Vintage computer haul from this weekend's hunt! Let's see if we can get them working!
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
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These are the results of this weekend's yard sale and thrift store expedition: Computers from the Y2K era! Let's take them apart and see if we can get them working!
0:00 Intro
0:33 System 1
18:47 System 2
27:52 System 3
42:33 MS Keyboard
45:42 Outro
I'm so glad I found this channel! Love going down the memory lane, to simpler times.
Came for the gun show, stayed for the tech talk
Can't decide what's sexier, the host or the tech! 😀
@@marcberm The host! I mean, hot damn...
Same 😅 He knew what he was doing when he made that thumbnail haha
Exactly
i usually re-watch certain parts of his videos 😉
Dude, I just want to say, I love your rainbow watch!!! Sweet dude, SWEET!!!
It's fascinating to me to see all these old computers and their programs even though I lived through their era lol.
They remind me of a simpler time. 🙂
@@miketech1024 Ah yes, but a noisier time, an error-prone time, a dead spider time, a 'I won't boot til you give me what I want, and even then I still won't boot' time. 🙂
@@miketech1024but was an interesting time too! Even peripherals like mice and keyboard selections were great.
CZcams recommended your channel to me. From the quality of the content I assumed you had a few hundred thousand subs like most channels youtube recommends. After you mentioned about the sudden growth, I checked your subs and was shocked you had less rhan 2k...
Your channel will grow substantially. Trust me. Very interesting content (for the retro nerds like me) and well executed.
Thank you so much! It’s crazy to think that less than two weeks ago I had under 200 subscribers. Now I’m closing in on 2000! Needless to say I’ve been feeling like I’m on top of the world lately! 🙂
He is very very awesome, as are his videos, which, while very good to start with keep getting better and better each time!
Hey Mike, been liking your videos, keep up the good work! Had a couple suggestions, hope you don't mind.
1) I don't know if you've heard, but there's increasing doubt around what's really going on with the retrobrite process, and a lot of people now believe that it causes irreversible damage and plastic embrittlement. I think on something like a CD ROM faceplate it really doesn't matter (it's not like it's likely to get much pressure put on it, and they're far from irreplaceable) but there's a good chance it could actually bleach away the printing. If your channel starts really popping off - here's hoping - you'll probably get people in your comments being very negative if you don't include some kind of disclaimer that it's not necessarily recommended for all applications anymore.
2) regarding that first ATX power supply, usually when I see dead supplies, it's just 0 volts across the board, so I wonder if that one is old enough that it won't bring up the voltage rails until it has a load on it. That's more common with even older supplies, but it's always worth checking before discarding a PSU - keep a couple unimportant hard drives or a motherboard you don't care much about, and plug them in just to give it some load and you'll get a more accurate test.
keep rockin!
Thanks so much! I definitely have much research to do on the retrobrite process. In the back of my mind I was kind of suspicious of it, especially with regard to decals. I appreciate the heads-up!
I had forgotten that some older PSUs did load-sensing. Just tried the PSU with a deceased (yet still current-hungry) hard drive connected, but no such luck. Maybe I’ll do a ‘deep dive into a troubled power supply’ video and explore what’s going on at the circuit-level. I should spring for an actual power supply tester to do proper cromulence checks in the future.
Thanks for all the info!
Can't say I've seen an ATX power supply that required a load to start. A bigger problem I have been having with some mid-00s Seasonic (Antec branded) units is that they lose the ability to power themselves on from a motherboard. +5VSB seems to be working fine, but may be weak enough to not be able to drive the relay that triggers the PS_ON pin.
If the machine is of any value, I would try and find a newer unit. These machines don't have ISA bus slots so the lack of -5V power is a non-issue. Just be mindful of the +5V rail rating. Pre-P4 machines relied far more on +5V to drive devices and the CPU.
