Retro Computing Enthusiasts are Masochists

[@LGR]

Ugh, retro computing... _Not even *once*._

[@JeffGeerling]

Heh... read this comment while I have your Gateway 2000 restore video playing in another tab.

[@mycosys]

Dude...... we own eurocrack

[@MenaceInc]

You're right. Not once. Many many times.

[@bzuidgeest]

I have seen your videos, I remember several vintage PCs , all kinds of oddware, an entire stack of vintage midi, like the mt32....

[@dfjab]

@@JeffGeerlingdude, you're technical enough to know that surfshark isn't going to do shit for your public wifi. I have NO idea why I need to tell you this. I don't know about you but public wifi doesn't have me randomly install root CA's. I'm so done with these scam ads. If the *not having https* was your threat, surfaceshark is going to increase that as much as public wifi does.

[@kjlovescoffee]

Getting GPUs to work on Raspberry Pis - you were already a masochist!

[@JeffGeerling]

I guess I was meant for this life.

[@Jackpkmn]

@@JeffGeerlingONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US

[@russellzauner]

another guy is already making a video display from scratch using RISCV lol it's got...some pixels....

[@dimaetos]

based

[@juanmacias5922]

There should be a law that after a company stops supporting a product all it's repair data becomes public domain.

[@graxxor]

^^ 100% this... this is perfect.

[@shadesoftime]

Or even better - make it public domain right away

[@Roxor128]

Not just repair data, ALL of it! Source code, schematics, CAD files, custom tools, EVERYTHING! If you're not selling it, you've got nothing to lose by releasing the information you used to make it.

[@juanmacias5922]

@@shadesoftime don't see that ever happening in a capitalistic world lol

[@juanmacias5922]

@@Roxor128 TRUE.

[@gopherman96]

One of us! One of us! I'm the Apple department coordinator at Free Geek Twin Cities and, on behalf of all of us at FGTC, wanted to say thanks so much for the shoutout! It's always great to see people getting into vintage Macs and other assorted tech silliness. Hope you enjoy the rabbit hole as much as we do!

[@JeffGeerling]

Thanks for your service getting parts and machines back out into the world! Wish we had more Free Geek locations around the US!

[@RoastBeefSandwich]

It's amazing how closely the retro computing hobby aligns with car culture. Veronica even said she wants to replicate the machine she had growing up - which is pretty much every "car guy's" dream.

[@Jerry_from_analytics]

In one aspect is very different from car culture. Take Ford Model A. Early examples are almost approaching 100 years age. And you can actually daily drive it to work, for groceries, etc. And it's even easier to do that with any more recent car. Now look at computers from 70s, 80s, 90s.. It's really difficult to find any practical use for those. It's by no means necessary, but it does make a hobby more viable.

[@RoastBeefSandwich]

@@Jerry_from_analytics It's not really practical to drive a Model A to get groceries. You have no safety to speak of, hardly any brakes, and a practical top speed of what 25MPH?

[@TheTimeFarm]

​@@Jerry_from_analytics Basically any model A on the road today has been heavily modified to make it more practical in the modern day. It's like a beige 90's PC case with modern hardware inside.

[@pgtmr2713]

It's more fun when you can do both. My car makes about 10-15hp extra from an ECU swap. Also since the newer ECU is OBD II it can take a bluetooth adapter and be read out with a smartphone. Still haven't read it with a Pi4/5 yet. I'd really like to do that with a Pi in Gameboy form factor for the combo. Absolutely 0 downside to the ECU swap. It allowed for a sensor change to a more accurate, freer flowing air sensor. Mass instead of volumetric. Better gas mileage as well. Stuff like this is very specific. So the ECU is for a later year of almost the same engine that carried on into the OBD II era. There is a patch harness that connects the one type of wiring to plugs that fit the newer ecu. The new ECU was a junkyard find. All around a lot of fun and can swap back and forth in about 5-10 minutes. The extra power can be felt on the freeway, but the MPGs were significant because the older ECU ran the engine rich (more fuel to the air/fuel ratio,) at all times. Dodge/Jeep has an older automatic truck transmission that can go from a 4 speed to 5 speed with a TCM swap. Only certain years. Newer vehicles can have VIN lock issues. Where swapping can effectively kill the ecu, transmission controller, some radios even lock out after a swap. So, know what you're doing first.

