Sony's 1999 Forward Looking Vaio Slimtop PC

[@TechTangents]

The shots with me are slightly out of focus. I would have normally reshot that but my throat was killing me when recording this and I didn't have enough time to redo that and re-edit the entire video to match the new takes.

[@amirpourghoureiyan1637]

Could you add the modded ATI driver to the Archive.org page you made? It'd be invaluable for people that come across these models and want to get games running properly

[@NightWalkerasd]

I didn't even notice until you pointed it out. lol The content is great so it totally overshadow that! Keep the good work! :D

[@Ramdileo_sys]

at 14:05 how many of you want that in a "Tech Tangents 2" channel .... Shelby explains the modification to the INF file he made.. :-)

[@jjccg9415]

When are you going to give us an update on the 1970s Data General mini computers? It's been more than a year :(

[@ryanyoder7573]

Nobody cares about video audio is king. Your audio sounds great.

[@LGR]

Ahh man I loved this overview, great work! Vaio machines of this era are still just the coolest thing to me, and this one in particular is gorgeous in both design and completeness. That gray and lilac has aged gracefully. Coincidentally I've had two Vaio retrospectives in the works for a while now, so it's neat to see the similarities here to those machines -- and all the differences! Especially compared to the Japanese Vaio desktops of 1999, it's fascinating how they tailored their systems for each country. Like I can't imagine a US market Vaio ever got a built-in karaoke mode or MiniDisc authoring tools for instance, heh.

[@TechTangents]

Thanks! The way Sony came in to the PC market, looked around, and said "I have a better idea" really made them stand out and seems so far ahead of its time now looking back! The more research I did on this system the more I realized I got pretty lucky because the grey plastic has yellowed pretty badly on some of them. So I'm glad I got to show this one that still matches the original colors. It would have been really cool to see MiniDisc here in the US like that, it's a shame it didn't take off. I'm looking forward to see your looks at the the computers you have, they made some fascinating stuff over there for sure!

[@Ramdileo_sys]

@@TechTangents at 14:05 how many of you want that in a "Tech Tangents 2" channel .... Shelby explains the modification to the INF file he made.. :-)

[@joeyscleaninglady2877]

will await the sony magic link video

[@DarDarBinks1986]

@LGR I read that in your voice!

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Great review of a great looking machine!

[@SmellsLikeEMinor]

Hey, my two favorite tech nerds in one place. As a fellow nerd, I mean this with love.

[@jordanvelazquez6321]

You too? I thought having LGR here was enough.

[@BilisNegra]

@@jordanvelazquez6321 In turn Adrian recently got a nice gift from Clint to upgrade a vintage Compaq. Featured in Adrian's second channel.

[@cIeetz]

69th like. lehlehleheleh tongue sounds

[@Ramdileo_sys]

@@SmellsLikeEMinoractually there .. is @LGR up there too :-) at 14:05 how many of you want that in a "Tech Tangents 2" channel .... Shelby explains the modification to the INF file he made.. :-)

[@PixelPipes]

I definitely agree about the look of this PC. It's odd seeing it boot Windows 98, as it looks like a newer generation of computer. In fact, it seems like it was THE computer to usher in that new era, breaking away from the beige boxes for good. A really fascinating transitional system! Also, imagine having the reworking skills to swap out those VRAM chips... 🤔

[@AaronOfMpls]

He mentioned in another comment, it'd probably make more sense to make a DVI adapter for that monitor and use a different video card. (What kind of connector is that, btw?)

[@Alexis_du_60]

@@AaronOfMpls Kinda reminds me of a VESA DFP connector, sort of the ancestor to DVI-D, but larger. Almost even looks like the D-Terminal connector that Japan uses on video equipment. Mmmh so if the Vaio croaks out... I guess the Monitor becomes a paperweight huh? A bit unfortunate.

