If I still had every beige box I ever owned, this is what a tour of those would have looked like. Some brand name, some generic, some completely off the wall. Fun video.
@@juanignacioaschura9437 my old computer motherboard still works it even would go with that computer shame i cannot send that to him to restore that other one
Indeed. Anyone looking for info, look up the Intel Pentium Flexible Motherboard Design Guidelines application note AP-579, particularly Appendix A. Also Necroware has a video where he made a replacement VRM module, as part of upgrading a board that didn't support an MMX processor (video ID CMiGVQbMC5U )
The PC at 29:02 is fantastic. I worked at the " Tatung" company, who produced this PC in 2003. Also the one of the first models with the Pentium 4 " Hyper Threading" CPU.
Hey, DUUUDE, MAKE SURE TO GET THE DRIVERS FOR THE HDD CONTROLLER! Those Vesa Local BUS Controllers can be freaking fast but ONLY if you install their drivers. Yes, the HDD controllers need drivers if they are VLB and do not have an embedded BIOS on the board (which is the majority of them)
The Ensoniq AudioPCI was one of the first PCI sound cards and had SB emulation for DOS. Creative bought Ensoniq largely to get their hands on the SB emulation. They used the Ensoniq chip, or revisions of it, to make Creative Ensoniq AudioPCI versions and the SoundBlaster 16 PCI. The emulation software also shows up in the DOS drivers for the SB live. I wouldn't call it a successor to VIBRA as it's not really in the same lineage. It may have eventually gone on to fill that role, especially after the Creative purchase, but it started out as a fairly advanced PCI sound card. I don't know if this particular version will work but there are Ensoniq AudioPCI drivers for windows 3.1 which is extremely useful if you are trying to run Win 3.1 on a PC with only PCI slots.
Two minor quibbles: 1) I think Creative's motivation wasn't so much for SB emulation, but because they were having trouble coming up with a PCI chipset of their own. So acquiring Ensoniq was mostly to get a finished, working PCI-based sound card on the market before they lost too much ground. DOS compatibility was certainly nice, but at this point, the writing was on the wall: Win 9x's driver abstraction made de-facto chipset standards much less of an issue -- and that was one of Creative's biggest assets in the prior era, so they couldn't afford to fall behind. 2) The Ensoniq card was never really meant to be "advanced" to the best of my knowledge. Ensoniq had released some pretty sophisticated sound cards before this, like the Sound Scape line. (For better or worse.) The Audio PCI line was meant to be a value-driven chipset, and was kind of a darling of the OEM market (which is a lucrative goal for any vendor.) It performed well and had great compatibility, at a low cost and a highly-integrated (read: simple-to-implement) design.
@@nickwallette6201 My understanding, which absolutely could be wrong, was that it was mainly the DOS compatibility they were struggling with. Making a new PCI chipset for sound was easy but making it work with older programs that expected ISA style sound cards was harder. I mean it was advanced mostly because it was a PCI card. I agree it's not exploding with features and wasn't meant to be. My point was more that it wasn't a cut-down cost-reduced version of something else.
@@wearwolf2500 Hm, I'm having trouble quickly finding a source for that -- I could've sworn it was in the Wikipedia article that Ensoniq had been purchased because they had tried to create their own PCI bus interface and it wasn't going so well. The Ensoniq purchase was in 1998, which seems a little bit late to be super concerned with legacy DOS compatibility, but I stand to be corrected. I know they ported this feature to the SB Live!, but I bought one shortly after launch and I don't think I ever actually used it in DOS. I had already gone through a SB Pro, a PAS16, and an AWE 32 by then, and pretty much had moved on to 100% Windows and BeOS. Might be my own experience bias though. :-) Eh, whatever. I guess the important take-away is: It was a nice little card that just works!
Also worth noting that even though the AudioPCI was designed as a low price product, it had very good sound quality and noise floor, especially compared to the competition at the time. The quality noticeably degraded post acquisition with the later revisions beyond the ES1370 chip, unfortunately. It was sad to see how much sales the Vibra got when there was a superior product close to the same price point, without any of the software issues that other non-Creative Labs like the Gravis Ultrasound suffered.
Ensoniq also supported full duplex mode (play and record at the same time) and supported pretty large sound fonts (I think I had an 8mb one back in the day). These were really nice budget cards that did everything, but did it all quite mediocre. These were the first cards I was able to use with CoolEdit pro. I still have some surviving recordings from my AudioPCI (pre creative) from back in the day.
If I'm not mistaken, the earlier AMD motherboards weren't red because of AMD. Their school color was actually green until they bought ATI. The red solder mask was probably more a trademark of the board manufacturer. Possibly MSI?
58:25 Those dell computers were ALL over the place! I remembering seeing those EVERYWHERE! At my school, at front desks, at the library, at internet cafés, really everywhere! These made dell a whole bunch of money! Yet i still have to come across one! I would like to have one of those, just for the sake of it! Dell Optiplex something, slow, windows 95/98 computers with a pentium 1/2 in em, really nostalgic machines :) great video! That micron pc is also one of my favorites, glad to see it had some life in it! P166 was a great time to be around! My first pentium 1 machine was a P1 75mhz and i thought that thing was a screamer!
Win2k is still my fav Windows, with 7 on the same place. Also better than NT 4 because it has USB Support, NT lacked. I remember a organisation I interned for faceplanted because they ordered a lot of PDAs with USB cradles/docks for some field work, and they were still running NT4 on all computers.Meaning no body could sync their work. The computers were largely equiped with USB or got expansion cards for it installed. Important people got a upgrade to 2k, less important people got a serial RS232 cradle/dock.
15:00 - that’s going to be a framebuffer card. I had a Targa+ ISA board like that, but it was full length. Video capture was a ways off yet, and definitely not on a single ISA card (My first NLE system used a mix of EISA and PCI boards in an ALR server system. Five, I think? It used NT 3.51.)
7:57 Where I worked at a telco internal repair shop, a computer came in for repair - it was under warranty, so we offloaded that job back onto the suppliers. When it came back, one of our techs plugged it in for a test - KABOOM! The suppliers had replaced the power supply, trouble was it's power switch wiring was different. Their tech didn't know what to do, so he just left that wiring dangling inside - not connected. When our tech plugged it in, that wiring was sitting ontop of the motherboard, and 240V mains power flashed from the push on spade connectors into some poor IC's on the motherboard...... Needless to say lots of heated discussion ensued, and the suppliers now had to replace the mobo. A rather dangerous and stupid job done by their tech. (our tech didn't initially open it - it's just come back from repair, so just needs a quick test - oops)
Nice look into all those old machines... Remark to around 21:30: The Ensonique is no Vibra successor per se. Create bought them since they got PCI with SB emulation working (which Creative did not at the time). So it's in fact a chip from another company labelled as "Creative" ;)
ATI FIRE GL were REALLY expensive graphics cards at the time, for reference, the FireGL1 with 8Mb (RAM aside) kicked the Nvidia Riva TNT with 16Mb performance wise, though it did cost 3x or 4x times more. Those cards were made for 3DStudio and Autocad basically.
