EasyNow PC: The 90s Cheap and Cheerful Internet Computer

[@LGR]

Ooh I've always been curious about these! Been trying to find one for a while now but haven't had much luck. Perfect lunchtime viewing here, thanks for putting this together 👍

[@beepyshenanigans]

hi lgr

[@beepyshenanigans]

big fan of you

[@interlace84]

Just as this got me wondering if LGR also had a new upload-- there he is! 😆 I see it's gonna be saturn-v time after this one!

[@niyablake]

I love it when I see comments from a youtuber on another youtubers video :)

[@mruppel2]

Hey Clint!! Nice seeing you here too!

[@superotterboy7937]

Hell yes! Translucent coloured plastic is to 90s kids what woodgrain is to 70s kids, I love everything about this PC, especially with it's monitor! Pure 90s coolness! It's because of electronics like this that I became an electronics hobbiest! I Love this machine! Definitely want one!

[@palibakufun]

Agreed. Something about seeing the brightly colored plastics just makes me just sort of happy. It's not even that I think they look great, it's just a feel good sort of thing.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@palibakufun EXACTLY!

[@VulpesHilarianus]

I want more translucent blue plastic on things. Plain black plastic may be cheap to manufacture, but it really brings down your mood if you're surrounded by it. I think that's why people started putting RGB in everything, actually.

[@teekay_1]

The original iMac gets credit for that. Remember the fruit-colored Macs? They were Steve Job's idea to generate sales after he came back and it worked. I bought my family two of them.

[@ionianblue31]

Imagine if they did have PCs like this in the 70s. You’d have that wood grain and big sideburns on the monitor. The keyboard would be pale green with shag carpet around it and the mouse would be in the shape of whatever flowers were on that wallpaper. Groovy.

[@vwestlife]

It looks like a cross between an iMac and an Electrolux.

[@bazahaza]

*cliterous

[@demef758]

The original iMac in its Bondi Blue color caused all sorts of products to be redesigned to include that color. I once saw an electric toothbrush with that translucent color scheme.

[@AaronOfMpls]

​@@demef758 And not just blue; all kinds of devices had a bunch of different translucent colors. It was just in style then, proudly (but not too proudly) showing off the innards of keychain games, handheld consoles, landline phones, computers and their peripherals, and other electronic widgets.

[@austinkoeppen6122]

@@AaronOfMpls we had an iMac with translucent pink.

[@jimblob78]

@@AaronOfMpls I still have a classic translucent blue printer cable 😂 I truly love the aesthetic!

[@SunnySidePups]

I love the chapter titles for this video. Especially "Power supply hacking" leading into "It didn't work"

[@VictoryHand]

Spoilers!

[@awesomeferret]

Thanks for the spoiler though.

[@lIIl_lIl_lIIl]

_BIOS WTF_ 😂

[@TheShadow0515]

Hahaha, it’s too accurate.

[@_..---]

Imagine if companies today experimented with awesome designs like these, not only on desktops but with all sorts of electronics.

[@horacegentleman3296]

Sony was still doing it until relatively recently.

[@michaelf.2449]

@@horacegentleman3296 yeah and lemme guess it didn't sell well? People got bored It's the same with cars they used to be like Skittles but now they're all corporate colors.

[@horacegentleman3296]

@@michaelf.2449 Well to be fair Sony was also using a lot of proprietary connectors and parts as well as often being overpriced for what you got, high quality but still overpriced.

[@lutello3012]

please no 🤢

[@cracklingice]

Don't get me wrong, it looks cool; but looking cool is no substitute for being a proper expandable computer.

[@demef758]

+12V: you are experiencing "I*R" voltage drop across your hacked power cable. Your cable's total voltage drop is (12V - 11.24V) = 0.76V. Assuming the current draw is, say, 4A, the total cable resistance is about 0.76V/4A = 190 milliohm. That's TOTAL resistance, which is split between the two power leads (plus and ground), meaning that each leg of your cable has about around 100 milliohm of resistance. What you want is a cable with heavier gauge wire and is SHORTER, too. Both of these actions will reduce the cable resistance, making the incoming +12V voltage increase at the PC. (I'm an old power supply designer, so I have a lot of experience debugging cable issues.)

[@Zastrutzki]

As a system builder I delivered plenty of systems with ME. And you're right, it wasn't all that bad. It certainly beat having to install drivers for every piece of kit that 98 SE didn't support out of the box.

[@xaenon]

The hate surrounding ME is mostly because Microsoft made such a big deal about it, but didn't provide anything particularly new (as far as the end user could see). And the fact that Microsoft also threw Win2K into the market at right about the same time sort of muddied the market, with ME being perceived as an 'inferior' product.