[@horsesaremyfriends242]

Nah compaq had Black pcs around 1996

[@AaronOfMpls]

@@horsesaremyfriends242 Toshiba had some too

[@AlanPope]

Hah! Nice irony using Bleem! on a Sony machine.

[@sunnohh]

I noticed but failed to realize that 😹😹

[@a544jh]

At 10:10 I don't think that JS function gets an unending call stack. setTimeout() will put the next setBG() call on the event loop. i.e. It's not a recursive call.

[@charlie891]

that is literally the most aesthetically pleasing computer i've ever seen

[@TKIvanov]

Some people: Had LCD monitors in 1999! Me: Used a CRT till mid-2013...

[@gbangyt-codmobile7037]

Same... lol i used a crt monitor till 2012.. Then i bought a samsung syncmaster 1080p...that thing still works as new...

[@TKIvanov]

@@gbangyt-codmobile7037 I upgraded from my IBM CRT to a 23" FHD IPS Acer (the IBM was nice, but finally switching to 16:9 was such a relief) and yeah still works fine, I even overclocked it to 70Hz lol. Used it for about 6 years till fall 2019 then upgraded to a 240Hz 25" TN Alienware. Still got the Acer for backup and/or to use with my laptop, its not like I can get any decent amount of money for it so I kept it.

[@Wobble2007]

I just got back into CRTs, I can't believe how gob smackingly incredible they look, and they are so unbelievably responsive, no lag whatsoever, my 144Hz G-Sync LCD looks so washed out and feels so laggy compared to the Sony G520 21" CRT, the blacks are incredible and the colours are so inky, I want to play everything I've played on LCD again on the Sony CRT to experience it properly. And then there are retro games, they look so crisp and beautiful, scanlines @ 240p are just so satisfying. I can't seem to pull myself away from it when I'm using it, it's so fun to use lol.

[@tommynobaka]

I specifically bought two dell monitors from the 2000's. There's something about the rendering of colors and movement that can't be replicated by LCD's. I have a 144hz monitor but for some reason is just not as smooth as the ole 85hz 1280x1024. The 144 is faster but not smoother to my eyes Also my middle school was rocking CRT's until 2010 which is kinda insane. I remember my teacher's still having them but once I hit hs in 2011 it was LCD's

[@GabrielZ666]

Congrats on the teleprompter it is a huge upgrade! Is that a Samsung's Nexus 10 under the mirror? I still have mine in its original box, love that tablet!

[@infinitecanadian]

I watch whole movies on my computer. I play games, watch anime, watch KZbin, etc. It is a multimedia device for me.

[@johnDingoFoxVelocity]

So Sony has another model that you should look for You will absolutely be floored if you can find one Sony made a computer that has a micro computer with a CD drive bolted below the display and what’s really odd as you don’t see a lot of these machines but if you could find one it is the wildest machine you’ll ever see because it literally looks like the PC is floating under the screen

[@bland9876]

so basically like a mac?

[@johnDingoFoxVelocity]

No not like a Mac it’s literally a monitor and the computer is mounted underneath it it literally looks like a floating CD drive it doesn’t even look like a computer but these are getting really hard to find because they are literally hardware locked two windows XP

[@bland9876]

@@johnDingoFoxVelocity so it's like those mini computers where they use the vasa mount on a monitor to attach themselves? Interesting they got a full sized cd player in there.

[@letssaylalala]

That VAIO looks mint as hell. It almost feels modern...

[@TechKingdom35]

Great video. I also did one on a Sony Vaio X505, the slimmest notebook in 2004. Which might also have been a prime candidate for macOS. These old Sony devices are quite beautiful in my opinion and very well build. Sad what happened to them.

[@jimmothy79]

I worked at Office Max in the mid / late 90's and always thought if I were to ever buy a pre-built it would be one of the Vaio's. The looks and colors were just so different from your standard case.

