Compaq ProLinea 4/33 - Computers of Significant History

[@jonathankleinow2073]

Jack Welch, Frank Lorenzo, and Carl Icahn were the three horseman of the economic apocalypse that destroyed much of the American middle class while creating great value for shareholders. If anyone wonders what happened to things like lifetime employment, cheap or free health insurance, and pensions, just ask them!

[@oscarcharliezulu]

It’s amazing how idolized they were in business circles back in the day. Now we get to live the result.

[@drphilxr]

This has happened since 2005 to the medical industry- about a 25 year lag but highlights how the top 0.1% transfer wealth endlessly to themselves by “cutting (employee) cost”. We lost a lot of American brands that way- which won’t return til the 0.1% endure hard times themselves.

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

Mmmm... Capitalism.... For clarity, I'm being facetious.

[@wlewisiii]

And of course, we should not forget how DEC. Compaq & HP itself would all be victims in the end of "Carly" Fiorina the most incompetent IT CEO in the history of the computers. Destroyed 2 classic companies and left one a shattered remnant that can't produce anything worth buying.

[@FreihEitner]

I connect with this on a few levels. In 1993 I went to college. My family couldn't afford to buy a computer and thankfully my uncle had recently bought himself a 486-33 and so gave me his old PC-XT clone running MS DOS 5. I was used to running WordPerfect for DOS from high school and that's really all that I needed for writing papers in college, so it served my needs just fine. The next year something in the system blew and my uncle replaced his 486 33 (with, I think, a 486 DX/2 66) and gave me the 33MHz one. With a whopping 240 MB hard drive and 4 MB of RAM, it was my first experience with Windows 3.1 (and I shudder to this day over how awful that was). By the end of 1995 I had saved up enough money to build my own PC from components and went full-hog with an AMD 486 DX/4 120MHz, which I then added to little by little over the next few years -- a better graphics card, more RAM, a sound card and eventually a CD-R drive.

[@pazsion]

id love to have an updated windows 3. windows nt was the last good version of windows, before backdoor, remote manipulation, nerfing ram bloatware, locking down harddrives. limiting gpus limiting cpus memory holes

[@nazgulsenpai]

NGL, the first thing I thought looking at that thumbnail was "what a beautiful case design." Compared to the bulbous roundness of Apple or the sharp edged industrial design of the IBM and its ilk, the Compaq is a beautiful middle ground that I think still looks awesome.

[@userlandia]

I think what ground me about Compaqs over the years is that they never seemed to settle on something coherent across all their products. Coincidentally this period (the early Deskpro M/I/Prolinea) era is the most consistent across all their lines. But look at the late 90s and it seems nothing stands out from the pack or has a family resemblance. The devolution of PC clones is a subject to be tackled in a future video.

[@nazgulsenpai]

@@userlandia That makes sense. Just in a vacuum this particular case just looks great to me having only been exposed to Packard Bell in the era. I have subscribed and I look forward to the next one!

[@alisharifian535]

Biege boxes have shaped childhood of many people. They shouldn't be let down.

[@UrielX1212]

Jack Welch was a terrible CEO. GE never recovered from his "leadership".

[@marcd6897]

yep, even for the 80’s or 90’s he was also too old school with his management style

[@mybigfatpolishlife]

Neither is Boeing

[@AndersEngerJensen]

Hey! I'm still using Prolinea. Got two 4/66 maxed out with 32 MB RAM, CD-ROM, Roland MPU-IPC-T MIDI-interface and Soundblaster Pro 2.0. Perfect for retro gaming! ;)

[@userlandia]

And perfect for playing back some of your fine music, I"m sure. :) Thanks for watching and your contributions to the community!

[@RetroTechChris]

Oh, I love this soooo much! I can identify with so many elements: Compaq, Creative upgrade kits, being a poor teen, etc. And visiting the computer store. Thanks for another great video, Dan!

[@userlandia]

Thanks, Chris!

[@AllboroLCD]

Still have the Prolinea 4/25s that replaced our C128 back in 93! Perfect Win 3.x rig!

[@BigBadBench]

Really nice work Dan! Love the comparisons to systems of the time!

[@BollingHolt]

Dude! I LOVE your videos!

[@finkelmana]

high school me would have been jealous. My 386 SX-25 was no powerhouse, with just 4MB of RAM. I would see games at the store that said 486 only and sigh. Everyone else had a 486! It wasnt fair!

[@userlandia]

What years were you in high school, out of curiosity?

[@MickeyMousePark]

i was at MS in 1990's (IT) ..about every 6 months we were receiving 44 foot trailer full of PC's i remember very clearly one of those trailers had ProLinea 4/33 they were pretty cool since they took up so little desk space..internally at MS the ProLinea were 3rd computers on most of the developers desks..then of course 6 months later another trailer full of Gateways or Dells or latest model of Compaqs etc would replace those ProLineas..One internal (MS employees only) conference i attended on campus given by Compaq i believe it was in 1993 or so ..and the Compaq rep asked "Does anyone know Compaqs Mission Statement is for next year?" ...Silence.. he responded "STAY IN BUSINESS".. NOTE: all these computers were sent to MS from Manufactures at no cost to MS..