[@Jerry_from_analytics]

@@RoastBeefSandwichYou may be thinking of Model T. Model A is definitely faster than 25MPH and is relatively usable in quieter rural areas. I'm definitely not suggesting trying it in New York, London or San Francisco. It's also one of the first mass produced cars with what we think is modern car pedal layout - clutch, brake, accelerator. There's plenty of "daily driving Model A" footage on KZbin btw. And as I said - it's something to indicate how far to the past you can go and still find somewhat usable car. With computers IMHO it's a different story. If you like gaming it does make sense to go as far back as mid 80s and still find plenty of enjoyment. If you're into something else - it's unusable. A car from mid 80s will take you around the world and more.

[@blahx9]

The macs at our school crashed all the time " Dont move the mouse when its thinking" exclaimed the teacher

[@JeffGeerling]

Haha, I'm sure there were a few crashes where moving the mouse could make it worse!

[@AerialWaviator]

Can't remember if was old Mac's or old PC's (or both) that when computing bound, moving the mouse would create mouse pointer tails (or trails).

[@amirpourghoureiyan1637]

@@AerialWaviator That was actually a feature on Windows lol, passive matrix screens (early laptops) needed it otherwise the mouse would be incredibly difficult to keep track of otherwise.

[@johnsimon8457]

Having a download fail because you switched to a different window and started browsing somewhere else was infuriating. That Mac OS 9 multi tasking was at the END of its usefulness when the iMac was out

[@lasskinn474]

@@amirpourghoureiyan1637 display pointer trails is still a feature in windows 11. you need to dig far enough in settings that it takes you back to the windows 7 mouse options dialog and there it is under pointer options.

[@mrlithium69]

0:30 - I can stop anytime - said no retro enthusiast ever - by the time you LIGHT UP your first *BONG* - you're hooked *lmao* nice one

[@Gr00t]

"I replaced it with this startech adapter and it worked fine" ahhh, a tale as old as time.

[@MistahMatzah]

StarTech made an adapter (now unobtanium) that allowed you to adapt a PCI-X slot to a single PCIe x1 slot. Someone needs to dig one of those up and see what, if anything, will work on these old G4 and G5 machines.

[@233kosta]

StarTech is the unsung hero of doing weird AF computer sh!t.

[@HammerStudioGames]

So true lol ​@@233kosta

[@nathanmead140]

​​​​@@233kostafor normal stuff too, their adapter is recommended by a lot of people for original Xbox systems because it works properly unlike most others even if all you're doing is replacing the stock hard drive with another hard drive of the same capacity just one that uses SATA instead of IDE, I need a couple for the 2 original Xbox systems I have (a 1.0 and a 1.6), the 1.6 turns on but the drive only clicks I'm missing the heatsink clamps for it and there's no thermal paste on the CPU and GPU too (I only turned it on for a couple seconds to see if it still worked after replacing the 5 capacitors around the CPU that blew up so it wasn't running for very long like that), I have some parts coming from Hong Kong for the 1.0 I've already repasted it with Arctic MX-4 also replaced the ADM1032 because that was bad and installed a new clock cap, it turns on by itself when plugged in and doesn't display anything now but I think that could be because I cleaned out all the holes on the LPC connector but haven't installed a pin header on it yet but I could have damaged a trace somewhere too also the Ethernet connector is missing because it was bad (very rusty inside) so I'm replacing that when the parts come, the HDD in that one might still work but I'm going to install an open xenium and replace the drive so the old one doesn't die and take my save data with it.

[@hatkidchan_]

16:44 oh hi Alec from Technology Connections, didn't expect you here

[@earthling_parth]

"Due to the magic of buying another" joke never gets old 😂

[@sda2911]

@@earthling_parth I enjoy when he ups the ante with the magic of buying 2,3,4, “several”, etc 😁

[@earthling_parth]

@@sda2911 me too 🤣

[@annihilatorg]

Nothing quite like spending $400 or more to upgrade your "great deal" $50 retro buy. Loved seeing all the other youtubers featured too.

[@JeffGeerling]

Hehe that's how the hobby gets you. "It was only $20!" How much did you spend to fix it up? "Umm..."

[@annieworroll4373]

@@JeffGeerling I'm hoping to win a cheap bid on a badly broken C64 and I'm assuming it's going to be at least a couple hundred to get it working unless I'm very very lucky(there's at least a chance it will just be a few bucks to fix the power supply, given the problem description is "no activity at all not even a power LED)

[@travis1240]

I love retro computing videos. They save me so much space, money, time, and frustration.

[@user540000]

yeah i have two beige PC cases after hunting craigslist for awhile and all the parts for a Pentium II but i cant decide what case i want to use, its all a time sink and takes up so much space, i need to downsize these days too...