I see the boxes on the shelf for Rollcage 1 & 2, both are fantastic games, and I've spent countless hours playing them. There are upgrades available for both of these games on the Internet that were programmed by one of the original coders, and the changes made make these games spectacular; but, the upgrades are geared towards more modern systems like Windows XP, and Windows 7.
Regarding the Micron system at the end... That replacement power supply most likely did not include a -5V rail which older ISA slot era machines needed. If the power supply has a missing (white) wire on the motherboard connector, then the unit doesn't have the -5V rail. It's been absent from the ATX spec since around the early 2000s, but there were still quite a few PSUs being built with that rail even up into somewhat recent years. Those units would also be more 3.3V/5V heavy and not so 12V heavy. Maybe that could be part of the issue? If the Insignia power supply doesn't have any dust in it and smells new, that could be another clue. Best Buy switched from Dynex branding to Insignia in recent years on their house brand stuff.
On that beautiful Micron system: That basic case chassis was built like an absolute tank and was used all over the place for a solid decade. I've had several of them with different faceplates, a couple PIII Dell XPS systems, a Motorola StarMax Mac clone and a Micron like yours all come to mind. I've even built a modern sleeper in one of the Dell variants and was able to fit a 120mm fan up front. I think the Micron faceplate is my favorite of the bunch.
I remember that blue HP. My dad bought one (or one with an identical case, front IO, and motherboard) new and gave it to me when he upgraded. If I remember correctly, it had both a CD burner and a DVD reader drive. I think that PC came out before the combo DVD/CD burner drives (and obviously before DVD burners). I don't remember using it all that long, but what I do remember using is the firewire to capture DV tape camcorder footage. Yes, it came with XP. And other than the firewire, and media card reader, there wasn't anything special about it compared to other early XP systems.
Ah yes, I had the Celeron version of this.. unfortunately I believe mine only had front USB 2.0, that's it. EDIT: and mine only had PCI slots, absolutely ZERO AGP :( Then there was this one time I gutted it out and cleaned it out and stuffed modern (for April 2014) hardware inside it and gamed off it for like six years till I rebuilt my Digital DEC PC and initially squeezed a Xeon inside it
17:09 Man, those look identical to my families second computer. It was a little over $2000 for a P3 733mhz and geforce2 mx and a big game bundle. When it was time to upgrade I got it as a hand-me-down as my first personal pc. I was still using it until around 2007.
This video is peak nostalgia for me. My first computer was an AOpen in the same case as that jam packed PC with the Gigabyte mobo. The first computer I built was in one of those Antec Super Lanboy cases in the background (still use it). The afterschool program I attended in grade school had a lab full of those PIII Gateway boxes. All the memories.
NT workstation was likely a bank computer, as pretty much all banks by me had exactly those same computers sitting under the counters and bolted under the desks, used to run the bank software, most commonly a terminal emulation through to the mainframe remotely. The teller ones used the serial ports to interface to the cheque reader, and the printer.
An hour of nostalgia isn't long enough for me man. Did have a generic P3 Win98 build back in the day which started to hard lock & display green bars on the top of the screen (bad caps I'll bet!). We ended up having the mainboard replaced & they had installed Quake III Arena on the hard drive (neat!). We also had one of those HP P4's which were the last desktops we used before moving to laptops.
Adrian Black has a very early series of videos where he buys a new in box Micron system just like you have here. He explores it inside and out, including all the accessories and bundled software. Might be a good reference if you wanted to build up a collection of appropriate software to install and run on it. His is a Pentium 100, but has the same case and same heatsink, I'd say they were probably on the market at the same time.
I built a sleeper in the exact same case that's at 38:19, now its got a P4 system in it. It appears that Antec made cases with that exact same base chassis into the 2010s. I bought a newer Antec case and the old panels fit right onto it lol.
The E in 650E referred to the Coppermine CPU core. The earlier Katmai has no letter after the Mhz. If you see the letter "B" after the Mhz, that indicates a 133Mhz system bus.
That DX2 66 in the a open case with the AMI BIOS and the VLB bus looks like the first computer I ever built. I put a DX4-100 in mine but other than that it look so similar. Really bringing back the memories here.
I remember being envious of my friend's 486DX4-100 since it was the first PC I saw that could play MP3s with Winamp without stuttering. My DX2-66 wouldn't cut it.
@@zoomosis hahaha that's amazing! I could only play mp3s in mono without stuttering. I only had some app and windows though. I'm pretty certain to DOS one would have worked great.
@@megan_alnico The computers we had at work in the mid 90s could play them I can't even remember what speed they were (one of my coworkers had a ton and would play them throughout the shift). My home DX2-66 couldn't though.
The Micron stood out the most to me as well. And it looks like the base case design (except for the front) shares design with the Dell Dimension XPS d300. Looks to be the same mechanism for the side door!
My Acer Acros has a case very similar to that A-Open case. Same sliding top, same feet that can be moved to make it desktop or tower. It’s a little shorter though as it only has two 5.25 drive bays and the front design has a slightly different aesthetic. Anyway, cool to see a generic case in a similar style to my favorite retro computer I own.
I've had an optical drive do that forced tray open (at around 37:00) if the data cable is disconnected or loose. Indeed the one I still have and that worried me, lols. Yes I still use an optical drive for my old disc games and backups. It's a fancy Blu-Ray ReWriter too which is such a modern optical drive many probably don't even know they exist, lols.
The HP Pavilion case brings back awesome memories for me, I had this exact same case for my new system back in 2005-2006 although mine was AMD Sempron 2800+ ,1.25 GB ram, then i upgraded it to ATI 9600 Pro & better power supply, Great system back then, Just be careful as that power button is quite prone to breaking as the plastic which pushes it back out from pressing obviously gets fatigued over time. :)
The computer at 29:00 I remember my family used to replace there previous HP Pavilion desktop that my 5 y/o brain somehow infected with a million viruses. The only thing they let me play on there was Nabisco World. Then I found out about Roblox, they thought it was a virus lol
That Dell Optiplex desktop form factor PC was one of the PC's i grew up with and I loved it and it was my favorite PC at the time that i had it, ran Windows XP if I recall somewhat decently, with the help from my dad I had it maxed out in terms of specs. I miss that old PC, if i had one it would be a total trip down memory lane for me. Great video! I myself do refurbishing in my spare time of old computers, it also doubles as a hobby, bringing what may seem like a totally dead computer back to life again!
On the Ensonique sound card, they were another company the Creative bought out in the late 90s, they were the ones that actually managed to write the pci sb emulator drivers for dos
I assembled probably 10,000+ PCs from 1989 - 2000, then as a hobby currently. What I remember for clone PCs is ISA -> EISA -> VLB -> PCI -> AGP -> PCIe. IBM did some weird stuff with the PS/2 that I didn't pay much attention to but I'm pretty sure IBM had a proprietary bus for a short time. Watching your videos brings back a lot of memories. What an amazing time it was watching the PC evolve and being a bit on the inside during that epic journey.
