Retro computer unboxing! | 1980s home computers review | Four computer buffs | 1985

The Thames TV Show 'Four Computer Buffs' takes a look at the the Latest home computers and their games that are on offer.
First shown: 11/02/1985
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Quote: VT32753

[@mandh14]

I got my first Commodore in '85 and it came with a free self adhesive beard. Nice touch I thought.

[@fredsmith1970]

brilliant!! :-D

[@ordinarryalien]

Still got the beard? Can I borrow?

[@spankysmp]

Ahhhhhhhh, back in the day where you couldn't operate or know about computers unless you had a beard.

[@Tacsmoker]

and in 2019 we have a lot of bearded folk (women included) not being able to operate anything lol

[@andreiandrosoff1327]

@@Tacsmoker A complete inversion

[@EgoShredder]

@@Tacsmoker Hipster Beardos

[@MrPants1970]

Lmao!! Brilliant.....

[@laz820]

Ha ha ha ha

[@NathanChisholm041]

Back when drawing a circle was a challenging task! 😂😂

[@sorinszabo6177]

challenging for the computer itself...

[@tomservo5007]

compared to polygons, circles are still a slow task

[@NathanChisholm041]

How dare you! lol

[@brianm2881]

"Not only can this computer draw pentagrams at high speed, but it comes with live goat, a black cowl, and a black cassette containing the full text of the Lesser Key of Solomon with colour illustrations." "Baal will be pleased this Christmas." "Oh, yes. Amstrad is devoted to ushering in 1000 years of darkness."

[@davidstrange6759]

You win for best comment lol

[@DevineInnovations]

I’m glad someone said something about that. Of all the pictures you could have drawn, why was it an inverted pentagram with a circle around it? 😂

[@Anarchist86ed]

To think my gaming laptop would have been the most powerful computer on Earth at that time.

[@RickP2012]

I’m off to Dixons to go and pick up one of those amstrad computers.

[@MrIrrepressible]

Get me one while you're there.

[@gbjanuary]

RickP2012 we all need one.

[@abc-ni9uw]

I'll pay pal err hum I mean send you a cheque please get me an amstrad too. It is 1986 right ?

[@paulweston1106]

Rumbelows was probably cheaper.

[@okee9]

@@paulweston1106 that's where I bought my first Amiga 600

[@abc-ni9uw]

The boxes and polystyrene inserts he's lobbing on the floor are what we go crazy over finding complete these days.

[@stevenreed8854]

I hate the sound and feel of Polystyrene.

[@abc-ni9uw]

@@stevenreed8854i can't say I'm a fan of it but when I buy vintage Japanese equipment ideally i want it boxed with the manual inserts the lot and the value is much greater

[@stuartd9741]

I was going to say this. Them boxes are worth as much as the computers

[@Spaethon]

I remember being 5 years old playing Treasure Mountain on our first home PC in 1989. It was so loud firing up that I'd stare into my parent's dark room when I'd sneak to play at night...just to make sure it didn't wake them. I remember the 3 low-pitch grinds and the high pitch 'beep' followed by all that loud clicking :)

[@sebastjansslavitis3898]

instructions unclear - ended up summoning Satan

[@BBC600]

It would be cool if full episodes where made available of this program!

[@MorrisseysMonkey]

The smell of new computer manuals...Lovely stuff!

[@liverush24]

Save your cash and wait for the Amiga. Not long now.

[@potassiumcyanide3857]

Scalper back then

[@danlittman8369]

40 years later, hi im Bod and im an android, welcome to todays show. I really wasn't expecting a pentagram.

[@mcatlow8]

I wish I could go back in time and try all of these brand new out of the box. I absolutely love old computers.

[@Number-tf7ce]

These "home computers" wont catch on.

[@VULTUSPRIME]

I agree! Nothing beats a good typewriter.

[@foogentog]

The future is in soldering! -red foreman

[@richardfeynman5560]

I think you're right. What should the average person do with a computer at home? I'm not Einstein or the NASA, so I have no use for a computer.

[@petercortens6019]

Weird times ... You had an amiga at home and in school you had to work on a mini computer from the '70s which accepted 1 character every 3 seconds

[@MrPants1970]

I remember those days where my google was me going to town on the train, buying a magazine, reading and making a decision....

