddance to the keyboard tray"
Keyboard tray unironically saved my garbage wrists. The keyboard being at a lower level than the desk cleared long-term wrist pain I had for years.
This display on the case thing: Isnt it getting more popular again? like with side pannel sized transparent displays?
Really? I haven‘t heard of that… got an idea what they‘re called?
I was born after most of these magazines mentioned here, but something about them makes me really want to dig into them way more than I really should.
I'd love to look at more of these, especially where I resonated with Linus on the "this page made me wow" at 3:24
I'm 50 this year, and certainly remember this magazine. I used to go to my local Borders, in the early - mid 00s, and read it. I'm going to look at some of those old copies just to see how far we've come, what eventuated and what didn't. I did have dual CRT setup in the day as well. One monitor with games, the other had the desktop and/or um walkthroughs and cheat codes haha.
Okay boomer
@@Paddy-zn4oo Gen X actually, boomers are before us.
We need more of these, Linus's stories from 'back in the day' are awesome (Youre like 3 years older than me but things changed so fast back then!)
I'm 34 and I remember being so excited as a young teen to get these magazines. Crazy to look back and see how much has changed
I'm almost 41 so heck yeah this brings back so many memories, as me, and my friends loved Maximum PC back in the day for their really in depth articles, seeing all the parts we could not afford even working after school jobs, and mostly the CD's filled to the brim of all kinds of useful software tools, and game demos, and sometimes full games. 👍
They were still available at microcenter free until a year or two ago. (three?)
@@firesurfer It's still published, and you can get it in Kindle format, but it's not the same as it once was, as the magazine just does not have the charm it once did.
@@CommodoreFan64 I was referring to the hard copy.
@@firesurfer But of course, I was just saying it's also in Kindle format as well as physical, but no matter what format you choose it's still not the great magazine it once was.
@@CommodoreFan64 That's pretty much a given.
In Australia, there was and incredible magazine called Atomic: Maximum Power Computing, it opened my eyes to the world of case mods, overclocking, and water cooling, back in... the very early 2000s. They developed awesome online forum and chat rooms too. By some amazing luck, I stumbled upon the first edition at a local shop, and was hooked ever since.
That's a nice story ^^
This "Memory Lanes Series" is dope
buying magazine with the CD in it, and trying out some random software was a blast. (no internet is a thing)
15:40 That Voodoo Blackbird 002 custom case is amazing. Ive always wanted one of those.
Man, what a trip down memory lane. I still have my Logitech 5.1 system that I've had since about 2005.
This.....We need more of this....I could spend hours, no, Days watching this nostalgic content. I'm serious linus.
I'm waiting for more.... probably won't get it but please linus just listen and make like a 2hr thing of this
I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about all the little disruptions and changes the PC gaming market was going through back then, especially from someone who was so into it at the time. I know he's a busy guy, but I really think Linus ought to tap into that side of his knowledge to make more of these vids, really fascinating stuff imo
7:20 The MS Wave a classic? I'm still rocking that Keyboard both at home and in the office. Love the split down the middle the super comfy wrist rest. I even have two extra I bought used in my closet at home for when the ones I'm using wear out.
I swear as a 24-year-old zoomer who got into PC gaming in 2014, I came in at the perfect time. No need to deal with bulky IDE cables, still have a case with a blu-ray drive, a fan controller that takes two drive bay slots, a lot of airflow, SSDs were becoming cheaper and thus more dense, controller support was not a terrible nightmare, I can go on. Sure, I wasn't around for the goofy or fun stuff but the convenience is amazing.
You missed out on all the huge year over year gains though, and the times before bloated software was common. Upgrading every 1-2 years for twice the performance was incredible, and during each upgrade cycle, everything you previously used would then load instantly. No SSDs needed. Overclocks could get you 30-50% gains easily. PCs also had "personalities" - they didn't just "work" (mostly just IRQs or RAM/videocard compatibility issues on a motherboard), but they were amazing when tuned in. Things you saw at a lan party were custom built - not some mass produced generic product from China. Watercooling loops? Better break out the drill press and a block of copper, attach to a car radiator or heatercore - cooling that could be silent, and worked far better than off the shelf products today.
The last 15-20 years have been quite bland (since core2 really, but things started to slow after the 1GHz race was over, and after 256-bit memory bus videocards). There's nothing special about computers anymore - we just get marginal gains at stupid prices, so computers now are "just" computers. Everything is the same. Very little reason to buy new hardware, or even upgrade operating systems.
This is just the world we live in today though - there's never new or exciting for any products. All minor iterations of goods, and because of that, planned obsolescence of most products to keep people buying more of the same.
Sorry you missed out on the prime years of maturing computers. Sounds like Linus also missed the best years, which were largely before 2000. I'm roughly the same age as Linus though, so not sure why he was such a late bloomer ;)
@@masejoer I feel like your comment here has a bit of a bitter smell to it. My first PC was a 100 mhz P1, so not quite early, but eh. This personality thing was mostly annoying imo, even then. Because you had to be quite deep in the materials to know what Interrupts, DMA channels and such were. It's true that things moved quite a bit faster then and now we hype about few percent performance increases.