[@infamousacidrain]

@@xaenon not my experience. It was an unstable mess, and everyone I know had stability problems with it and went back to 98 or upgraded to 2000. If you didn’t experience it’s notorious stability issues, then you were lucky. Perhaps it was due to the hardware at the time, or perhaps it was due to Microsoft’s bad programming practices. Clearly they knew the 9x kernel wasn’t going to cut it because this was the last release before XP switched everyone to the NT kernel.

[@xaenon]

@@infamousacidrain I think the people who had the most trouble were the gamers. Perhaps that was why I was 'lucky'; I didn't run games on my ME rig.

[@dennisp.2147]

@@xaenon No perception. Me was inferior in every way to 2k.

[@infamousacidrain]

@@xaenon it wasn’t limited to gamers. My mother had a brand new compaq that was shipped with ME and she didn’t game. It was ridiculously unstable. Microsoft knew it was a dead end with problems and that’s why it was the last 9x kernel OS. I recognize some people didn’t have problems, but that’s irrelevant to the success of the OS. It is widely recognized as garbage. Because it was garbage.

[@JomasterTheSecond]

The fucking *aesthetic* on this thing. Catch me filling a room with these and these alone.

[@mind-of-neo]

That translucent plastic look is one of the most aesthetically beautiful things to look at ever

[@lotr15]

As someone who had to do what I could with a 800Mhz, 32GB integrated graphics Windows ME machine for a good portion of my early teens the bit at the end about gaming really resonated, many memories of trying to get games to run at more than slideshow pace (or even run at all) came flooding back. Despite all that I really miss those times, nostalgia is one hell of a drug apparently.

[@thedumbassintheworks]

32 gb sound like a lot on a 800mhz pc i know it was a typeing mistake im just giving u a hard time.

[@ssokolow]

My understanding is that your experience with Windows ME was entirely dependent on your hardware and that the problem is that it supports two different eras of Windows device drivers and, if you mix them, you get instability.

[@TechHowden]

Correct, it supports Windows 9X and NT drivers but never try to use both at once

[@GaugePlays1980]

You got me giggling with this one. The quick text at their product lineup was a good chuckle.

[@IanNewYashaTheFinalAct]

Maybe I'm sheltered, maybe I'm just a r/woosh'd doofus, but I genuinely don't see what Colin thinks the design resembles, even with the hint of the designers making a pink one

[@McVaio]

​@@IanNewYashaTheFinalActMaybe because you've never seen one in general 😂

[@RingoBuns]

I had a biostar board and parts in a 2007 built machine. The case (Apevia X-Cruiser BK) looked like a race car which is the only reason my unknowing dad bought it, not understanding the specs at all. I do really miss the crazy and creative case designs of the late 90s and early 2000s

[@AaronOfMpls]

Oh yah, designers were really starting to think outside the (beige) box by then!

[@hero_in_deepblu]

Reminds me of my old Compaq presario "internet PC" from the late 90's. Amazingly though, that had a decent GPU in it. But more or less the same specs(AMD K6, 128mb of ram, 8gb HDD), and was running windows 98SE, not ME. Good memories from those PCs, lots of hours spent playing games and browsing Microsoft Encarta(spent hours looking up dinosaurs on that as a child lol).

[@TECHNOGEEK20000]

oh yeah my parents had one of those too. I played allot of monster truck madness on it!

[@unskilledlabor5229]

lol. I remember Encarta.

[@tobiwonkanogy2975]

looking up dinosaurs on a modern day dinosaur .

[@teg24601]

FYI: The issue with Windows Me really comes down to allowing both 9x and NT style drivers to be installed. If you only use 9x or only use NT, you don't have a problem, usually. But if even one driver in your system is from the wrong platform, you are screwed.

[@charlieretro]

I never had issues with Me then again my 2 computers the have Me where made for it and not upgraded to it.

[@amirpourghoureiyan1637]

In terms of retro use, ME is kinda pointless. For a 9x build it omits DOS support which is a deal-breaker if you want older titles, on the other hand - if I only wanted Windows game support, I'd go with the later NT builds like 2K and XP since they got rid of the unstable DOS kernel 9x uses.

[@kbhasi]

Based on my experience, Windows 9x drivers that depended on a TSR loaded in MS-DOS before Windows switched into graphical mode didn't work on Windows ME without modifications to re-enable MS-DOS mode. I've at least seen that with the IBM M-Wave DSP that was used in some ThinkPad 760 series models.

[@kbhasi]

@@amirpourghoureiyan1637 I know just what you mean! I'm reminded of 'The Nostalgia Mall', because if I recall correctly, the host of that plays retro games on Windows 95, 98, and XP, but not ME, also because some of the games he plays are DOS games.