[@RJARRRPCGP]

Looks like my 1993 486 system that I got used in November, 1998, IIRC. (even though it wasn't Compaq) I had a Compaq 386 that clearly looked older than this, it was a DeskPro 386 SX and I suspected that even the RAM was proprietary to Compaq! (it had 5 MB of RAM, which I assumed 1 MB of it was deducted for graphics)

[@cxb262]

Still have my original (secondhand) IBM XT that my Uncle gave to me in high school next to my desk. It's been a while since I booted it up, but it's still working, albeit a bit more on the creaky side, 30something years later. Sadly, I recycled my college system, a locally produced 486 DX/2 50, that I got sometime during my senior year of HS. Lots of memories on both.

[@mbwoods2001]

I still have my Compaq Prolinea 4/33s bought for a £1! not long after buying a Pentium3 pc and getting access to the Internet and Ebay! The Compaq then was upgraded to a dx2-66 with soundblaster AWE64 and cd-rom for playing DOS/win3.1 games and DOOM😁. Also got another Compaq pc, a Deskpro upgraded to 233mmx and Voodoo2 3d card for Pentium era games and win95.

[@AaronOfMpls]

This reminds me a lot of my _own_ family's 486, in all its beige pizza-box glory! 😎 We'd had an Atari 2600 game console since 1981, the year before I was born. But our first computer (barring special-purpose ones like the Atari and my Speak & Spell) was a hand-me-down IBM PC or XT, from Dad's brother who worked for IBM. It was at least a decade old when he gave it to us in 1993, and long-obsolete. But it _had_ a hard drive, and wasn't a bad PC to start with -- and much of what we learned on it gave us a leg up on our _next_ computer. In 1994, Dad got an Acer Acros 486 SX computer new on closeout; I think it might've even been a floor model. He quickly swapped the 486 SX CPU for a DX (don't remember how many MHz), and it wasn't long before he added a sound card and a CD-ROM too, which had come bundled with a bunch of CD-ROM games -- some good, some meh. It ran Windows 3.1 and DOS 6.something, until he upgraded it to Windows 95. We also had an internal dial-up modem (14.4 kbps maybe?), Prodigy online and internet service, and a second phone line (and a 2-line phone near the computer) so we could still use the phone while online. At first, our 486 was the family computer, set in our lower-level office.* But later, once we had a second PC in 1996,** the Acer got sent upstairs to a hall corner outside the bedrooms, to be the kids' computer for me and my brother. As for further upgrades, it later got a 28.8 kbps modem, and likely got some more RAM along the way (don't remember how much), though it never got any 3D acceleration. It spent several years running MS Works or Word for school homework, browsing Prodigy and some early websites, and playing plenty of games. I played a lot of SimCity 2000, SimEarth, SimTower, and _possibly_ Civilization II.*** My brother played a lot of Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem 3D (though I don't think we ever had Doom). And we both played The 7th Guest, the Warcraft 1 demo, and some Windows Entertainment Pack games like SkiFree and JezzBall and Rodent's Revenge (which came free in a pack of Verbatim floppy disks) in addition to the Windows 3.1/95 and Win95 Plus! pack-in games like Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Space Cadet Pinball. By 1997-98 though, the 486 was getting long in the tooth, unable to run increasingly more newer games. Dad put together a no-brand beige tower for me and my brother, with an AMD K6 CPU and better specs all around (with a little help from me while it was open on a table). And while the K6 box didn't have the latest 3DFX Voodoo card or such, it was still able to run newer titles like Interstate '76 and '82, Streets of SimCity, SimCity 3000, The Sims 1, Jasc Paint Shop Pro 5 and 7, and an upgrade to Windows 98 and its Plus! pack. I think Dad might've used the 486 as the home office PC again after my now-ex stepmom left, before ultimately replacing it (again) with something better. It couldn't run current software anymore, and its proprietary motherboard and case (definitely _not_ ATX) limited its upgrade paths. So it sat around as an unused beige box in a corner for some years, its excellent PS/2 keyboard**** and some of its other peripherals re-used with newer and better PCs. It eventually got sent off to the e-waste recycler sometime in the '00s, alongside other obsolete and/or broken electronics. If I'd known retro-computing was going to take off later, I might well have stashed it under the bed or in a closet instead. I know most PCs of this era aren't too remarkable compared to each other. But still, for many of us they were our first "real" PCs in the modern sense -- and still have a special place in our hearts for that. ❤ * Our house was a split-level, with an at-ground "lower level" (half-buried in front as a daylight basement, walk-out in back) under the upstairs bedroom level, and an underground basement under the downstairs living room level. Three half-flights of stairs connected all four levels where the two "blocks" of the house met. ** After my stepmom moved in with a dark-gray Toshiba desktop; she later took it with her after she and Dad split in '97. *** I honestly don't remember if I got Civ2 before or after the 486's successor PC. **** an OEM-branded keyboard that used IBM-style buckling springs in its keys -- almost as good as a _real_ Model M! I wish I knew where it ended up, if it's still in a closet somewhere, so I could compare it to my Unicomp New Model M. I suspect its main weakness would be a lack of Windows keys; I use my left Win key as a Compose key in Linux.

