Exploring Two 1980s Packard Bell PCs: PB 500 & VX88 Turbo XTs

[@KAPTKipper]

Gotta say, always enjoy the LGR Closed Captions. Thanks. They would take extra time to do. Appreciate them.

[@sadmac356]

I always appreciate it when creators add closed captions

[@sauskeuzumaki121]

Yeah, LGR, I know it may be annoying but please don’t stop doing cc. I am very hard of hearing and auto google cc is quite bad. Your cc is really nice and I like it.

[@rhnn9399]

i appreciate the closed caption they working hard for. As an people that use English as the secondary language i really helped by the existence of cc

[@FelineBlue]

I have another reason to love captions, I have ADHD and one of the things that causes for me is major issues processing audio, especially speech. Subtitles help me make sure I process the words even when I don't audibly process them. I really appreciate the captions!

[@sadmac356]

@@FelineBlue that's actually *exactly* why I appreciate it

[@OttoIncognito]

I love seeing the contents of very old hard drives, what software they had, etc. It's like archeology

[@MD4564]

its like hddology.

[@cdos9186]

You are not alone, very interesting seeing what they were used for at the time. : )

[@kuzadupa185]

Its awesome seeing someone have the exact thoughts on old hard drives. Ive always been curious why this isnt an actual "field" that people take part in.

[@Xeddyhime]

That long, long HDD spin-up and the chirping while copying files brought back so many memories. Thanks for that!

[@smugshrug]

The noise the hard drive makes is oddly soft and soothing. It almost sounds like a digital synth-like noise.

[@PronatorTendon]

I have an 18tb server grade drive and it sounds like the early 90s

[@cdos9186]

@@PronatorTendon Oh man those make a ton of noise!

[@jeffreyphipps1507]

Be aware, some versions of PB computers came with a reset in the BIOS. If you unplugged the keyboard, it would check to see if there was a HDD and erase it. During a diagnosis on a machine, a client brought in, we'd find nothing wrong and put DOS back on the machine, etc. When the machine went home, it would erase itself. At first we thought it was the user. We found out that there was a small break in the keyboard wire, and when the computer detected it was "detached" the computer reset. We discovered this only after having the machine in with the keyboard. While it was on, we were swapping the keyboard, unplugged it and it rebooted and reset. Eye opener. No other machine we ever worked on did this at the time. 🤔 We did find a different keyboard anomaly with a Gateway keyboard. The user brought the machine to us sans keyboard, but it worked fine. He said he would type and get random letters. OK, maybe a bad keyboard - bring us the keyboard. Yup - random letters, no - wait - not random. you'd hit a key, then another and the old key became the new key. Programmable keyboard. Flipped it over - sure enough. Flipped a switch to reset and turned it on. Turned it off and set it to "off" (as opposed to "on" where it was programmable). "Off" retained the last settings (in this case reset). Asked if he ever thought he'd ever use that. Emphatic no. Super glued the switch to "off" permanently setting it to the factory settings. (L)users are too nosy. 😁

[@und4287]

Automatic hard drive wiping shortcut! Unplug the keyboard to wipe the hard drive.

[@KairuHakubi]

@@und4287 the power of malware at your fingertips!

[@midimusicforever]

I am amazed how fresh the plastic on the VX88 looked!

[@bayuchandrasukma820]

Oh, how I love watching these old PC vids. Made me realize how grateful I should be with what I have, aaand regretted myself for not being born at the time experiencing all that myself. Honestly, might not even be able to purchase them anyway, so here I am. Great vid, Sir.

[@PXAbstraction]

Oh man, Lazy Susan! They used to use that at my school growing up, on the machines that the admin staff used. What a throwback. I'd love to get a copy of that for the DOS PC I plan to build.