[@Mike.Nov51]

Dirty Alex they dumbed us down...we need to know nothing

[@MrPants1970]

Mike Speed lol

[@mrs.renata2662]

_lollll, im 32 and I dont even knew that world, I was already using google in 5th grade, and by the time I was 13 I was already having sex cam, lol, and yes, im already on my 30's, people dont realise this but we are already inside this world, to think the year 2000 is already 20 years old!!!! and we are closer to the year 2030 than 2008..... and yes, this is why my generation is so accepting of weird things, cause we know no better, and it will be worse in like 15 years, I can totally picture dudes wearing wigs and having public sex and wearing masks and furry costumes on the street, and anything created will be accepted, even if they manage to make hybrids of human and animatronic, or some other weird shit like bringing actual monsters to life, until our world becomes too fuking weird, worst is we will still accept it and actually create human rights for monsters, lol omg, Nicola Tesla once said "be aware humanity will create the most horrendous u can ever think"_

[@eddieedward1986]

I love how they have to come back later while they load.

[@gavinpeters949]

Strange to see that you can drop the programme an email back in 1985

[@christineayres7094]

£400 in 1980 equivalent to £2000 in 2019 money ,crazy expensive

[@Kaisersozze]

That makes me feel better about just buying a new macbook pro

[@tjfSIM]

not really - you'd pay about the same for a cutting edge desktop PC these days.

[@christineayres7094]

@@tjfSIM lol yeah but I wouldn't call an Amstrad cutting edge even in 1980 lol

[@tjfSIM]

@@christineayres7094 Ha ha yes true :)

[@christineayres7094]

@@tjfSIM lol yeah , I remember the first proper PC my family ever had, my uncle who owns and manages his own building company needed a PC to do all the admin and accounting work , he bought a Compaq PC cost him £2500 including a CRT monitor in 1994 also he had internet connection which was so rare in the UK in 94 ,as a kid I was amazed what it could do ,but that same PC today would not have 1% of the computing power of a modern PC lol

[@markwrightrf]

Excellent. More please! Gotta love Tony Bastable

[@chmoduk]

I bought the Amstrad from a mate back in the 80s, really good and fast basic interpreter. Excellent colour monitor.

[@user-hd8bg8mh8e]

Reminds me of running a computer jumble stall at Middle school around 1995. A guy donated an early 80s 286 IBM. Remember him saying it was £4000 new. Nobody bought it

[@adamran7533]

Guy Kewney is the person who the bbc famously got mixed up with Guy Goma in 2006!

[@jareknowak8712]

Sublimal message in this one.

[@devinharris9284]

4:22 Ahhh, what a good way to demonstrate a computer's graphical abilities

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

unbelieveble

[@markorollo.]

the year before i started senior school, had two spectrums and two amigas in those days, my favourite computer at school was actually just a word processor, one of those Amstrad PCW8256 computers, i get the nostalgias every time i see one of those lol.

[@meropealcyone]

2020: ZX-81 completes the circle drawing program

[@nileshK9240]

Will buy the BBC in the upcoming Amazon sale! Thanks for the review!

[@bid84]

These are old tv programs uploaded to KZbin, none of these PCs are available new anymore

[@TheStevenWhiting]

1:07 "Long in the tooth" funny that as we had a room full of them when I started high school in September 1987. Was the IT class or whatever it was called back then. They lasted a year, I don't remember them being there anymore in 1988, the lessons ended in 87 I believe and they were all ripped out. The room became part of the CDT room, where we'd be taught "technical drawing".

[@jom1164]

We had the Amstrad CPC 664 with the colour monitor and built in disk drive and an external tape deck for tape games, not as well known as its 464 brother but still good. Great games in their day (The scout steps out, dizzy island, harrier attack etc) but it was a pain when a game crashed whilst loading and you’d have to rewind the tape and start again.

[@97channel]

Guy Kewney. Doing his best, bless him. A mix up lead to him being there instead of the well respected technology expert Guy Goma.

[@gbjanuary]

Rather have that computer than a tablet. QL would be my choice ✅

[@andrewlitt5429]

I had a Amstrad 464 colour, and the only one in my town to have a colour computer system. We had friends we never knew we had, looking through the window and staring at it lol

[@MrRiz157]

I remember my father buying me and brother amstrad 64, thought we were the luckiest kids in the world. Would only take 15 mins to load a game! The worst part was the game would crash whilst loading and you would have to start from the beginning again.

