PC archeology: Mystery 486 Mini-Tower

The viewers asked for it, so here it is! Let's take a look inside the Mini-Tower PC I rescued from a local recycler and get it working.
The first PC Archeology video, the Leading Edge Model "D":
• PC archeology: Leading...
#doscember official playlist:
bit.ly/DOScember2020
#doscember Participating Channels:
8-Bit Show And Tell: / 8bitshowandtell
Adrian%27s Digital Basement: / adriansdigitalbasement
ctrl-alt-rees: / ctrlaltrees
DaveJustDave: / mrdavejustdave
Jan Beta: / janbeta
Josh Malone: / joshmalone_48kram
LGR: / lazygamereviews
MindFlareRetro: / mindflareretro
Mr Lurch's Things: / mrlurchsthings
Noel's Retro Lab: / noelsretrolab
Ovesen.net / ovesennet
RetroBytes / retrobytesuk
RetroSpector78: / retrospector78
RMC: / rmcretro
RoseTintedSpectrum: / rosetintedspectrum
Tech Tangents: / akbkuku
The 8-Bit Guy: / adric22
TheRetroChannel: / theretrochannel
--- Info / Keywords
Cirrus Logic CL-GD5424 Video Card
Thunder Audio Spectrum 16
Contaq 82C596 A
Galaxy V3
--- Tools
Deoxit D5:
amzn.to/2VvOKy1
store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.16...
Jonard Tools EX-2 Chip Extractor:
amzn.to/2VazxDS
www.jonard.com/Products/EX-2-...
Wiha Chip Lifter:
amzn.to/3a9ftWw
www.wihatools.com/precision-c...
O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
amzn.to/3a9x54J
Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
amzn.to/2VrT5lW
Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
amzn.to/2ye6xC0
Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
www.rigolna.com/products/digi...
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
amzn.to/3adRbuy
TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
amzn.to/2wG4tlP
www.aliexpress.com/item/33000...
TS100 Soldering Iron:
amzn.to/2K36dJ5
www.ebay.com/itm/TS100-65W-MI...
EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
www.eevblog.com/product/121gw/
DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
amzn.to/2RDSDQw
www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Logic-DS...
Magnetic Screw Holder:
amzn.to/3b8LOhG
www.harborfreight.com/4-inch-...
Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
www.ebay.com/itm/14-16-18-20-...
RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-5-10PCS-...
Heat Sinks:
www.aliexpress.com/item/32537...
Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
amzn.to/3b8LOOI
--- Links
My GitHub repository:
github.com/misterblack1?tab=r...
Commodore Computer Club / Vancouver, WA - Portland, OR - PDX Commodore Users Group
www.commodorecomputerclub.com/
--- Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
• How to remove chips wi...
--- Music
Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino
Outro Music:
Abyss by | e s c p | escp-music.bandcamp.com
Music promoted by www.free-stock-music.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
creativecommons.org/licenses/...

[@LGR]

Always an adventure diving into machines like these! Thank goodness the battery didn’t yet go all 2020 onto the motherboard and ruin it. And I just love that funky CD tray. Nice impression too 😄

[@VintageTechFan]

I was actually confused for a moment :D

[@tarstarkusz]

I don't know about pro audio thunder, but a true pro audio spectrum sounds much better than a sb16. I had one back in the day and I replaced with an awe 32 or an awe 64, I don't remember which, but I was disappointed in the replacement. The PAS had great sound in the games I ran. I also had that same exact CD rom drive. Man that thing is SLOW.

[@tomlindo2863]

I see a lot of memories on that tree.

[@yakskiis7426]

Rammy has a new punny friend. :)

[@kenkobra]

@@yakskiis7426 Just don't unplug it or the memories will be lost.

[@6581punk]

A lot of old memories.

[@darkwinter6028]

@@kenkobra - unless you spray it with liquid nitrogen first... then you’ve got a few minutes. 😉

[@pegtooth2006]

I forget

[@kd5byb]

It's also nice to see Rami moving around. That means she is a dynamic ram, not a static ram! Baaaa haaa haaa! I'll show myself out now... ;)

[@minty_Joe]

Call it "Ram-a-thorn" (Super Troopers reference). Howdy kd5byb. 73s de kc8rlu.