[@LGR]

I don’t know how well it’ll work, but check the video description for a link to all the files from this drive. Including the SUSAN directory :)

[@andreasklindt7144]

@@LGR Both Lazy Susan and the green Abilitiy file manager are working just fine in DOSBox. Lazy Susan appears to be useful for large collections of DOS games and software, to get easier access (after the setup...). Thanks for archiving it!

[@IronHeel]

At first, I thought LGR may have found his soulmate named Lazy Susan.

[@JAzzWoods-ik4vv]

@@LGR Btw, password might be "You Bi***"(not censored). Opening the "LSLOG.EXE" file on the notepad reveals a bunch of plain text at the end of the file, including that. Although it "could" be part of the programme as some easter egg, it doesn't seem to match anything around it. It might be worth a shot ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@nickwallette6201]

@@JAzzWoods-ik4vv Apparently Susan wasn’t just lazy, but also had a foul mouth! :-D

[@BF4pawntard]

That hard drive noise is absolutely awesome.

[@cdos9186]

I agree. I think it sucks when people swap them out for boring flash cards, hard drives can make tons of interesting sounds and some more than others if you know what to look for.

[@8bits59]

@@cdos9186 and "failed" MFM/RLL drives like this one are often fixed with a simple low level format. Yet, instead of looking it up, people say "well that's dead", e-waste it, and then install a CF card.

[@cdos9186]

@@8bits59 Very annoying when people really don't know what they're doing, expecting things to work perfectly without at least some effort to get it to work again like old hard drives. I've literally had drives with bad sectors before that went away after I did a FULL format, or even a couple of those really helps refresh the sectors on the drive that was sitting for years and years. People are very lazy unfortunately so they assume if a quick format doesn't fix the problems, time for a replacement of some sort without even trying a full format once or a couple times. I've found that if the drive seeks fine and is able to show up, very good chance it will work great after a couple formats if needed.

[@bitfixer6502]

"Password, is it farts?" Love this. Reminds me of how I used to "version" my files before source control, file_fart, file_fart_2, file_farts_final, etc. Very mature

[@bitwize]

Why not do this after version control? I use "fucknuggets" as a branch name when I intend to delete the branch after fooling around.

[@thesmokingcap]

I love these sorts of videos as you dig up forgotten treasures that have been in storage. They're just fun!

[@LGR]

Thank you! Love the channel name too, ha

[@thesmokingcap]

@@LGR haha, the irony indeed

[@theandroids6796]

So... I just watched an ad. Not for any reason but, the ad break was timed so well with a scene fade and change, that I had to let it play just to see how it would come back from the ad. It was beautiful Clint. If I had KZbin on an old wood grain set, it would have been just like old TV.

[@LGR]

I edit in and manually place ad transitions so it feels seamless, hehe

[@DiceRobo]

All your videos are so great, but I really enjoy these kind of vids where you're just talking through the camera with the sounds of the fans and hard drive. Really gives a kind of "post garage sale let's see if this old pc works" or "dude check this out" feeling

[@PXAbstraction]

LGR: Flipflops & Termites Edition Lovely pair of systems! I don't know why but those chonky, almost industrial old PC designs I find quite appealing.

[@MarkTheMorose]

I think Adrian's Digital Basement has the 'termites' market cornered.

[@jeffdeckman]

Hi, Cliff. Love your channel, and I was excited to see you cover the Packard Bell PB 500, which was the first PC I ever owned. I purchased it from Costco in the Los Angeles area in 1989. It came with a Packard Bell CGA monitor, at a cost of $999.00. I can verify that it definitely came with a 30MB hard drive, with the same front face as the one you've got. Amazing that yours still boots up!

[@LGR]

Oh that's good to know, thanks! It's _Clint_ though ;)

[@cc1912]

_Clint Clifford_ has a nice ring to it.

[@bobdeinterlace]

Cliffy B.