But that things you saw at lan parties was all custom stuff? Many still bought prebuilts at the time, nobody needs that gatekeeping nonsense. Personally I never owned a prebuilt, it was all always assembled from things that existed around because my dad was large in computers. Had an Amiga from him, don't know who of my parents threw it out at some point... Would have loved to still have it.
Most of my fun was just exchanging games with friends and getting upgrades to my PC now and then. I never really joined the hardcore tweakers anyway.
@sinni800 Nothing bitter imo - those growing up with PCS from the last 15 or so years just missed the "exciting" times of pc tech where we always had new things to play with, incredible speed increases, and before PCs in general become commonplace and part of our everyday life. Perhaps we'll get some of that again with some future breakthrough, but noteworthy new innovations are rare now.
I'd say the 80's to 90's were the computer industry's teens to 20's of life, then we hit a solid stride around 2005, which would be tech's 30's. Things were starting to go well with some steadiness, and we still explored and experienced some new things over time. Now tech is well into mid-life and every few years something minor, but neat, comes along; but for the most part, we're in a long rut. Now it feels more like things may have shifted into their 50's, if not early 60's; we're seeing industry pain points, hostility from the mainstream tech conglomerates, excessive software bloat and stagnation, limited hardware performance gains. There's little reason to upgrade, so some parts of the tech industry have embraced planned obsolescence.
Many people would prefer the later "years" of their lives for a variety of reasons, but without experiencing your childhood through 20's, you wouldn't have anything to compare your later years to, nor would you experience most of those "firsts" later in life. Same case here - one can't knock on tech's early years if they weren't there for it. The time was amazing. I'm sure it was even better for those who were older, and could appreciate it (and afford it) more than I did. I can only imagine, and listen to stories about, what things were like before my time.
As for "personalities" - tech did indeed have them. There were so many "standards" that some games or apps only supported certain graphics cards, certain sound cards, etc. Depending on what you built, that controlled what you could run. Getting a different pc 1-2 years later and opening up a whole new world of content was amazing.
For sure things are far BETTER today, but there is nothing noteworthy with product releases. It's all the same thing we've seen time and time again. Perhaps you can buy some new feature that some reviewer/"influencer" (marketing) claims you must get in a new video card so you can view some tiny graphical change in a game, but a lot of these things are chasing minor additions to hardware, not anything groundbreaking. The lack of "new and exciting" is what the op missed out on, and I feel bad that so many will never experience the thrill of the innovations and speed boosts that were seen in computer tech's past. You can't buy anything today that will give you an experience like that again.
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Unrelated, but I can list out all kinds of standard things that were terrible in the past though:
Cases, sharp, horrible...and AT
Ball mice (Intellimouse Explorer ftw)
Motherboard jumpers
IDE cable fire (RIP 30MB Seagate 5.25" hdd)
"Affordable"/cheap 14-15" crt monitors
Tiny heatsinks/fan noise
Capacitor plague
ISA soundcard noise floor
"multimedia speakers" before the late 90's
CDROM seek speed
MSI brand in late 90's
etc...
Many things were bad, but so much was so good.
I'd love to see Linus and Anthony acquire and play with old top of the line tech from the early 2000s or even before! It's Retro Time for sure.
Voodoo 2 SLI golden age then TNT2 came a long with 32bit color!
I'd love to see another video on this 😂
Great to head down memory lane
I want more of these!! I still have my physical copies of special edition Custom PC magazines
I'm 27 and I remember begging my mom to get me a subscription haha back when the issues came with CDs with free software on them. Those were the days :')
I'll watch a 3 hour Livestream of Linus going through these!
How to make me feel old, I built my first computer in 1977, a box of components I had to solder together 3000 solder joints, and by the time it had 16k of memory and a few upgrades, possibly 10,000 solder joints and it took 2 people to lift. .
We thought that was a micro computer.
I unironically want a sleeper pc using that xaser case
man nothing sleeper about that case, people will know you an OG with that thing.
Maximum PC is still around.. I‘ve been a subscriber since before those archived issues. I still like reading the magazine even though you can find similar content online. I just like magazines.. I started with Byte, Computer Shopper, etc, and yes, my first PC was a Gateway 2000. They advertised everywhere at the time (late 80’s).
Mmmmm... Computer Shopper... mmmmm...
Back in the good old days when computer shopper was like 600+ pages.
Gateway... was that the "cow box" computer? Or am I thinking of something else?
@@StrixyN That’s correct. I still use one of their cow colored cardboard boxes as a trash can..
Man, we need more videos like this. Those are so nostalgic hardware and they're very cool back in the day.
Love this episode!
Brings back memories.
8:50 I remember when I got a sound blaster X the first time(and later a Z). going from the shitty minimum price cards/early onboard chips to that was breathtaking. In FPS games you would literally have an arm and a leg over other people not using a good card and with music it was CRISP
Man it's so wild how far computer tech has come in 20 odd years
I used to have "Boot" magazine issue 1 on all thru the MAX PC years, but then tossed them one day when moving.
