The Computer Chronicles - Winter CES (1996)

[@MPYarnall]

I remember my mom taking me to a Computer Show in the mid 90s in Connecticut and someone was watching Top Gun on a PC. It blew my mind, this was when VHS was the way to watch a movie at home and I didn't know you could do that on a PC.

[@Kit_Bear]

Yep. I agree. Back then all we had was phyisical formats like VHS, Beta and Laserdisc. Back then it never crossed my mind that you could digitize media. Even though we had stuff like game cartridges and Talkboy watches it just seemed too far fetched to have a movie on a PC. It sounds silly to people today but it was sci fi stuff back then. I suppose to today's generation it would be like watching a 3d holographic movie in your front room. sure we have movies but holographic movies? This was indeed a step up for us at the time. The 80's and 90's gave the world a huge leap in technology that kids today could never understand. Back then it seemed that every week there was a new product pushing the boundry of technology. I was spellbound going to the local electronics shops every week. It became an addiction. I miss those days.

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

Like watching tv and going online at synchronously, including the screech of the modem! :- 📺⌨

[@ulysses2162]

I was 17 in 1996 and still playing on the PS1, Saturn, and N64. I got my first PC in 1997 (my older cousin built one for me out of spare parts he had), I remember playing Doom, Duke 3D, Quake etc and being blown away. I still played my consoles as well, and still to this day play on both the PC and consoles, as it's all about the games to me and not what hardware they're on.

[@RealHealthyGuidance]

Ok....

[@a9udn9u]

Only console vs PC era kids understand. 🤝

[@spooksy1982]

Quake and Duke Nukem 3D. Those were class games.

[@stevef6392]

"It's effectively breakproof." Toddler: Hold my apple juice.

[@xidropkillzx3246]

This intro was so wildly underrated

[@exzisd]

Everyone loves it!

[@maricate]

My first PC is this IBM Aptiva 2:20 the specs are: Pentium 200mhz RAM: 16 MB Hard Drive: 2GB

[@m9078jk3]

You should have bought a new Orchid Righteous 3D (3Dfx Voodoo 1) 3D accelerator card for that PC back in 1996 to be able to play the latest 3D PC Games

[@JaredConnell]

I had a 166mhz version with that same case. I loved pushing that little button to make the door slide down i thought it was so cool.

[@maricate]

@@JaredConnell Very cool !

[@McVaio]

I found one of those at a recycler about a year ago. I brought it home and repaired the sliding door. A really neat machine and it still has the original software on the hard drive!

[@Kit_Bear]

Oh, you rebel!

[@aviduser1961]

Wait, you can put your pictures in your computer?!

[@exzisd]

Tim is such a real G, every episode he’s is better for having him. I’d love to hear him speak in 2025 regarding the state of computers.

[@Kingofallfunnelheads]

Tim is now a transvestite hooker.

[@customtoggle7938]

Glad Stuart clarified that dude was a lookalike and not actually Elvis

[@DoggoneNexus]

less a lookalike and more a suggestion of Elvis

[@Thorpe]

Think DVDs still sell more than Blu-ray/4K Ultra HD. It's crazy to think they're still in mass production for 20+ years. Last Wii game was in 2019 and still many films coming out on DVD.

[@gamemaster2192]

I know this is old comment but if they did why did Best buy got rid of their DVD's?

[@Kit_Bear]

People typically don't want to swap their media for some new found media format. 20 years is a general rule for replacement. VHS and Laserdisc, cassette and CD, all of which had a run of about 20 to 25 years before being gradually phased out. I think what it is is that many people have a tried and tested format that has seen them through reliably and they have invested a lot of money into their physical media, this drives their resistance to change, combined with people being burned by failed formats like DCC and BETA people just waited to see which turned out best of the format wars. It was no different with bluray vs HD DVD when they first came out.

[@oldtwinsna8347]

Lots of folks realizing the scam it is for digital rights purchase of streaming media. The company can lock your account at will and you have access to nothing you've potentially spent a fortune on over time. Own your own media and none of that happens.

[@XStreet1985]

Motorola StarTac was hot back in the day, everybody wanted them.