[@HuntingCatIsBack]

Late reply, but I worked for your coemption (you know who, not the depot one but the "basics" one in the UK in the second half of 2002, filling in before emigrating to the US. I still remember the Pentium 4 Vaio with the 17" widescreen LCD monitor. It was a thing of beauty and the specs were on the face of of it superb. Oh but that SiS motherboard, iy you knew your hardware in those days, this was to say the least, not the choice you would have made if building a machine at any budget. I think I favoured MSI at the time, a time when there were so many choices, but all my experience of SiS based machines through previous IT work soured me against them. They still exist, but concentrate on the SoC market apparently.

[@andlabs]

The inclusion of -FireWire- i-LINK and the nature of the proprietary display connector (look up HDI-45 and ADC) just add more to the Apple comparisons. But for my money the computer I was reminded of visuals-wise was the Sharp X68000, not any Mac (although it's still far from a perfect comparison).

[@Danny-wv8ec]

Nine Inch Nails The Slip! I have that album dvd combo. Also didn't this all in one come with stylus and a touch screen? or at least another model of it?

[@bruwin]

The PCV-LX80 released in September of 2000 had a touch screen! But it only released in Japan.

[@patrik_x86]

I absolutely love this era of VAIO hardware. The blue colours are just awesome

[@AngeloFerronatto]

5:25 - I honestly thought it was a microwave oven till the screen started to tilt... lol

[@bujin5455]

10:10 TL;DR: No, there is no "self referencing function" in the code, it is not creating "an unending call stack," the resource consumption has little to do with that tightly written script shown, and much more to do with the fact you're running a full browser (HTML engine and JS interpreter), on a 200MHz PII with at most 256MB of ram, in the background just to provide a desktop. Longer explanation: The script is using "setTimeout" which means it's not real recursion, which means each function call is leaving the call stack before another (not nested) function is being added to the call stack, therefore insuring the stack is not growing. If it were true recursion each function call would be "nested" (placed inside the instance of the calling function, creating a memory dependance relationship), and the routine would eventually crash once it hit the limit of the JS interpreter's allocated stack memory. Most modern JS implementations have a function depth limit of about 10,000 references, likely the interpreter running this script is far less than that as JS interpreters have been HUGELY improved over the last twenty years, once you have reached that limit, the code will crash. The real resource utilization of the script would boil down to how efficiently "setTimeout" is implemented (hopefully it isn't using polling, but rather the JS event loop, which I imagine it is) within the JS interpreter itself, but it really shouldn't eat much or any CPU time if implemented correctly, and memory utilization of this script should be minimal as well. So the comment about this being a resource hog because it uses a "self referencing function" is just not accurate (no self referencing functions here). ...and the bit about it "creating an unending call stack" isn't even possible with JS (at least not without crashing once the stack limit is reached, which would in fact end the recursion at that point). Honestly, the most expensive thing about this, is the overhead of having a full browser implementation (HTML engine and JS interpreter) running in the background on a computer with only a 200MHz PII and 32MB - 256MB of memory. That is not much power to work with, modern computers have device controllers packing more punch than that.

[@JessicaFEREM]

9:45 I have a modern version of this for windows 10 called "WinDynamicDesktop" and it does something similar, I'm wondering if you could get those images and use them in WDD

[@GraveUypo]

i did that manually back in windows xp. i got into elder scrolls: oblivion, took screenshots with 1 in-game hour intervals in between them in the exact same scene (i actually skipped some similar shots and took extras for dawn and dusk), set the blending time for switching backgrounds for something really long, like a whole minute, and put them all in a cycle. i could make it match daylight, but i liked watching the transitions so i used it in a half-hour cycle for a day.

[@Alexis_du_60]

6:51 - I thought of the same thing! Ain't it fitting to emulate a PS1 on a Sony VAIO just for the hell of it? LOL

[@LEVELMotorsports]

That's a cool machine. I always loved the VAIOs from that era but was in high school so I could never afford them. I recently picked up a Vaio X505 and a Vaio UX390 - two machines I lusted over when they were new, but damn were they expensive.