[@rommix0]

@@bobdeinterlace in the place to be

[@dougradtke]

Clinty Cliff

[@dainipeagram4837]

oh man, that HDD sound was a throw back to my Amiga A500 days with the HDD plugged into the side :D

[@PenguinDT]

I'll always get nostalgic with Packard Bell, as my first PC was one of the multimedia systems of theirs (a 486 SX). It was pretty killer for its time - and I should still have it in storage.

[@denis2381]

GayAnalDildo

[@cyrollan]

@@denis2381 yes.

[@denis2381]

@@cyrollan I am glad that you are agreeing with my statement.

[@plazmasyt]

Man that PB500 sounds exactly like what I expected an 80’s PC to sound like as a kid with that hard drive beeping and booping away as it reads, I love it!

[@thesteelrodent1796]

the harddrive sounds surprisingly healthy, especially for an RLL disk. Very few of those still around that work properly

[@cdos9186]

They don't seem very common to begin with, and it seems like generally MFM drives either last longer or are easier to find. Not sure though but from my experience MFM drives last a really incredible amount of time if it isn't a CMI lmao.

[@Caseytify]

I have one that works. As LGI pointed out, the beige faceplate this one has is unusual.

[@St0rmcrash]

I love this whole saga of the Samsung made Turbo XT clones. It's amazing how all the budget PC builders were competing against each other with nearly identical machines all built by the same OEM. That said I love these quirky little Turbo XT clones, with their odd turnkey solution bundled software, and how they remained viable on the bottom end on sale into the early 90s and based on this one in use for years after that. You'll never see a single model/spec sold for so long now, and it took until this past decade for PCs to get to where you could use the same one for 5-10 years comfortably without needing replacement again

[@squirlmy]

I'm confused on what you mean by "needing" replacement. It was advances like Windows 3.1, which needed a 386, and later in the 90s the need for games that used powerful video cards (and web dev). The original 8088, 8086s were really meant to last ten years. Intel even made Aboveboard 286 and 386 cards to extend the lives of the original generation of PCs. It was increasing graphics capabilities, which drove ordinary consumers to replace them more like every two years. I mean, from a software perspective, getting the latest M$ Office and latest version of Windows that I guess made a "need" for replacements. Hardware-wise, the first gen was certainly capable of running DOS and DOS software perfectly well for that long, including the "perfect" word processor, WordPerfect for DOS 5.1. Obviously, the ones here are still working fine today, over 30 years later! I don't know where you get the idea that's a recent development. I guess since everything moved to online and in the browser?

[@nickwallette6201]

@@squirlmy Once the 386s got down to reasonable prices, things moved pretty quickly. A 486 was SO much faster, and especially with VLB slots for the HDD controller and video, the difference was stark. A couple years after that, the Pentium made Win95 viable. You could (and I did) run it on a 486, but you felt the weight. Particularly if you didn’t have enough RAM. The Pentium II brought 3D games and multimedia apps to the forefront. The Pentium III made lots of CPU-bound applications possible (CAD, games, pro audio and photo and video stuff...) The P4 (once DDR chipsets showed up) handled XP better, along with office and web applications. The Core 2 breathed new life into web and media playback. The Core i-series made 1080p playback possible (without relying on hardware acceleration.) So yeah, I would say the recent few gens were when the pace slowed enough that major productivity milestones were few and far between. Before that, 5 years was the difference between fast and dated. 5 years now is still a perfectly good computer. The big progress markers now are ray-tracing and video encoding. If you’re not into either, an early i5 is still functional.

[@St0rmcrash]

@@squirlmy I was really referring to business and entry level use cases that were the drivers for sales of these machines. Tasks like basic word processing to replace the typewriter, or to do basic payroll, accounting, or inventory management, and basic gaming like card games and classic arcade ports. These really were entry machines for beginner users As you said complex gaming and the GUI finally taking off with Windows 3.0 kicked off the upgrade treadmill that the internet continued. But even in the 95/98 era if you weren't online and the copy of Office or whatever you had for basic users could still last in service for way longer than the gamers and other more demanding users

[@RHampton]

I owned two Packard Bells. The first was my 386, and the next was a Pentium. Lots of great times were had adding cards and playing with dip switches or those little jumpers. Not to mention all of the time spent on dial up. Thanks for reviving some memories.