[@kd5byb]

@@minty_Joe :) Greetings and 73!

[@AureliusR]

@@minty_Joe Ahhh it's 73 not 73s! Such a pet peeve of mine. 73 from a mysterious VA3...

[@adamsfusion]

I looked up that FCC ID, and sure enough, they got this computer certified in 1993. That's some dedication.

[@SteveKirks]

...and that company is still in business in Oregon!

[@mrfrenzy.]

Might have been a requirement for some government customers.

[@rillloudmother]

back when folks were still concerned about fed gov't enforcement...

[@andrewchristiansen8311]

@@rillloudmother They are still concerned, if your last name is Trump.

[@d0wnboy]

He’s not the one who added 80,000 IRS agents to the payroll, douche.

[@orangeActiondotcom]

leaving a USB floppy attached to your Windows 10 machine and rebooting to a 'non-system disk or disk error' is just accidental retrocomputing

[@TheAkashicTraveller]

Windows really is just a jenga tower

[@herbiehusker1889]

That memory tree is the best part of DOSC:\ember

[@manumdias]

posible 2x2mb & 2x1mb but the bad mem test is coz the clock is set at 50mhz

[@gb7767]

Christmas tree needs an Energy Star on top :D

[@knghtbrd]

You win this comment section.

[@LMacNeill]

In 1993 some friends of mine and I started a computer company -- we'd build and sell computers using off-the-shelf parts. This video brings back LOTS of memories for me. I honestly do not know how many of these exact computers I built and sold in 1993 and 1994. Dozens and dozens and dozens. This generic mid-tower case, the generic Winbond I/O card, the generic VL-bus-equipped 486 motherboard, the generic 30-pin RAM, etc., etc., etc... So many memories! Very cool to see this machine still working after all these years. :-)

[@kaulbachskave1281]

By the extra set of socket holes around the processor, you can see that this board would also accept an Intel Overdrive

[@msthalamus2172]

In the 90s, the *cover* was the cable management technique of choice. :)

[@thedungeondelver]

@ 1:45 - great Clint Basinger impression :D

[@goeland4585]

(1:54)

[@colday74]

I did notice that the clock speed had gone back to 50mhz in the BIOS again. Vaguely remember that odd multiplier's caused issues with the IRQ for the less popular sound cards?

[@kaitlyn__L]

Could explain the pitches being wrong in the PC Beeper music too. Worth a look-in, as well as possibly checking the filter caps. An ESR meter would do him well, as some caps fail without leaking, they just dry up. Others are totally fine and would be possibly a downgrade to replace if they're not measured.

[@daoutbox9884]

The mix of cards could introduce irq conflict, also if ram is of different speed rating could effect program speed. Try checking if turbo jumper not closed - this may return bios control of setting.

[@daoutbox9884]

PS - removed bios battery...🤔🙄😆

[@8bitbubsy]

That CPU would most likely overheat and crash pretty quickly if it ran at 50MHz, so I doubt that setting actually changed the FSB. EDIT: Unless it actually set the FSB to 25MHz, that's possible.

[@JohnMiller-mmuldoor]

Nice LGR impression 😎

[@aaa000777]

The metal standoffs for the motherboard have another purpose. They ground the motherboard to the chassis.

[@marinedalek]

22:45 I remember being bedridden with something similar to measles when my Grandfather broke the news to me that he'd managed to break the motherboard of a PC we'd been working on. "I connected the power supply connectors to it the wrong way round". "Ah." I nodded sagely, confident in the finality of its demise.

[@googleplusisdead]

Theoretically, those little pins on the connectors are supposed to stop you from putting the connectors in wrong. Apparently on this mbd, they didn't clip the openings so the connectors would slide in straight. Unfortunately, they can be put in with a little tilt to get around that protection... :)

[@souta95]

"Black to black's got your back" is the saying that I remember...

[@dysfunctionalwombat]

I've always said "Black to back or you'll never go back"

[@MainAvel]

I've always used "Red to red, you're dead" I've blown *one* motherboard because I didn't know what I was doing...