The Micron system is a really nice find to be honest and it looks to have pretty nice onboard isa audio that is great for dos (OPL4) if I remember right.
I am a recent subscriber (wish I found you years ago TT) but THIS video is the type of stuff I signed up for!! Love the work you do TT. Have a great day!
I'm going to be picking up something like this tomorrow. Around 25 computers. I'm super excited! I was actually scared when I saw this that you had bought the ones that I wanted!
That Micron is a nice system, I have a Millennia XKU that I bought new back in the day. The hard drive mounted vertical to the inside front of the chassis behind where the Micron logo is. Those 2 recessed screw holes in the front steel panel is where the screws go through into the bottom of the hard drive to hold it in place. Dell used that same chassis as well just with a different front face cover.
About that two color badge that's been "machined into to reveal the white": There's a two-tone acrylic made specifically for that, you can carve into it with a router or engrave it with a laser.
That's funny when you said there was one PC you had picked out, it was the same as I was thinking, that optiplex, as a IT tech and network admin back in the 90s and early 2000s I've seen and used so many of these, i'd want it too lol. Thanks for the videos, I enjoy.
I had a Dell optiplex GX1 as a kid (had two of them actually though I broke one, thankfully I got both for free). I'd like to see the GX1 get maxed out if possible to see what a Slot-1 GX1 can do (just sucks they dont have an AGP slot for a faster/better GPU)
Love to see an Optiplex GX1 show up like that, surprisingly nice prebuilts, really nice to work in - I have a pentium II 450 model with an arrangement of mismatched memory adding up to 384MB and one of the higher-end ATI All-In-Wonder PCI (i believe 128 or 128 Pro, something thereabouts) cards slotted in due to the lack of an exposed AGP slot. Power supply is on a hinge that folds out to give access to memory and such below, and a good few things like the expansion slot daughterboard are very convenient to pull out. BIOS settings leave a lot to be desired though, little control over anything like boot order; meaning if you intend to multiboot or otherwise boot any order other than Floppy -> CD -> HDD0, you'll need a software-level bootloader most likely from what i understand.
That HP with the bad caps... reminds me of the board of my Compaq DC7600 SFF, from around the same era (slightly newer). It's my main XP machine, can take the last of the Pentium 4s with hyperthreading.
I had a Pentium era version of that Comp #1 Acer, had the same opening mechanism and such, but mine had horizontal expansion slots on a riser board. Those earlier machines were on the old AT Psu standard so the power switch was actually a latching switch in the ac line... yes the ac came Out of the psu, through the case to a switch then back to the psu.
That Micron heatsink looks like it belongs in the engine bay of Brian O’Connor’s orange Supra. Peak Y2K tuner bling. Also @techtangents you’re right. That power module port is for a VRM allowing the board to run P55 MMX CPUs as well as the vanilla P54 Pentiums. I know this because I want one of these VRMs for my S7 board but they’re made of 100% pure unobtanium. Would love to see coverage of one in action if you manage to track one down.
IIRC, that "Newton Power" PSU is actually pretty decent. I bought three different Gateway PCs and got three different PSUs in them. I re-cap every single PSU just as part of its initiation ritual, and I think the Newton Power was built pretty well and had high-quality Japanese caps in it from the factory. It was probably unnecessary to re-cap it, but it gets new caps and a new fan before it ever gets turned on regardless. Worked 100% perfectly after its refurb. That Diablo PSU, on the other hand, ought to be used to hold down any detritus you have in the bottom of your trash can.
Interesting, i have a Newton Power inside my Mitsubishi Desktop PC, unfortunately it stopped working due to a short on the motherboard, its an NPS-200PB-75-H i think
@@lukedavis436 Ah, yeah, I have an NPS-250-CB left over - I ended up with a spare PSU after all was said and done with the Gateway spree. I haven't re-capped this one yet, but I had planned to make it a test bench supply. Kinda surprised a motherboard issue killed a PSU. They're normally pretty robust when faced with over-current situations, but not all supplies have OCP on all the rails. Sometimes just the +12 and +5, or something like that.
I remember using Windows NT (3.x and later 4). It was very stable and reliable, but most games wouldn't run. Because at that time, games often wanted direct hardware access which NT prevented (part of the reason why it was so stable). So I had a dual-boot configuration with NT for the serious work stuff, and a DOS/Win9X partition for gaming. Similar to what I have today, actually, only now it's Linux for work (and some games), and Win10 as my gameloader for the stuff that doesn't run under Linux.
Man, what a trip down memory lane. Not only did I have that exact OptiPlex I bought from a school and several essentially identical to those otherbeige boxes, but back in the day I had me that same silver Antec Super LAN boy case on the desk behind you at the beginning! Had me an Athlon 64 in it, was an exciting time thinking about moving up from 32-bit. It originally came with Antec branded carry straps you could wrap around it so it was (supposedly lol) easier to take to LAN parties. Hope you managed to snag them too - it was half the selling point!
I really liked the last PC as much as you did. It has strong 90's Dell Dimension vibes, and I always thought those were sexy machines for being from the beige box era.
I was a little disappointed you didn't go into the bios in the AMD. I wanted to see if it indeed was a sempron and if so what version. I slightly remember the KM400 chipset. I remember the kt series more. I want to say it was the ddr era. Maybe fsb 333 or 400? So ddr pc2700 or pc3200. I can't quite remember when semprons became a thing and replaced the durons. Maybe it was around that time frame?
An ISA video capture card! Supposedly goes with something called Video Movie Editor, from around 1997ish. Oh, I'd love to see something like that in action.
AOpen was a division of Acer dedicated to Business Computer parts. The manufacturing arm was spun off as Wistron Corporation, and AOpen was transferred. Acer only kept its designer division, ALi (which also comprised ULi, the latter bought by nVIDIA in 2006). Nowadays AOpen only manages Acer's B2B Channel. Convoluted, I know...
In a lineup like this, the Socket 3 486 will always be the favorite of mine. That first case is cool though and a good candidate for a 486 build that would double as a desktop or a tower depending on your desk situation.
I had a few of those Gateway machines when I was a kid. I miss them. I had a GP7-450 with ME, a smaller case that said Professional and one that said Essential.
I think VLB was a little earlier to market than PCI because I had one and specifically remember the flamewars between people like me who did not hold out for PCI and those determined to skip VLB for PCI. And they lasted until VLB died rather quickly after PCI penetrated the consumer market. 😅 At least that is how I remember it anyway.
VLB appeared in 1992 and could only work on 486 machines since Pentium CPUs weren't VLB compatible. The first Pentiums with PCI were released only a year later. VLB essentially survived until new 486 PCs were no longer sold - probably around 1996.