I actually still have a collection of the "Maximum CD" inserts they'd include with each issue from around that time frame... great memories of the bygone glory days!
This was amazing to watch! It was probably actually my time near the end of the publication history, though I don’t think I knew about it. In any case, that was crazy!
The reason why Windows XP was significant was that it represented the unification of the consumer and business lines of windows. I remember preferring Windows 2000 for doing work, but having to boot into Windows 98 for games. Windows XP ended this by forcing game developers to contend with the NT kernel since there was no longer a DOS legacy alternative.
Far as I can recall from my Windows 2000 days, most games played perfectly fine. Windows 2000 supported DirectX 9.0c, as did Windows 98, ME, and XP, so 2000 could game just as hard as the rest.
The real reason Windows NT, including Windows 2000, garnered a bad reputation for gaming and home use was because Windows NT 4.0 only supported up to DirectX 3.0a (yes, you read that right, DirectX 3), and that reputation tainted the NT name with home users until Windows XP came along and mostly ditched the NT marketing.
Over in the professional world, Windows NT 4.0 likewise received a bad reputation because WDM drivers weren't a thing yet. The world was still running on VxD driver which were not available on the NT kernel, much less Windows NT 4.0 which required drivers written specifically for it. Windows 2000 formally standardized drivers for the NT kernel to WDM drivers and by that time most hardware vendors had gotten the message to standardize, and Windows 2000 is thus fondly remembered as a solid bedrock for businesses and enthusiasts alike.
In a way, the whole saga of Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 was kind of like Windows Vista and Windows 7. Windows NT 4.0 was too far ahead of its time and didn't click with consumers; Windows 2000 (and also XP in consumerland) recovered the reputation.
As an aside, while we all look back fondly on Windows XP now, for the longest time most of us hated on it because of how bloated it was for the time. Windows ME is also not without its share of pioneering advancements, ME brought us System Restore and was the first real step towards moving away from DOS in consumerland.
I ended up getting a copy of Windows 2000 from a Microsoft event and used it as my sole os for years. I didn't get XP until XP service pack two. It gamed just fine :)
@@Dalewyn Kinda scary that I am STILL running a Windows 2000 Server/Workstation systems for the last 20+ YEARS because one older piece of VERY VERY IMPORTANT Aerospace Systems software is STILL being run in one of our offices and has only been 50% ported over to C++ after all these years!
AND one of my buddies kept his DEC VAX-9000 mainframe system from his Calgary Oil'n'Gas reservoir modeling days in 1988 (it was Four Million USD at the time!) and it's STILL running COBOL-coded fast trading software that is originally from an IBM System/360 minicomputer from 1965 but ported to VAX VMS Operating System!
It's been piecemeal ported over to JAVA only starting within the last five years! I should note he is a multimillionaire because of that ancient COBOL-coded commodities trading software though! Those coders of yesterday REALLY KNEW how to design and program unbreakable code that works 24/7/365 !!!
V
You are right that NT 4.0 was worse since the video was in ring zero. It WAS a long time ago too. But it might also be the mix of games. I was still playing XCOM, Star Control, and Masters of Magic and Masters of Orion at the time. These were all DOS legacy games that probably did not like being smooshed into a protected memory environment. Nonetheless, XP still represents the culmination of that multiyear project by Microsoft to unify the two different product lines, which was my main point. On the point of bloat, I have no doubt that it was flabby compared to Win2k, but I remember it running well with 256MB during the beginning of its life cycle, when by the end, it was getting laggy with less than 1GB of RAM. It was still superior with 1GB though than any of its successors, so there is that.
I remember BOOT! Which became Maximum PC! Built my first pc in 1999! First PC was a Dell 486 DX 33mhz with 8gb of ram and a 512k cirrus logic video card, no sound, no cd drive in 1994.
I miss these days, when Reboot the TV show was awesome, Computer Chronicles was a GREAT show on PBS... great days.
Yo, I think you make a typo. I think you meant 8mb instead of 8gb of ram. No hate just telling.
I have the first couple of years of "Amiga World" in a box. All the way back to issue #2.
I also still have these magazines physical copies, and I still have a subscription!! I love the nostalgia of a physical magazine. I remember waiting al year for the September dream machine, those things were amazing!
Linus finally realizing he's gotten older is the same feeling I've had. At some point, you end up being the old one.
Seeing so much of that old stuff brings a smile to my face. I'm almost same age and off course couldn't afford the high end stuff at the time. Creating a retro series with reviews of old hardware from the early 2000s would be so nice
My first copy of Maximum PC is one I purchased when it was still called "boot Magazine". It was the month where they tested various Linux distributions, and the included CD came with a full Debian distro and various apps and games for it.
I believe I still have copies of these magazines, and will have to search for them, assuming there's interest at LTT.
I still have the last copy of boot.
Me and my dad used to get them all the time.
" I am glad we abandoned keyboard trays"
About 50% of my office has them by request.
To be fair though, when those magazines came out most of them were as old as Linus is now.
I would happily watch Linus reminisce about PC stuff from this era for hours. I hope he decides to make this a semi-regular thing because it's absolute gold for people like me who grew up learning about and lusting after this tech.