[@TheotanyaSama]

I always use : "Red on red, tou're dead, Black on black you're back"

[@SeeJayPlayGames]

@@TheotanyaSama No, if you power it up with red to red, the motherboard's dead, and no amount of black on black will bring it back. I just remembered it by saying that "blacks are supposed to stick together." Never blew a motherboard in the AT era by messing that up, what little time there was of it for me. (94-97 then ATX pretty much took over). The next motherboard I recall ruining wasn't until LGA 775 (screwed up the socket pins somehow).

[@DavidWonn]

48:56 The nice thing about Windows 3.x was that an incorrect video mode could be corrected directly from DOS. Running SETUP.EXE from the Windows directory was usually the preferred way for most people, while the SYSTEM.INI edits were the more hardcore way (and in some ways faster for those of us who did that enough.)

[@JamesPotts]

IIRC, there was an initialization program to run, for SB compatibility to work. I know that once I had everything set up right, my PAS16 worked for any SoundBlaster program I threw at it.

[@patc4624]

Ohh god the old cases, giving me ptsd of slicing open my fingers/hands

[@stevenduhaime1484]

You paused the boot sequence the first time, maybe that’s why it said 6mb then 8mb on the reboot?

[@richardestes6499]

ED was extended density. They were more common on IBM PS/2 models and capped out at 2.88mb.

[@mrnmrn1]

The drives might be common on those systems, but the disks? I've never seen ED floppies.

[@richardestes6499]

@@mrnmrn1 I used to volunteer for a nonprofit that recycled e-waste and I only came across a 2mb diskette once. My family used to have a whole box of the ls120 ones, though.

[@enginerd80]

@@richardestes6499 2-megabyte 3.5" disks are just HD disks. Their basic capacity is 2 MB, but formatting takes a chunk of the space for the file structure. In case of the FAT12 used on PC, the usable capacity is 1.44 MB. On some other systems, it would be different. (If I remember correctly, Macs of the time used their own formatting.) In the early 90's the non-formatted disks were a little cheaper, and they would be typically labelled as 2 MB (or the DD's as 1 MB). Later it became standard for the disks be factory formatted for PC -- but if you needed them for non-PC system, you'd just format them on the system, just like you would do in case of non-formatted disks. I've never seen the 2.88 MB disks, but I'd suppose their non-formatted capacity would be 4 MB.

[@googleplusisdead]

@@enginerd80 And, there were utilities to format them to higher capacities by utilizing more tracks. Hit or miss on reliability depending on the drive as well as the physical disks used.

[@douro20]

2.88MB drives were used mainly in PS/2 and RS/6000/POWERstation systems.

[@infinitecanadian]

Anyone who scraps a vintage computer should be ashamed of themselves.

[@jaykay18]

"Black to black, no flack, red to red, you're dead" is the way I learned. Usually I've found that in most cases (I've tried, with power off and PSU discharged) it won't even let you plug it in red to red, those little hooks never let it fit. These old 486 systems in a non-descript box, with that purple, orange, and green BIOS, oh man those systems were HORRIBLE! Just like the weird issues you kept having that would pop up and seemingly go away, that's how these things ran. Quirky at best. Some days good, some days bad. The way it used to be, with those multi-I/O cards, a million jumpers, and no documentation, endless reboots and running test programs to make sure you had no conflicts, drove a lot of techs back then to drink. I'd love to finish that with "ask me how I know", but fortunately I can say I wasn't old enough to drink then! I used to have a 486DX50 around, sound card, Ethernet, and had some sort of proprietary Sony CD-ROM drive that hooked to the Sound Blaster card's Sony connector. Even added the drivers to the Windows 98 boot disk back then for it. And the MicroSolutions BackPack parallel port connected CD-ROM drive. I actually have seen the type of CD-ROM you had in this machine, that thing's a gem. I had an old 2X drive, it actually had a 1X/2X light on the front, and when it could achieve 2X speeds it would light up that light. Back when they made the hardware do something fun in and of its own right. I don't think anybody ever had a problem with more blinkenlights.

[@codigomx]

That's the exact cabinet of my very first PC. A Cyrix 486 DX 4MB RAM, 540 MB HD. The small display has a glowing green color for CPU speed... 88 to 100 on turbo or something like that. A very lovely present from my mother.