@@zoomosis actually, there were Pentium boards with some sort of bridge chip to make VLB work with the Pentium architecture, but I think they subsequently did not have PCI then. The root of the VLB vs PCI thing was of course also the 486 vs Pentium thing - The first iteration of the Pentium being slower than the fastest 486 in games primarily and the Pentium Bug (tm) didnt help the cause to move on to 586 right away for many folk. So, there was also that flamewar potential on the processor side. Interesting times they were indeed.
@@Ganiscol Yes, and Pentiums cost much more. The FDIV bug was unfortunate. It only affected floating point math, so mostly spreadsheet and CAD programs and not system software or games. There were software patches and workarounds but all of that didn't instill confidence in the new CPU.
VLB was always meant to be a stop-gap solution. It provided AN answer to the inadequate 16-bit, 8MHz ISA bus so high-performance 486 computers could push data into the video frame buffer at a decent pace while the whole PCI thing was getting ironed out. VLB wasn't perfect, but it didn't need to be. It was a quick and dirty way to achieve a high-speed, 32-bit bus to get the job done, and it made VGA gaming and snappy desktop graphics possible during the entire 486 generation of PCs. If you have ever used a PCI board from the (late) 486 era (or first-gen Pentium era), you can really tell it was a work in progress.
That 2nd system (first one with a MB) is an awful lot like my first PC I had, which was a Leading Edge 486 DX2/66. May be the same board, because the layout looks almost identical! Only difference I spotted was that yours had 72-pin memory slots along with the 30 pin where as mine was just the 30 pin variety. I had VLB on it, with the same VLB VGA and IO boards too. Mine came with a Soundblaster card which was also VLB and had a connector for the proprietary CD-ROM drive that required it.
The second computer, I had exactly that case with exactly that motherboard in it! Mine had a DX-33 and 16 meg of ram and I played a LOT of DOS games on that thing.
I have a Pavilion a610n which looks largely the same as that a250n (Excepting mine has no floppy drive). It has an Athlon XP and 2GB RAM, and I put my AIW 9000 into it and upgraded the heatsink to a Hyper T12 I had lying around, once I found the AMD Bracket. I got it for I think 5.99 at value village (What Savers is called in Canada, as I understand). It's been a great source of random computer stuff. Stack of 3 thinkpads in one visit (T41, L510, and SL420), A Digital PC 3000 (Pentium 166 machine) in perfect shape. Oh, also a brand new Acer Nitro 5 (10300U, GTX 150Ti, 8GB DDR4 and 512GB NVMe) that they only wanted 7 dollars for for some reason.
I would assume the reason why they have a 3.5" bay up there is so you can have a 3.5" floppy drive right next to your 5.25" drive, so your ribbon cable will reach both. Otherwise you'd need to put the 5.25" drive in the bottom slot. DVI-I is for "Integrated" and is because you'd also see purely digital DVI-D cables, and also the extremely rare DVI-A, which i've only seen once and it was on the back of a bizarre Eizo monitor, it was hooked up to a PC's VGA output and then it had a DVI-A port for the input.
The creative/ensoniq pci soundcard is an audiopci 64 or whatever they called those over the years. The creative drivers awe awful. But if you use the drivers that emulate ensoniq soundscape its alright. I use that with a Voodoo 3 3000 pci which both were free from my high school back in 17. I added them to an hp pavilion with a celeron 667.
what a nostalgia trip,also its funny to see how computers was noisy so they had as little ventilation as possible to dampen the sound instead of cooling haha
I ran across a great server for old versions of Windows and Mac OS . It is called RetroNAS. It runs on Pi OS or Debian 11. It has things enabled to older versions of Windows and even DOS. RetroNAS runs FTP Telnet and other insecure services, so it is not secure enough for public Internet access or general use. It runs the DFS, Distributed File System, server for DOS systems. DFS allows DOS machines to access disk space on Linux. The Dos box needs only a network card and a packet driver. The DFS client does not need a full network stack on the DOS side. It can also store files for gaming consoles. Good luck.
That computer case in beige at the end of your video in the middle that had that inter green logo, I have that exact same chassis I bought it probably about 10 years back except instead of being beige mine is Black and the front of it where the power button is that part of its Gray and that case is actually made by Rosewill. It's not a bad case it's just not a heavy gauge metal case that's why when you picked it up you said it felt like the lightest computer you've ever picked up.
If I still had every beige box I ever owned, this is what a tour of those would have looked like. Some brand name, some generic, some completely off the wall. Fun video.
I loved every computer like a member of my family growing up. Unconditionally. Good, bad or just average. It was my computer so I loved it
“That wasn’t mouse poo, that was capacitor poo.” is a quote for the ages 😁
That board was quite the victim of Capacitor Plague...
@@juanignacioaschura9437 my old computer motherboard still works
it even would go with that computer shame i cannot send that to him to restore that other one
That stubborn DVD drive had me audibly cracking up by the end of the clip
The Connector on the Micron Board is for a VRM Module. This is needed if you want to use split-voltage CPU as for example a Pentium-MMX.
Indeed. Anyone looking for info, look up the Intel Pentium Flexible Motherboard Design Guidelines application note AP-579, particularly Appendix A. Also Necroware has a video where he made a replacement VRM module, as part of upgrading a board that didn't support an MMX processor (video ID CMiGVQbMC5U )
The PC at 29:02 is fantastic.
I worked at the " Tatung" company, who produced this PC in 2003.
Also the one of the first models with the Pentium 4 " Hyper Threading" CPU.
Hey, DUUUDE, MAKE SURE TO GET THE DRIVERS FOR THE HDD CONTROLLER! Those Vesa Local BUS Controllers can be freaking fast but ONLY if you install their drivers. Yes, the HDD controllers need drivers if they are VLB and do not have an embedded BIOS on the board (which is the majority of them)
Computer Reset 2.0!
I wish I could've been to Computer Reset. Alas, I'm just too far away.
The Ensoniq AudioPCI was one of the first PCI sound cards and had SB emulation for DOS. Creative bought Ensoniq largely to get their hands on the SB emulation. They used the Ensoniq chip, or revisions of it, to make Creative Ensoniq AudioPCI versions and the SoundBlaster 16 PCI. The emulation software also shows up in the DOS drivers for the SB live. I wouldn't call it a successor to VIBRA as it's not really in the same lineage. It may have eventually gone on to fill that role, especially after the Creative purchase, but it started out as a fairly advanced PCI sound card.
I don't know if this particular version will work but there are Ensoniq AudioPCI drivers for windows 3.1 which is extremely useful if you are trying to run Win 3.1 on a PC with only PCI slots.
Two minor quibbles:
1) I think Creative's motivation wasn't so much for SB emulation, but because they were having trouble coming up with a PCI chipset of their own. So acquiring Ensoniq was mostly to get a finished, working PCI-based sound card on the market before they lost too much ground. DOS compatibility was certainly nice, but at this point, the writing was on the wall: Win 9x's driver abstraction made de-facto chipset standards much less of an issue -- and that was one of Creative's biggest assets in the prior era, so they couldn't afford to fall behind.