[@Gato._.Cristo]

These videos of yours never fail to cheer me up after a bad week

[@LGR]

May your weekend be a bit better :)

[@Gato._.Cristo]

Thank you!

[@creatorTWin]

Man, that hard drive sounds glorious to me - I know it’s not the healthiest sound in the world for a hard drive but it brings me back to when I used to tinker on $20 garage sale computers, having a lense into the past of technology when thing’s weren’t all documented online like today.

[@OVERKILL_PINBALL]

old hard drive noises are so satisfying :)

[@cdos9186]

Maybe someone should make hard drive asmr that has some old drives laying around : )

[@ruadeil_zabelin]

Oh man I love laplink. It's saved me so many times with my old computers. Great stuff

[@smithincanton]

Pure bliss listening to the hard drive access.

[@Eos_Galvus]

My first PC was a Pacjard Bell from Best Buy around '97, so I'm always delighted to see more Pack Bells getting the love they deserve... So I'd absolutely be up for more videos on these -- bring on the Retrobrite, baby!

[@pkimbrel]

Let's just take a moment to appreciate how well Commander Keen was written to run that well on an 8088.

[@westpointfever905]

"Password. Oh man, is it farts?" Your humor brings out my inner teenager every time! Also, thanks for giving away your bios Password, Clint!

[@thenormanfair]

I heard "TSR" more times in this video than I have since the 80's. Thanks for making me feel old

[@jamesleung2450]

Always a good day when Clint uploads!

[@JohnKelly2]

The sound of that hard drive takes me back. My first pc in 1990 had that same drive. Seagate had a factory in Oklahoma City at that time, so they were the dominant drives around here.

[@cdos9186]

Seems like Seagate completely crushed Control Data's hard drive business unfortunately. Everyone gave the middle finger to Control Data lmao.

[@Fiends4]

Love the pause in the jazz then when it displays that it's booting up the jazz comes back in - love it!

[@joshm7769]

Really appreciate that moment of zen with the hard drive sounds.. Something that you'll never hear in a new PC again.

[@MrDuncl]

The spin up is best. It made me think I should did out the similar SCSI drive I have for an Atari ST.

[@xquarkds9x]

I have to say this video brought back a lot of memories of my first computer. It was a Packard Bell 286-12 mhz desktop that my parents got from Costco in Burnaby BC in December of 1989. For a twelve year old me back then I was in heaven! I remember it had I believe either a 20 or 30 mb MFM hard drive, 5.25 floppy drive, and MS-DOS 3.30. Parents even had a PB monitor for it and a massive size Epson dot matrix printer to go with it. Later on in 1990 parents gave me an external Supra modem 2400 bps which had a gorgeous brushed steel case on it and that got me into the world of BBS's in that era. Sadly year's later by 1993/94 I believe my father's close friend took that PB computer and monitor as he had built me a generic case 386DX/40 system that I had played a lot of sierra games on. To this day I still wish they would have kept that first computer for me it would have been great to have even just to play 80s and early 90s games on.

[@whackydumdum]

Thanks for the great videos. When ever I need to feel good - I can watch your videos and between your content (always interesting), your voice, and the music you background the video in - it ROCKS! Again, thanks...

[@LGR]

My pleasure, Scott 👍

[@SockyNoob]

I love how you can find even two extremely similar machines and all the Samsung clones unique and interesting and manage to make enjoyable videos about them. Never stop or change, it's always awesome seeing a video of yours pop up on my feed.

[@JoeSurprentis]

Ahh the LGR we know and love. Thank you!