[@marcinnowak7811]

Finally a video about mini-tower. I had a Pentium 166 MMX in exact same case many years ago.

[@orangeActiondotcom]

I had a "Thunder Board for Windows", Thunder Board was MediaVision's 8-bit Sound Blaster clone. It was a great pairing with my 33mhz 486DX. The "for Windows" variant just came with some Windows 3.x software (like the excellent Sound Forge 1.0!). I wasn't aware they used this Thunder branding on their PAS at some point in its lifespan!

[@turgin9098]

I too worked in mom and pop computer stores beginning around 92-93 until about 99 building and repairing 100's if not 1000's of computers. This brings back so many memories for me and I'm amazed at how much I'd forgotten. Those plastic standoffs definitely belong on the trash heap of history along with the multi IO cards and their myriad of jumper settings that were never the same from card to card.

[@timgardiner7688]

I just realised that Doomguy wears gloves! I always thought he just had some weird wrinkly hands... 2020 just keeps getting weirder.

[@anthonyblacker8471]

What a flashback Adrian! Thanks for doing this one, I'm only a couple minutes in and OF COURSE I remember this case, I built MANY system in that style case, and ours had the lcd number box.. We had metal badges for the square on the front.. man the days. I forgot the old red Intel inside sticker.. man it's been SO long..

[@twocvbloke]

Fun thing about dialup is my ISP still supplies an "emergency phone number" for dialup when the broadband craps out, but when the broadband crapped out for me a couple months back, the phoneline itself was failing so dialup wouldn't have even worked anyway!!! :P

[@herauthon]

the darkside of VoIP

[@herauthon]

i remember the early days of the CB demise - that channel 36 was used by wireless data testers - to link a 9600b and send files over CB

[@twocvbloke]

@@herauthon Here in the UK, the majority of our phonelines are still copper, so not VoIP just yet, but when there's corroded and broken wires, it doesn't matter either way, call and data are going nowhere... :P

[@herauthon]

@@twocvbloke Well, we got Cable - and i assume it is a cupper connection - but the modem uses VoIP - to convert analogue phone signal to digital signal - effectively VoIP. [ ihmo ]

[@kd7cwg]

Juno still offers free dial up internet 🤣

[@brycelynch2138]

5:03 - Name-brand 80486 boxen usually came with an Intel Inside sticker. The ones we had in high school all had them.

[@josephroth3982]

Sorry I'm late to this party, lol. I had a 486DX-33 built by a company called Midwest Micro way back in 1994. It was a VESA local bus system. I was impressed by the speed at the time, with the local bus cards running at bus speed. The multi IO card died a couple of years in and I had to replace it with a 16 bit card, it just wasn't the same. My case was almost identical to this one, except it was a full tower and the display read 33. It was a damn fine machine.

[@shawnbottom4769]

These old PCs live on to this day in machine shops. Mills and lathes that have been converted to CNC are frequently based on PC motherboards like this. Also I remember using outdated units just like this one to “DNC” programs to milling centers where the CAD/CAM generated program was too large for the machine’s internal memory. 7200 baud rate via rs-232 that sometimes required re-soldering the pin-out to get everyone to shake hands. Good times.

[@jtsiomb]

That blacks in the middle rule is one of those things that I can't remember where I learned it from, but it's ingrained in my memory like not touching a hot stove.

[@georgechambers3197]

I sold my first CTL computer in 1988, a 286. Computer Technology Link or CTL is still in Portland selling computers wholesale. The owner David Kim had me design some logos for him and the Big K with the im in the leg is the one he chose. I sold their computers even after I retired up until about 2010 when I retired again. For a time they made their motherboards in California using their own designs. I visited the plant once, it was pretty amazing. Their monitors were made in their own plant in Korea. I still have a pallet load of 17 & 21 inch monitors. They are good people to deal with if you are a computer reseller. Thanks for the video!

[@dirkwirsbitzki3264]

A perfect example of what problems you had with PCs back in the time. You got a PC from someone and something didnt work. Three hours later fiddeling around with cables, cards, adresses and interrupts the thing worked perfectly fine. When the guy got around to pick up the PC and asked "What did you do to fix it?" you would normally answer "I have no idea".

