AT&T Globalyst 515 restoration - from boring office box to retro 486 gaming PC

Music by Model Povedeniya
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[@Kedvespatikus]

Just a reflection to the title: no 486 is boring. Each of them have their own history. Nice video though, thank you for it!

[@necro_ware]

:D You are right!

[@mikepersechino9873]

Thank you so much!!! This exact model was my first computer! My dad worked for AT&T and he brought it home some time in the mid-90's. You brought back so many wonderful memories!

[@ismail3404]

Of the many computer restoration channels, only you can be enjoyed and full of techniques

[@JorgeCarvalho_web_dev]

Great restoration and top walkthrough from system specs. The final result was top notch! it will bring you several years of good old retro-gaming. The final result of the keyboard was fantastic. It looks like new. +1 vote for a new sticker :) The onboard GFX is great! AT&T really built an awesome machine.

[@necro_ware]

Thank you Jorge, glad you liked it! :D

[@MrWarneet]

The old ones made by giant companies are always works of art and engineering excellence...

[@necro_ware]

That's true and it make a lot more fun to open a non standard PC today and see what kind of different solutions existed.

[@ms-dosman7722]

That orange power switch really gives this otherwise generic pc a cool vibe. If you can track down that specific colour you could paint some more small details, like the disc drive eject button. I bet that would look really cool.

[@RetroSpector78]

Lovely little PC. Got myself 2 Globalyst 575 machines (486dx2 66). Looking forward to restoring them also.

[@necro_ware]

Yes, I really like those kind of desktop machines. I don't know why, since all of my PCs back then were towers, I love such desktop design the most :) That's why I am so proud of my latest PC build video. I don't know, if you saw the two parts video, but I just love how it turned out. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oGLLeJimjMdppLs

[@RetroSpector78]

@@necro_ware i like the orange/red power button

[@Jerkwad152]

I yelled "NO!" when you plunked the board into the water, and I saw the BIOS battery still hooked up, haha

[@necro_ware]

Don't do it at home ;)

[@Lachlant1984]

That's the kind of retro gaming PC I would like to have.

[@Raul_Gajadhar]

I have almost that same exact case minus AT&T label and side switch. It is an OEM machine with on-board L2 cache, same chipset, but it has the blue socket with "Intel overdrive ready" written on it I don't remember CPU type off hand right now. I used it with win98 to do office work till 2004, Office XP worked great on it.

[@Vector_Ze]

My very first computer after Amigas was an AT&T Globalyst!

[@msthalamus2172]

I just picked up a Tandy 3100 Model 20, which is a very similar machine in specs and form factor. I'm looking forward to sprucing mine up as you did yours. Thanks for the video!

[@cd-lf8xm]

Nice pickup with the onboard VLB. The best part is you don’t have the giant card taking up all the space 👍

[@necro_ware]

Yes, especially the CL-GD5429 is one of the fastest VLB cards, it's nice to have it there

[@LeinaDZiur]

What a lovely computer! Great video and commentary too. I would have removed the floppy drive for the L2, tho =B

[@BadManiac]

Love the simple, plain looking caes for all my retro PCs, this one is perfect, boring non-descript beige box. And Doom runs surprisingly well, I have to say, you need to get up to around DX4-100 with L2 cache to reach the 35FPS cap. But in the video it looked very playable on the DX2-66, so the onboard video card must be pretty quick.

[@necro_ware]

Yes, everything what Cirrus Logic made for ISA and VLB after they bought Acumos was very decent. For ISA they made even the best cards, just as fast as Tseng ET4000, but with better compatibility. And for VLB, only S3 was a tiny bit faster. Thanks to outstanding technology of Acumos, Cirrus Logic became a big player at that time, but they died as soon as Acumos technology came into ages. For me it's a sign, that Acumos was a great company and Cirrus Logic was a shitty giant, which unfortunately killed Acumos in the end :(

[@j.l.gonzalez8918]

I got an NCR 3231 which is 95% identical to your machine. Fortunately it came with the 256MB cache memory (one of the main reasons I got it). That, along with the 66Mhz CPU upgrade and the 20MB total RAM makes a fantastic 486 machine. One of the differences with yours is the two ZIP available free sockets to add 512KB VRAM modules, to make 2MB total VRAM memory but they seem to be difficult to find.