[@parlinmains]

Hopefully they're a little more affordable now.

[@maxwillson]

I still have our family Sony PC from 2001. Man that thing is in rough shape! That light blue color is now a disgusting brown color and I threw the keyboard away because it's so far gone and ugly. The two CD drives don't work anymore and it's slow as hell! I can't believe we actually used that computer for anything back in the day ahahaha

[@Spaztron64]

Eh it's not too surprising that Deus Ex ran the way it did, it only performed well on the highest end hardware of it's time.

[@yosuhara]

That's not true. I played played it comfortably on OCd Pentium 200mhz mmx + S3/Voodoo 2 12 mb combo on 800x600 with fluid fps. It's weird deus is crapping out like this on such specs. I guess this rage may be hampered not just by small vram but also clock's wise.

[@lukeson8934]

this would of been a great system back in the early 2000s!

[@TheBigBentley911]

I worked at CompUSA when this launched and it was the coolest looking computer I had ever seen. I actually convinced a few people who came in to buy an Apple to buy this instead.

[@CantankerousDave]

I remember Circuit City being full of Sony machines.

[@nticompass]

Ooh, MemoryStick! That memory card "standard" that nobody used and that Sony only allowed like one company (SanDisk, I think) to make cards for. I first discovered MemoryStick when I had a PSP and wondered why the MemoryStick Pro Duos were so much more expensive than SD cards and why they came with this weird adapter for something I've never heard of (MemoryStick Pro Duo -> MemoryStick Pro). I eventually found a third-party MicroSD -> MemoryStick Pro Duo (that Sony hates) and use that with my PSP.

[@prismstudios001]

Ah, the good old days…..when the storage andRAM were hopelessly TINY…..

[@bujin5455]

11:18. The Vita didn't use Memory Stick. It used a new proprietary standard created for Vita. (You can clearly see that in your photos, so not sure why this mistake is here.)

[@zangafan27]

Vita memory cards look very similar to Memory Stick Micro, and either way it ultimately conveys the same message that Sony's memory cards suck lol

[@samuelschwager]

I remember that I had one of the ATI Rage cards (not sure which) and in one rally game the trees looked like they were made of cardboard. I guess because not enough vram.

[@bramvandenbroeck5060]

I love those rare sony pc's, i own one of the first picturebooks :) lovely machine you have there my guy, i hope you get to enjoy this machine for as long as possible. And Steve Jobs LOVED Sony, he never ever did sue them, he had a lot of respect for the ceo of sony

[@samuelthompson8009]

I absolutely love this channel. The pacing and production value makes "gettin' to the goods" something you never really notice - start-to-finish, it's always wonderful to watch. The rewatchability of these clips is incredible.. especially when you consider the usually overwhelming technical nature of such content.

[@ddoodm]

@10:12 the function actually isn't recursive because it's invoked by a new event stack scheduled by the setTimeout call each time :)

[@juanignacioaschura9437]

Your experience with the drivers is, to me, the one flaw VAIO had throughout its history in Sony's portfolio: every single model had a proprietary quirk with their drivers. I don't know if nowadays the JIP VAIO devices come with standard stuff, but back in the day, even for the newest Windows 7 Sony VAIO laptops, you had to scour through Sony's website to get the appropriate driver because, even if the part matched, you couldn't get a standard driver to install.

[@The_Wandering_Nerd]

After Steve Jobs threw all of Apple's Mac OS licensees under the bus when he unceremoniously killed the Mac Clone industry, it's not surprising Sony decided to reject his offer to make Mac Vaios...

[@Yetoob8lWuxUQnpAahSqEpYkyZ]

This isn't the first time Sony entered the PC market, they made the Sony NEWS UNIX workstation line which was popular in Japan from 1987 - 1998 (albeit meant for an audience different from the VAIO series).