[@floydlooney6837]

In 1992 I put a pawn shop computer on layaway. Very small weekly payments. It was a Tandy 486 DX (or SX?), a whole 25mhz. It had a CD drive (not X2 or anything) and a 100MB hdd with some bad sectors with Windows 3.11. I had to buy and install a new modem (33.5mpbs), sound card and RAM (all the way to a whopping 28 MB, a very odd number, right?). Sure I had to delete games to play other games but I really liked that PC. I might be wrong on the specifics but it was a long time ago.

[@Drew-Dastardly]

I never in my life have bought a pre-built PC, pretty much all of them are kind of a "Ship of Theseus" starting from a 386DX50 way way back when to this day. As for Compaq - when I had an office job in a corporate they were totally brilliant, very compact, also totally engineered for easy service. Every screw had a nice plastic thumb spinner and also retained so you can't lose them. All the major stuff like HDD's, RAM, CPU, GPU all easily clipped out without needing a screwdriver. The corporate PC's did cost more for sure. This was in the day when repairing stuff was a legitimate ordinary thing, but now we have "green" trash it all and buy a new one and no service is allowed by manufacturers like Apple, Samsung, etc.

[@DavidSanty]

The Compaq Prolinea was my first Windows PC. 83mhz Pentium Overdrive processor and eventually upgraded to a 40X cd-rom drive. Boy could that thing reinstall Windows 95 quickly. I limped along with it into the early 2000s. I think it had a sound card with it, though I don't remember which. Added a 56k modem for internet. I played a LOT of Lords of the Realm II on it, and spent untold hours on my favorite message boards. LOTR II runs on Windows 10, by the way.

[@Redmage913]

On the only-C64 until 1997 memory… We had the same thing - 8088 DOS clone until 1999. The teachers were sometimes confused when I printed my papers from the thinner paper and dot matrix printing…

[@motalasuger]

Aah yes, used to run a prolinea as Linux router for a few years after moving from home, and also had a proliant 90(?) server with that MCA architecture and scsi drives, on which I had my first Linux experiences with red hat Linux 5.2 and Slackware 3.6(?). But seriously - that proliant was probably the most stable and reliable machine I ever owned looking back now.

[@splangley]

I had this exact machine, 5 1/4 floppy and all. It also had that 2400 bps modem in the half height slot and an external NEC caddy loading CD-ROM connected to a Pro Audio Spectrum. Wait...this was 30+ years ago? I feel old.

[@paulstubbs7678]

I started out with a TRS-80, it received many rebuilds and upgrades. Colour graphics started to be the thing so I bought a VIC20, however the 22 characters per line and near zero gap between lines made it quite painful to use - for writing code that is as even simple lines of code wrapped around like stupid, so it received little love. After a kind of side step with an NEC APC3 (lovely high res colour graphics) I then headed into '286 PC land. The only time I then saw anything brand name wise was when I got a job at a telco and scored the odd offcast, one of them being a super slim Compaq 386sx box, probably the 'baby bear' referred to in the Compaq marketing. I never really used it as it was so far behind the curve when I got it, I instead set it up for the parents with a family tree program installed trying to encourage them to enter some of their family history, but that never washed, it hit the bin. Now I kind of regret that as it would make a nice entry into my retro computing piles. I never took any notice of the 'Presario' and 'Prolinea' etc. badges, to me the was just internal marketing BS, I just referred to them as Compaq's then subdivided them by their processors etc. i.e Compaq 386 etc.

[@lucasrem]

Compaq was just a white box brand, aggressive marketing made DELL and Compaq bigger than the rest. Happy HP survived them all, the best !

[@RacerX-]

Awesome video. Such a good era to live through. My family computer was a C64 to and while, I only used it occasionally after upgrading to my own C128, C64C, Amiga and then Gateway 486 (4SX25), The C64 continued as the workhorse until about 1997/1998, a 14 year run. That is when my Dad finally upgraded it and his business invoicing to a Compaq Presario 166Mhz. So this video very much strikes a home cord with me... Thanks and keep up the good work.

[@st3ddyman]

I imported that 486DX2-66 Gateway PC and Monitor into the UK that you featured around 6:45. It was a lovely computer. The Compaq always had an air of quality about them. Shame HP bought them and ruined it.

[@charlesdorval394]

*blink blink* 32 bits ISA? What the... Never heard of that before! The F was ALR up to lol Just to clarity, I mean that ALR ad, not EISA

[@BilisNegra]

Very nice piece of personal (in the sense of your own) computing story. Those were wild times, to be sure, and to deal with the crazy fast obsolescence cycle of that time took a humungous amount of money. Using an early 90s PC in the late 90s was like having to make do with a 15 year-old computer today: yes, you can use it, BUT...

[@markalexander832]

I still have an identical Compaq ProLinea4/33 that received a DX2/66 somewhat later. Still the best-looking machines made, in my opinion, and exuded business-like quality, not a machine for beginners. I was already in my 30's at the time, but had a blast upgrading, building and buying new machines. An AST was my first machine, pulled off a big stack of boxes at Circuit City. So pleased!! Thanks for the memories.

[@dx4life68]

I used to have a compaq pc like this,,, i actually managed to add a cd rom drive to it... made installing windows much easier than swapping out 26 1.44mb floppy discs🙃

[@Hyvelez]

I also an IBM PS72 before my Compaq ProLinea 4. I still have my original Compaq.