[@BeastComputer]

It's cut off at the end. Great nonetheless! Thanks for uploading.

[@wallacelang1374]

I loved the introduction of the DVD video disc format back in 1996 for it was far superior to the two competing video tape formats of VHS and Beta. The rest of these things have come and gone within a decade or two. My Pentium MMX 233 MHz Windows 95 PC had ended its domain by the early 2000s so I chose to keep it as a video game console.

[@mutalix]

RIP Apple Pippen, you were not meant for this world.

[@micahnightwolf]

They invented the metaverse back in 1996. They don't need to reinvent it in 2022.

[@trevour]

I remember wasting away late nights in OnLive! Traveler back in '96!

[@Trance88]

The Software Kiosk at 7:10 is pretty much a Redbox machine!

[@CallousCoder]

Working in IT and tech was so much more fun in the 80s and 90s. Things were actually progressing and amazing.

[@InflatableConan]

Sending photos online? Like, over the internet? Psh, that'll never take off.. That's why I've been telling my friends to invest in a Virtual Boy. I know it had a rocky launch but there's gonna be some amazing games on the near horizon.

[@randipoling635]

My first computer I owned was a Windows 3.1 machine my parents bought back then. Good times.

[@ccricers]

22:50 seeing that made me remember a time in middle school when the lab teacher was showing off the new Power Macs they've gotten, and one of the classmates asked, "Can it play Doom?" And this was also around 1996.

[@exzisd]

3:00 Gary Kildall still alive 2 years after death, clone came for CES96

[@Kingofallfunnelheads]

LOL

[@a-terrible-fate532]

In 20 years we will probably be laughing at "remember those giant tablets we called smartphones back in the 2015's up into the 2020's? back when we still used 4g LTE and 5g 😂 "

[@ian_b]

Ah, the days before every damn thing had a camera on it.

[@Neodestro]

omg wii remote proto in 1996 lol 6:37

[@Neodestro]

also playstation move lol

[@Right_Said_Brett]

Does anybody know what the roller skating game is @6:54? It looks really cool.

[@juanignacioaschura9437]

ESPN Extreme Games, also known as 1Xtreme, it was released for PC and PS1. Not a very good game, to be fair to you.

[@CandyHam]

I'm confused, here they are talking about DVD having 8 GB on one side, but what we actually got has about 4 GB right?

[@ezydenias8505]

8:27 ah the old days when kids weren't allowed to use the pc that much. Actually I think my parents where the only ones who let their kids freely roam on the pc. I guess it had some impact on us as both of us work with computers today. I mean once we had our own pc such software locks wouldn't help anyway because we would just bypass it, destroy it or in worst case reinstall the operating system.

[@DoggoneNexus]

6:47 Did we learn nothing from the Broderbund U-Force?

[@mynie]

At exactly 7:50 they got the guy whose head explodes at the beginning of Scanners.

[@MarcellsWorldJjr]

its wild just knowing half or all of this stuff is in a landfill somewhere

[@Kingofallfunnelheads]

Man, dealing with audio, video and photos on PC's and Macs back then was clunky as FUCK. We are fortunate to live with today's tech ease.

[@MRTOWELRACK]

15:20 A toy steering wheel and cellphone all-in-one. That would not fly today in which using a phone while driving is being heavily discouraged.

[@matthewweng8483]

10:50 - I bet someone wishes they'd had a better movie to highlight the brave new world of DVD... 12:11 - can I theoretically get a "not crappy" version of Batman?

[@michaeltammaro9434]

Satjiv Chahil looks a little too happy in describing Pippin.

[@andree1991]

BRO WHAT THE FUCK I NEED THAT SHIT AT 3:43 !

[@Kit_Bear]

I do. When I saw that I was like "They had that back then?" Hey, I was around then and I never saw anything like that.

[@jacobbaranowski]

OG smart watch with "phone call right on my wrist" 1996 21:40

[@venichen1]

6:57 Proto-Kinect

[@Neodestro]

yeah lol

[@Neodestro]

also work better that kinect lol

[@KawaiiCat2]

I feel like back n the day, CES was more for the consumer to attend as well as the professionals of the tech industry. As opposed to today CES is only for tech professionals, reporters (which includes KZbinrs and Bloggers), and journalists. Someone confirm this?