[@vwestlife]

You are correct about the keyboard speed switching on the PB 500. It boots up at 4.77 MHz, and to switch it into 9.54 MHz turbo mode you press Ctrl - Alt - Plus (on the numeric keypad). The LED will then change from orange to green. I think originally it would've come with a small program to do the speed change in software, so you could put it in your AUTOEXEC file. Ctrl - Alt - Minus switches it back to slow speed.

[@LGR]

I show the program and key commands starting at 20:13! Unfortunately the LED doesn’t change.

[@vwestlife]

@@LGR IIRC with mine when I replaced the 8088 with a NEC V20 chip, the LED no longer changed color with the speeds.

[@SolidSonicTH]

That NuXT he built had a similar software-controlled turbo setting.

[@davidschmidt8195]

I just picked up a PB 500. Any idea what the keyboard combination to get into the Phoenix 2.51A 01 BIOS is? (If any?)

[@vwestlife]

@@davidschmidt8195 There is no BIOS setup on XT-class (8088/V20) machines.

[@ronkemperful]

Great video! My second experience with a Windows PC was with a 486 Packard Bell in 1994. Running Windows 3.0 and 8mb of ram, the PB was a huge step up from my old Epson 386dx that took 11 minutes to cold boot. It had some useful software to make the interface more user friendly. Still, it took six minutes to boot, and it was pitifully slow even compared with my lowly Mac LC 2.

[@mesterak]

Very nice coverage of these systems. I hope you get the other one working after replacing those caps. I look forward to seeing you review that system as well.

[@dersteer]

That was my first PC. I remembered mine having a 40mb drive however I could be wrong. It was that exact same sound too. It shipped with DOS 3.3. I had a sound blaster card and a ISA modem in mine and I used it for a LONG LONG time. I think I got more use out of that PC than any PC I ever owned. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

[@JohnDoe-wq5eu]

When I hear the specs on these things I'm always amazed by what consoles were doing at the time. Genesis/mega drive master system or even NES when you see the graphics of a PC like this and then you see those games you realize just how cutting edge consoles of the time were.

[@Xray1281]

Love these kinds of videos. These old computer videos are what got me to sub to this channel. That and the thrifts. Keep up the amazing work. Hope your day is going wonderfully.

[@LGR]

Thank you!

[@gazjones3549]

I don't even need the closed captioning but still use it because I appreciate the pure fucking effort involved in doing so. Points awarded.

[@radman999]

Great way to start my morning, thanks Clint!

[@ms-dosman7722]

LGR and Turbo XTs. My two favourite things.

[@NelsonMurad]

Os videos de LGR sao fantasticos. Mas o cenarios e ambientes são magníficos. Nostalgico, elegante e agradável de ver! Valeu !!!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@savagemadman2054]

We used to have a secondary system that looked EXACTLY like the VX88, NEC V40 and all. I remember it had a quirk where "ctrl-alt-delete" did nothing, figured it was custom firmware for use in a hospital. Ours had 768k of RAM and a ~30mb HDD. Was a whopping $20 CAD, surplus from a closing hospital. Parents bought it in maybe 1992 or 1993. Decommissioned in about 97, trashed in about 99.

[@BlackWolf42-]

I absolutely LOVE the sound the old ST-225 made when accessing. It was a soothing tone - I'm sure you know exactly what I'm sayin'. That newer HDD in that machine is WAY too fast to be as soothing as my beloved ST225.

[@Baygul318]

Tantalum pops - “Uncle Owen, this R2 unit has a bad motivator!”

[@Bellthorian]

Packard Bell PC's always hold a special place in my heart. They had a contract with the military to sell their PC's in the post exchange. Almost every computer nerd in the barracks had a Packard Bell.