[@DJEonT1]

It was like that on most platforms loading from cassette 😆

[@JamesChurchill]

And on the C64 when loading from disk!

[@mseven1361]

How does that scoring system work, some are out of 25 and some were out of 5, it's like they were coming up with scores to purposely make a specific computer win.

[@fredjones100]

It did actually make some sense... the part that counted for most was the amount of software/peripherals available for the machines. Sound capabilities for example were far less important for most people (but not for all, hence his disclaimer at the end) hence only contributing 5 points or whatever to the overall score.

[@discotek1198]

exactly what i thought, this is bullshit scoring

[@blairansellfraser]

Processing speed got a maximum of 4 points, whereas crappy Addons got up to 20 points....sound fair right?

[@fredjones100]

@@blairansellfraser Yes, it does - at that time several machines came out with great specs but were effectively useless since there was virtually nothing you could do with them except write your own software. There was a lot to be said for a machine with average specs but with a wide range of software and hardware available to make it actually useful

[@chrisfreemesser5707]

On the coffee table in front of them sits an Atari 800XL with a 1050 disk drive. Not included in their benchmark tests as it would have won :D

[@DizzyDooDar]

Was that the title screen to Roland in the Caves when they did the sound test on the Amstrad? 😂

[@ReginaTrans_]

_suddenly I wonder what it was like to Cruise in the 80s......_ 🤔

[@sbrazenor2]

I wonder what these guys would think about something like a modern computer. If they were to be transported from the time of this show to a current situation with current hardware, I can only imagine how shocking the difference would be. 10-bit per channel HDR graphics with ray tracing, just about any level and layering of sound, countless applications and peripherals of high quality, thin and light laptops that you can bring anywhere, etc. And then smartphones would make their heads explode! Such power and capability all in a form factor that fits into a pocket would almost seem like magic to them. 🤣

[@thebadtemperedbrit]

I remember the computer room at school, full of BBC computers - the doors were always locked & I don't remember ever seeing anyone in there ;-).

[@irishboer7124]

Me too..

[@eddieedward1986]

We had an acorn on a trolly.

[@geoffjoffy]

I need one of these NOW!!

[@klin1klinom]

When your keyboard controller is good enough for all your computing needs.

[@IamHedgehog]

No Commodore? Shocking

[@Nine-Signs]

@bike wheel commodore was cheaper, but it seems this review was only regarding British manufacturers. Commodore was a yank rival and the thatcher government had piled a fair amount of subsidy into the BBC Micro.

[@IamHedgehog]

@@stevenjoy3537 totally agree

[@Inaflap]

@@stevenjoy3537 For gaming... but it wasn't better for learning to code. All three of those machines had good versions of BASIC as standard. The QL had 128K RAM (expandable to 896KB). It also had a Motorola 68008 clocked at 7.5MHz, rather than a 6510 running at 1MHz. Oddly it still managed to be about half the speed of the BBC micro running BASIC. The BBC micro would be my choice if I wanted to write BASIC code. It had a 6502 running at 2MHz (double the pace of the C64), but also had a very efficient BASIC interpreter with an in-line assembler. What the BBC micro lacked was RAM (just 32K). Programs that used high resolution graphics really needed to be multi-load, but at least the disk drives available were much better than the tardy Commodore 1541. The C64 was my choice for arcade games at home, but I learnt more on the Beeb and Sinclair machines.

[@hobanagerik]

The C64 SID chip would have wiped the floor with them on the audio tests.

[@JoeBetro]

Thank you! 🌟

[@richardmorris4842]

Sorry, at 8:52, is that the Guy Kewney who was not interviewed by the BBC years later, when the BBC famously interviewed the wrong Guy and interviewed Guy Goma who was there for a job interview? I’m 99% sure it is.

[@robertcraane7910]

Hardware Unboxed, GN,.... Eat your heart out! Benchmarking Masters here!!!!

[@MrRiz157]

Fantastic

[@dodgydruid]

My cousin was producer for this amongst Thames stuff he did.

[@justsaying9483]

This is not that long ago really, it’s amazing how much things have changed

[@petermitchell6348]

The designers of the BBC Micro went on to design the ARM processor.