[@atnorthabc]

What a brilliant bit of history….. history I remember I remember as a kid getting my first home computer a ZX81 and I remember the paper round to bye the ram pack just to play a game that took half an hour to load in from a tape recorder and then came my first real computer a BBC basic running dos. Hours reading computer magazines to type the programs that were hidden in the pages and then came windows 3.1 and thing’s worked easier windows 95 came and went 97 arrived and everyone went looking for the oldwin file hidden deep inside that self contained os. What fun I had what happy days

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

I think every computer has its charm, from the most bland Dell Optiplex where there’s millions like it, or unique ones like the G4 Cube and high end custom PCs.

[@jameslewis2635]

When I first started fixing computers I quickly came to hate Compaq machines for the fact that most of their computers had customised motherboards and power supplies making finding parts an absolute nightmare. People tried to sell me on how good HP and Dell PC's were and then I found that they were almost exactly the same once you opened up the case. This design scheme is one horrible trend that filtered down to so many off-the-shelf PC's to the point that I have only owned PC's that I built myself ever since because I can't trust manufacturers to use standard parts (and until window panels became a thing it's not like shops would let you look inside before buying).

[@jamesross3939]

Very well done. Grabbed my interest and kept me listening. I recall all those kinds of upgrades from 1989 to just a few weeks ago I put together a Ryzen5 2400G / Asrock AM4 / 16GB / 1TB SSD for running Linux Mint. Started with a generic back of Computer Shopper magazine 2 inch ad PC/XT 8088 w/ Turbo mode 1Meg RAM and 20 meg Seagate hard-drive. Previous to PC's -- TRS-80 Color Computer w 4k/RAM I bought in 1981.

[@chriscrossan8034]

I remember being stuck with a donated 386 until around 1998 when I had managed to get a job and bought a S7 AMD K5 based rig off a mate.

[@dasmin1135]

After watching your video, I miss my Compaq Presario CDS 833 with an Intel 486DX2-66.

[@idahofur]

Nice Compaq computer before they go ugly. Also a good point is the c64 owning. For the younger people. During the time I was growing up it was still common in purchasing something and just using it. More of an investment. Like a television or fridge. So once you purchased your personal computer. That was mostly it and no reason to upgrade. That worked fine at first until you needed a reason to upgrade (The big one being the internet). During a certain time you could even trade in your old micro computer for a credit to upgrade say to an Amiga in this case.

[@the_kombinator]

Oh man if my Compaq had a removable CPU (or even RAM slots) I would have upgraded it immediately - I'm surprised you didn't do a DX2/66 swap right away - I mean a DX2/66 in 1997 was like a $30 part.

[@joshuajones8455]

I remember using one of these in the late 90s as my first router - it ran Linux from a floppy, would auto-dial my ISP when it detected outbound traffic and even acted as a print server for my old HP laser.

[@ocsrc]

I remember installing a network card and IDE controller and a CD-Rom 1x or 2x in the slimline Compaq I remember installing a network Hub, not a router, just a dumb hub I had installed a bnc coax cable network ISA card and I made a token ring network using bnc Tees and 50 ohm terminators and I made cables using thin rg-58 or 59 coax cable and bnc connectors. This was not reliable and I swapped out the bnc network cards with the 10-base T cards and installed factory network cables and a 5 port hub It was 1995 I remember getting the combination sound card with modem built in for computers that only had 1 or 2 or 3 ISA slot The sound blaster ISA card with the 4 CD-ROM connectors So it could be used with any CD-ROM drive. I had so many problems over the years with cards, that in the late 90s I decided to only use a motherboard that had all the hardware on the board. So I never had a problem with graphics or sound or Ethernet or ports after that.

[@NiceCakeMix]

I still have my Compaq 425 CDS all in one system which still runs and has Windows 98 SE on it.

[@Indrid__Cold]

Among the many names that were influential in the 90s, few were more so than the venerable purveyor of what came to be known as 'frankenparts,' Packard Bell (or 'Packard Smell' as they were known by those in the business). Show me a person whose early passion for computing was crushed like an egg, and I'll show you a Packard Bell owner. Few computer manufacturers could more effectively avoid direct price comparisons. By slightly altering the model number and configurations of every computer based only upon the retailer who actually sold it, you could not hope to comparison shop (let alone get a retailer to price match the competition). So effective was this scheme that Packard Bell computers held some of the thickest margins in the PC industry. They were also among the first to leverage the marketing of pre-installed software, generating huge profits from companies like Prodigy (remember them?) and Quicken.

[@Techno-Universal]

1:27 Many of those kids didn’t even know what electricity was because of them living in remote uncontacted tribes.

[@jasmijndekkers]

A great channel to visit. I found you in my list. Great content and video. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands

[@KingGameReview]

Great video, I love these deep dives into computer history. Our family didn't get our first computer until 96 (some sort of Windows 95 Compaq), but I would always play on my uncle's commodore 64. I never really used it as a computer, I just used it as another video game machine.

[@oneuptheextraman]

Exactly. It is not about the box or what the box looks like. Its about what the box did\does for you. Your first your computer will always be extra special to you.