2) The Ensoniq card was never really meant to be "advanced" to the best of my knowledge. Ensoniq had released some pretty sophisticated sound cards before this, like the Sound Scape line. (For better or worse.) The Audio PCI line was meant to be a value-driven chipset, and was kind of a darling of the OEM market (which is a lucrative goal for any vendor.) It performed well and had great compatibility, at a low cost and a highly-integrated (read: simple-to-implement) design.
@@nickwallette6201 My understanding, which absolutely could be wrong, was that it was mainly the DOS compatibility they were struggling with. Making a new PCI chipset for sound was easy but making it work with older programs that expected ISA style sound cards was harder.
I mean it was advanced mostly because it was a PCI card. I agree it's not exploding with features and wasn't meant to be. My point was more that it wasn't a cut-down cost-reduced version of something else.
@@wearwolf2500 Hm, I'm having trouble quickly finding a source for that -- I could've sworn it was in the Wikipedia article that Ensoniq had been purchased because they had tried to create their own PCI bus interface and it wasn't going so well.
The Ensoniq purchase was in 1998, which seems a little bit late to be super concerned with legacy DOS compatibility, but I stand to be corrected. I know they ported this feature to the SB Live!, but I bought one shortly after launch and I don't think I ever actually used it in DOS. I had already gone through a SB Pro, a PAS16, and an AWE 32 by then, and pretty much had moved on to 100% Windows and BeOS. Might be my own experience bias though. :-)
Eh, whatever. I guess the important take-away is: It was a nice little card that just works!
Also worth noting that even though the AudioPCI was designed as a low price product, it had very good sound quality and noise floor, especially compared to the competition at the time. The quality noticeably degraded post acquisition with the later revisions beyond the ES1370 chip, unfortunately. It was sad to see how much sales the Vibra got when there was a superior product close to the same price point, without any of the software issues that other non-Creative Labs like the Gravis Ultrasound suffered.
Ensoniq also supported full duplex mode (play and record at the same time) and supported pretty large sound fonts (I think I had an 8mb one back in the day). These were really nice budget cards that did everything, but did it all quite mediocre.
These were the first cards I was able to use with CoolEdit pro. I still have some surviving recordings from my AudioPCI (pre creative) from back in the day.
If I'm not mistaken, the earlier AMD motherboards weren't red because of AMD. Their school color was actually green until they bought ATI. The red solder mask was probably more a trademark of the board manufacturer. Possibly MSI?
Yep! AMD was green colored until they bought up ATI. The red PCBs are a dead giveaway that you are dealing with an MSI or PCChips board.
@@souta95 On graphic cards, red PCB could meant also other manufacturers. Gainward for example.
30:22 DVI-I just means that it's both a DVI-A and DVI-D connector, so it supports both cables.
The Micron case you love so much was used by Dell on a bunch of models like the Dell Dimension 4100 but with a different front panel.
I picked that up too. I think I have one of those Dells at home.
58:25 Those dell computers were ALL over the place! I remembering seeing those EVERYWHERE! At my school, at front desks, at the library, at internet cafés, really everywhere! These made dell a whole bunch of money! Yet i still have to come across one! I would like to have one of those, just for the sake of it! Dell Optiplex something, slow, windows 95/98 computers with a pentium 1/2 in em, really nostalgic machines :) great video! That micron pc is also one of my favorites, glad to see it had some life in it! P166 was a great time to be around! My first pentium 1 machine was a P1 75mhz and i thought that thing was a screamer!
Win2k is still my fav Windows, with 7 on the same place. Also better than NT 4 because it has USB Support, NT lacked. I remember a organisation I interned for faceplanted because they ordered a lot of PDAs with USB cradles/docks for some field work, and they were still running NT4 on all computers.Meaning no body could sync their work. The computers were largely equiped with USB or got expansion cards for it installed. Important people got a upgrade to 2k, less important people got a serial RS232 cradle/dock.
Windows 2000 is the oldest os to support usb 2.0 which was a big deal at the time. Service Pack 4 was needed though.
15:00 - that’s going to be a framebuffer card. I had a Targa+ ISA board like that, but it was full length. Video capture was a ways off yet, and definitely not on a single ISA card (My first NLE system used a mix of EISA and PCI boards in an ALR server system. Five, I think? It used NT 3.51.)
With the Zoran chips it might have MJPEG though. Weird to use that in a PCI system though.
7:57 Where I worked at a telco internal repair shop, a computer came in for repair - it was under warranty, so we offloaded that job back onto the suppliers. When it came back, one of our techs plugged it in for a test - KABOOM! The suppliers had replaced the power supply, trouble was it's power switch wiring was different. Their tech didn't know what to do, so he just left that wiring dangling inside - not connected. When our tech plugged it in, that wiring was sitting ontop of the motherboard, and 240V mains power flashed from the push on spade connectors into some poor IC's on the motherboard......
Needless to say lots of heated discussion ensued, and the suppliers now had to replace the mobo. A rather dangerous and stupid job done by their tech. (our tech didn't initially open it - it's just come back from repair, so just needs a quick test - oops)
Nice look into all those old machines...
Remark to around 21:30: The Ensonique is no Vibra successor per se. Create bought them since they got PCI with SB emulation working (which Creative did not at the time). So it's in fact a chip from another company labelled as "Creative" ;)
ATI FIRE GL were REALLY expensive graphics cards at the time, for reference, the FireGL1 with 8Mb (RAM aside) kicked the Nvidia Riva TNT with 16Mb performance wise, though it did cost 3x or 4x times more. Those cards were made for 3DStudio and Autocad basically.
I see the boxes on the shelf for Rollcage 1 & 2, both are fantastic games, and I've spent countless hours playing them. There are upgrades available for both of these games on the Internet that were programmed by one of the original coders, and the changes made make these games spectacular; but, the upgrades are geared towards more modern systems like Windows XP, and Windows 7.
Regarding the Micron system at the end... That replacement power supply most likely did not include a -5V rail which older ISA slot era machines needed. If the power supply has a missing (white) wire on the motherboard connector, then the unit doesn't have the -5V rail. It's been absent from the ATX spec since around the early 2000s, but there were still quite a few PSUs being built with that rail even up into somewhat recent years. Those units would also be more 3.3V/5V heavy and not so 12V heavy. Maybe that could be part of the issue? If the Insignia power supply doesn't have any dust in it and smells new, that could be another clue. Best Buy switched from Dynex branding to Insignia in recent years on their house brand stuff.
On that beautiful Micron system: That basic case chassis was built like an absolute tank and was used all over the place for a solid decade. I've had several of them with different faceplates, a couple PIII Dell XPS systems, a Motorola StarMax Mac clone and a Micron like yours all come to mind. I've even built a modern sleeper in one of the Dell variants and was able to fit a 120mm fan up front. I think the Micron faceplate is my favorite of the bunch.