[@NGNetwork1]

22:28 "Read to Red, you'll always be dead, Black to Black, you're safe Jack"

[@andreewert6576]

but what if i'm not called Jack?

[@roasthunter]

Have you ever tried Xtree Gold file management software, was a great DOS utility and I used in to about 2000. Watching this video takes me back to my early days of PC, my first PC was a 386, it's great to tinker around with old computers but by goodness thankfully things have moved on in the real world and the average person can achieve amazing things with a modern PC.

[@marceallonardo]

I remember when we used a VLB motherboard with a 486 DX-50 as an ad-hoc Novell server. The server kept abending. Turns out the the Vesa IDE controller couldn't handle a bus speed of 50Mhz. Had to switch to a DX2-66.

[@keithstathem872]

I remember, sometime in the mid-90's, I discovered the option to format a floppy at 2.88mb. I formatted several disks that way, it worked fine with most of my disks and all of the PCs I used them on. I never found anything that used it by default.

[@julianweber1113]

"what is it?" "a memorytree" "what DOS it?" "holding memories ._."

[@Okurka.]

It says 486 in the FCC ID number so that's not a surprise.

[@WY.C64-Guy]

My cousin's family got their first PC one christmas in the early 90s after using their Apple //e for a few years. It was one of the first multimedia PCs we had ever used, and came with an encyclopedia on CD. I later found out it was a 486SX(?) running at 25MHz. Only a few years later I got my own Dell 486DX2/66 as a high school graduation present, although it was probably the last 486 model Dell ever sold since Pentium machines were starting to dominate catalogs.

[@MrKillswitch88]

Don't ditch that sound card as they tend to be pretty good to even desirable for collectors so maybe check the caps.

[@mikesilva3868]

Agreed 🍩

[@stathissim]

I don’t think he ditches anything. The dead parts bin would agree with me in this

[@Okurka.]

He has the wrong drivers.

[@anomaly95]

HighTreason610 has some valid concerns regarding the SoundBlaster 16's audio quality vs the PAS16: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZXTmZdtaZeCp9U

[@nickwallette6201]

I haven’t heard of this particular board, but I had a PAS16 back in the day and it was fine. It was an upgrade from an SBPro, before the SB16 was readily available, and came with a fancy MOD player that played in 16-bit stereo mixing. My only complaint was that Wolf3D wasn’t in stereo, and maybe one or two other scene demos or something that could only use the Sound Blaster compatibility. What I didn’t realize back then was that the SB compatibility was actually provided by a dedicated chip from the Thunder Board (an SB clone) and meant I could have used two wave devices in Windows - which would have been a pretty neat trick back then! Anyway, it was a solid card, so I suspect the drivers aren’t working right or something here. Oh, and the PC speaker thing - it actually listens to the IO address of the timer to intercept and emulate it.

[@jason50146]

That's exactly how I remember PC's in the early 90's. Those all seem like typical problems we all encountered.

[@iocat]

I had a Mac in this era -- a Centris 650 -- and it just worked, elegantly and beautifully.

[@jason50146]

@@iocat Yup. I was still primarily an Amiga user at the time. Same story. Those just worked.

[@Hutschnur]

Remember him saying in one of his early videos that he normally wasn't one of the retro guys? Now he's making christmas trees out of memory modules xDD

[@kaitlyn__L]

We've corrupted him

[@squirlmy]

@@kaitlyn__L but hopefully we haven't corrupted his memory! lol

[@simonweel7971]

O, and the logo on the front; to me it looks like Kim. Capital K and 'im' in small print in the leg of the K. Maybe the machine was owned by someone called Kim?

[@stephanmees1365]

Exactly, take a look here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTL_(company)

[@kaitlyn__L]

I was wondering if I was just imagining that, when he called it "K Inc". It's definitely a personalised "Kim" badge.

[@summer_xo]

Love these long form deep dives. Glad I came across this channel.