[@TorontoPopulistConservative]

Sony has always been quite a respectable company in my books. Weird how this vaguely looks like a PS4.

[@luigimaster111]

Making a DVI adapter for that monitor shouldn't be too huge of a project, supposing it's just DVI with a few extra pins for the audio and USB, if I can find an accurate pinout diagram and a female connector for that proprietary connector I could whip something up in an evening.

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

remember when VAIO made desktops........yeah I remember. 1:32 for anyone that wants to know the SONY PCV-90 was the first VAIO computer they made and it came out in 1996, there was a weaker model with half the RAM and a lower clocked CPU called the PCV-70. I literally remember this it is insane. I am old

[@nnnnnn3647]

I used VAIO and SONY always made the same mistake. Perfect design, great screen, but saving on components and limiting the system by BIOS and drivers.

[@robertwielewicki1249]

Nice one

[@steffydouglas]

Iam going to be playing the pc version of the land of the dead road to fiddlers green on my sky tech gaming pc when iam 30 years old to 35 years old

[@insertaverygenericnamehere]

In small japanese appartments, you might actually watch a DVD on this Vaio. 🙂

[@SmiIeyyXD]

You can gain a subscriber with one video, and I happened to cross this video, never seen your channel and decided to subscribe.

[@seanb7969]

You should maybe talk to Rossman and maybe de-solder ram from another card and swap them. Maybe Adrian would be good at doing this as well.

[@allentoyokawa9068]

From the most advanced country in the world, no wonder it looks ahead of it's time

[@tatsukimasu]

is the HDD Windows 98 or Windows 2000? also how do I install it in a blank HDD?

[@TDDPhoto]

That Vaio wallpaper is awesome!!! Would there be any way to share it?

[@orionfl79]

Actually, my first thought was that it looked kinda like of some of the early Sun Microsystems stuff.

[@ComputerClubShow]

I would love to get my hands on one of those VAIOs with the built-in mini disc drive.

[@elijahvincent985]

For a second, it looks like a new, low-end desktop computer! Still a beautiful design now!

[@arimaniac]

setTimeout won't stack. It's asynchronous.

[@steffydouglas]

I started playing deux ex when I was 10 years old

[@AshtonCoolman]

I REALLY miss my Sony VAIO PCV-120 (P200MMX) I had years ago. I gave it away to a friend with the nice Trinitron monitor. This system is really great looking! I miss Sony's good stylish designs.

[@AveragePootis]

I love this thing, imagine having this and a Playstation 2 with Linux & HDD on the same table, being something like a file server

[@superapple4ever]

Just think if they would've gone through with that partnership what Apple and Sony would it look like together today. Unfathomable.

[@onometre]

damn that thing switches resolutions faster than even any modern display I've used

[@MediocreTCG]

Vaio's were the first computers that REALLY caught my eye. I had only had Gateways up until then. Man, those things are sleek.

[@Mitsunee_]

I think I might have a weak spot for interesting prebuilts from that era... though I grew up on XP.

[@2qwik4u]

I remember our 2002 Vaio desktop was absolutely loaded with Sony software.

[@steffydouglas]

I love China beijing this is a good place

[@sneugler]

Great review! I’m really impressed by the styling of this little system, definitely forward thinking for 1999. Wonder if you could dig up that MacOS installation and use it?

[@s8wc3]

Never made its way outside of Apple, as far as I know. There's an early version of OSX floating around called Rhapsody which had an x86 build, that'd be the best you can do, it's missing the aqua interface though which kinda defeats the point.

[@amirpourghoureiyan1637]

@@s8wc3 I think at that would've been the Classic MacOS (OS9/8), Apple killed the licensing programme by the end of 1998 so I doubt they would've had OSX on the cards for a 3rd party like Sony.