[@onyourjackjones]

It’s amazing how self conscious creators get about their spaces. The reverb is absolutely fine and does not harm your video in any way, your audio and video are high quality

[@LGR]

I appreciate that. But considering the dozens of “TOO MUCH ECHO, YOUR AUDIO IS CRAP” style of comments I’ve gotten this past month… eh, it’s difficult _not_ to be conscious of it

[@onyourjackjones]

@@LGR do you think it’s noticing the change from before or watching you Vs other KZbinrs? I don’t think echo is a problem at all tbh, surely rooms reverberate? That’s just a thing. And oh god stop reading the comments hahahaha 🤣. You’ll end up in a ward somewhere. Not the 2022 vibe.

[@tetsujin_144]

Bad audio in a video can be a total deal-breaker for a lot of viewers. I think the audio in this one is OK but I can understand how someone who's previously put a lot of effort into achieving good audio could find it a bit frustrating when they can't...

[@Choralone422]

Love me some old Packard Bell machines! My first PC was a 486 DX2 66 Mhz based PB Legend 420. I think that was the first model they offered with that particular CPU. Cost my parents a small fortune as they had to finance the thing! While it wasn't a perfect computer by any means I learned so much using and upgrading it in part because of its limitations and the cost cutting PB did on the hardware side.

[@Novalight2550]

Ah, the sound of old harddrives.

[@cdos9186]

It seems like stepper motor drives in particular made the most noise, and the most interesting noise. I only have a ST-157A for a stepper motor drive and it is so sweet to hear the noises from it. Old drives are like a relic from the past at this point, with unfortunately many models extinct that probably sounded even cooler than this one.

[@DragonBane299]

That moment of Zen feels like its something straight out of System Shock

[@danielton9577]

My first computer (that I didn't have to share with the family) was a PB 500 my dad got from a rummage sale. It came with a 40 MB ST-250R, and I think the manual mentioned that it could come with either two floppy drives or a hard drive. We actually had the manuals and disks it came with and I remember being confused that the manual made lots of references to Samsung. The angry beeps are caused by the motherboard DIP switches not matching the video card (CGA or mono). My video card just had a color/mono switch on the video card rather than DIP switches, and in monochome mode, it actually did Hercules, not just MDA.

[@bradwicks5438]

Great to see your really old ones running Clint, I really enjoyed the vid. I'm over 50 & built 486's back in the 90's but never had any from that era, very interesting to see.

[@TheNostalgiaMall]

Of course I approve of this.

[@LGR]

Naturally!

[@GeneralKenobiSIYE]

It has been decades since I've used DOS. That had been on my mother's work computer. A P. Bell from the 8-0s as well. Older than these but the floppy drives had been upgraded to the 3.5" drives. It had less than 50MB of drive space IIRC. We went right from DOS 3.1 to Windows 98SE in 1999. System was an NEC Pentium III with 16MB graphics memory, 256MB RAM and a 9GB HDD. It never had ay issues playing anything until 2004 when games were becoming a bit too graphics intensive, especially with all the mods I had installed for Star Trek Bridge Commander. Once I started spending long stretches in hospital, I switched to laptops. The IBM ThinkPads were the best for gaming as they usually had dedicated Nvidia or ATI VRAM rather than shared. Amazing how far gaming has come on laptops. I love my Alienware x17 R2

[@syretia551]

Felt like I was watching Adrian's Digital Basement for a bit... I enjoyed this lol

[@tg9754]

Wow, I use to have a Tandy 1000 that resembled those Pc's... same 1/2 height hard drive and floppy also. That really brings back memories. That's where I learned Basic, Pascal and other languages.

[@erikmerchant567]

I would love to see you shine up these computers and get them all decked out for glorious retro gaming. That ATI card is a terrific bit of luck as they are harder to find these days and rather expensive when you do. Great Job!

[@philtkaswahl2124]

That kind of beeping is just so nostalgic.

[@ricwi42]

I remember playing Police Quest on my Aunt's PB 500 back in the early 90s, and that HDD noise was the most memorable part. It *always* sounded like that.

[@kato223]

I can close my eyes and go completely into Zen mode just listening to those RLL / MFM hard drives. Great vid Clint!