Hey there! On the matter of retrobrite and similar techniques to remove yellowing from plastics, I will say that some of these concerns have been around for quite a while, but I think those concerns may have grown louder. I'm coming at it from a toy-collecting angle, since yellowing plastics are a major issue to collectors of vintage toys, and some people have reported that issues with embrittlement, and others have reported that they rapidly start to yellow again. I haven't looked into it for 3 or 4 years, but the concerns that were voiced at the time were enough to put me off the idea.
Hey Mike / Gravis!
I’ve done some research on whitening some of the old PC Cases that I’ve got here, Found something called “CARA White” here in the UK & it’s also used in the Caravan / Camping industry over here, I’ve whitened a few Cases now and have had some pretty decent results but it’s a bit early to tell if if has caused irreparable damage as I did it to mine back in 2020 during Lockdown but I’ve not had any problems so far,
Ah so that’s where he got the idea using the Hard Drives as a Load for when he’s Testing the PSUs! 🙂🇬🇧
I had to Chuckle at: 44:57 “In a Holiday TupperWare Container that I definitely didn’t forget to return to my Mum’s House!” 😂🇬🇧
I worked at Gateway during the Windows 98/Me era, these cases were our best. Every employee wanted to get one of these for themselves because they were so nice to work on. I hope it survives and cleans up well. CDROM 'bus' connector is 40-pin, which implies it is standard IDE. 'metal support bars from the keycaps', these are called 'stabilizers', or as the cool kids call them, 'stabs'.
I am a major fan of these cases, there were only two drawbacks, one was the power supply opening, if the internal ps died there wasn't an easy way to just get a standard one and put it in there, same with the motherboard, usually a dremel had to be involved. otherwise these could be really cool sleeper builds.
Unlike the other Gateway case of the time period that had the power button that always broke and fell into the case.
Matsushita used a proprietary 40 pin bus back in the early 90's. The connector is physically but not electronically compatible with IDE. Those early Creative drives were often rebranded Matsushitas.
@@robert1975031 Their earlier mATX minitowers at least used standard SFX PSUs, they were just put in the dumbest spot imaginable right above the mainboard blocking any kind of easy access without removing said PSU, if you had, say, an Essential 433c kicking around whose hard drive died, you could stick a modern mATX mainboard and SFX PSU in there and have a decent sleeper build. I would see about modding the front of the case to take a 120mm fan though so that something like a P12 redux-1700 PWM fan could be installed to compensate for the relative lack of front air intake on that case, and IIRC the exhaust can be a 92mm on that case design.
so you see how gateway fuck up amiga division first hand
The thumb screw in the middle of the gateway motherboard is in fact stock. And is also the only securing screw. The rest of the standoffs are threaded brass pegs that connect to slots cut into the motherboard mounting panel. You remove the thumbscrew then the whole motherboard slides to the side away from the back panel and lifts out.
Garage sales "expeditions" ! Well done Sir ! Nothing like to go out there into the wild in search of prized game !
My first introduction to computers came via "Lost In Space" re-runs(original air dates: 1965-68) via the Robot and on-board computers. These videos "compute"! Thanks!
I love watching you encountering the different 8 legged murder bugs. Thanks, Mike, your channel is really entertaining!
Thanks!!
Watched some of the videos I missed back to back for about 3 hours I literal couldn’t get up to make a drink glued to it
Love your stuff
Dave
London uk
14:30
"WE HAVE TO GO BACK" - Jack Shepard 😁
Wow, this video really takes me back! In the early 2000s I had a paying hobby of buying machines like these, refurbishing them, and (occasionally) selling them. The ones I was getting were mostly Pentium IIs (remember the old single-edge stand-up processors?). My prize find is a K-Mart branded "Blue Light Special" tower, which I still have. Oh, and the one I found with a bird nest inside, where the power supply had been left out!
Nice! I was doing the same thing in the early 2000s, mostly with laptops. I had to lie to eBay to get the account because I was only 12 years old lol. I still use that same account! Wow! If I came across a Blue Light Special tower, I just might need medical attention! 🤣
I really appreciate your kind efforts in making such informative content, you clearly have the intelligence and tenacity for working with vintage computers . God Bless you Sir
Thank you so much!!