[@subg9165]

@@amirpourghoureiyan1637 iirc apple had been building x86 versions of osx right from the beginning, so they'd be more likely to have osx ready to go for it

[@amirpourghoureiyan1637]

@@subg9165 Rhapsody/Mac Server was pretty much the staging grounds for the entire OSX development, it had the Platinum theme from 1997 until the release of the Public Beta at the tail end of 2000 - which at that point had a very barebones Aqua desktop.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@subg9165 when I heard mention of the version for a Vaio laptop, it got me wondering if _that_ was why they had the secret x86 builds, instead of being careful for the future like he claimed in that presentation.

[@Garedot]

I also like these Sony Vaio PC's

[@superbravo666]

So cool so futuristic look... why in 90's PCs have so nice design??? Now all black cases with flat keyboard... I hate led in keyboard. Only what I will be add to this Sony is full size 104 keyboard (with num lock part) Turok DH :D my first game on 1 pc in 1998 - Voodoo Rush rules !!!

[@Schule04]

The preinstalled audio drivers likely were WDM, while the ones you installed were VxD. WDM drivers lack DOS compatibility but were regarded as more future proof so vendors installed them. Microsoft might also have forced the vendors to use them, but I'm not sure about this. Either way, these often beta WDM drivers also caused many issues in WinME PCs that were fixable by installing the VxD drivers.

[@majikalarttechstudios2335]

I wish I had one of these. In fact, any Japanese, Korean brands introduced their products that are rich with attraction and style long before US brands like IBM, Microsoft, Apple, and Compaq did. For example the Apple iMac G3 has taken some samples of gimmick of Sony VAIO desktops back in mid and late 90s

[@CmlDexter]

Some defense points: 11:09 - I don't understand why ppl hate on memstick so much, look at it from another persective! No other machine in the 90s/early00s came with a built in SD reader. This was a feature that took at least 10 years for the rest of the computer industry to adopt & execute as cleanly as Sony (no wonder Steve Jobs mas mesmerized). Even today, it does retro well because you can use that to transfer data to older VAIO computers. Sometimes is best to think of the feature from the perspective of a Japanese person owning multiple Sony devices requiring a memstick (which were cheaper in Japan), not having to deal with dongles in the early 00s. VERY Forward thinking, just looking at my laptop today, no CD drive, only SD reader and a few USBs, just like a slim VAIO laptop of the 90s. 10:36 - We all watched movies in the 99s-2000s, or at least I did when I was a kid and was lucky to own a Compaq with a DVD drive 10:43 - Smartwrite was probably more suitable for Japanese people, Sony had a history of making a bunch of software in the 90s to compete vs MSoft, etc., since their market was Japan they had the upper hand sometimes.

[@rayphoenix7296]

Watching a DVD on a computer is not the best thing but remember, this was in 1999 when DVD players were a luxury. For some people, this may be the only way they could watch a DVD in 1999. I got a computer that played DVDs before I had a DVD player. For several months, that DVD player computer was all I had to play DVDs. Also, I wonder if this computer can run the original Star Wars Battlefront. I also wonder if it could run KernelEx and run newer web browsers so it can browse the internet and go on KZbin.

[@zzzae]

This strikes me as a predecessor to the all-in-one desktops with built-in TV tuner that seemed really popular when I first visited Japan in 2008-2010. That kind of multimedia PC that can double as a TV does make sense for small Japanese homes with tatami-style furniture, I guess.

[@xan1242]

Could the GPU VRAM be replaced with higher capacity chips in theory? Or add the necessary ones maybe?

[@PocketOperatorGuy]

It's so weird where the PS4 design concept came from. Sony went back to this vintage design. Just modernized the look.

[@cptcrogge]

Well at least it would be able to run Warcraft 3 just fine, it was no problem at all for my laptop with an 8MB ATI Rage GPU. Great little system, the only real "negative" point is the lack of a DVI port so you could use the screen for a different PC.