[@clintthompson4100]

Hey Necroware I really enjoyed the the retro restore of the AT&T machine. Another computer saved from the E-waste jaws. Nice the PSU was the standard AT shape and power connection. I have an old HP Vectra VL2 4/50se that I need to do some work on restoring but life tends to get in the way. The worst part is the power supply is as long as the case itself(proprietary design) and it has its own special proprietary power connection and the video memory upgrade(from 512K to 1MB) is also the same way and its impossible to find. Again great restore and thanks for the upload.

[@necro_ware]

Thank you, glad you liked it! Unusual PSU can be really a pain in the neck, I have here another machine, which I'd like to bring back to life and it also has a proprietary PSU with 115V for USA, however I live in Germany and we have 230V, so I have to find a solution as well. I'm working on it and I think, it will be another nice video :)

[@clintthompson4100]

@@necro_ware I know they make voltage converters or voltage steppers from 230V to the US 115V but I don't recall ever seeing it in reverse and that can be a bummer on that project. When you find a solution I would love to see that video of your US Vintage Machine. Growing up and having friends and family and had old computers like the commodore 64 Old 286 computers 386 computers 486 computers it's just a great time and when someone else restores a classic from my childhood it's nice to know their are others out their that appreciate these classic machines and don't just throw them out just because the 2.0 model came out and so forth. Thanks again for the upload.

[@clintthompson4100]

@@necro_ware I found a site that I hope can help, they sell both step up and down converters for your future project. I do hope this can help. They also ship world wide. voltageconverters.com

[@mima85]

I have the smaller version of this PC, mine is NCR branded, model "SYSTEM 3227". The case design is the same but at about 1/3 of the volume of yours, it has no 5.25" neither 3.5" bays and the floppy drive is of the slim type usually found in laptops. The hard drive is a standard 3.5" unit tho. Quite unique machine and I'm happy to have it in my collection.

[@CaptainDangeax]

This kind of PC is definitely from the time I operated a computer shop. Those computers always hid bad surprises, like bad power line filtering, no cache onboard, underpower bricks with non standard formats... I sold hundreds of pentium, k6, pentium ii in AT or ATX format but never took a shortcut. The people unable to pay bought lower spec PCs from the local supermarket, with supermarket support...

[@Ryanfox1981]

When in doubt , soapy bath for all lol. Personally I stick the boards into the dishwasher, same for plastics etc.

[@EternalxFrost]

Sometimes, for some reason, some hard drives are finicky with proprietary boards and need to be configured as Cable Select. Sometimes just doing that solves the issue. I've had my fair share of finicky drives (or also boards that won't boot if the drives are not Cable Select).

[@peterilling1627]

Awesome video.

[@MadJackChurchill1312]

Alex Jones’ favourite PC.

[@RevenUlfir]

I may have some of these cache cards around. I will check my storage. used to work on Bell Systems here in the states.

[@necro_ware]

Thank you, but there's no need to search it for me anymore, this machine was already given away into the hands of another retro fan a long time...

[@FernandoMagaldiCachoeiro]

Excelente! Obrigado!

[@nalinux]

A 90 degree riser for a L2 cache card may be easy to do.

[@necro_ware]

Yes, this is a nice idea, however, the pinout has to be reverse engineered, I guess....

[@nalinux]

@@necro_ware This implies you have a memory extension, like the one you show from Ebay. So no need to reserve engineer anything. The problem is just the physical size. I suppose the spacing between connectors is the same as PCI, or any other standard connector. Something like this. Of course here it's a PCI-E, just an example :

[@nalinux]

www.amazon.ca/Express-Degree-Right-Angle-Riser/dp/B01ASPS8PK

[@necro_ware]

@@nalinux it's more like vlb. However, the shown module from ebay is unfortunately not pincompatible, I found a thread on vogons, where exactly the same constellation was tested.... that's why I guess, that the module has to be reverse engineered :(

[@nalinux]

@@necro_ware If nobody knows on Vogons, it's a bad sign :(

[@Ozfrank]

About 486 and Quake. Quake req's 486DX4-100, and i think - Intel model, it has 16k L1 (AMD - 8k) should run at minimum playable fps. i saw video on tube where am5x86 (as variant of 486) was overclocked to 200mhz and quake shown 21fps in demo1, this is Pentium-90 level.

[@retronoobtech8551]

You did a great job!

[@RetroTechIIfx]

I have the predecessor to this machine, an AT&T PC 1151 before the Globalyst branding was rolled out. It is the complete opposite as it is completely standard - Baby AT motherboard and power supply, normal L2 cache sockets on the motherboard, normal VLB and ISA slots. Got it new in box. It's a nice machine and it's a shame AT&T/NCR went to this mostly custom layout.