[@JaredConnell]

There were no consumers there. Just like most tradeshows, you had to be part of the industry to get in.

[@Captainensano99]

Omg Dvd's pissed me off...all my Vhs tapes were obsolete lol...

[@therainmakerinsider]

Alvin Cooper Good. Let the butthurt flow.

[@lmcgregoruk]

@@therainmakerinsider But your VHS tapes would have worn out eventually, I mean DVD's are digital, you could theoretically make perfect copies of them. In case the original gets damaged in any way.

[@ulysses2162]

@@lmcgregoruk Discs will wear out also over time, with disc rot etc.

[@lmcgregoruk]

@@ulysses2162 Which is why you make a perfect copy of them to various other media before that happens.

[@edwang8975]

Yes

[@jacobbaranowski]

that is me in the background coming back from vacation 22:26

[@trevour]

Digital Versatile Disc

[@sternkrieger1950]

So they skimped out on the original DVD specs by making it have only 4.7GB instead of 8GB on a single side?

[@vinnievincent85]

I think dual layer dvds have 8 or 9 gb. I am not sure.

[@Kit_Bear]

Yes and no. The technological ability back then was single layer. The theoretical capacity was dual layer which they mentioned. I think it was pretty bold of them to declare that at the time but it paid off. Most 1st gen DVD players couldn't play dual layer and even found it difficult to play 2nd or 3rd gen discs if they could at all. I've tested this on my Kenwood 1st gen DVD player from 1997 which is spot on for this time. I've tried all sorts of discs past 2004-ish and they don't play but if I put in a first gen disc of Lost Boys or One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest they both play perfectly. Just another reason not to be an early adopter.

[@trevour]

I think the guy was confusing single layer capacity with dual layer, then doubled it 😂

[@talanock]

6:40 we have 90s wii nunchuk and 6:47 we have 90s kinect.

[@3eeeDee]

@10:46 Awks how Ultra HD Has 100gb capacity.

[@yellowblanka6058]

6:26 - What better way to demo shutter "VR" glasses than one of the worst FPS games ever made, lol, those sound effects. Can't help but think of LGR's review.

[@agy234]

Oh wow never noticed that

[@McVaio]

*than

[@CamberGreber]

Shareware Now $5 a PoP.....O Yippee! Always on the lookout for ways to pay money for Shareware.

[@IkarusKommt]

In 1996, the only way you could get shareware software was your university network and the BBSes. Downloading 1.5MB of files over a modem was a long and tedious adventure, so people would certainly prefer premade floppies.

[@sjn7220]

7:35 The Internet Shopping Network What a fool, no one is going to buy stuff over this so called "internet".

[@bradybrapples]

man, it was a loooooong time before a lot of people got over putting their credit card number "into the computer" - even though when they would order via the phone, they were already putting your info in their computers. But people were terrified of cybercrime. To be honest, it'd be nice to have a little bit of that skepticism surrounding the internet back, especially with misinformation being as rampant as it is today

[@The_Conspiracy_Analyst]

Hey they even had a preview of Windows XP in 1996: 14:11 WOW!!

[@liambates6053]

Her Interactive at 14:41

[@rsoldier7829]

dont copy that floppy :D

[@罗梦宇-i6p]

don't give idea!

[@Kit_Bear]

OK, I won't. Just like I was told not to copy that Sinclair ZX128K tape, VHS tape or DVD disc. I never did any of that because we were told not to. 😁

[@chloedevereaux1801]

also DVD is Digital Versatile Disc not video......... and they're 4.1GB not 9......

[@tdrewman]

All this looks so Prehistoric now....

[@ruthlessadmin]

tdrewman Thank you, Captain Obvious! Sarcasm aside, tho, all of the tech we have today had to come from somewhere, and well... this is it. Frankly, we're not that much better off now...We really have stagnated in a lot of ways. Devices are just smaller now. MHz and GHz are still advertised as tho they matter, but they don't. Your smartphone is probably not much faster than a late 90s/early 2000s computer - just more RAM and better programming/APIs. Desktops have really peaked out. My most modern desktop doesn't feel significantly faster than another desktop from 5 years ago... At least not compared to a 5 year upgrade cycle in the 80s-90s. Things have really slowed down. My guess is that it's due to electronic limitations. We've not reached the theoretical max speed, but we're getting there....