Micron collector here, and it warms my heart to see one on here and the love from the community for them. They made great machines in the day.
I remember that blue HP. My dad bought one (or one with an identical case, front IO, and motherboard) new and gave it to me when he upgraded. If I remember correctly, it had both a CD burner and a DVD reader drive. I think that PC came out before the combo DVD/CD burner drives (and obviously before DVD burners). I don't remember using it all that long, but what I do remember using is the firewire to capture DV tape camcorder footage. Yes, it came with XP. And other than the firewire, and media card reader, there wasn't anything special about it compared to other early XP systems.
Ah yes, I had the Celeron version of this.. unfortunately I believe mine only had front USB 2.0, that's it. EDIT: and mine only had PCI slots, absolutely ZERO AGP :(
Then there was this one time I gutted it out and cleaned it out and stuffed modern (for April 2014) hardware inside it and gamed off it for like six years till I rebuilt my Digital DEC PC and initially squeezed a Xeon inside it
17:09 Man, those look identical to my families second computer. It was a little over $2000 for a P3 733mhz and geforce2 mx and a big game bundle. When it was time to upgrade I got it as a hand-me-down as my first personal pc. I was still using it until around 2007.
Man! What a great video. I loved Win2000, what a breath of fresh air it was over 98SE and NT4.
This video is peak nostalgia for me. My first computer was an AOpen in the same case as that jam packed PC with the Gigabyte mobo. The first computer I built was in one of those Antec Super Lanboy cases in the background (still use it). The afterschool program I attended in grade school had a lab full of those PIII Gateway boxes. All the memories.
NT workstation was likely a bank computer, as pretty much all banks by me had exactly those same computers sitting under the counters and bolted under the desks, used to run the bank software, most commonly a terminal emulation through to the mainframe remotely. The teller ones used the serial ports to interface to the cheque reader, and the printer.
With the video card I was betting on a cad station
An hour of nostalgia isn't long enough for me man. Did have a generic P3 Win98 build back in the day which started to hard lock & display green bars on the top of the screen (bad caps I'll bet!). We ended up having the mainboard replaced & they had installed Quake III Arena on the hard drive (neat!). We also had one of those HP P4's which were the last desktops we used before moving to laptops.
Adrian Black has a very early series of videos where he buys a new in box Micron system just like you have here. He explores it inside and out, including all the accessories and bundled software. Might be a good reference if you wanted to build up a collection of appropriate software to install and run on it. His is a Pentium 100, but has the same case and same heatsink, I'd say they were probably on the market at the same time.
I built a sleeper in the exact same case that's at 38:19, now its got a P4 system in it. It appears that Antec made cases with that exact same base chassis into the 2010s. I bought a newer Antec case and the old panels fit right onto it lol.
The E in 650E referred to the Coppermine CPU core.
The earlier Katmai has no letter after the Mhz.
If you see the letter "B" after the Mhz, that indicates a 133Mhz system bus.
Yes! What a memories!
Yep and "A" after early celeron meant 66MHz FSB such as celeron 300a then I think "A" after P4 meant 100MHz FSB (400 in Intel terms).
That DX2 66 in the a open case with the AMI BIOS and the VLB bus looks like the first computer I ever built. I put a DX4-100 in mine but other than that it look so similar. Really bringing back the memories here.
I remember being envious of my friend's 486DX4-100 since it was the first PC I saw that could play MP3s with Winamp without stuttering. My DX2-66 wouldn't cut it.
@@zoomosis hahaha that's amazing! I could only play mp3s in mono without stuttering. I only had some app and windows though. I'm pretty certain to DOS one would have worked great.
@@megan_alnico The computers we had at work in the mid 90s could play them I can't even remember what speed they were (one of my coworkers had a ton and would play them throughout the shift). My home DX2-66 couldn't though.
This is what I love about this channel.
These are the types of computer I grew up disassembling and tinkering with. Brought me back. Great stuff.
The Micron stood out the most to me as well. And it looks like the base case design (except for the front) shares design with the Dell Dimension XPS d300. Looks to be the same mechanism for the side door!
I was almost able to take home an Optiplex GX1 from my high school a while back, but one of the tech guys tossed it before I could arrange transport.
The E suffix on the PIII CPUs usually means it's a 100MHz FSB, the EB suffix is for 133MHz.
E means it's a 0,18 µm Coppermine core.
5:45 perfect candidate for retro brite! As to the missing part, I wonder if 3d printing could help?
2:41 Man..those Dell dimension and Optiplex cases bring back a LOT of memories from my early days in IT!
My Acer Acros has a case very similar to that A-Open case. Same sliding top, same feet that can be moved to make it desktop or tower. It’s a little shorter though as it only has two 5.25 drive bays and the front design has a slightly different aesthetic. Anyway, cool to see a generic case in a similar style to my favorite retro computer I own.
VLB predates PCI by about a year, according to the Wikipedia articles about them.
Yes, that would also have been my thought. I loved 50MHz VLB setups… although most were not stable…
I've had an optical drive do that forced tray open (at around 37:00) if the data cable is disconnected or loose.
Indeed the one I still have and that worried me, lols.
Yes I still use an optical drive for my old disc games and backups.
It's a fancy Blu-Ray ReWriter too which is such a modern optical drive many probably don't even know they exist, lols.
The HP Pavilion case brings back awesome memories for me, I had this exact same case for my new system back in 2005-2006 although mine was AMD Sempron 2800+ ,1.25 GB ram, then i upgraded it to ATI 9600 Pro & better power supply, Great system back then, Just be careful as that power button is quite prone to breaking as the plastic which pushes it back out from pressing obviously gets fatigued over time. :)
The computer at 29:00 I remember my family used to replace there previous HP Pavilion desktop that my 5 y/o brain somehow infected with a million viruses. The only thing they let me play on there was Nabisco World. Then I found out about Roblox, they thought it was a virus lol
That Dell Optiplex desktop form factor PC was one of the PC's i grew up with and I loved it and it was my favorite PC at the time that i had it, ran Windows XP if I recall somewhat decently, with the help from my dad I had it maxed out in terms of specs. I miss that old PC, if i had one it would be a total trip down memory lane for me. Great video! I myself do refurbishing in my spare time of old computers, it also doubles as a hobby, bringing what may seem like a totally dead computer back to life again!
I love office vlogs man !! Shelby please keep them coming ! they are amazing, thanks a lot
On the Ensonique sound card, they were another company the Creative bought out in the late 90s, they were the ones that actually managed to write the pci sb emulator drivers for dos
Oh man, I have three systems I built over 15 years ago! This definitely has motivated me to pull them out if for anything nostalgia!!
It feels like a long time since we've had PC content from you Shelby. Really enjoyed this, more please!