[@markvickroy6725]

Ahhhh the Epson Apex reference warms my heart. 1st MS-DOS PC for me

[@richardgilmore5607]

I had both of these to support in a large office. They did the job at that time.

[@Vexatious00111000]

Im going to need a 10 hour version of that seagate's soothing noises

[@cdos9186]

Wish I had one that sounded that nice lmao. Good old stepper motor.

[@pilgrimm23]

I had a Crappard Bell when younger... Clint: I d/l the Archive org thing. Today all I have is a Mac so I loaded this in Boxer. Some worked, some not so much. Crystal Caves did work and was pleasant to see. Love your work dude

[@bjn714]

Based on the FCC ID lookup, the VX88 was produced by Goldstar (of Lucky-Goldstar, aka LG fame).

[@brendanhoffmann8402]

I had an old Wang 386 SX... I bought it from a pawn shop in the big city with money I had left over after a trip in 1996. My friend had a 386 DX 33 upgrade so I'm not sure if I paid him for it or not but he was a great friend.

[@ahha6304]

*GREETINGS AND WELCOME TO LGR THING* intensifies

[@dan3a]

Tantalum fireworks are one of the things I fear the most now, after an *explosive* experience with my Compaq Portable II

[@TRex-NP]

Hey LGR, what a nostalgic video. I had a Packard Bell PB 500 in elementary school. It was my first PC my dad bought for me from Price Club when I was in 5th or 6th grade, 1987-1988. Previously had a Commodore 64 with a Datasette. My cousin had an older model Packard Bell that he updated to VGA graphics. The PB 500 came with CGA graphics and a 32 MB hard drive stock. My next computer after this was a Packard Bell 386SX25 with VGA graphics and 1.2 MB / 1.44 MB floppies and I think had around an 80 mb hard. Don't remember. Anyways, I enjoy your videos, looking forward to more content.

[@Blasterxp]

Love the old harddisk sound

[@tubeutubeuful]

I'd have been surprised if hard disk asmr wasn't a thing, but apparently it is (eg kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYOWhZWCaLmfbK8, and see LGR has dabbled kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4Sxoq2KrK2cq7c). Reckon hard disk asmr is an area that could really take off

[@nicwilson6587]

We need a t-shirt with ‘The Tic-Tacs have already exploded’ on it

[@nickblackburn1903]

Hey thanks so much for this and also uploading the software to Archive! Well done mate. :)

[@jdmcs]

"This is where I have a clear spot at the moment." Yeah, totally understand that! Anyways, our first new home computer was a Packard Bell (even if we did eventually have to return it under Sears' "Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back" due to their extended warranty failing to repair covered damage), and I remember repairing many of them when I worked at a local computer shop in high school, so keep the Packard Bells coming as you get them!

[@jdmcs]

Yeah, and that first system had a temper tantalum! 🤣 Also, these systems remind me of the Emerson 8000EC that I have, another XT-era clone. The wild wild west of early XT clones was certainly an interesting era of computing.

[@MrMovieNight]

Love your videos man! Thanks for all of the great nostalgic entertainment!

[@SparkRattle]

I remember having an ST238 like that but with a black faceplate. Amazing seeing all these again...

[@xliquidflames]

They were still using that thing in 1996! Wow. I was nuking haxorz on AOL2.5 and Windows 3.11 for Workgroups in 1996 on my Packard Bell Legend.

[@JaredConnell]

Yup i was punting everyone back then

[@MrDuncl]

If it was being used for business purposes and still met the requirements why not ? Some people (like my Father) was running his Engineering Consultancy using one of those Brother Typewriter with a built in flippy drive back then.

[@pitsnipe5559]

Way cool! My first computer was a Packard Bell. Got the 20 megabyte hard drive, the salesmen said I’d never need that much storage.

[@SmeddyTooBestChannel]

I have never heard a hard drive that sounds like the one at 18:53 in my life. It's like some ambience from Half-Life 1 but real!

