Retro Gaming on a 27 Year old AST 486 Laptop [AST Advantage! NB 486SX/33]

[@thecodeprofessor]

Thank you for this one, I had forgotten about the similar laptop my mother had when I was a kid. I loved that thing.

[@PNPRetro]

Interesting what pieces of technology carry memories with them, isn't it?

[@unstrung13]

OOOHHH YES!! i miss the days of abundant old 2/3/486 laptops and doing all kinds of fun stuff with them! i even used to have a dos based nintendo emulator on a floppy disk with a small library of games, most of the laptops didnt have sound but it was so fun showing my friends what old portables could do lol

[@PNPRetro]

Oh my God the same! I remember holding up a floppy disk to my parents and being like... There are 5 Nintendo games on one of these. I don't think they were impressed, but it was mind blowing to me

[@redl1ght343]

I thank I may have one of them👍

[@PNPRetro]

I really dig it. I'm beginning to think I just like any retro tech

[@DanielLopez-up6os]

Don't Forget the OPL3LPT to get Full OPL3 Sound by plugging it into the Parerell Port.

[@PNPRetro]

Definitely going to look into snagging one. Looks like they've made great progress for support for it

[@MightyJabbasCollection]

I wonder how much a recap would actually help this. I had screens like this on laptops back in the day, and they had weird lines like that even when they were new.

[@PNPRetro]

I'm glad you confirmed this! I remembered the laptop we used to borrow had weird ghosting, too. But the few pictures I found of this laptop online didn't have them. But there are plenty of images that look just fine on mine, so I wasn't positive it wasn't close to normal.

[@Runescape.]

cool videos. I'm so glad we're past these days tho. I remember how frustrating working on old 90s machines was, the future is a much nicer place in that regards, but its nice seeing some of these old machines from the past. most are in landfills now since they're obsolete in every sense of the world.

[@PNPRetro]

Things have absolutely improved in almost all ways from these old units. The experience is a lot better. But still fun to revisit them from time to time, and see how designs evolved. Thanks for checking it out!

[@Runescape.]

@@PNPRetro yes agreed thank you for showing them I enjoy seeing the unique devices you showcase.

[@86smoke]

I have exactly the same problem on my laptop mono display (weird ghosting from other objects) and I would love to see a repair video.

[@PNPRetro]

I'm hoping I can find a solution. I remember some of this type of ghosting on the machine I used in the 90s when it was newer, so I want to do some research and see what it should look like ... just in case it's always been like that. Hate to break it trying to fix what isn't broken...

[@brandonupchurch7628]

@@PNPRetro That's just how they always were, active matrix displays were very expensive then, the laptops that were affordable enough at the time for most students and yuppies would have had passive matrix displays like this, since the primary people buying these laptops then would have been doing word processing or spreadsheets or other business/student workloads they worked just fine for that they were never intended for games and multimedia.

[@dmcg3635]

I saw this on imgur. It's neat!

[@PNPRetro]

Glad you liked it!

[@kayleenamanda]

The original dark mode! 🤣

[@PNPRetro]

When you're serious about dark mode, you bake it into the BIOS

[@adambrassard9268]

Really great video, didn't know laptops then could output colour so well to an external monitor!

[@SUCRA]

Great review of a classic retro laptop! I love AST products as our first home PC was an AST 486. I own an ascentia laptop that kind of reminds me of this one, it's a bit more powerful with a dx4 75 MHz and a color screen that suffers from the same slow refresh rate. It's also lacking a sound card and plastic is exceptionally brittle. Great video! 👍

[@lIlIlIIlIlIlIlIlIlI]

Awesome! The output to color really surprised me, I never would have guessed an old laptop would be capable of that, most impressive.

[@dilperdeluxe]

Just found the exact same model in my attic. My mom used it to write some documents in windows 3.1

[@Adammyers1995]

Do you have any pentuim 2 laptops to review? I have the first desktop replacement grade 15.6 laptop ever made. It has a full desktop cpu.

[@PNPRetro]

I've got a couple from that era, as well as a Toshiba core 2 duo. Which desktop replacement do you have? I had a Dell one at some point that had a desktop cpu in it... It ran toasty!

[@Adammyers1995]

@@PNPRetro sorry I meant pentuim 2 with windows 98. And its a inspiron 7000

[@PNPRetro]

Ahh okay! I've got a machine that might qualify for the first ultra portable. It's either Pentium II or Celeron... Will have to double-check

[@kirishima638]

I have several Apple PowerBooks from the same period as this and it’s really interesting to see what the competition was like. I’ve worked with a lot of passive matrix displays like this and a recap will help enormously with those lines and streaking. I’ve found that these displays are decent with actual 1bit color (B&W) but get worse with grayscale so try reducing the bit depth. It’s not like you will really notice the difference between 4bit and 8bit greys.

[@Breakfast_and_Bullets]

Now I want to go buy an ancient laptop to play Commander Keen and Duke Nukem

[@PNPRetro]

Haha. Well, there's always Dosbox :)

[@Breakfast_and_Bullets]

@@PNPRetro Not good enough, lol. I want real hardware.

[@PNPRetro]

I support your decision. Aim for Pentium 1 or higher with integrated sound card, and a TFT display. Or... build yourself a retro computer instead of a laptop ;)

[@riskidxer]

Try ZX Spectrum emulator,Commodore 64 emulator On 486 SX runs at full speed

[@PNPRetro]

Good call! I'm working on an emulation video. I'll add them to the list to cover.

[@yakovkhalip9714]

Nice video ! DSTN screen - too bad for gaming(

[@PNPRetro]

Glad you enjoyed it! Yup, that's pretty much the sum of it

[@yakovkhalip9714]

@@PNPRetro I have a collection of retrocomputers and notebook as well - have to make reviews of them, too)

[@PNPRetro]

I'll check out your channel!