[@cappaculla]

Absolutely loved this Adrian... Would love to see more like this. Happy Christmas and new year

[@ChrisNorris]

Case looks familiar to me too. I purchased many of these type of mini/midi tower cases back in the 1990s for various businesses I worked for. This one looks like a great 486DX66 machine I used to use and was very proud of! Also - some cases had sharp edges on the internal case metalwork. The times I skinned my knuckles getting a mobo out of a non-tray case!!

[@oliverochojski3561]

The CD Rom installed in this PC is a Mitsumi Single Speed drive. They used to ship these with a separate ISA controller card, it didn't work as standard IDE drive. However, some soundcards had interfaces for this kind of drive ... but i neuer heard that a Pro Audio Spectrum had a Mitsumi Interface included.

[@michaelhall4626]

We had that exact CD-ROM drive in our 386, with the separate controller card. And the sound card we had in it (a Sound Blaster 2.0, IIRC) didn't have a CD audio connector, so I think we used a dual RCA to 3.5 mm cable to connect it through the line-in. Yes, it is a single-speed Mitsumi drive.

[@Choralone422]

Seeing that machine brings back a lot of memories! Thank you for the video!

[@Smartphonekanalen]

In the 90's (1994) I used to have a 486 SX25 with a generic case with a round shape in the front. I overclocked it to 40 MHz, this was the time before regular OC. I didn't know what I did with jumpers, but it worked and I even installed a cooler with a fan. Now I bought a pentium 100 in an AT case like this one, it will do it until I find a case I used to have.

[@temporarilyoffline]

Merry Christmas Adrian! Thanks for all the hard work making videos this year! Looking forward to next year!

[@scottlarson1548]

This was a great tour of the seemingly endless compatibility problems that everyone building PC's had in the 90's and why so many people chose to open their wallets to buy Dell or some other brand name computer. Nothing sucked more than getting a new card and finding that your computer wouldn't boot with it plugged in, or getting a new game and finding that your sound card only partially worked with it but didn't have problems with any other games. I wasted hundreds of hours of my life on stuff like this.

[@martinjh999]

Any one else remember having bleeding hands when messing about inside cases of this era?? I do remember having spaghetti cable runs as well... :) Love the video's Adrian - Takes me back in time too to when I used to build my own computers....

[@orangejuche]

Adrian, if you're curious for the mnemonic for AT power connectors that I was taught by my father, it's "Red on Red, you're dead, Fred. Black on Black, you're alright, Jack."

[@nobuckle40]

How about, "Red to red, you're dead Fred. Black to black, you're on track Jack!"

[@JessicaFEREM]

that CD drive actually is one of the few drives that actually work with early linux. (If i believe correctly)

[@brandonbrooks2845]

Great little machine, takes me back to some of my first builds!

[@thedungeondelver]

That box is SO much like my first PC it's scary. I didn't have a sound-card nor an internal modem, otherwise, very very similar. '486, that weird Mitsumi CD-ROM, VLB controller, later VLB video card... I was a commodore user from 82 to 1994 (VIC-20, C64, briefly a 128 and then an Amiga of some type 'til C= went bust), then jumped on the PC track in '94 with the '486.

[@chadsmith8476]

Good job! I worked at a computer store in Yakima back in the 90s. Brought back some memories.

[@extrameatsammich]

I had a Sound Blaster 16 card that had an integrated scsi adapter. Back in the days of super expensive RAM, we used small (100-200 MB) Apple scsi drives in our windows 95/98 computers for dedicated swap space.

[@arnolda.lampel6087]

486s really were the gateway from the "old limited computer freak times" to the more modern "everybody uses PCs now" era :-) Sooo much happened between the 286s and Pentiums. I really love my 486-DX4-120 with Cirrus VLB VGA and 24MB EdoRAM. Even Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior (that came out in 1997 !!!) run very decently on it :-) Only the CD ROM Drive is a single speed and a bit slow, but it came with the SoundBlaster PRO and I would like to keep it original :-)

[@VerityFraser]

Great video, but I'm commenting solely to say that little ram plushie is pure, distilled adorable.

[@CaliforniaEBRDude]

I built several mini-tower computers in the mid to late 1990s. This video is a nostalgic trip for me, but I'd never want to go back there.