LOVE your watch's background! The Flag!
Definitely an old person computer after seeing that AOL favorites lol
Love these time capsule PC's and how the memories come flooding back, of things not seen , or used in years, like AOL etc.. what a trip!! and no nicotine glaze on, or in them lol
the keyboard is fantastic
Those hinge cracks were very common on Acer laptops, they would progress until the screen broke off of the hinges because the hinges did not continue further up the screen. i'm guessing the Gateway brand is constructed the same.
I'm glad you can appreciate a crunchy hard drive, often feel like I'm alone in that sentiment!
My god you're gorgeous! Nothing like a hot guy and old tech 😍
Keep the videos coming
Your videos are very interesting. They actually help calm my anxiety lol. Keep creating such great content ❤️ It's fun for me to learn something new.
I hear you on the anxiety! Same problem with me due to some serious health issues I have. The videos help me too and often can push me into getting involved into my PC and electronics interests once again when my health allows. Be well yourself and feel better! 👍👍❤❤
Who could forget, “Dude! You’re getting a Dell!”
you have much better luck than I have. I've been looking at thrifts and yard sales for a year and haven't found any computers
Just stumbled across this channel purely by accident and am SO glad I did! Everything is explained really clearly and some of the gear brings back some good memories from my past tech years.
Mike is also super hot, so that’s a bonus! 😜
Glad you remembered the most important thing to have while cleaning the keyboard, a purple rubber duck.
The windows start-up sound brought back a LOT of memories.
I remember those days and evenings with older era PC's. I really like your fantastic videos keep up the excellent work.
Thanks!
Aahhh I’m use to my Tupperware and utensils being sacrificed.😂
That travelstar HDD and the floppy drive in the gateway laptop sound very similar to the old Sony Vaio FX-220 that i owned before. So much memory man.
Refreshing to see vintage computer enthusiasts who actually know how to use Linux. Also I'm glad to know I'm not crazy for saying Dells are the easiest machines to service. Their laptops even today are way easier than the rest, the bottom cover pops up automatically. My time at Geek Squad last year made me go from hating Dell to recommending them to others. I remember when they used to suck in the mid 2000s.
45:17 the duck! 🤣
AOL was a real burst of nostalgia. The Windows XP / AOL 7.0 days were iconic.
Now I wanna play some Slingo! 🤣
That AOL part was, as the Clash would've said, a letter forwarded from Hell.
YT algrorythm brought me here. Your channel is nice. Fun to watch. I am 53. Had similar PC's back in the day. Threw away so many after I just said "Hell with it" and just bought a new one. Now that I can build my own today? Looking back then, I probably could had saved myself some money back in those days and they lasted me much longer! LOL And yeah, Anytime you throw stuff away, Make sure you purge all that stuff out people!! LOL
Like the cool stuff you find it’s really cool to geek on retro tech
i enjoyed watching your video, brought back many memories
Those old desktops sure are a product of their eras.
I have the Dell Demension L866R in storage, great Family PC. 20 years ago and still have all the restore discs. Made changes and additions to the machine: CD burner, usb 2.0 card, 80 GB hdd, 256 MB ram, external DVD burner, ethernet card.
Nice! Those restore discs can be quite hard to find. I always upload ISO images of them to Archive.org whenever I find them.
That's a lot of hard drive spice. My hard drive in my mid-2000s computer was of 88 Gb.
I have a Microsoft keyboard just like that on my in my office at work, still working perfectly.
I also used to have a dell system just like that one back in the day. I recall having Windows 2000 on it, though I remember it starting with Windows 98 or something.
I have an old dell laptop tucked away for about 4 years now. Last time I booted it, it worked fine it has wifi internet floppy and battery. It's a pentium 3 512 gb ram 40 gb hdd win 2000 last time I powered it up it still worked perfectly even the battery.
Happy belated birthday!
Keep up the good work, nice to see the old machines again i used to work a lot with these in my early tech days!