[@BeyondBaito]

I wish THIS was what computers looked like today. Sony Vaio tickles all the right parts of my rotten brain.

[@YoMamazYT]

I have this pc its the PCV-L620 model it still has the original stickers on the front sadly it dosent have its original mouse or stand still have original box, keyboard and monitor.

[@VeerMaharaj]

It would be fun to throw an ssd in there for giggles. Also to rebuild it as a modern machine because it is gorgeous. Even in 2021. But that proprietary monitor, damn.

[@frstwhsprs]

So this VAIO actually predicted dynamic wallpapers before macOS even implemented it

[@JamesR624]

Woah... so not only could this have potentially run MacOS officially, but even in 1999, it had. Mac OS 10.14 Mojave's "dynamic wallpaper" feature. (Something we wouldn't really see until 2018.

[@ineriberti]

This Pc looks futuristic for its era. I guess looks like A 2004 model, but it’s 1999. Ahead of its time.

[@guitarmansg499]

VRAM the main major bottleneck, huh this machine would fit right in with 2023's 8GB GPUs that were severely undersized like the RTX3070.

[@cossasomi]

Assuming enough address lines are wired to the GPU, upgrading the VRAM would be interesting I think. It can even be done without hot air if you feel brave enough :) . The chips themselves seem to be regular 1MB 16bit wide 7ns SDRAM. So having 8MB would imply the memory bus is 128 bit wide. Considering how many OEMs shipped crippled Rage 128s with only 64 bit wide memory this is pretty nice. Harvesting a good (as in faster chips than the bare minimum) 32MB dual rank PC100 SODIMM could be an easy way to get some chips. As for the monitor, have you taken it apart to see what panel does it use? If it's a vaguely standard* 20 pin LVDS interface I wonder if a newer run-of-the-mill display could be used as a donor to improve it. Even if the panel itself won't be anything fancy at least it will not be scratched. * then again It's a Sony™, so it will be as proprietary as it gets. And lastly, on such a modern feeling machine I feel like 2000 or even XP would be better matching OS. And truly lastly, is there something more period-correct than editing the official ATI Rage drivers in order to make them work on whatever OEM flavour card you had on your hands? There were so many different PCI IDs than I eventually didn't even bother searching for the "correct" drivers and jumped straight to notepad.

[@jeromeglick]

Wow! Videos like this really give you perspective on exactly what has taken place with consumer tech in the past 20 years. Active Desktop background changing based on time of day? 15+ years ahead of its time -- think f.lux on PCs or Night Mode on smartphones! The design of the PC case does remind me of Sony's hi-fi A/V equipment of the same period. Hotkeys at the top of the keyboard? My 20-yr-old keyboard doesn't have those, but it reminds me I really should program those Windows global hotkeys: Ctrl + Alt + I for Internet (Firefox), Ctrl + Alt + M for Mail (open new tab & go to Gmail?), Ctrl + Alt + S to sleep, etc.

[@goblinphreak2132]

I wish sony would get back into the monitor/display market with OLED monitors, even OLED gaming monitors. It would be awesome.

[@sergeysiminyuk]

Vios were always so cool, both laptops and desktops. Sadly I never came across one. I used to watch DVDs and DVD rips on my p3 450 Coppermine with 196mb ram and some mix of HDDs I managed to scavange. Getting a PC capable of DVD playback was a milestone for me. In my teenage years I had to make do with parts I found in machines people would throw out. Used a p1 200mhz for a long time but it wasnt up to the challange. If memory serves DVDs needed a p2 333mhz at the minimum without the mpeg2 card.

[@AJmyself]

I saw the at the core and ihe pentium III CPU was made in the Philippines, I liked the video right away... 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@nezyro]

Rebuild this into a fully modernized stealth high performance gaming PC, maybe a matte semi-transparent side-panel with internal RGBs that bleed through, RGBs in the back of a curved 4k monitor to match the day cycle background. Keep all the late 90's aesthetics, with a touch of subtle RGB and an extreme hardware makeover.