[@pradeepmalar327]

Retro tech hobbyists actually save quite some e-waste too. It's really great to see old hardware being preserved.

[@mica7191]

ThisDoesNotCompute made my interest into retro preservation grow...

[@tonysheerness2427]

Only if they are used, other wise they are just clutter.

[@notNajimi]

@@tonysheerness2427clutter is better than litter

[@gorak9000]

Until the "retro hobbyist" passes away, or decides they need their space and time back, and that storing old crap is a waste of space, and working on old crap is a waste of time. Then it all goes back to the trash anyway. It's like saying trees absorb carbon - yes, while they're living, and when they die and rot, all that carbon is released again anyway. It's a zero sum game in the end either way.

[@NimhLabs]

@@gorak9000 it is almost like a new generation of trees to fill in for when the older generation of trees dies is required to accomplish that goal

[@Scooter_213]

I'm half way in the process of building my first home and have a specific room dedicated to cosplaying as sysadmin with my own retro corner. I. Can. Not. Wait!!! There's half a dozen old computers waiting to be restored locked away in storage. Thanks for the inspiration.

[@RogerioPereiradaSilva77]

Man, it really feels awesome to see some of my favorite KZbinrs brought together on the same video!!

[@human4491]

Those old TTS voices are still around on modern macs! Open up your terminal and run say -v "Bad News" "Hello world"

[@andrewrempt13]

I love this video. It's great to see Colin and Sean guesting, and I'm definitely going to check out Mac84 and Veronica Explains. And as much as resorting old macs drives me mad, it's always worth it. So fun.

[@ewasteredux]

The cameos in this video are fantastic. I really enjoy seeing how much you interact with your peers. Many of them are favorites of mine as well.

[@JeffGeerling]

The venn diagram between your subscriptions and mine is probably a circle :D

[@ewasteredux]

@@JeffGeerling, you are at the center of that circle my friend. Keep up the great work!

[@malpern]

Thanks!

[@jeremiahrex]

I’ve watched a lot of videos about old Mac’s and own half a dozen myself but there’s seemingly always room for someone else to provide a new perspective that’s interesting. I think this era of computers is a fascinating balance of complexity and ease of understanding. The technology used is pedestrian today which makes it easy to understand, mod and fix. But back then there was no information sharing, so there’s a lot of different boards, standards etc to explore as we rediscover it all today. Thanks for the video.

[@proteque]

Smashing printers is never dumb

[@cho4d]

i feel like they went downhill after siamese dream.

[@bzuidgeest]

Maybe you mean it as a joke, maybe not, but destroying anything for fun that didn't need to be destroyed is wasteful and not fun. Don't want it, give it to someone else that does. Destroying good stuff while people are still in need is very dumb.

[@proteque]

@@bzuidgeest yes. It was a joke. Playing on the "printers are evil" thing. I agree with you in general :) I do hate printers though :D

[@devnol]

​@@bzuidgeestNo, the creation of printers in the first place is wasteful and not fun. Destroying them, on the other hand, is what Jesus would've wanted. For anything else, and I mean anything else I totally agree that wasting good hardware/food/literally anything else is stupid and deeply bothers me when I see it.

[@anon_y_mousse]

@@proteque Sometimes it's a saver of sanity to destroy a printer.

[@gordonfreeman320]

Really cool so see so many awesome people come together for this video!

[@RedFalcon696]

You have done amazing work, Jeff, and it is so exciting to see you get into retro computing and technologies. The things you are doing on these have brought back a lot of memories when I worked on these systems when they were new, and the picture of you from 20 years ago reminds me of what all of us looked like in those t-shirts - I bet you were wearing cargo pants or shorts as well, which were very handy for carrying additional tools and computer parts. :D Thank you for all that you do, and for bringing back so many fun memories and experiences. Good luck on your new adventure into 1980s retro computing!

[@JeffGeerling]

haha yes, I still love cargo shorts, and have a couple of my old pairs I'll wear when doing yard work. very handy!

[@rjhornsby]

Flying Toasters! The After Dark screensavers were so much fun. I spent many, many hours as a kid playing Lunatic Fringe - a screensaver that was also a complete and fun game. Maybe it’s just me, but I remember that era of Macs being a place of fun and whimsy - After Dark, the OS extensions that loaded in graphically as puzzle pieces like you showed, Oscar the Grouch living in your trash can, menu bar eyes that followed your cursor and would get sleepy if you stopped moving the mouse, hacking applications with ResEdit, making games in HyperCard, etc. At some point the whimsical gave way to utility and much of the magic I remember so fondly was lost.