That's an amazing tour around Volgograd and especially the war memorial. Well worth watching.
Can't stop laughing at the DVD tray that refused to go back inside 😄
I assembled probably 10,000+ PCs from 1989 - 2000, then as a hobby currently. What I remember for clone PCs is ISA -> EISA -> VLB -> PCI -> AGP -> PCIe. IBM did some weird stuff with the PS/2 that I didn't pay much attention to but I'm pretty sure IBM had a proprietary bus for a short time. Watching your videos brings back a lot of memories. What an amazing time it was watching the PC evolve and being a bit on the inside during that epic journey.
Sure you did...
The Micron system is a really nice find to be honest and it looks to have pretty nice onboard isa audio that is great for dos (OPL4) if I remember right.
It’s my favourite.
I am a recent subscriber (wish I found you years ago TT) but THIS video is the type of stuff I signed up for!!
Love the work you do TT.
Have a great day!
I'm going to be picking up something like this tomorrow. Around 25 computers. I'm super excited! I was actually scared when I saw this that you had bought the ones that I wanted!
That Micron is a nice system, I have a Millennia XKU that I bought new back in the day. The hard drive mounted vertical to the inside front of the chassis behind where the Micron logo is. Those 2 recessed screw holes in the front steel panel is where the screws go through into the bottom of the hard drive to hold it in place.
Dell used that same chassis as well just with a different front face cover.
About that two color badge that's been "machined into to reveal the white": There's a two-tone acrylic made specifically for that, you can carve into it with a router or engrave it with a laser.
I remember the micron computer, the heatsink was so awesome. You can actually unscrew the blue part off. At least the last one I had could
That's funny when you said there was one PC you had picked out, it was the same as I was thinking, that optiplex, as a IT tech and network admin back in the 90s and early 2000s I've seen and used so many of these, i'd want it too lol. Thanks for the videos, I enjoy.
4:48 1st pc
7:22 2nd pc
12:53 3rd pc
17:10 4th and 5th pc's
29:01 6th pc
33:28 7th pc
38:18 8th pc
42:50 9th pc
45:43 10th pc
49:14 11th pc
I had a Dell optiplex GX1 as a kid (had two of them actually though I broke one, thankfully I got both for free). I'd like to see the GX1 get maxed out if possible to see what a Slot-1 GX1 can do (just sucks they dont have an AGP slot for a faster/better GPU)
I guess we're not going to get a maxed out GX1 eh?
Love to see an Optiplex GX1 show up like that, surprisingly nice prebuilts, really nice to work in - I have a pentium II 450 model with an arrangement of mismatched memory adding up to 384MB and one of the higher-end ATI All-In-Wonder PCI (i believe 128 or 128 Pro, something thereabouts) cards slotted in due to the lack of an exposed AGP slot.
Power supply is on a hinge that folds out to give access to memory and such below, and a good few things like the expansion slot daughterboard are very convenient to pull out.
BIOS settings leave a lot to be desired though, little control over anything like boot order; meaning if you intend to multiboot or otherwise boot any order other than Floppy -> CD -> HDD0, you'll need a software-level bootloader most likely from what i understand.
At 3:50 and other times, Descent II visible on the shelf! Quite possibly my favorite game ever!!
That HP with the bad caps... reminds me of the board of my Compaq DC7600 SFF, from around the same era (slightly newer). It's my main XP machine, can take the last of the Pentium 4s with hyperthreading.
So sad that one looked so well until the caps inspection. Those hp were heavy but quite competent pc for the time.
I had a Pentium era version of that Comp #1 Acer, had the same opening mechanism and such, but mine had horizontal expansion slots on a riser board. Those earlier machines were on the old AT Psu standard so the power switch was actually a latching switch in the ac line... yes the ac came Out of the psu, through the case to a switch then back to the psu.
That Micron heatsink looks like it belongs in the engine bay of Brian O’Connor’s orange Supra. Peak Y2K tuner bling.
Also @techtangents you’re right. That power module port is for a VRM allowing the board to run P55 MMX CPUs as well as the vanilla P54 Pentiums.
I know this because I want one of these VRMs for my S7 board but they’re made of 100% pure unobtanium. Would love to see coverage of one in action if you manage to track one down.
IIRC, that "Newton Power" PSU is actually pretty decent. I bought three different Gateway PCs and got three different PSUs in them. I re-cap every single PSU just as part of its initiation ritual, and I think the Newton Power was built pretty well and had high-quality Japanese caps in it from the factory. It was probably unnecessary to re-cap it, but it gets new caps and a new fan before it ever gets turned on regardless. Worked 100% perfectly after its refurb.
That Diablo PSU, on the other hand, ought to be used to hold down any detritus you have in the bottom of your trash can.
Interesting, i have a Newton Power inside my Mitsubishi Desktop PC, unfortunately it stopped working due to a short on the motherboard, its an NPS-200PB-75-H i think
@@lukedavis436 Ah, yeah, I have an NPS-250-CB left over - I ended up with a spare PSU after all was said and done with the Gateway spree. I haven't re-capped this one yet, but I had planned to make it a test bench supply.
Kinda surprised a motherboard issue killed a PSU. They're normally pretty robust when faced with over-current situations, but not all supplies have OCP on all the rails. Sometimes just the +12 and +5, or something like that.
@@nickwallette6201 yep it's upsetting but I'm going to send it off to somone professional to repair
I remember using Windows NT (3.x and later 4). It was very stable and reliable, but most games wouldn't run. Because at that time, games often wanted direct hardware access which NT prevented (part of the reason why it was so stable). So I had a dual-boot configuration with NT for the serious work stuff, and a DOS/Win9X partition for gaming.
Similar to what I have today, actually, only now it's Linux for work (and some games), and Win10 as my gameloader for the stuff that doesn't run under Linux.
26:07 "I wanted to see that AS NT" not the words I would have spoken in the day lol...
98 with USB support was a godsend.
22:12 I loved the build video on the tiny p4 system!
I would be so excited to find old systems like these. brings back lots of 90s memories!
The Impacta that kept opening it's disc tray gave me a good chuckle.
Man, what a trip down memory lane. Not only did I have that exact OptiPlex I bought from a school and several essentially identical to those otherbeige boxes, but back in the day I had me that same silver Antec Super LAN boy case on the desk behind you at the beginning! Had me an Athlon 64 in it, was an exciting time thinking about moving up from 32-bit. It originally came with Antec branded carry straps you could wrap around it so it was (supposedly lol) easier to take to LAN parties. Hope you managed to snag them too - it was half the selling point!
Coppermine used E and EB to denote which core stepping was used. :)
Some Catmai had a B (first-gen p3) and I believe Tualatin had an S model.
I really liked the last PC as much as you did. It has strong 90's Dell Dimension vibes, and I always thought those were sexy machines for being from the beige box era.
Holy shit, I had no idea you are in AZ. i see a Micron system there, I have a Pentium Pro system from Micron.