[@BluesHarry]

Really what I wanted to reply, regarding "better driver support" - wider, but worse. :D

[@LoomSun]

I am pretty sure that Windows 95, 98, and ME will always use a 'virtual' A: floppy driver, even when the floppy controller is missing or disabled by the BIOS. What you are seeing with it being present seems normal to me, and I think is there because it is required for those versions of windows to operate correctly. I might be wrong on the details of it, but I thought I should add this for awareness.

[@_Thrackerzod]

I seem to remember something like that also. I think you can use TweakUI to prevent the A: drive from being displayed.

[@gentuxable]

I had the same thought. I think it's because there had been very old machines where Windows had no way of detecting a drive by checking the BIOS info and just assumes there must be a 5.25 inch drive that will work when accessed. But disabling it would be really advisable as every time you want to install a driver for example, Windows will default to check the A drive and you always have to wait for it to timeout before selecting the correct path.

[@baseddoggie]

Yes, I believe this is largely for MS-DOS backwards compat. as many, many older DOS programs 100% expect the A: drive to at least exist (as floppy was the main storage format during the 80s and not many people had hard disks) and will not run without it being "present", even if the program itself does not mind being run from a hard disk or other internal storage.

[@gentuxable]

@@baseddoggie if that was the only requirement I still can't understand why it always has to time out after trying instead of directly showing "drive not ready" as if there was no disk in the drive.

[@ghinckley68]

yeap they did that

[@retropctech2407]

27:24 Those 11.24v can very well be a readout error. Those voltage sensors aren't really precise to begin with. Also It could very well be voltage loss over the cable. Even if those cables are pretty decently sized, over the whole length and also the connector there could be a voltage drop. According to the ATX specification the minimum voltage is 11.40V. But I would guess those 11.24 Volts are pretty much fine too. Edit: Also the 12V rail probably has a bit of voltage drop over the MOSFET / switching transistor as it comes directly from the PSU. All the other Voltages are that good because they get generated (or well stepped down with some sort of buck converter) on the mainboard itself. Also the Apple monitor does fit very well to it :)

[@scotttait2197]

Great video Colin , repaired many of these in early 2000s usually dead hard drives... still very nostalgic

[@TadanoHitohito]

Windows Vista and Windows ME are just fine if you run them on appropriate hardware and install all the patches. They just had horribly botched launches.

[@wuby3202]

Komi cannot communicate fan yaaaaay

[@hampter779]

what about win 2000?

[@TadanoHitohito]

@@hampter779 win2k is definitely better than ME

[@hampter779]

@@TadanoHitohito indeed

[@GrumpyWolfTech]

Vista yes, ME no! ME was an unstable buggy mess that constantly crashed and blue screened.

[@FubarMike]

Someone posted a pick of these on reddit a few months ago and I've been googling for a video of one in action. I gave up but your video showed up in my recommendations.

[@jasonblalock4429]

I actually had a pretty good experience with ME back in the day. Although, in fairness, that was also the computer where I discovered the joys of Litestep. So I wasn't running Explorer. Or Media Player. Or File Manager. Or IE. I pretty much replaced all the core OS apps with alternatives, haha. But, you know, with all of that gone, ME ran great!

[@HonklerUnitedInc]

i had bad time tho it was friends moms PC it wouldnt run dark age of camelot... swapped to windows 98 game ran

[@baseddoggie]

@@HonklerUnitedInc Im sure that had nothing to do with being a child and not knowing how to update a driver.

[@Tall_Order]

I like that CRT you showed with the orange transparent plastic. Reminds me of one of my GBAs. That's one of the few things I miss from that era.

[@mdavid1955]

That machine was made in the late 90's-early 2000's "bad capacitor plague"😵

[@Kamel419]

And by "Cheap 90's PC", he means still more expensive than a loaded gaming rig today.

[@stixc]

HOLY Y2K that case is so cool looking, I have an itch for translucent plastics & blobby designs, and this is no exception, even if people were just ripping off Apple's design language at the time... still very interesting and nostalgic Also was the purple/green one supposed to be an Evangelion edition? (or if not could it perhaps be a reference?)

[@whoeusbsknsi]

no doofus. here in america anime was considered homoerotic in the 90’s/early 00’s..

[@ricenoodles632]

@@whoeusbsknsi No, it wasn't. They showed anime on prime time kids TV.

[@ShapeShifter499]

@@whoeusbsknsi Wasn't there 4kids tv that showed a fair bit of anime?

[@protocetid]

such fun industrial design, you don’t see this anymore in electronics outside of children’s products

[@WhiteG60]

What I did with a big wattage 12v supply I had was put something like an XT60 plug on the end so I could have modular ends. I have a few different sized barrel jacks, one miniDIN, a molex, a SATA, etc so it can be used for whatever is needed and I'm not locked into a single connector for a power supply that's that big and useful.