[@me-cq7wv]

4:05 I built about 70,000 of them things. 100 in a 12 hour shift. 6 days a week for 3 years

[@magicalone22]

so cool ............ I hope you don't have to low level format that hard drive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@erichkohl9317]

Yes. The nostalgia disease has hit me pretty hard the past few years. I went from owning no retro PCs at all to owning about 10.

[@bruhzooka]

I used to sell these things. These were Cadillacs compared to Packard Bell and Acer.

[@the_kombinator]

I had a Deskpro 386/20e as a first computer. It was awful and I hated it, but it got me started in IT.

[@eftalanquest]

i have a later prolinea 575 that i pimped out a bit. makes a pretty good dos gaming machine.

[@proteque]

tbh I think that desktop case is looking very nice. Really good video! :)

[@miljororforsprakpartiet290]

Absolutely sexy design, today's computers the direct opposite.

[@pazsion]

man i miss building a pc in 10-15 minutes on the floor of radioshack 🥰

[@jubsy]

The ProLinea SFF cases are some of my favorites but still a far second to custom cases.

[@Vermilicious]

Haven't you heard? Beige is the new black.

[@iiidiy]

EXCELLENT storytelling here! Great work.

[@x.xlx.x]

Great video! I didn’t realize you were a fellow Massachusettsian

[@userlandia]

Lived in the Bay State my entire life!

[@oliverw.douglas285]

Much like John Roth's legacy at Nortel.

[@reidster87]

I particularly enjoyed the retrospective of your experiences with the ProLinea. My parents brought home a new Presario 633 from a local dealer in early 1994. The 633 was essentially a ProLinea 4/33s with some vertical front vents, and 4MB RAM soldered to the motherboard with 4 empty slots. It came with a different software package, notably TabWorks replaced Program Manager as default in Windows 3.1. My Commodore 64 remained as something for me to tinker with, with the Compaq serving family computer duty until late 1998. When it was replaced, it became my hardware and software playground. Like you, I bought used sound cards, CD-ROM drives, and other peripherals from local computer shops. My very first eBay purchase was a used Kingston Turbochip 133 somewhere around 2000. Somehow, I've managed to hang on to the Presario all these years, and still fool around with it now and then. I recently got a minimal Linux system with the latest mainline kernel to boot on it! (486 and ISA support isn't dead yet)

[@userlandia]

I think what I've enjoyed the most about comments like yours is learning that my experience with these machines is shared by many more people. It's like being in a secret club that's so secret we don't realize we're members.

[@dougbadgley6672]

I really appreciate this video. I used two C64 machines up until 1991. Still have them too. The company I worked for used Compaq machines during most of the 90s. I’m an HP guy now and have been since the early 2000s, but I will always have memories of the Compaq Presario machines. Wish I had access to these vintage computer magazines as well.

[@userlandia]

Many of the magazines I use for sources have been scanned and are available on the Internet Archive, Google Books, and other digital libraries. Sure is easier to thumb through dead tree versions, though. Didn't think I'd ever regret tossing my 1994-2002 backlog of PC/Computing, but here we are...

[@PearComputingDevices]

I actually owned one of these and put an overdrive in it at some point.

[@JustinFrost302]

I need that PC for Retro Windows 95 and Dos games

[@lucasrem]

best invest in it, the Pentium Overdrive, Creative CD-rom set ?

[@tarajoe07]

To be fair about sound, the Prolinea was an office PC

[@cappaculla]

I've been working in IT since 1990, Most of Windows 3.x crashes were caused by other vendors drivers, Don't get me started on PCMCIA and Win3x/DOS. That was my baptism of fire as a noob support guy..

[@userlandia]

PC cards before Plug N Play were an absolute nightmare. Don't know how anyone put up with it.

[@tbas8741]

So Even in the start of computers Companies were ripping people off like they do today. $2,000 PC in 90's so that means like $1000-$1250 pure profit to the Manufacturer. Much like today $1000 CPU or $1500 GPU and both are 50-75% Pure Profit to AMD or Nvidia after all costs. Intel is a bit worse selling for $1000 CPU's that cost them $150-200 to develop and make.

[@marcd6897]

agreed, although today your choices aren’t that limited any longer. Back in the day there was just one CPU with 25 or 33MHz (in the case of the 386) from a handful of vendors, and that’s it. Today you not only have the choice of a larger number of CPUs with great many varieties of cores and clock speeds, and you’re not fixed to just one option.

[@JimAllen-Persona]

This was before Compaq went to crap... the ProLinea's werent bad. I had quite a few ProLiant's at work. My f-i-l's first PC about that time frame was a Packard-Bell, God help us all. I had an old AT at home until my wife's grandfather bought me a Compaq Allin1. Nice little machine.. portable enough. Compaq pissed me off by not providing me with a SoftPaq I needed to install a DVD drive because I didnt come with the PC and from that point on I swore off Compaq. BTW: I'm bitter as hell at Carl Ichan. Cost me a great job. Thanks for the episode, brought back some happy memories and cleared a few things up. (ISA vs. EISA).

[@userlandia]

Were you a former TWA employee?