[@JeffGeerling]

"OH I LOOOOVE TRASH!"

[@BOBXFILES2374a]

Oh, those Toasters! It's1995 again!

[@andbuitra]

LGR mentions, Technology Connections references and old computers? Holy crap what a video!

[@FaultyStreams]

Hey it was Colin how's it going

[@SuperDavidEF]

Also, Jeff is wearing a t-shirt from Action Retro's merch store.

[@cotboy]

That crazy loud bong on startup on the tower Macs is something I actually miss. I really want to feel it in my entire body when I power on my Power Macintosh 6500.

[@FluffyPuppyKasey]

I had a Quicksilver G4 I bought off a friend for like $20. It was an 867MHz one I upgraded to 1.5GB of RAM, but unfortunately it's power supply died and I didn't think to save the machine, and instead ended up throwing it out. I wish I hadn't, and wish I still had it. Unfortunately like 90% of my stuff got stolen a year or two ago, so I was left with almost nothing

[@exzld]

nice 👍 someone was nice enough to help de-clutter your life. Normally people would never ask for this help so it is just #blessed to have someone do it for you. I bet life became more simpler after that.

[@BOBXFILES2374a]

I almost bought a G4 at a thrift store, but someone got it before me! Sorry about the theft.

[@Roxor128]

Everybody who still has an optical drive keeps a bent paperclip on hand, just in case the drive dies with a disc inside or they need to get a disc out without turning on the machine.

[@JeffGeerling]

True; I was thinking mostly of floppy drives (since I never encountered one with an auto-eject mechanism outside of Apple's computers), but all CD/optical drives had the manual eject pinhole.

[@PeterMountUK]

Just wait until you get into the 1980's retro, they are even more addictive. A couple of months ago I finished restoring a fully expanded TI99/4A from 1981. Next on my plate will be an Acorn Electron I'm hoping to rebuild to how I had one in the mid 1980's

[@JeffGeerling]

Heh, the 70s/80s era has a lot more hand-soldering involved, too. We'll see how deep this rabbit hole goes!

[@tspawn35]

Yeah, I have an old c64 motherboard I am attempting to restore. Just waiting on the sockets because I don't want to solder the replacement ic's. Would rather have them all in sockets for ease of troubleshooting later.

[@AddieDirectsTV]

Oh yeah. I’m on my 2nd Apple 2 of the modern collecting era. Lol.

[@belstar1128]

they are so old they don't even have a hard drive or even floppies so they tend to last longer

[@retroand]

Reverse engineering a board that has no schematics... now that's what I call being masochistic. I'm studying the IBM 5322 right now so I guess that I'm on the farthest edge of the scale... long life to EBCDIC!

[@the_kombinator]

2:50 - my kid LOVES using my 386 or 486. He always sits on my lap when I play something on them. He knows how to turn them on and navigate DOS file structure.

[@mitchellstl]

OMG the cut away scene to the VCFMW 2023 shows a televideo TS-803 or TS-16xx. That was my first PC after moving from Apple IIe. Thing was a work horse. Used to run my WWIV BBS on it.

[@TechnoTim]

Great video! I didn't have Apple products back in the day but can appreciate old systems. Great seeing Veronica too!

[@JapanPop]

Yup, you pegged us! Welcome to the club. I love that you called up all my favorite retro Mac KZbinrs!

[@iiidiy]

What a lovely overview of the retro Mac community and the nostalgic excitement that motivates us :) Nice work on the edit, letting others speak about their experiences & expertise too! Aside: I came THIS CLOSE to buying that exact 3400 from eBay, but needed a good screen bezel. D'oh!

[@JeffGeerling]

Hehe thank you for leaving it for me then! If you need a part (besides that bezel), let me know!

[@iiidiy]

@@JeffGeerling I mean... I'd make use of that 240 MHz & 128MB... ;) Kidding aside, that's very kind of you to offer! But I just needed a good shell for a video about the TAM (which was made using some 3400 parts). Thankfully found one locally for a great price.