[@DiskWizard001]

Winbond's MIO cards were notorious for handling properly 14 MHz I/O bus without any penalties. Others failed quickly.

[@fluffycritter]

If it weren't for the case badge and the ejecting-drive CD-ROM I'd absolutely swear that this machine was the one I built in 1995. Those are some danged familiar parts in there, right down to the I/O controller and graphics card. Hell, I even had a Pro Audio Spectrum 16. (Although I had a DX4/100) The PAS16's main claim to fame was that it was a 16-bit stereo sound card that came with some great creation tools. It was only compatible with the original SB (and not even particularly well) but it also predated the SB16. Also it had some fun programmer-friendly features on it which basically nobody used.

[@PixelOverload]

Computer Technology Link corp seems to have been a pre-built wholesaler in the 80s-90s (they sell Chromebooks now), they probably registered their standard builds with the FCC and the sticker on the front would probably be from w/e local shop tweaked it and resold it

[@timrb]

A friend of mine and I used to build up 486 era systems about 20 years ago. One time he just put something together and his whole family plus me were waiting for him to turn it on. He held the AT power switch in his hand and he sort of vibrated for a split second and threw the switch to the ground, then his brother collapsed to the floor. His brother took a deep breath and started laughing. My friend had inadvertently use his hand to short the switch to earth and tripped the safety switch. His brother fell over because he was laughing so hard.

[@KingMob4313]

PLEASE make that cover for that power switch. I don't want to see you in the future with a bandaged hand from an electrical burn.

[@MatroxMillennium]

The 386 phone server with built-in amber CRT that I picked up at Computer Reset also had one of those barrel batteries that had just barely started leaking, so I'm glad I got it when I did and de-soldered it before any damage was done!

[@you900001]

fantastic! I love watching you save old tech

[@spliceoncharlie]

Thanks for sharing the tower.

[@MrChrisRP]

Had fun watching this yesterday. Cool dude and thanks.

[@VenturiLife]

For some added safety get a portable RCD-trip device and add it to your mains power input for the project/s, that way if you ever become part of the circuit, the breaker will trip and can save your life. They are mandatory on most circuits in Australia in the switchboards these days as they save lives and don't cost the earth.

[@WolfKenneth]

I have hate-love relationship with mini towers of early 90ties. My first two PCs 386 and 486 had them so I have nostalgia love for them but this was era when I changed a lot in them and cheapo towers where heavy stamped metal with lots of burr and sharp edges so in those tight spaces I lost a lot of blood fitting different drives, ISA and PCI cards, ram modules...

[@anomaly95]

Yep. Building a computer back then meant walking away looking like you danced with Freddy Kruger.

[@DanPellegrino486]

It is a real FCC ID if you look it up. That is nuts.

[@InconsistentManner]

23:45 See if there is enough space in the PSU to mount that switch in the PSU case itself... You have a Dremel, maybe think of a few projects to create a MOD-a-thon video...

[@SuperHamsterGaming]

Makes sense. My first CD Rom came with a real Pro Audio Spectrum. It connected to the sound card which had a SCSI connector on it.

[@fsfs555]

I love those old Mitsumi tray loaders. Far less fiddly than caddy types and there are no belts to break down. Plus if you want the drive to be inert (not spin up or be accessed across multiple reboots, for example), just leave it unclicked. The reason they and other early CDROMs used special interface cards (unless you had SCSI) is that the basic ATA standard doesn't support removable drives, so CDROMs and things wouldn't be usable without rebooting the system every time you wanted to insert or remove a disc. Hence the special cards with their own custom interfaces (some cards had up to 3 different headers for the different drive standards: Mitsumi, Sony, or Panasonic/Creative). It wasn't until the Pentium era that ATAPI was introduced which basically identified a CDROM (or Zip or other removable) as a normal ATA device to BIOS but sent status changes and data over the bus in packets to the OS and its drivers to get around these limitations.