[@macsnafu]

Nostalgia? Yeah, I'm full of that, but more for the comics of the 1970s that I grew up with. Still, I did my share of computer noodling. I liked the slim design of the Compaq Prolinea. The later Pentium beige boxes were so plain, but as you noted, a plain box could be hiding almost anything under the case. I had been struggling with a used Commodore 64 in the early 90s. It mostly worked, but every now and then it would just glitch, and I'd have to give it a rest for a while before using it again. My first PC compatible came in '94, a Packard Bell 486 with a 33 mhz processor. It came with DOS 6.2 and Windows For Workgroups 3.11, a bit of an improvement on the regular Windows 3.1, but no sound card, although I quickly added one. Anyway, as the 90s wore on, and even in the early 2000s, I loved working with used 486s, and I did pick up one of those Compaq Prolineas, among other computers. There was actually a store that opened up temporarily, I can't remember exactly when, late 90s, I think, and they had a bunch of used computers, mostly Compaq 486s, both desktop and laptop. I messed around with used Pentiums, too, but they never seemed as interesting or as much fun as the 486s were.

[@userlandia]

Thanks for sharing your story!

[@sjoervanderploeg4340]

I had that same soundcard with CD-ROM drive, also had the Encarta CD's and I still have my Zip drives... somewhere. Although, mine is for the parallel port and I also have a PATA version for 250Mb disks! That must have been around when I was 10 orso in 1995!

[@sjoervanderploeg4340]

There were other add-in cards for those CD-drives as well, they were not all that expensive!

[@RandomNonsense1985]

Jack Welch did the same thing to Fort Edward, NY, Rutland, VT, and especially Schenectady, NY that he did to Pittsfield.

[@userlandia]

Yup, we know all too well.

[@Tech2C]

A 486 DX33 in '97. I feel your pain.

[@BilisNegra]

That must have been like a Core2Duo today. Computers went obsolete SO much faster back in the day.

[@TheGrunt76]

Terrific video, nice to hear that personal view point too! Compaqs from this era are well built and high quality machines unlike their cheap systems sold in department stores in late 90s. Presarios/Prolineas don’t break any speed records (like comparable machines such as HPs Vectra VL neither), but they certainly get the job done. I have 4/50 which I saved from the scrap heap of a telecom operator years ago and 425 Presario AIO with original accessories. I incidentally tested similar Turbochip on that Presario some weeks ago and although it naturally improves a performance quite a lot, you are absolutely correct that such CPU aren’t a magic trick and these platforms don’t even get most out of such CPU. I also have one of those late 486 machines with Zida 4DPS motherboard with PCI, 256kb L2 and AMD486DX4-120 and that system just runs cirlcles around that Turbochipped Presario. PCI graphics card is just significantly faster compared to these mid tier VLB chips in these systems and that cache certainly helps a lot in certain scenarios.

[@userlandia]

The lack of cache really hurts faster 486s too in a machine like this.

[@mar4kl]

I never much cared for Compaq's Prolinea line, and I absolutely despised Presario. I was (and still am) an IT professional, and I regarded these as brand dilution. To me, Compaq stood for high-performance, achieved with high-end, high-reliability components and no compromises, i.e., the Deskpro. From my first encounter with a Compaq Deskpro 386, used by my boss at my first job, I aspired to the day I would eventually own one, but since those things cost as much as a fairly nice new car at the time, that day was far off. The compromises in the Prolinea were obvious to me, with construction that looked cheesy and lack of EISA slots and high-end components. The "pro" in Deskpro screamed Professional, while the "pro" in Prolinea was just a bastardization of the word (and I really wish companies would stop abusing it already!). Presario was even worse, as pretty much every Presario I ever encountered looked cheap and was underpowered, but at least they dropped all pretenses of being for "pros". Then HP finished the job of trashing the entire Compaq brand by essentially turning it into their low end. By that time, I could've afforded any Compaq model I wanted, but, of course, I no longer wanted one. Just my two cents, as someone who lived through those times. Unlike the Prolinea, though, your story is inspiring. I'm really sorry that your family had to go through the pain of a job loss like that, but the way you all picked up the pieces and forged ahead is American as apple pie, and you showed true dedication and creativity in upgrading that lowly Prolinea, keeping it relevant until 2002. That's what makes it special. It wasn't just any Prolinea; it was YOUR Prolinea. Hopefully, it got re-homed to someone else who really needed a computer but couldn't afford a new one, and appreciated how well you had kept it.

[@userlandia]

You're a commenter of taste who appreciates well-constructed devices. I have to wonder if Compaq would have survived without pivoting to the lower-end market. The same open standards they championed reduced their market to a commodity, which meant the DeskPro's days were numbered. Dell was able to juggle their consumer and business markets, but maybe it's a matter of perception-Dell did make quality products but their onsite service was really what sold them to businesses. As much as I rag on Dell, if I was still in a purchasing role I would probably still use them for my fleet and back office machines.

[@fft2020]

I have 2 pro linea 3/25zs ... they are very nice

[@humidbeing]

Plenty of 386DX motherboards came with external cache and VLB slots. You make it sound like that was unique to the 486.

[@userlandia]

Of course, that's why I said "most." Cache and VLB were less common (and more expensive) on 386 PCs; the 486 era brought these features to more affordable price points.