28:08 Dude! I got a Dell too! A dark grey and green accented P4 clamshell from like 1998, or thereabouts! The really classic one that everybody's mom had! I can't wait to turn it into a gaming powerhouse!
One tip, always hold fan when u blow dust out because you can destroy beaings if you spin it too fast, and that old fans are even more prone to go bad. I like your chanel, i also repair and colect old computes from pentium era and it`s nice to see someone else gives them love not just to 8 bit machines :)
Yeah I held it in place, but I cut the footage because I thought the sound would annoy people. This is my favorite era of computing!
i have a feeling you'd be a dope friend i could talk about tech stuff without boring you to death xD
Most older PC power supplies require a load in order to start up.
It does appear this PSU is trying to sense a load. However, I later tried using a few sacrificial hard drives with no success. I’ll likely do a ‘deep dive into a troubled PSU’ video to see what’s going on at the circuit-level. Love your channel BTW! It’s one of my favorites!
love these videos Mike, calming and cool
The GoBack utility from Norton was a fantastic tool back in the day that allowed you to roll a disk image back to a previous state. For instance, if you installed the new driver or update and it goofed up Windows to the point it would not boot. The GoBack would revert the drive back to its previous state.
3:25 the insect carcasses make it a collector's item.
19:00 well, if you were as cute, excited and jumpy as in the Commodore video, I'd have sold the laptop for 15 bucks 🙂
33:09 weird, proprietary whatchamacallit in a Dell? Well. That's a first (!)
34:03 hah we both said "... ooh" at the exact same time.
Windows ME, what a gem :D
Obviously you don't want to damage anything but it is so much easier to work on when you don't really care if something goes wrong . I remember the first card I ever installed was creative labs sound blaster. very basic sound card .Opening my PC case I could feel sweat running down my back , and when it 'snapped' into place I think I fainted. Running the test audio Professor Sabato (?) and the parrot , I was never so glad to hear "Hello There "
I know this is an older video, but my brother used to own a Gateway tower that looked identical the first one. I can’t remember the specs of it, but I believe it was a P3 as well and came with WinMe. The power supply failed on his as well, except it was within a few years of it being new. Thankfully it didn’t take anything with it, so he just plopped a new PSU in it and kept using it.
Good stuff! I especially like your editing. You speed up or skip the time consuming tasks and GET RIGHT TO THE POINT! I'm sure it takes some time to do tihs and is MUCH APPRECIATED!
New subscriber here. I agree with the sentiment here that your channel will grow quickly.
I am 54, and started in computers with my younger brother's Commodore Vic-20 in about 1981. My first computer was a Timex-Sinclair 1000 a year or two later, but I didn't get my first "PC" until late 1994 when my brother gave me his no longer used 386DX25 clone. Never looked back!
I am increasingly sorry that I gave away my large pile of 1990s era PC hardware, about 10+ years ago.
Thanks! Yeah I wish I still owned even 25% of the stuff I had as a kid! So much early IBM PC stuff… Now it’s all SO expensive! Hurts to think about.
I love those Microsoft keyboards, I found a NOS about a year ago for less than $20, I was probably more excited than I should have been but whatever. great video as usual.
2:11 I thought it was coming back to life
I just found my mom's old PC from the late-90's in the garage the other day... I cannot wait to restore it. It's a Pionex brand PC which I know for a fact she bought off of QVC or HSN lol, and I guess some crypto company is now using that name so it's almost impossible to find any documentation on it.
I live for niche systems like that! What are the specs?
@@miketech1024 basically on-board everything except a soundcard and ethernet card which looks like something I might've done back in the... it's a Pentium III system (probably 600Mhz and also the mobo has a separate PGA370 socket) with one 256MB RAM module jumpered for 100MHz FSB. No hard drive (not sure what happened there) and a CD-ROM which I'm guessing is probably a 40X and apparently also has a PCI express slot! I haven't taken it apart completely yet because the plastic on the case is SUPER fragile plus I need to grab some compressed air for it first to give it a good cleaning.