[@JeffGeerling]

The TAM used 3400 parts? Sheesh! I'm going to have to go watch like 10 videos on the TAM now to learn more. All I remember is it was stupid expensive but looked like it would come out of Batman's lair.@@iiidiy

[@iiidiy]

A late-model development model was literally used in arguably the best/worst Batman movie! Yes, it was a really cool concept design that they had to rush-build into a real product... so they (basically) slammed together a PM 6500 and PB 3400 along with some really cool molding. Then their marketing dept. killed it with bad ideas. If you can wait a few weeks, I'm working on a mini-doc / restoration video about it. A bit higher-effort than my typical repairs, so taking a while :) @@JeffGeerling

[@SDWNJ]

Heed Dave Jones words of wisdom: “Don’t plug it in, take it apart.”

[@AndrewErwin73]

I can stop any time... said no retro enthusiast ever! TRUTH!

[@KOSMOS1701A]

in my opinion there is a difference between retro computing and retro computing where you are willing to spend many hundreds of dollars to "max out" your retro computing experience.

[@Clobercow1]

The speaker is just a speaker. An inline resistor will fix that. 3-4ohm should cut it down by half, probably.

[@WilliamHostman]

"Apple didn't use any security screws..." Bull. Torx T-8 were effectively security screws at the time. Torx sets became more and more common as apple continued using them. I had to special order them.

[@2crude2crudeofficialband3]

Aw man you got Veronica Explains AND Action Retro! Awesome!👍

[@Acceleratedpayloads]

Solder a small cap and resistor across the speaker to quiet it like you would on guitar

[@robertfurr4678]

Awesome video! I loved seeing all of my favorite retro computing/tech KZbinrs

13:52 why anyone would do that is simple: not every company was connected to the internet. So they had an purely internal network with access to file servers, printers and the like. But to get something from outside (internet vs intranet) you might even have been one of just a few people in the company allowed to connect to a phone line with your modem (because of cost involved)

[@arghyl]

Jeff you have done it again. I am at the edge of my seat with a huge smile on my face geeking at that G4. It really brought back memories sitting in front of a giant CRT typesetting business cards for print shops.

[@vanhoteen]

Thanks for this video, it is viewed with affection and speaks from experience about how hard and wonderful it is to keep old teams going. I know every guest but didn't know you, now I'm subscribing.

[@Leofwine]

Well, getting my Amiga 500 to work again was something between rebuilding Theseus' ship and creating Frankenstein's monster - the only original part remaining is the case, which has yellowed so much that it might match the words in Mary Shelly's book as she describes the skin of what Victor Frankenstein created. The difference between me and Frankenstein: I love my Amiga. And in contrast to Frankenstein, who abandoned his creation, I use my Amiga as a glorified typewriter and low-tech animation studio (I sorta know my way around Deluxe Paint IV). Yes, it uses an accelerator, and yes, I have to convert files for modern use - but other than that, it's a retro dream come true.

[@joefish6091]

The PIStorm seems to be a monster accelerator and rather useful for Amigas.

[@TinTalon]

Hey Jeff. Another great video. I love retro stuff and really enjoyed watching this. Can’t wait for future retro videos.

[@Yohan5]

love how this video is a community effort, with the best on youtube and detailed info on this hardware, this is what youtube should be not just money making and individual creators making their videos in a void.

[@vincei4252]

You wanna see real masochism? Restoring a UK manufactured Whitechapel Unix system from the 80's of which maybe a few hundred were sold. Battery damage to the boards, unobtanium chips, non standard graphics hardware driving a custom CRT but actually not having the CRT, A shugart interface harddisk (not ide, not sata, not scsi) that is almost guaranteed to be crashed or totally nonfunctional, non standard mouse before mice were really a thing and software that it virtually impossible to find. I know of one other functional system on the planet and that'll be my only resource since this thing has no forums of any kind. I will live vicariously through your pain, Jeff. 😂

[@JeffGeerling]

Heh, that's like the inner ring of hell pain-where you can't even rely on a wide community of users for weird fixes!

[@vincei4252]

@@JeffGeerling lmao. I think the king of pain has to be CuriousMarc and the restoration of the Apollo AGC. The only thing on their side was access to some pretty good documentation.

[@autohmae]

I've seen videos from people trying to restore machines of which only a couple, maybe 25 or 50 at most ever have been build. Cool, but ... takes a lot of time.

[@paul_boddie]

Thumbs up for the Whitechapel mention! I guess you have an MG-1 unless you've gone ultra-rare. So many old workstations will have been thrown away, sadly, despite being rather pricey back in the day.

[@belstar1128]

those unix systems were so mysterious they had a big impact on modern computers but were too expensive for regular people.

[@imark7777777]

I still have a paper clip in my bag because CD drives CD drives have never stopped having jamming issues. There's also reset buttons, SIMs, the occasional ZIP and floppy disk drive.