[@ristopoho824]

That PC looks like my first own computer. Not sure though, i was a kid and just remember the games. Games meaning minesweeper and rodent revenge was it? Also paint. And exploring the filesystem and pretending to be a hacker. It was a second hand PC, like the main one my family had. It had Windows 95, though i think 98 was out already. I did love my own dang machine though. Choosing to spent the hour of computer time we had a day on it instead of the better PC that had actual games.

[@ristopoho824]

Then one day he told me he's going to give the thing to a cousin. Oh no i'm losing my precious machine noooooo oh i get a new one that runs this new XP thing eh i'll give it a try..

[@michaelmcconnell7302]

I had a compaq 4/33 but it was a presario

[@robintst]

The front of the ProLinea's case is like the PC equivalent of a mid-90s Pontiac Grand Am.

[@userlandia]

What is a bezel but another form of plastic cladding? 😂

[@brentsummers7377]

That case design is near perfection.

[@krizator]

Very nice looking machine😊

[@bad_collector]

KINGSTON TURBO CHIP

[@Foxtrot_Foxtrot_Lima]

This does not compute.

[@the_kombinator]

13:28 - OnTrack Disk Overlay ;)

[@HomelessTechnology]

I used to have, back in the day, a compaq computer, it was a server, it had SCSI and bays for 4 5.25" drives and space for 4 or 6 hard drives I forget. I am sure it was a prolinea maybe not but it was from around this time. I can't even remember it's specs I am pretty sure we had NT 4.0 on it but I really can't remember as it was so long ago. Wish I still had that machine I have never seen it since.

[@userlandia]

Sounds like a ProLiant server.

[@HomelessTechnology]

@@userlandia yeah after i posted this I did some more searching and looks like it was a proliant, something like the ML370 but less going on with the front panel so maybe ML350 or ML330 or something. Hardly any info online on these so hard to say. The ML370 is the only one I could find a picture of that looks vaguely similar.

[@seantu1496]

We sold alot of these to various businesses in the 90's, Appleton Papers, Johnsonville Foods, and Mercury Marine come to mind. I had a later 4/25S that I put a DX2/66 in and setup as a modem server/gateway for my home network around 1996, years before broadband and WiFi routers. Can't remember exactely what it was, but there was a quirk with some 3Com 3C509 cards and a USR Sportster modem in the riser setup.

[@markshade8398]

I worked in the industry at that time. Tandy pionered that shape and design style and height. They designed it and had it on the market first. And took the heat for marking a "non-standard" case design..... Which many tried to call it "proprietary" ...... Because it wouldn't fit a standard AT style power supply and full height of length options. After just about 1 year on the market and a TON of criticism.... EVERY PC maker was using a similar design unless they were still just using a pile of off the shelf common parts. And many of those still didn't integrate floppy controllers or IDE controllers or sound on the motherboard. In fact, Tandy was near their end in 1992. I think that same year they discontinued their name in favor of selling Compaq.... Which they had once almost bought/merged with.

[@userlandia]

One of the first PCs I used that wasn't an Apple or Commodore was a Tandy 1000 RLX with DeskMate, which I believe are the slimline Tandys you're referring to. It was my friend's family PC, and it was how I played King's Quest for the first time. The ProLinea ZS is the one you're thinking of that was similar to that Tandy. Unfortunately, I don't have one in my collection. This ProLinea is really more like the PS/2 model 30 in its layout and size; it's much bigger than an RL/RLX/SX. Compaq really was playing catchup with these machines. If you've got any other Tandy stories, I'd love to hear them.

[@markshade8398]

@@userlandia so I was working at RS at that time. The RL series was actually the second generation of Tandy small footprint PCs. They had the 2500 xl before that, debuted around 1990. It was the first one to really use the format that Compaq later had. It had a slip off she'll and then a hinged/flip out internal design. I loved the RL series! For their time they were a bit faster than an average entry level of (name brand, not clone) at the time that they came out. Tandy also was critical in the development of all optical media (CD's etc). They owned part of that patent, together with Phillips Electronics of Europe when CD's first game out. Tandy also was a part owner and founder of VLSI..... The group that made it possible to embed all kinds of (now) standard parts into the motherboard. Before VLSI nearly all PCs had a lot of addon cards just to be able to function at a basic level. Tandy owned Grid and made all Panasonic computer for the most part. But they never could break free of the "Trash 80" history..,. Just didn't really try hard enough. But Tandy wasn't here at the very beginning of PCs.... Starting with a model the same year as the first Apple computer.

[@antonhei2443]

What a beautiful thing!

[@jaymacpherson8167]

Thanks for the blast from the past. By the time the ProLinea hit the market, I’d already moved to custom builds. I kept my Compaq 1.2 5 1/4 floppy drive and Sony CPD1320 monitor.

[@2dfx]

Still have my Prolinea 4/25. It's funny that the Tseng chipset was derided at the time, and now it's looked upon fondly for its DOS performance!

[@philsanalogbasement]

Oh yea! That’s around the time I got my prolinea 4/33. I have a pic of it running AOL from 1997 or so. My dad got it from work, they must have been upgrading. Lots of memories with it. I used to steal the sound blaster 16 out of his newer computer and install it in mine when he was at work during summer vacation from school.