[@TommyCrosby]

Not surprised that Steve Jobs liked VAIO, let's not forget that the modern chiclet keyboard started on a VAIO laptop way before Apple did the same and officially popularized the concept.

[@chopinhoven]

thank you for the amazing review ,,❤ i have about the same model mine is " PCV-L640 " i am still searching for a working video driver for the " Rage 128 Pro 4XL. and audio driver for " Aureal 8810 PCI . i searched everywhere but still nothing work , ! i am not sure what cause the drivers to not working , maybe this slimtop need special optimized drivers for sony vaio ? or maybe i need chipset drivers too ? i need help please if anyone have any information to make video and sound working great on this nice slimtop ,

[@YeOldeKamikaze]

Ah, yes, as usual, Sony shoving a proprietary port/medium/format whenever it gets the chance. Don't get me wrong, I like Sony, especially their phones and headsets, but proprietary stuff sucks in general. This PC sure is a looker considering it's from the past century. I would try to put WinXP on it, just for gits and shiggles.

[@mysteryboyee]

Damm, the fact that an apple made operating system could have ended up OFFICIALLY running on a non apple made device is crazy, honestly kind of dissapointed sony declined, I wonder if we'd still be seeing sony made macs today to go along side all the apple made macs

[@darak2]

Did the 8-bit computers such as the MSX really compete with IBM PCs in the US? I would think those were completely different markets, even if only due to pricing.

[@bernardogaetani]

Do you know if it can handle more RAM and a faster PIII? Imagine it using a really optimized linux distro... It would be fast enough even for some modern tasks...

[@J.Wick.]

The mid to late 90s VAIOs were the Coolest computers on the market IMO...I wanted one so bad. VAIO also stood for Analog sine wave VA, and I 0 for Digital.

[@retrochristmas7329]

I like pre-built more. More nostalgic. People remember pre-built models. Nobody rembers bland cases fill with parts.

[@nigel-Rollercam-channel]

Great video another all prebuilt I was unaware of, I must find that Compaq hat it is awesome!

[@knightsson1045]

Im guessing this old slimtop PC was very cool those days...and way ahead if its time!...the PC itself reminds me of these optiplex SFF(small form factor) desktops

[@nicwilson89]

Those onboard Rage chips with bugger all VRAM were used everywhere, they gave a lot of things a bad name haha, especially when they were still being used years later, and especially especially with names like '128 Pro' which led consumers to believe they had 128MB VRAM and were higher end than they actually were

[@Ptero4]

The ATI Rage in that PC is the same crappy laptop gpu that came in the 2001 500MHz iBook.

[@Wobble2007]

Would be so much cooler if you had the vastly superior VAIO CRT with it. The LCD is interesting though, just wouldn't want to use it.

[@highpath4776]

For design one of the best PC compatible early range if you can find the is the Olivetti Italian ones. (you might have covered them). At one time I had some plastic cased compatibles I cannot remember the brand, which were interesting, I sold them on as they had strange expansion slots for my needs at the time. Buildings ones own machines the sheer aggro of supposed working AGP and other graphics cars which either had wrong logic, software, interrupt clashes or short circuits on board frustrated me, then as fast as you learned one way of doing things, the bios changed, the software OS or applications way of working changed or the hardware leapt forward and no longer fitted in the case one had. Even buying in Dells for a company upgrade supposedly the same model had varations on them and certain timer applications that ran on our older PCs would not run on the Dell systems (think we were up to Pentium 3 or something by then). And dont get me started on networking and administrator privelidges . ( I had a couple of 68000? systems - a Jarrogate and an Apricot network, both would fall over, just after I had part understood Unix on a DEC Vax/PDP systems.

[@ericp631]

I loved the vaio design. Beautiful machines, just not good ones. Form over function always was sony's m.o. with PC's