[@necro_ware]

Well, normal baby AT is easier to work with, but this design was not as custom, as one would think. This model used an FIC mainboard, which was used in many other computers as well, only the BIOS version differs. The layout was more or less compatible with many cases, so I'd say that it was semi-custom. On the good side, the case could be made more slim, than a normal AT would be. For me only the custom cache module was a real pity.

[@RetroTechIIfx]

​@@necro_ware Will a 486DX4 Overdrive operate on this board? Could be a good compromise way around the hard to find L2 Cache module as you get double the L1 cache on-die. It works in the 1151 fine, so I'm assuming a newer Globalyst should take the Overdrive chip.

[@necro_ware]

​@@RetroTechIIfx I guess so, the one with voltage regulator should work. However, I don't have that CPU and this machine is warming another retro heart since a long time yet....

[@Dudulinek82]

I did some changes with my AT&T Globalyst 515. 2GB CF, Gotek FDD emulator, new noctua fans on CPU and also inside PSU. ...and hi-end midi music Roland MT-32 I love this computer! 😍 I thinking about CPU upgrade. I have here 486 DX2 66 ... hmmm maybe with 66MHz cpu will be Transport Tycoon more playable? 🤔😊 interesting inside this machine is FIC 486-GAC-2. On ultimateretro website there is two different colors yellow and yellow-green combo. Mine is dark green. Can i ask what another bios did u tried? I have also IBM and i want try award. On ultimateretro is available award from 1997. Is there something new or benefit from newer bios?

[@a64dx86]

7:30 did expect an mechanical keyboard not a rubberdome... and NKRO is not an option. You should try an old-style mechanical (cherry) piano... 12:45 the same caviar 2120 u already used in a previous video about an retro gaming machine (mini tower and white restoring front plastic cover)... 13:15 instead of 16 MiB TSM only 8(192) but it showed 7168 KiB / 7 MiB ... ... two times...

[@RockstarRunner7]

I just got hold of the 510 model, and yeah, no cache stick present, and nothing on eBay that isn't confirmed not to work.

[@PleaseExplainMe]

Had almost the same in the Netherlands, it was NCR branded. Don't remember type model....

[@Stratotank3r]

Top Video! Viel Liebe, die du den Systemen schenkst. P.S. Schickes Mallorca Handtuch. Sind ebenfalls gerne dort.

[@necro_ware]

Vielen Dank! Hast aufmerksame Augen, das ist aber kein Tuch, sondern eine Kochschürze :D Das war ein Geschenk, ich war bisher nur ein Mal dort, ist aber wirklich eine schöne Insel. Ich und meine Frau, wir sind Taucher, wir haben ein Auto gemietet und eine Woche lang um die Insel die Küste abgefahren. Ein Tag, ein Ort und überall zwei Tauchgänge. Mit Mallorca assoziiert man normalerweise was anderes, aber viele schätzen die Natur dort ebenfalls. Und ich war überrascht, wie toll man da auch tauchen kann.

[@Ryanfox1981]

For the cache module you could modify a PCI-e ribbon cable :/

[@teknologyguy5638]

Hope you were able to locate a cache module for that thing, I have only every found photos of them online.

[@mythrall]

You swapped the Y and Z keys ;) Nice work though!

[@necro_ware]

It's a German keyboard :)

[@markg3506]

I have some of those CPU cache cards here. (@3:55)

[@Lilithe]

Map all of the pins of the COASt module and make your own with PCBWaaaaaaaaay! hahaha

[@austinmaxi]

Does that cpu socket take physically larger cpus? or is it just the design of the socket? looked odd seeing a row of pin sockets around the cpu when its installed. Great video as usual !

[@DxDeksor]

This is socket 3. It was made to install Pentium Overdrive chips as well as regular 486 chips. The Pentium Overdrive uses that extra row, none of the other chips do.

[@BenState]

You could probably fashion a right angle adapter for that cache module?

[@necro_ware]

Probably, yes, but meanwhile this PC makes another retro enthusiast happy 😊

[@danthompsett2894]

wow brings back memories but mine had lvl 2 cache onboard, think i had a orchard 64bit 1mb video card with it. upgraded with a 486 DX4 100.

[@necro_ware]

You probably have had a newer board. This model doesn't support 3V CPUs and so can't be upgraded to a normal DX4-100. Only the overdrive version with an integrated voltage regulator would work, but they were extremely expensive back then and are today as well.

[@douro20]

IBM BIOS on an NCR-built computer. Does Jazz Jackrabbit require VLB?