[@2crude2crudeofficialband3]

The title alone made it worth watching this… so true!😂

[@CoffeeOnRails]

Your point about revisiting things from the past is exactly why I started building some stuff in VS 2010 Express and C# on an old Windows XP laptop. A different time (and in some ways better).

[@SiD3WiNDR]

"Through the magic of buying another.." I love these quirky crossovers, if you could just end with "It works! It freakin works!" followed by a puppet show with a dance party in a Duke Nukem voice we'd reach peak retro youtuber...

[@MordecaiV]

now, you get the fun of supporting powerpc architecture and compiling everything and its dependencies

[@CrankyOldNerd]

the startup bong, for decades, it's always been my favorite feature. I know many people hate it, but I enjoy it.

[@JeffGeerling]

Ditto. And having the history of the different chimes and bongs was always fun. I kinda liked the Quadra sounds, especially if there was a problem and you'd hear the car crash!

[@VeronicaExplains]

Just waiting for Red Shirt Jeff to make an appearance discharging CRTs. :) What a find with that PowerBook!

[@JeffGeerling]

He might get a chance on that Mac Classic!

[@bilange]

You two are my most favorite KZbinrs in the galaxy. So I had to pick up my jaw on the ceiling when I saw Veronica in there! 😁

[@VeronicaExplains]

​@@bilangeThanks for the kind comment! :)

[@FB-qp8eo]

Seeing Sean and Colin made me laugh...love their channels! And subbed to Veronica and Steven.

[@RalphHightower]

1995, my wife bought me a Sun SPARCStation IPX, the "pizza box", 31 inch color CRT (and HEAVY), CD-ROM Drive, and a tape drive, at a company salvage sale for $400 so I could keep my UNIX skills up to date (or rather, not forgotten). I bought a three bay SCSI-I cabinet and bought some SCSI hard drives from former NCR coworkers. Also during that time, Sun offered their Solaris 7 OS for the cost of the media for personal, hobbyist use. Eventually, the monitor died and I ran the system headless for a few more years before a hard drive crash. I suspect that it's the small drive in the system unit. I also have a DEC VAX at home. I wish that it was the 11/780, but it's the VAXStation II/GPX. A tech company in South Carolina shut down, and an Affinity Technology coworker rescued it from being tossed in the dumpster. He was moving to Washington to work for Microsoft and asked if I wanted it. "Sure!" I need to find a CD-ROM drive so I can install a BSD OS on it. That unit is tall, about 4 feet, and probably weights 300+ pounds.

[@JohnneyleeRollins]

LGR has a problem and we love him for it

[@adam872]

I love retro technology (not just computing, music kit, cars etc etc) and I've been tempted many times to really dive into it. But then I remember how much things have improved over time and how I can order up something that in nearly every imaginable way is better than what came before. For instance, I've always lusted after a NeXT Cube, but would I enjoy using it more than my iMac? Probably not. That said, I do love seeing people bring these old systems back to life and in a lot of cases resto-mod them into something better than they were ever designed to be. There's a real joy to it.

[@Kikay0n]

Videos like this are why KZbin needs a “Love” not just a “like.”

[@TurboNerdPrime]

13:39 I think it's to have connection to your office LAN. As well as be able to fax which was a more common thing than e-mail at the time.

[@JeffGeerling]

Ah, that actually makes a lot of sense. There was some fax software included on the 7.6 restore CD. Now I'm remember how often people would require faxes (instead of email or even postal mail) into the 90s/2000s!

[@TurboNerdPrime]

​@JeffGeerling I remember ureceive. Computer fax modem driver (print to fax) to send. And the office fax machine to recieve.

[@gravelrhoads]

As an owner of a Digital Audio G4, Beige G3, Centris 610 and a Mac Classic (upgraded back in the day with a Classic II motherboard), I can understand the addiction and masochistic tendencies. Excuse me... System 6 on the Mac Classic is calling me. That OS in Black & White has a certain elegance to it. Also, you managed to assemble my dream team of classic computing enthusiasts. I can't watch Veronica Explains without having retro computing withdrawals.

[@darkomen7817]

Through the magic of buying another was not a reference I was expecting to hear in this video..

[@AgentAsteriski]

I think your comment about the bent paperclips awakened some early childhood memories about the family G3

[@meauxdal]

Great video. Random trivia: per developer John Calhoun, the game "Glypha" is pronounced like in "hieroglyphics". Killer Joust clone.