[@wistals3deniks]

statikreg So because your hard-drive is no longer the weakest link in a computer, we have stalled...? Size does matter and my phone can do more than my desktop computer 10 years ago. The progress has not stalled, if anything the last 10 years where more revolutionary than the 20 years before it.

[@ruthlessadmin]

wistals3deniks 1. I never said anything about size not mattering. 2. I didn't say anything about hard drives...? What? My whole point was: each size/performance gain we make today (most specifically with microprocessors) is not nearly as big as they were during the 70s-90s. Back then, we were seeing 25-50% gains per-generation on consumer CPUs (sometimes even a couple hundred % - you'll see a few of those, if you watch enough of this show), whereas now we're seeing 5-15% gains at most with each generation of CPU. We're also, as I said, approaching physical limitations.... And no: there's really nothing your phone can do that a Pentium 3 from 15 years ago can't/couldn't...I challenge you to name one thing. Your phone is merely smaller and cheaper - not really faster (if anything, probably a little slower in some situations, like floating-point math). I have a P3 I'm trying to resurrect. Perhaps a fun project would be to do a benchmark comparison between it and a few modern mobile devices. Lastly, I should point out: I wasn't attacking your point or you - just expressing some observations I've made. "Thank you captain obvious" was a joke...I'm sorry if you took offense.

[@kevinjames7906]

i still use dvd disc, in my xbox one or my dvd player

[@truecrimepodcasting]

Kevin James If you’re watching The Simpsons then we’ve made absolutely no advancement at all.

[@CorporalDanLives]

12:00 oh yeah gimme that G-rated Batman

[@loganmacgyver2625]

whats the point of a cellphone with a built in pager? just call the dammn phone while you're at it

[@IkarusKommt]

It saves you from carrying two devices and your employer from having providing people with cellphones.

[@chloedevereaux1801]

so they're her in really big force??????? you mean, they are here ENFORCE........

[@kevinhoward9593]

166mhz? God idk what they say about my i7 12700kf at 5.0ghz.

[@fwd0120]

Cool seeing a HER Interactive product that predates the Nancy Drew games

[@RossSmith-o5z]

Wow the future

[@cainthulaz1]

15:35 "First thing that comes to mind is "God that really looks fu- uh... Fragile!"" xD

[@numericalcode]

It’s amazing how bad some of these products are

[@damanimcclain2065]

You mean to tell me vivitar, has been around this long and still haven’t got it right????

[@Daehawk]

Always fun to hop in the time machine and watch these. Back in the day when they were trying to make cell phones smaller and smaller. I had one..still have it here...that was so small I could barely tap the numbers. Now days they just make them huge and people go gaga over them. Junk. Man I miss the 90s. Best decade of our lives. I still laugh at people who thought they'd game on any Apple junk lol.

[@Kit_Bear]

Oh how right you are. Well, up until 97 then the world turned to shit. I suppose it was full of so much awesomeness that the government saw we were having too much fun and decided to cut the decade short.

[@IkarusKommt]

Apple coming with a game console in 1996 was so quaint...

[@mustachesally4134]

To all the young folks now, 90s kids only had one software on their family pc - the encyclopedia.

[@RetroVHSGamingVideos]

awesome

[@jacobbaranowski]

I want that smat watch 21:33

[@MarcellsWorldJjr]

17:34 Ai back then 😐

[@Nunavuter1]

CD ROMs that "teach" teenaged girls about "fun activities" like shopping for clothes was bad enough. Then we see Fisher Price developing computer peripherals for pre-school children at 14:57. This is all very disturbing. But it lets you know how far back this all goes.

[@michaelbryant4703]

Incredible how out of touch our parents were in the 90's. All these episodes are so cringe worthy, yet I can't help but watch

[@MrLense]

Holy crap Zon was ahead of its time, and only $100! Bargain compared to the Leap motion today!