@@livefreeprintguns buy a cheap little compressor , no need to buy air in a can again .
Keep up the amazing work man
Great work man!
Dude, you're a fn wizard
A good haul!👍👍
Just found your channel and I'm enjoying it a lot. My son has resurrected my interest in older computers with his fascination with what he calls "vintage tech". Yeah that hurt a little.
Just wait ‘til they start calling them ‘antiques’. 😅
i find vacuum tube tech
antique
funny thing is crt's have been in use for so long people have forgotten that they are basically glow in the dark vacuum tubes with lasers
i have 2 but one doesn't work though i wish it did and the other is a black and white 4 inch mini antenna tv that i had to figure out how to connect a video signal through a 3.5mm socket
turns out there is something you can buy called a "active modulator" that allows you to basically run a local television station over the airwaves
the way i used it was i connected it to my computer and my "tv show" is just my screen print out
unfortunately the screen is falling, running, flickering, basically i think its sending its data and thinking its a bigger screen
but if i adjust it i can make fly by so fast that it acts as one of those eye illusions making it slowly move the signal down letting me read it
i don't know how to fix it
when i first obtained it i had the idea that i could rewire it and like hook up a composite socket to the tv so i wouldn't need to do that rigamaral to get a picture
but i have no idea what i was looking at and don't know if my idea was actually viable
i thought that if i gave it a internal modulator it could percive the signal and draw it correctly with the electron gun
but i don't know how the frick that tiny tv even works
considering it's also a radio
Really nice laptop find for only 20 bucks.
Cool video. I remember those days. Thank you.
man, I would have done anything to have this gateway laptop when I was 12, I remember one time watching my cousin play rogue spear on his laptop his parents got him while we were driving and I thought it was the most crazy thing ever to be able to play games on a computer that was totally mobile.
Love your videos. Very interesting to watch and love your commentary.
I really enjoy watching your channel, it brings back a lot of memories. Thanks for sharing with us.
37:00 the procedure for fixing this, back in the day, was usually to do a recovery boot from a win2k cd. Run chkdsk and the usual round of MBR / bootloader fixes from there. It's likely that an IBD blue screen is due to a messed up boot sector.
If I remember correctly, and I'm probably wrong haha, but I faintly remember being able to use a windows XP install disc to repair win2k boot sector.
Good to know the gateway can handle the web no problem 😆 I have one of those dells I picked up at a thrift store some time ago but it’s missing the side panel unfortunately. It did have the matching crt but I passed it on to an old friend who was hunting for years for one but couldn’t find one locally. Hopefully I can figure out a solution to make a side panel or something.
FYI compressed air will not cause any static issues on a mainboard. Not sure why you think it would be an issue. Just unplug any fans before blowing them off with compressed air to prevent your fans from becoming a generator if you do blast them with air. In the 30+ years I have been tinkering (including a number of years as a sys admin) not once have I had a board get killed by compressed air.
Cheers!
I miss those internet keyboards. Especially the ones with media playback buttons on them. AFAIK the extended keyboard API is still supported in both Windows and Linux, it's a shame it's not well used anymore
Subscribed. What fantastic breakdowns these are. Haven't finished watching yet (videos are long), but will keep coming back.
Really enjoyed the knowledge you shared on the CLI and shell scripting in Linux.
Hey! Looking forward to meeting you. Can't wait to see what you fixup!
First of all, it's worth noting how hot you are, and secondly, your videos are truly relaxing while also evoking a nostalgia for a good time when I fell in love with computers. If there was a career as a PC archaeologist, I would definitely apply for a position.
I love the channel, please keep uploading videos.
Thanks!! Yeah these systems take me right back to a simpler time. 🙂
just found this channel and love these types of videos.. i was never around when those computers were new an up to date but i love retro things like this! keep up the good work man your videos and explanation of these things are awesome
Thanks so much!