[@GEN9100]

Love it, thank you for the video.

[@mcal27]

I used to build pro Audio systems with ‘Mirror door’ G4’s, we called them ‘Wind tunnels’. The version of OS9 they ran was installed along with OSX and it seemed to be a slightly cutdown version. we used to get corrupted boot drives alot, especially on the low end 867mhz version weirdly. I personally prefer the Yosemite Graphite Machines. Much less quirky..

[@dfbess]

Great video Jeff.. taking me down memory lane..

[@rdvgraaff]

What a great episode! All my favorite channels in one place!

[@xero110]

I enjoyed your prospective on this, great video.

[@shawnccarroll]

I love these retro restoration videos. Thank you

[@Scriven42]

OH, Apple 2! Our family's first computer when I was a kid was an Apple 2+ _clone_ that my uncle built for us. Just the motherboard and a keyboard and a power supply. my Dad made the wooden case and we used a cassette deck to transfer programs. Still have all of it, including the upgrades. One day I'll get it properly back on a desk somewhere.

[@JH-pe3ro]

Retro preservationists, open hardware enthusiasts, and permacomputing champions all have some common ground that leads in the direction of getting old machines to work as well as they can. I'm on the end of participating through emulation and new hardware because I just can't justify sitting around with a soldering iron, but: I sent off a bunch of old stuff to the local video game museum, a few years back I got an AtariMax SIO2PC to get some old Atari 8-bit software off the floppies, and I am likewise happy now to spend on a new Agon Light 2 and peripherals(the VGA and PS/2 on it have led me to get a new monitor, a new keyboard, and a bunch of cables and adapters). Newer projects like Agon or My4TH are good examples of designing cleaner, simpler but still "retro" devices that don't face problems like Apple dongles. I should probably let go of the MT-32 I have tucked away in a drawer. When I got it, it was back in the 2000's when there wasn't any good emulation of that device.

[@adamsfusion]

Welcome to the club! I'm very sorry for the state of your future wallet.

[@dzltron]

I really wish I didn't get rid of all of my old tech when I moved, I had some really cool stuff. Powerbook Duo 280c with the dock, IBM ThinkPad 701, my old dual Celeron.

[@myprobate1661]

I enjoy retro videos, but they make me sad at the same time. I used to use those computers. It was a more optimistic time. I remember frantically warning people about how evil Microsoft was, but surprisingly, people didn't appreciate being told how stupid they were for doing business with a shady psychopath. I wish we had been more effective at exposing IBM, Microsoft, etc... The world would have been much more gentle, and fun, if IBM hadnt screwed Digital Research. The innocence of computers was lost. Today, we have a different kind of fascism, in the form of ESG's and social credit scores. We've come a long way since the VIC-20...

[@seanys]

I don’t call them bent paperclips. I call them Macintosh Repair Tools.

[@JeffGeerling]

Ooh, you could package them up and sell them for $3 each and I bet some people would buy them.

[@zoopercoolguy]

@@JeffGeerling didn't some of the older iPhones come with a fancy sim ejector that had the same functionality as a bent paper clip?

[@JeffGeerling]

Pretty much! Though those were even smaller... and I believe made of some crazy alloy Apple licensed?@@zoopercoolguy

[@friedgpu]

this is one of the best videos that you ever made

[@semihtor]

I bet there’s at least one viewer who is thankful for the 23 characters at 3:04…

[@jonjimihendrix]

I got that Wall Street Powerbook my freshman year of college! I remember installing OS X on it. Going from OS 9 was *freaking mind blowing.* Got a cheese grater Mac Pro after graduation. That computer lasted for 12 years, and now the case houses my beefy NAS

[@paulstubbs7678]

That G4 is a tad nutty with the speaker where it is, where many would think was a big press button! all it needed was a grill.

[@networkg]

BTW Jeff, if you get a retro computer that can't be fixed, you can put a raspberry pi inside and emulate the retro using the old computer's case and keyboard. I know of at least one creator that does this to all his collection (reversible mods) to preserve the original hardware while still enjoying the retro feel every day.

[@JeffGeerling]

I will likely end up doing that if I come across a shell of something that's too far gone. It'd be cool to have a Pi running SheepSaver inside an old PowerBook shell, for example.

[@joefish6091]

@@JeffGeerling Oric Atmos, lovely case and keyboard, shame abouts whats inside the case... :) Some people had dreams of selling Teletype Prestel machines to the public and all that lovely dovely monthly subscription fees. NABU in Candas too, Cidco Mailstation .etc

[@mururoa7024]

A little resistor will quiet down any speaker nicely.