[@EirkenElite]

I want to see all this wireless crap on lgr

[@Finallybianca]

He did a video on the Chihon glasses, wish the zon controllers actually came out but the went bankrupt, and the two other never came out.

[@justandhans]

Don’t copy that damn floppy. Just torrent it.

[@fordxbgtfalcon]

That dvd thingy will never take off…

[@jacobbaranowski]

the OG flip phone 21:03

[@agentcooki]

5:29 a slippery slope to Instagram

[@ens8502]

Those/these( ?) PCIMCIA stuff was hilarious. And also the name "pcimcia" is funny as pussy

[@SchweinchenHorst]

DVD Revolution.🧐

[@Alexzw92]

17:30 when she said these hands i lost it

[@goodiesguy]

18:09 my favourite childhood game! Still have the discs!

[@andersdenkend]

Man, what's with people still touting that "Imagine a whole encyclopedia on this bad boy!!!" argument with DVDs? What the heck. Even in book form nobody had or cared about encyclopedias.

[@Kit_Bear]

That's why they were published for nearly 250 years, because nobody cared about it? Uh huh...... Hmmm.....?!

[@oldtwinsna8347]

Actually, many did. Why do you think Wikipedia turned the way it did, so early in the lifecycle of the Internet. Before that, encyclopedia's on a disc were a big deal since classically they only came in printed form and were super expensive, many thousands of dollars, to which nobody but the rich and libraries bought them. Knowledge has simply become more accessible to people without a prerequisite of a huge pocket book.

[@Kingofallfunnelheads]

7:26 I'm sorry that ridiculous product screamed FLOP LMAO What a hunk of garbage.

[@jacobbaranowski]

haha ha ha 19:32 "color TV people ...way biger"

[@Moskito844]

that's racist

[@McVaio]

​@@Moskito844 The Indian guy is racist for talking like that??

[@johnnylongfeather3086]

3:37 ewww. 3:45 wow. 3:58 ewwww. 5:25 no one would use a service like this!

[@hellfire3D]

17:21 ew

[@jacobbaranowski]

guitar hero 18:16

[@jacobbaranowski]

texting is mutch older then you think PAGERS were the first way to text electronikly

[@johnnylongfeather3086]

7:22 ewwwww. 7:39 no one will ever shop online

[@jeffoh4793]

vaporwave 7:52

[@chloedevereaux1801]

DVD replaced VCR not cdrom!!!!!!!!!! wtaf????

[@agiftfromdracosfather3490]

Damn where are these 8 gb dads today?

[@earthwolf82]

Ahh aptiva remember getting one. Had the p133 version..

[@askjeevescosby2928]

I use to love new tech. Now that it has become super mainstream and has consumed society i despise it. After seeing the aoole glasses it feels like we are living in some post apocolypic future. I guess we are our president cant even steing together a coherent sentance.

[@johnnylongfeather3086]

Wow. 6X CD-ROM. (Remember when that mattered?)

[@pupsblogs]

Foreshadowing of the Google Chrome logo at 5:34

[@teddystephens5587]

My first computer was a laser 128 Apple 2c clone

[@Kingofallfunnelheads]

Hey Stuart BOWELMOVEMENTfei

[@jacobbaranowski]

Apple emulating windows on new Apple computers 23:10

[@SweetBearCub]

It wasn't emulation. Apple had a small full PC (separate processor, RAM, although they did use the Mac hard disk for space) on an expansion card, and you could either run dual monitors to use both the MacOS and DOS/Windows at the same time, or switch back and forth between then on one monitor.

[@TheDarrenSR]

The Ugly Power Blue PC rip off's looked like some ugly Blue UPS

[@3eeeDee]

@3:38 Thicc

[@pnkflyd66]

$12,000 for a printer? Lol

[@Kit_Bear]

Oh no no! That was $12,000 back then. Modern day money that's about $20K. What should I buy, A printer or a new car. Hmmm......? That's a tough one!

[@jacobbaranowski]

PiPpin box the beging of the xbox in appel brand 18:41