Awesome finds! I had an L series many years ago that I got second hand with all the manuals and documentation. Came in a big box, it was quite a treat to go through.
quality for pc sleeper🤩🤩🤩🤩
Love your channel. Old tech brings back memories. I used to tinker alot when I was a kid too.. New sub 🌈
I remember when I disassembled my old PC. My harddrive had failed. I took it completely apart, took the platters and FULLY annihilated them. So many scratches and dents and holes punched into them. I took the parts to bestbuy to get recycled and they said "I think you did too much for us to recycle that. Just throw it away."
I came across a Solo 5300 recently as well! Needed a little work but got it all fixed up and in the hands of a new owner who was eager to do some retro gaming! Really liking your Channel, learning a lot! Subscribed.
17:14 we need spindle HDD ASMR videos
Cool man. I'm always on the hunt for vintage computers. Last weekend I picked up a Gateway KTH 300L Mini ATX system. Original install of Window 98SE for 15 bux. It's almost mint. Gonna be hunting this weekend again like usual.
Dont plug that creative drive directly into standard IDE! youll fry it. its non-standard. I had that EXACT drive when I was a kid, and tried to use it with ordinary IDE one time when i upgraded my system. it did not end well.
Thanks so much for the warning! I really hope it wasn’t powered on the way it was configured in this tower.
Very nice. I actually have the exact same motherboard as the one in the Gateway tower, I use it as my test bench for various P3 era hardware (CPUs, memory, PCI cards etc). It's nice that it has its onboard video so if I test something else I don't need to plug in a VGA card, but I can also use it for testing AGP and PCI video cards if I want to.
The right side bar in windows ME on the first PC was the MS office toolbar had completely forgotten about it, it was optional during installation MS office 97 - 2003 ish, not seen that for a while.
Awesome videos! I live for this stuff, I wish I could come across some of these PC to tinker with. Please keep up with the quality content!
Thanks so much!!
I have that Gateway, the case is so annoying to deal with because of that weird slot thing and the way the drives get stuck in the bays. Maybe I’ll get a new case for mine at some point since it’s in rough condition anyway, although I like the way it looks.
Awesome videos. I'm still catching up!
I enjoy watching you. Your comments make me laugh, specialty when you said just looking at that CPU makes me sneeze. lol I used to build those computers and I have a lot of old computer parts most work some don't would you be interested in them for free?
Most definitely! I'm always in need of components. Can you send me an email? You can find the address in the channel about page under Business Inquiry. Thanks!
Whenever I get a vintage pc, I always keep the o/s install that's on it (when possible) for authenticity's sake, and just delete any personal info that's on it. I suppose if someone else got ahold of the computer they could find a way to recover those files, but the chances of that actually happening is very, very slim
Yeah I like to keep the original OS whenever possible. Yes it’s trivially easy to recover deleted files. When the OS deletes a file, it’s really only deleting the file header and marking the allocated space as safe to overwrite. On systems which I have no recovery image for, I’ll either use a file-shredding utility to get rid of user data, or I’ll simply delete the files and then fill the entire disk with data. That causes the OS to overwrite the contents of the deleted files.
Just discovered your channel. Great work!
Thanks!
"...this being win 9x, we don't need passwords..." Well spoken! LOL
Also, begging will do you no good. People will never stop dumping their machines and leaving their (documents) in place.
Pretty Nice!
When I get an old IBM Compatible computer, I first try to rescue the pron, then the MP3's and the stored books, next is looking for remnants of bitcoin. Luckily the passwords only protect Windows™ from starting up and not the data. Weird pron they had in those days, elderly women dressed as schoolgirls, it smells even dusty.
the motherboard thumbscrew is original to the gateways of that era. have had quite a few of those. my RDRAM gateway uses the exact same case and has that. though it is odd why it was there. in some of my gateways it's the only screw, with the others being pins, with which you could slide the board back and out once that thumbscrew was removed. the SB cd rom drive was made to be used with the SB16 and the sound blaster pro sound card, which is why it's so sought after. had one for a while until it quit :(
That was cool, reminded me of my first computer, a 486 dx with TURBO....In those days I thought playing Rebel Assault was as close as it gets to the movies 😁