[@necro_ware]

Nope ;)

[@MrJakonSTG]

Recently youtube offered me your channel in my fyp, I've watched most of your stuff and it's brilliant! I missed a channel that is mainly devoted to repair and general information about computers from those years. However, I was wondering where you came from. On some materials you were using dos in German and I assumed then you were from Germany, but recently I noticed what glue you've been using to repair a case and it was from my country! From Poland! I know, of course, that Polish products can be bought in Germany without problems, but now I'm not sure myself : D Nevertheless, greetings from Poland!

[@necro_ware]

Hi, thank you! I'm from Germany indeed, but we all live in the EU and just as you can buy German products in Poland, the same works the other way around as well and I happily buy Polish products too, especially food ;) Greetings from Germany back to Poland!

[@Trazer350]

i need this case or something similliar for my procet but i need this horizontal PCI slots

[@mikatorkkeli4932]

did you change the floppy drive for the video?

[@necro_ware]

Nope

[@Astinsan]

was olivetti at&t’s primary oem?

[@FOIL_FRESH]

either really good quality plastic or someone kept this in a great spot! good condition. did you find a cache stick?

[@necro_ware]

Yeah, the condition was not bad indeed, but I got the PC as you saw it in the video. The standoffs were broken, the cover was scratched and just put on top. Unfortunately, I didn't find the cache module. Meanwhile the PC went to another enthusiast :)

[@FOIL_FRESH]

@@necro_ware i'm sure theyll enjoy it a lot!

[@lauratiso]

Strange... I had an Aptiva with this exact same board. Even the BIOS is the same. Maybe IBM sold these boards to AT&T?

[@necro_ware]

It's an FIC board and it was produced for multiple pc manufacturers, AT&T, IBM, NCP and others.

[@lauratiso]

@@necro_ware interesting! Thank you for the info

[@jaroo25041980]

Caps in this power power supply was damaged ?

[@necro_ware]

No, they were all ok.

[@Dudulinek82]

@necroware hello i bought exact same PC very good condition now waiting for delivery. Can i ask ... you washing MB only water and soap? Is standard soap or something special? Can i wash other components like sound cards, ram, gpu? Thank you for answer.

[@necro_ware]

Hi, yes, just standard water, soap and a brush. Don't forget to remove the battery. You can wash almost everything that way, only not the mechanical parts. The water itself is not a problem, but the salt in it. So, when it dries you can have white salt spots on the board, if your water is very hard. You can use distilled water or compressed air to blow as much water from the PCB as you can. You can also spray the parts with alcohol to improve evaporation. However, I don't bother, I just wash it as I've shown in the video put it upright to let the water drip off the PCB and leave it like that for at least 24 hours in a dry room. The parts have to be completely dry before you turn them on! Some water can hide under the ICs, so if you want to check if the board is dry blow some air under an IC. If no drops of water are coming out, it should be dry.

[@Dudulinek82]

@@necro_ware thnk you so much 🥰

[@Baoran]

You know that you should not even try to turn on those power supplies without load, right? That is why many of them have protection that they don't even turn on without load but that one did not seem to have that.

[@DxDeksor]

Very nice restauration ! Will you put a new "intel inside" sticker ? ^^ Maybe you can make your own COAST module for this board ? I wonder if that's even possible without getting too far in a rabbit hole.

[@necro_ware]

Thank you Deksor! It is a new CPU, so I'd actually need a new sticker don't I? ;) I think an own COAST module is too much effort, especially since there is no documentation on it. I found a vogons thread, where people found multiple modules, which do look the same, but none of them are electrically compatible with this mainboard.

[@KenjiUmino]

@@necro_ware did I get that right: you found a module that would be electricaly compatible to your board, but mechanically too high to fit under the floppy drive - and the modules that would mechanically fit are electrically incompatible?? that slot looks to be mechanically compatible to a PCI slot - so I think you should be able use a low profile 90° PCI Riser in order to get the cache module to fit under the floppy drive

[@necro_ware]

@@KenjiUmino I don't know. I saw it on ebay, but I didn't buy, so I have no clue if it is electrically compatible. And that slot is more like VLB, it is shorter, than PCI. However, I don't have this PC anymore.

[@KenjiUmino]

@@necro_ware oh ... I somehow assumed that 32 bit PCI and the brown VLB are mechanically the same thing - and I didn't ever question this assumption as the industry has and still does re-use connectors for different purposes a lot. But I just learned that PCI has 62 pins on either side while VLB has 58 pins.