[@1BitFeverDreams]

I'm looking at my Color Classic II with recapped logic and analog board, got 3 days of working shape out of it, but it's been unable to display a video for over a year. Yep, I feel seen.

[@OscarSommerbo]

Nostalgia is one hell of a drug.

[@flanovskiydtauskiy5870]

That screen at the end looks so good.

[@JD3Gamer]

Yeah I press my hand over the speaker hole when I boot my G4. It's frickin' loud.

[@jmsiener]

There’s literally a pile of cheese graters and G4s in the building where I work. They were donated to a non profit tech company that’s in the building but really, a pile of 20+ machines that have been there for at least 8 years

[@Calloflunacy]

I started out restoring classic cars, but I always loved computers and I have an old Compaq portable PC, bought a couple of them, and been trying to frankenstein a working one back together, but currently just need a new video card for it to work. and everything else tested good on the oscilloscope. The first one I bought, the motherboard had a fried main power lead, and it melted the board, and the second one I bought had the tube for the display blown. been slowly putting a working one back together with original parts. but those are really hard to find. we are definitely masochists. so are people who restore classic cars.

[@SimonTekConley]

I've thrown out so many old apple stuff in the past year. I would post it online for either cheap or free, people would say they're coming, never show up. After 3 years, I junked a lot of equipment. I hated doing it, but I was tired of lugging it everywhere I moved.

[@jtrc3280]

This video is so meta that my brain exploded when I saw Jeff with one of Sean’s tshirts 😂😂. This is too much and I need more of this. 😊

[@kennethmadsen6474]

We all have different reasoning on why we do these things. I love the passion that these projects shows 🙂

[@sherrilltechnology]

Bro these videos are sweet, great video Jeff!!

[@thegeforce6625]

A lot of the charm of using old computers also applies to old PC’s, still have my first desktop (though heavily upgraded from when it was my main machine), a socket 478 P4EE 3.4ghz (fastest socket 478 CPU) with a AGP Radeon HD 3850 (the fastest AGP GPU), 4GB DDR400 ram, 2x 300GB WD Velociraptor’s in RAID 0, running the original install of windows XP that I used back in 2011 (I was 13 at the time) when I built it from a business my mum worked at that where upgrading to 2nd Gen Intel Core machines, got a lot of their old stuff for free from the IT guy (Thanks Dom!). Long story short, that whole experience with that Pentium 4 machine and getting those parts is what sealed my destiny to have a probably lifelong interest in computers.

[@RalphHightower]

My wife bought me a Sun SPARCStation IPX, to keep my UNIX skills active, with a 31 inch color CRT, tape drive, and CD-ROM drive for $400 at a company salvage sale. I bought a 3 bay SCSI cabinet and bought SCSI drives from former NCR coworkers/friends. At the time, Sun offered Solaris for the cost of the media, plus ($70). When I had dial-up internet, I had my Windows NT Workstation run Apache as a proxy server to access the internet. I have a DEC VAXStation II/GPX that I want to fire up.

[@agfreelance]

Fantastic video Jeff

[@MegaManNeo]

I'm late to the party, Jeff, but I think even if you are yourself not as deeply into retro/vintage computing, it is important to keep these old machines alive and around. Look at your son who enjoyed playing games on that old Macbook. It's part of our technological history and should be kept alive no matter what. I'd love to restore my GameGear (pretty sure I wrote that under one of your other videos) but I can't solder and have no clue how to replace caps, so I'm out of luck. Still, I keep it around for nostalgia reasons. Also I still have old computers which work which are fun to boot up every once in a while.

[@ssokolow]

Re: Transferring files, another thing you might consider is running an HTTP server. miniserve's built-in template looks a bit messed up on old machines, but it'll upload and download just fine in my experience (I use it to get stuff off my Windows 98 machine when I've messed up the config for my writable Samba share), it's dirt simple to set up, and since it's written in Rust, if you want to patch the built-in template, building from source is also very simple.

[@musiqtee]

There are many roads to madness… I never meant to be a retro computist (?), but I’m 58, and have used Macs for audio work for ~27 years. I also needed servers for SAN and backups, and then more services - All my workplaces became homela… worklabs, using the boss’s outdated PCs and this ‘Linux-thing’ for the servers… (Yes, Linux was new Unix at some time…) My older machines still work, and I ended up with a hobby as a sidekick… 😅

[@FaultyStreams]