[@RadioTeal]

I remember this time in history well. Being a poor high school graduate in 1989, my junior college had a computer lab full of IBM PS/2 computers that at that time were maybe 286 or at best 386 machines. I wanted one really bad, but the cost was above my budget. So my first PC that I bought on my own was a computer (486DX/2 66) from Computer Shopper magazine made by a company called Onyx. It was the only one I ever saw as the company did not last too long. I replaced that machine with a similar Compaq Deskpro that was used. Great Video!

[@IBM_Museum]

@15:02 - The irony is that my familiarity with EISA is through the 'PC Server' line from IBM. In reality, the "royalty" for microchannel was comparable or less than what it was for EISA. There were more manufacturers that made microchannel adapter than EISA, and close to the same amount (although lesser production quantities) of system manufacturers. Today, we have sites like the 'Ardent-Tool' for an exceptional coverage of anything microchannel - and there are still microchannel adapters being made by hobbyists (can the same be said for EISA?).

[@userlandia]

So I left a lot of EISA stuff on the table, because it would have dragged things out considerably (and it deserves its own video). But some EISA notes and thoughts that I left on the cutting room floor: 1. MCA had both a license fee (the cost you pay to be able to make the machines at all, which wasn't that much money, relatively speaking) and a per-machine royalty. It was that per-machine royalty of 1-5% of the machine's price that really set off Compaq and the other cloners. EISA, meanwhile, only had a license fee (similar to joining the PCI SIG, VESA, etc). The barrier to entry for the latter was lower, but it didn't see widespread adoption because it turns out that adding all those extra wires was really costly from a board layout and price standpoint and it did about jack and squat for consumer 386 and 486 systems. I'm sure it's also still compromised from an electrical standpoint. Rod Canion goes into this in his book Open, but keep in mind that his take is pretty biased. But many of the facts are corroborated by contemporary newsweekly reports (e.g. what the EISA consortium expected for costs). There were other issues that complicated MCA licensing where IBM took people to task for things like back payments of other patents, whereas EISA was simpler from a legal perspective. 2. Compaq did license MCA from IBM in 1988 (as part of a patent cross-licensing settlement) and did design some MCA machines internally that were never shipped. I left this out because several cloners wound up settling some kind of patent stuff with IBM around the same time-even if they didnt't ship MCA machines. But it is what spurred them to get the ball rolling on EISA. 3. Something about the modern market for new MCA adapters is because for many PS/2 machines there's basically no choice. Without those new boards those machines would have almost zero options because the vintage stuff is either rare or doesn't do the job (e.g. CF adapters). Necessity is the mother of all invention, after all. EISA's backwards compatibility means the need to design new cards for it is basically nil. If you found an old EISA server that you wanted to roll into a games machine, you can use any of the many vintage and new-build 16-bit ISA cards for sound and video. EISA gets the benefits of the modern retro community for free, basically. 4. The real goal of EISA was to see if IBM could be countered with an "open" (to a degree) system helmed by the larger industry. And they were largely proven correct, even if EISA didn't completely replace ISA. Even if it wasn't wildly successful, it did pave the way for the PCI Special Interest Group, USB IF, and so on. 5. All of that said, the PS/2 and MCA has a uniqueness that EISA machines don't have. To me, they're like rotary engines: a fun what-if with their own appeal.

[@IBM_Museum]

@@userlandia: Dually noted - Thank You for your in-depth response to me being off-the-cuff and without any background to talk. There was only one (IBM) system that was capable of using both microchannel and ISA adapters (the 'Gearbox 800'). For the two versions of the IBM PC Server 320 - made in EISA/PCI (rebranding planars made by Micronics) and MCA/PCI - if more capable adapters are needed, the PCI slots are used in both cases. There was also the internal directives at IBM that an ISA-based model would always be lesser to the microchannel version. IBM also did the natural progression of making adapters that were harder to clone, with a narrower, multi-layer PCB. In the end, both Compac and IBM were affected by cheap clones, however - for the "Clone Wars".

[@userlandia]

Indeed. The DEC merger was a big strategic blunder on Pfeiffer's part, but he was never a true believer in the sense of a "Compaq way" like the founders were. Had they not bought DEC, would they have merged with HP? And that was an (IMO) travesty of a transaction as well, for both HP and CQ alike.

[@NEStalgia1985]

Pittsfield mass?

[@mlthmp]

Should consider doing a video on eMachines. They were a great cheaper option when I was younger. First system I ever paid for myself was an eMachine from Circuit City

[@userlandia]

I never owned an eMachines, but they will get a mention when the HP tower episode comes along.

[@mlthmp]

@userlandia they really were decent for the price. Was able to afford one with a cd-rw.. thought that was just the coolest lol

[@ianpolpo]

I have a ProLinea 4/25s that I picked up an e-waste facility last year! I really like the form factor. That ALR Sequel 586 board blows my mind.

[@oscarcharliezulu]

Wonderful video. Thanks for sharing your story.

[@OfficialiGamer]

I'm glad KZbin recommended you! Got a subscription from me!

[@MyNameIsBucket]

19:45 I understood that reference

[@userlandia]

Boomerang! You DO always come back!