I think he said that he was in AZ in one of the moving in videos because he said the place had a flat roof and it rarely rains
I was a little disappointed you didn't go into the bios in the AMD. I wanted to see if it indeed was a sempron and if so what version. I slightly remember the KM400 chipset. I remember the kt series more. I want to say it was the ddr era. Maybe fsb 333 or 400? So ddr pc2700 or pc3200. I can't quite remember when semprons became a thing and replaced the durons. Maybe it was around that time frame?
An ISA video capture card! Supposedly goes with something called Video Movie Editor, from around 1997ish. Oh, I'd love to see something like that in action.
AOpen was a division of Acer dedicated to Business Computer parts.
The manufacturing arm was spun off as Wistron Corporation, and AOpen was transferred. Acer only kept its designer division, ALi (which also comprised ULi, the latter bought by nVIDIA in 2006).
Nowadays AOpen only manages Acer's B2B Channel.
Convoluted, I know...
You should take all the parts from all these systems and reorganize them into the best versions of each generation you can come up with.
In a lineup like this, the Socket 3 486 will always be the favorite of mine. That first case is cool though and a good candidate for a 486 build that would double as a desktop or a tower depending on your desk situation.
I had a few of those Gateway machines when I was a kid. I miss them. I had a GP7-450 with ME, a smaller case that said Professional and one that said Essential.
I have that same Micron heatsink. You twist it to tighten and loosen it.
You've got great taste. I've got a Micron Millennia in my collection, and it's one of my favorites.
I think VLB was a little earlier to market than PCI because I had one and specifically remember the flamewars between people like me who did not hold out for PCI and those determined to skip VLB for PCI. And they lasted until VLB died rather quickly after PCI penetrated the consumer market. 😅 At least that is how I remember it anyway.
VLB appeared in 1992 and could only work on 486 machines since Pentium CPUs weren't VLB compatible. The first Pentiums with PCI were released only a year later. VLB essentially survived until new 486 PCs were no longer sold - probably around 1996.
@@zoomosis actually, there were Pentium boards with some sort of bridge chip to make VLB work with the Pentium architecture, but I think they subsequently did not have PCI then. The root of the VLB vs PCI thing was of course also the 486 vs Pentium thing - The first iteration of the Pentium being slower than the fastest 486 in games primarily and the Pentium Bug (tm) didnt help the cause to move on to 586 right away for many folk. So, there was also that flamewar potential on the processor side. Interesting times they were indeed.
@@Ganiscol Yes, and Pentiums cost much more.
The FDIV bug was unfortunate. It only affected floating point math, so mostly spreadsheet and CAD programs and not system software or games. There were software patches and workarounds but all of that didn't instill confidence in the new CPU.
VLB was always meant to be a stop-gap solution. It provided AN answer to the inadequate 16-bit, 8MHz ISA bus so high-performance 486 computers could push data into the video frame buffer at a decent pace while the whole PCI thing was getting ironed out.
VLB wasn't perfect, but it didn't need to be. It was a quick and dirty way to achieve a high-speed, 32-bit bus to get the job done, and it made VGA gaming and snappy desktop graphics possible during the entire 486 generation of PCs. If you have ever used a PCI board from the (late) 486 era (or first-gen Pentium era), you can really tell it was a work in progress.
That 2nd system (first one with a MB) is an awful lot like my first PC I had, which was a Leading Edge 486 DX2/66. May be the same board, because the layout looks almost identical! Only difference I spotted was that yours had 72-pin memory slots along with the 30 pin where as mine was just the 30 pin variety. I had VLB on it, with the same VLB VGA and IO boards too. Mine came with a Soundblaster card which was also VLB and had a connector for the proprietary CD-ROM drive that required it.
The second computer, I had exactly that case with exactly that motherboard in it! Mine had a DX-33 and 16 meg of ram and I played a LOT of DOS games on that thing.
I have a Pavilion a610n which looks largely the same as that a250n (Excepting mine has no floppy drive). It has an Athlon XP and 2GB RAM, and I put my AIW 9000 into it and upgraded the heatsink to a Hyper T12 I had lying around, once I found the AMD Bracket. I got it for I think 5.99 at value village (What Savers is called in Canada, as I understand). It's been a great source of random computer stuff. Stack of 3 thinkpads in one visit (T41, L510, and SL420), A Digital PC 3000 (Pentium 166 machine) in perfect shape. Oh, also a brand new Acer Nitro 5 (10300U, GTX 150Ti, 8GB DDR4 and 512GB NVMe) that they only wanted 7 dollars for for some reason.
I would assume the reason why they have a 3.5" bay up there is so you can have a 3.5" floppy drive right next to your 5.25" drive, so your ribbon cable will reach both. Otherwise you'd need to put the 5.25" drive in the bottom slot. DVI-I is for "Integrated" and is because you'd also see purely digital DVI-D cables, and also the extremely rare DVI-A, which i've only seen once and it was on the back of a bizarre Eizo monitor, it was hooked up to a PC's VGA output and then it had a DVI-A port for the input.
42:53 I have the slightly newer version of that case in black from my second computer build, from IIRC 2004.
that acid house track brings back memories....
That 1st motherboard looks like it might match the one LGR used when he originally built the woodgrain 486
Thanks for the 4K option - The video and sound are A1.
The creative/ensoniq pci soundcard is an audiopci 64 or whatever they called those over the years. The creative drivers awe awful. But if you use the drivers that emulate ensoniq soundscape its alright.
I use that with a Voodoo 3 3000 pci which both were free from my high school back in 17.
I added them to an hp pavilion with a celeron 667.
6:00 AOpen was a subsidiary of Acer, so no real surprise there.
ooo, i'm bored at work and youtube finds a little treasure like this. nice
what a nostalgia trip,also its funny to see how computers was noisy so they had as little ventilation as possible to dampen the sound instead of cooling haha
I ran across a great server for old versions of Windows and Mac OS . It is called RetroNAS. It runs on Pi OS or Debian 11. It has things enabled to older versions of Windows and even DOS. RetroNAS runs FTP Telnet and other insecure services, so it is not secure enough for public Internet access or general use. It runs the DFS, Distributed File System, server for DOS systems. DFS allows DOS machines to access disk space on Linux. The Dos box needs only a network card and a packet driver. The DFS client does not need a full network stack on the DOS side. It can also store files for gaming consoles. Good luck.
That computer case in beige at the end of your video in the middle that had that inter green logo, I have that exact same chassis I bought it probably about 10 years back except instead of being beige mine is Black and the front of it where the power button is that part of its Gray and that case is actually made by Rosewill. It's not a bad case it's just not a heavy gauge metal case that's why when you picked it up you said it felt like the lightest computer you've ever picked up.
I love those old Optiplexes. I have a GX300 tower with a 600mhz PIII
Edit: My GX300 has the same connector as that Micron. It's for an add in VRM.
So much beige and sillion! Gotta love the sight