[@argvminusone]

“No user serviceable parts inside.” 😂 That's just silly. Users routinely opened these machines up to replace cards and drives, and there's nothing above 12V in there (except the PSU, but it has its own case and warning label). Side note: giving the PSU its own case was an excellent idea. Isolating the only dangerous component of the machine made it safe for an entire generation of young nerdlings like me to tinker with our computers. I'd probably never have touched anything in any of my PCs if I had to worry about getting accidentally killed by touching a high-voltage capacitor. So, thanks to whoever (presumably at IBM) made that design decision.

[@paulluce2557]

We had plethoras of clone builders building machines like this in the UK in the early 1990s. The 486 DX based machines were the desirables and as such you were looking at typically £2000-£2500 ...

[@HeadsetGuy]

Looking up the FCC ID, it looks like there was also a mid-tower version of this ("CTL486MD"), a full tower ("CTL486FT"), and a desktop ("CTL486DT"), and then they made a Pentium-based one in 1995 ("CTL586PFT" and "CTL586PMID").

[@squirlmy]

Yeah, I think Adrian gets confused with FCC REG at 9:18, because the ID is on nearly every piece of computer equipment.

[@heilong108]

There is a dos utility called CLMODE which will allow you to set 1024x768 to run in non-interlaced. It defaults to interlaced, which an LCD of course won't accept

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Ah right!! Of course. Completely forgot about interlaced 1024x768

[@larryladeroute971]

How you attached the cr2032 with a diode was the part I wanted to see most. Anyway, another great video.

[@kaitlyn__L]

He's shown it in earlier videos, but it's basically just a bit of solder and heat shrink tubing anyway.

[@larryladeroute971]

@@kaitlyn__L I have a need to do it on several machines and I realize it is easy but I want to get it correct and the diodes location and orientation is not obvious to me as it seems to be to many.

[@thastump]

Man, I just love mini-towers. They're just such a perfect little squat compact PC, I think literally every school PC I ever used was a mini-tower, so many memories.

[@runcmd8851]

Merry Christmas Adrian from UK Stay Safe my friend. Brought back memories these PC Builds.

[@buzz1973]

Wow that took me back! thank you great video as always

[@Aleph-Noll]

a case with a removable motherboard tray should make a comeback

[@Walczyk]

25:34 hahaha i burst out laughing! "there is a nice calendar there like if you're going to .. look at the calendar i guess? i always wondered why hat was in there exactly"

[@mcosta3810]

I know I'm late to the game, here. At 46:43, Adrian discussed Galaxy Music Player crashing. The GLX32 executable freezes in Dosbox too, when it emulates SoundBlaster by default. But the GLX executable seems to be more stable. So that one bug might not have been the sound card's fault

[@koushiroizumi0]

PC archeology... Whenever i get an old computer or hdd from somebody or the scrapyard I always investigate the hdd. There may be memories that somebody would like to have again.

[@performa9523]

This series is terrific. Definitely head to the recycler again sir, I could watch these old computers get worked on all day!

[@highpath4776]

I have 30 in the garage to work my way through !!

[@performa9523]

@@highpath4776 Film it and post it, I'll watch.

[@UpLateGeek]

Very lucky that machine didn't suffer from the dreaded battery leakage! It's a shame about the sound card, I'm sure it would work better with the original drivers. I wish I had more time off to play with my Pro AudioSpectrum card and 1x CD-ROM drive. Had to get them shipped all the way from the US to Australia because they're the same kind that we had in our family 386 back in the day. The drive uses the LSMI interface, so it would be cool to get it working (if they work!). Anyway, it's always fun to watch you re-living the experience of using these machines. Even if they're just as temperamental as they were back in the day!

[@redsmith9953]

I like so much the level of detail you put in your videos like FCC serial number, ROM flashing or technology in general, and it's not overwhelming it's enlightening, cuz my computer is new and nice, but i watch this videos to connect to the past era of computers, so again every detail matters, and thank you very much going trough every detail, that makes the window to the past more transparent, effectively bringing the magic of that era to live again today, thanks for your work aka magia!

[@rjonzun5828]

Consistently great content, Adrian. Looking forward to your 100,000 mark.

[@sq1rlsqu4d]

A colour BIOS setup screen? Pure decadence. Back then when I were young we were lucky if we were greeted with a black and white BIOS setup. After a day down the mines, a solid beating from parents and gruel for supper it was a highlight of the day :-D