[@martin1b]

Love listening to the HDD. Reminds me of the good ole days AND computers in Half Life.

[@MD4564]

I love watching caps and resists explode, watched a few on BigClive's channel, but year defiantly a sign of caps needing replacement, probably wouldn't hurt to do near by ones.

[@themadtux]

As much as I love the new tech we have at our fingertips, these videos put a big smile on my face when I can see an old machine I wish I still had. There is really something I miss about the early days of the PC, DOS, batch files, autoexec.bat/config.sys all that stuff. Wish time could stand still at times.

[@bills5271]

I've used Laplink a few times. A friend had a pb with a single card the had sound printer and serial on it.

[@joseluki]

That the BIOS has saved a password for so long is mindblowing.

[@makedaevilmage]

These kinda vids is exactly why I love your channel Clint

[@midbc1midbc199]

The noises of a 1970's sci-fi spaceship bridge computer purring away as it swaps data

[@Redmage913]

I grew up on two Packard bell 8088s, both with hard drives. It also had a different colored panel, with the same green LED. So many memories - Silent Service, Global Thermonuclear War, HACK, Wizard... thank you.

[@Redmage913]

Also, I can't BELIEVE the hard drive works. Both of mine died 2000/2001, both to seek errors.

[@OffGridAussiePrepper]

I would love to see u do component repairs on these pc's, cleaning and a total strip down and clean every bit of debri or dust and have a close look at the PCBs to see if theres any corrosion. The psu's too, see if theres any swollen caps in there, rebuild them suckers back to the way they were in their glory hole days :)

[@NaoPb]

Great video once again Clint. Interesting bracket on that hard drive card. I hope that it can somehow be duplicated using 3d printing or something, because I can see that becoming very usefull.

[@triangleofdeath6246]

That Vx88 lookes very good indeed! I have a VX 588 from 1989, with Amber monitor and Star Micronics printer still in its original boxes. It was one of those NCI "Learn to be an engineer!" type things. I never got around to putting it together, as I never got the box with the HDD and Power Supply.

[@baconmecrazy8128]

My very first desktop computer was a packard Bell 511. It had a 486sx processor, 8MB's of RAM, an 80MB hard drive, and a 3.5 floppy drive. It also had an extra chip slot for a math coprocessor, which would change it from an SX to a DX. I tried to adding a math coprocessor to it later on, but the chip I bought wouldn't fit the slot (had one extra pin), and I never got a chance to find another one (no internet back then plus there was a severe lack of competent computer stores in my area). I ran Windows 95 in compressed mode on it for about year. After that, I upgraded the BIOS chip so that I could bump the RAM up to 16MB and also so I could put in a larger hard drive and a CD-ROM Drive (player only). Shortly after that, I bought a US Robotics 14/4 single line modem and ran a BBS (WildCat v3) on it for about a year. Good times!

[@TWX1138]

The Packard Bell PB500 was my first computer. It was a price club special that my dad bought, 640K RAM, 30MB hard disk drive, 5.25" floppy disk, with an ATI 8-bit ISA video card. I added a 2400 baud modem and 3.5" floppy. So some did come with a hard disk drive. Turbo mode was by a keyboard command, but I don't remember how to do it at this point. maybe ctrl/alt+ and ctrl/alt/-? I think that both the floppy and the hard disk are not original in the PB500, mine were the darker gray and contrasted with the beige of the case. That training software came with a thick book, and I can cite that software and that book at teaching me how to use DOS, setting me off on my IT career path.

[@cuddlesthetiger5739]

Love the "Moment of zen" at 18:37. It's like it's talking to you. It was adorable!

[@KayhanAyar]

I have a packard bell vx88 . it has a hard drive and works perfectly :) It's really hard to find these kinds of machines in Turkey. And it can be expensive

[@Kilometers_KPH]

Thanks for making my lunch better with the upload Clint. Love these old computers.