[@vjnobody]

Anyone catch the floppy error? You have to install them after the twist at the end of the cable :) Cheers! (olde nearly useless info for u)

[@necro_ware]

This is obvious in the usual case, but as I said in the video, if I installed it after the twist, that didn't work. Turned out that the floppy was hard wired internally to be a second drive.

[@mrvellu]

heatsink on the 33 MHz and heatsink and a fan for the 66 MHz - do they even get warm? ;)

[@necro_ware]

Actually, they do :) Well, the 33MHz not so much, it can work without a heatsink quite long, especially in an open case. As you can see in the video, I tested the PC first with the SX-33 without a heatsink indeed. However, the DX2-66 can get quite hot, especially the 5V version, which I'm using here, since this mainboard doesn't support 3V CPUs. The temperature of i486 CPUs is specified with up to 80°C. A 5V 486DX2-66 without a fan on a warm day in a closed case would get there quite fast. You can see some measurements in my another 486 rebuilding video, where I decided to install a fan, because the CPU got too warm. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hp6wkGRtf9x9qrs

[@mrvellu]

@@necro_ware thanks for the (hot) tip! Time to go shopping for heatsinks!

[@JorgeCarvalho_web_dev]

@@mrvellu Or if you think about it, on the other hand you get a free "bread toaster" :)

[@rlawchrome]

Down with globalism! /s

[@Astinsan]

That is a olivetti machine rebranded

[@necro_ware]

This machine was designed, produced and sold by NCR. Later it was rebranded for AT&T. May be Olivetti used it as well, I don't know. Saw only information about AT&T and NCR.

[@Astinsan]

@@necro_ware olivetti made systems for ncr also. Nearly all at&t pc machines were rebranded olivetti.

[@necro_ware]

@@Astinsan I see, globalization at it's best ;)

[@Astinsan]

@@necro_ware olivetti had a good design team … those italians.. you gotta admit .. when at&t got the olivetti m24.. gave it a paint job.. made one sexy looking box.. the at&t 6300 pc

[@GraveUypo]

eh, where there is a will htere's a way. i played quake on my 486 dx4 100mhz. just shrink the screen size enough to get 20fps and it's playable.

[@necro_ware]

Ah, well, even if it is possible to play Quake in post stamp sized window on DX4-100, this machine is actually a DX2-66.... I really suggest anyone to play Quake on Pentium, the game just needs a better FPU, which 486 doesn't have. One should take 486 to play Doom and 386 to play Wolfenstein 3D :D

[@Schule04]

Strange how it has an IBM BIOS.

[@necro_ware]

Yeah, I investigated a little bit on that, since AT&T and IBM were big competitors back then, it was quite unusual indeed. As I told in the video, the Mainboard for this PC was made by FIC, who had contracts with IBM. So eventually, FIC released this mainboard re-branded for AT&T. Furthermore, this exact PC was also made by NCR Computer and they had support for it up to the end of 90s, and you can still download the latest BIOS from there. I tried that one as well and it was actually much better. More settings, better performance, but eventually I put back the original one, because of AT&T branding. Actually I think, that this PC was made by NCR for AT&T, because the case looks very typical for NCR with that orange power button.

[@jimduke7472]

@@necro_ware Great Video! Brings back a lot of memories! You are correct -The only difference between the NCR and AT&T models were the colors of the cases and bezels - yucky beige for NCR and "Arctic White" for AT&T. That was right during the time frame that AT&T had taken over, failed to properly integrate, and then spun off NCR. My company at the time were selling Globalyst PC's like crazy and I had a 515, and the guy across the aisle had the same thing in NCR. Thanks again for the great video.

[@necro_ware]

@@jimduke7472 Glad you liked it! And thank you for the info as well.

[@warphammer]

@@necro_ware IBM and AT&T/NCR collaborated a bit, NCR being one of the few places making Microchannel PCs, including some very odd SMP 486es and Pentiums.

[@jeffparks25]

Can anyone on KZbin make how to fix repair computer videos without the annoying music fast forwarding or talking over the music??

[@necro_ware]

I am waiting excited a new video on your channel, where I could learn from you ;)

[@ratos74]

20:33 For God's sake how could you shoot your own people? :)

[@necro_ware]

That is easy to answer, first of all, a game is for me still just a game, as long as it doesn't pretend to be serious. Second, those are not my people, I never divide people in nationalities, but in altruists and xenophobes and I try to be in the first group, so the second ones are not "my people". Still I would never shoot at anyone in the real life, even if it would be Hitler himself.