[@Hellwyck]

you mean Acorn, since it's an Electron.

[@petermitchell6348]

@@Hellwyck What has the Electron got to do with this?

[@Phil-Sands]

I have apart from a PC, several Specrtum 48k's, a ZX81, an Acrorn Electron, Spectrum+2A, Amstrad CPC464 and an Amiga A1200. I used to buy Personal Computer World magazine and infact advertised software with them but reading the magazine as a whole, I never read the benchmarks as they were boring to me. 😊😊

[@eddieedward1986]

£400 in the 80's holy fuck. My mam and dad bought a 4 bedroom house in 85 for £12000.

[@tonyjones9442]

Notice how the program assumes the view has a brain and doesnt try to fill us with pc bs.

[@Tacsmoker]

and that computer uses binary....not NON BINARY ;-)

[@tonyjones9442]

@@Tacsmoker may we could get some Fortran (for trans) programs!

[@gnuemacs1166]

tony jones yep

[@SedriqMiers]

Dammm i had an Amstrad back in the day. good times.

[@sjguk267]

I started on a ZX81 at middle school then the bbc at comprehensive, had a vic-20 at home, should have got a spectrum though.

[@chobbler]

Folk will look back at the technology we got now in 30 odd years time and laugh.

[@zatozatoichi7920]

Tbh laughter in this case means ignorance. : /

[@jeffross5424]

wow!...we've come a LONG way since then

[@QuadMochaMatti]

a long way in the wrong direction.

[@jamianspenceley6765]

Did I hear right a 'BUILT IN MODEM' wow 1985.

[@gdparry2727]

Presenter: So... was there any point in that? Bet he still wouldn't have a clue if he was given 1:1 walkthrough

[@nataliemendelsohn1317]

What I love about it is how utterly honest they are telling their stories about the specs and their own views and ideas on these computers. Sometimes I fantasize about leaping in 1985 and putting my I9-intel extreme processor windows 10 computer next to these older computers, and then laugh at them.

[@nataliemendelsohn1317]

@Alex Only cheapskates who cannot afford Intel will claim AMD is better. It's a myth though, Intel will ALWAYS be better than AMD.

[@NathanChisholm041]

@Alex Agreeded AMD is running rings around Intel

[@psycoticbastard]

I bet Alan Sugar was happy

[@NathanChisholm041]

Retro man caves good mate Alan!

[@SqueekyBums]

I bought the TRS-80 colour. 64k and could use dragon 32k games too :)

[@derekthesec]

I was only a few months into the Acorn Electron.

[@stephencooley5523]

An underrated computer. Had the Acorn meet it deadline release of Christmas 82 it would of probably gone on to have a lot more successes than it did.

[@alphalobster8021]

I started my dev career with a CPC 464. And that was without a beard!

[@nazb33]

Wow. I remember the old Prestel. Great Times. Great Beards

[@Pirosbor]

What is Prestel, if you don't mind answering? Something akin to email, I presume, but '7776' hardly resembling an email address!

[@nazb33]

@@Pirosbor Prestel is pre-personal home computer. It is similar to connecting to the Internet via the telephone line but could be connected straight into the TV for viewing. Instead of links, you could access pages by punching in the page number on your remote control or on a keypad. UK TV channels used to provide news in a similar way using Prestel called Ceefax on the BBC and Oracle on the ITV platform. You could do everything like view the news and weather to preparing for flights and holidays. You can get the full rundown on Wikipedia when you punch in Prestel. I remember those days fondly of fax/telex/telegram/Prestel when calls were charged by the distance collecting the call and the time spent. Nowadays landline and mobile phone tariffs offer free calls and apps to communicate at any time but no one communicates. Back in the day, making a call was an event and everyone wanted to communicate with each other. Access to information in the UK was only supplied on two TV channels in the 70s and we survived. The "snowflake generation" of now would never know what it's like to wait for information, waiting for a call, reading a map etc...... Sorry, my rant is over..... I had fun walking down Memory Lane then..... Obviously I couldn't drive back then 😉🤩. I hope I was able to give you the details on Prestel before I went off on a tangent 👍🏾

[@timothysmith2724]

Dig that retro music XD

[@sexysensation]

Unboxing my Amstrad when I was 12 . . . Good times 😄

[@mrtiff99]

Cwooor fwooooooor! 1980's pooters fresh out of the box! Wwwooooor!

[@Leesin6767]

When things were made to last, my Amiga 1200 still works to this day. Breath on a PS4/Xbox One and watch it malfunction

[@stephencooley5523]

I still have my Amiga 1200 in a tower but all the disks are failing (I like to load from disk and not micro SD card to use it as I would of back in the day) so to say old stuff was built to last to the biggest bull I ever heard. Lots of companies like Amstrad made stuff to fail so you have to go out and buy new stuff sooner meaning they get more money back in the 80's and 90's. My Amiga 1200 is on it's last legs as it is and its done this well to last this long.

[@alzeNL]

Imagine if the QL could be found today in similar condition with its box....

[@syteanric1868]

The bbc Micro B 32k was my familys fiest ever computer. My dad got it in 1984 when i was 3. The family got rid of it 18 years later.... i was gutted! So many happy childhood rainy days on it... I miss it still

[@ForeverNeverwhere1]

I still miss mine, around 1995 my brother and dad tried fixing the sticky space key, it never worked again. I played huge amounts of Elite on it. Tapping away buying side lasers to build funds up as there was a bug that added credits to your account if you already had one.

[@zekezero12345]

As 12yr olds, my friend and i tried to 'fix' his Amstrad with a screwdriver after it failed to load Harrier Attack. (My ZX Spectrum 48k never broke).

[@robn973]

Ah, Harrier Attack. Fond memories.

[@spearce39]

My dad helped me upgrade our spectrum from 16k to 48k so I could play harrier attack but manic miner was my real addiction.

[@zekezero12345]

Eugene's Lair!

[@bennymalone]

Great game!

[@Plus_P_Plus]

“Until computers can understand speech or thought...”

[@1697djh]

How interesting. How would they benchmark today?

[@scotishjohn]

ZX spectrum was my first computer

[@sjfvideo9508]

He with the glasses... You have been identified

[@gen936]

Ahh, the good old pentagram benchmark 😂

[@StrainCainers]

Just won the new whimpy burger comp and now own a brand new QL

[@lampshade9323]

I would take the C64 and then just get an amiga

[@Inaflap]

Just wait for the Raspberry Pi Zero, and get it free on the front of a magazine.

[@joojoojeejee6058]

I DID take out the C64 and then just a PC. ;)

[@michaelstoliker971]

Tests three British computers...has an Atari and Disk Drive on the table in front of them. Running the screens with the teleprompter no doubt.

[@AnthonyChara]

I bet Thames were peeved the BBC micro ranked top in the benchmarking!

[@flibblesan]

Xyphoe brought me here! The CPC was robbed!

[@Al8lack]

Could this be the world's very first unboxing video? :-)

[@spritemon98]

Also the world's very first unboxing

[@anitarose1122]

Awesome! What will they be like in 2100?

[@TheVintageApplianceEmporium]

Offft, I was getting angry there when the BBC was losing! CPC464 was a great machine tho; Sugar hit the jackpot with that one

[@BruceWayneOfOz]

Ah, the 80s! My first computer with Windows 3.1 and a dot matrix printer! $1900!!!

[@RWL2012]

Windows 3.1 came out in 1992.

[@dylanlivingston5024]

Computers can understand voice now, but you won’t see me playing games with my voice lol

[@Tacsmoker]

yeah but which one played Manic Miner the best?

[@Inaflap]

The Tatung Einstein.

[@NewMinority]

I don’t like the result of the final tally . I demand a people’s tally vote

[@stuartd9741]

Indeed or a confirmatory tally vote. I believe the presenter is biased towards computers 🙂

[@sampa8378]

4:36 Why are they drawing pentagrams within circles on these things?

[@mollyfilms]

Sod the computers, I’m more worried about the plastic dead plants in the studio.

[@rachel596]

*_8:25_**_ why is everyone too terrified to show their bulges in the 80's?_*

[@TheStevenWhiting]

Ahh mint in the box

[@raccoon874]

*"This computer draws circles, therefore it wins.*

[@mindblast3901]

haaa love it wizz O

[@GuruMediator]

Very first Digital Foundry hehe

[@mickyeverton]

Computers!! They will never take off!! 😉😉😉

[@hobanagerik]

Discussing benchmarks, no mention of Crysis.