[@tarstarkusz]

You are absolutely wrong about this computer not being able to play games. Yes, it's not going to play the latest games in 1999, but it will play every DOS game ever made and quite a few 3d Windows games if that is your thing from 1995 and 1996 and possible 97.

[@greggm4093]

You picked the most appropriate monitor EVER for this video!

[@parastie]

Windows ME was bad. I had to deal with it on an old Compaq laptop. My first ever laptop that I got for going to college. I upgraded to XP as soon as I could. Awesome video!

[@CommodoreFan64]

Agreed, he can try to justify Win Me all he wants, but Win 98SE with all the service packs installed was far better, and more stable due to the hardware drivers, and forcing Win 98 drivers onto ME did not always end in the best results.

[@nickwallette6201]

I disagree. I always thought Win98 felt like a prop plane in a wind storm. Just barely hanging together by sheer ignorance. Win ME felt pretty stable in comparison. BUT, I have seen it postulated that the drivers you were using made all the difference in the world, and that seems plausible. I was running a Pentium III at the time, on an i815e (Asus TUSL2-C) chipset, 3dfx Voodoo 3500 TV (and later an ATI Radeon), Sound Blaster Live!, 3Com 3C-905C, and Adaptec 19160 SCSI. All top-shelf stuff, very well supported by their manufacturers and Microsoft, and thus probably reference-level drivers. It ran great, it was reliable, the UI was cleaner.. I had no issues with ME at all, and found it kinda baffling why so many people kept dogging it.

[@charlieretro]

2000 was also not bad I know a few people that hate it also.

[@experimental0000]

@@charlieretro Skipped Windows ME in favor of Windows 2000 Pro after upgrading from 98SE. ME was a buggy mess. I used to work on machines back in those days and saw rows of these in a computer lab bluescreen while idle (fresh install too). Yet that was only on ME. When they were upgraded to XP there were zero issues.

[@nickwallette6201]

@@charlieretro I tried 2000 shortly after launch and it was too much for my computer at the time. It took too long to boot, I didn't have quite enough RAM, and driver support was lean. It was pretty common to have basic functionality for most of your hardware, but none of the advanced features would work. I think by the time 2000 was really ready for mass adoption, XP was already around the corner. Win 2K seems to have a much better reputation now, in retrospect, from people who used it in a professional capacity at the time, or people who hung on to it well after it was released. With mature drivers, a well-spec'd machine, and software that had been written with an understanding that Windows doesn't just let your code do whatever you want anymore, it's at a sweet spot between lightweight and robust, without all the eye candy that some people don't like about XP.

[@b33gft67]

Great video! This era of computers holds a spot in my heart as well.

[@n.l3880]

For the pinout. Just probe with a multimeter and see which pins are connected to the easy to reach shield of the ethernet plug. Those pins must be ground. So the others must be 12v. No need to take it apart necessarily

[@Henners]

That’s what he did in the video. He took it apart since that’s what the channel is about

[@n.l3880]

@@Henners Not quite, he checked against the Molex ground. I know he wanted to take it apart, I just wanted to share this tip if anyone else ever runs into such a situation

[@AJ-po6up]

After you mentioned that it looks like a _you know what_ I just couldn't unsee it, it really does! I wonder if it was intentional lol What a crazy time the 90s was in the world of computing.

[@BeefJerky4104]

Something about these late 90's translucent PCs are so nostalgic for me. You mentioned all the corners they cut that would've made this less enjoyable at the time, but retrospectively we can appreciate like the lack of expandability, or the less usual SiS chipset with integrated graphics. I remember being a kid and working on my best friends grandparent's PC which had a PCChips motherboard and SiS chipset. I actually appreciate the Windows Me trolling here, it's basically just 98 Third Edition after all.

[@flightsimdev9021]

I can still remember sleeping in a computer room on dial up waiting for a 10mb file to download and having to restart it, many times over an 18 hours period. I am so glad those days are gone. Loved this video, it brought back this memory!

[@JamesR624]

4:06-4:12 To quote an amazing Australian; "Someone's been INN herrreee...

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

I used the same installation of ME for several years, never had any problems. I used to dual boot with linux and both worked flawlessly.

[@ShiggitayMediaProductions]

I fondly remember this time of computing... as Colin you and I aren't too far apart in age as I know I've mentioned before (I think you're older by a year or 3?). I was a Mac kid growing up, but I do remember when Windows 98/ME/2k etc were the hot you know what, and all my friends swore by it. This was an interesting trip down memory lane. Oh and is it just me or is the EasyNow PC literally ripping off the aesthetics of a Blue and White Power Mac G3? Or maybe a Bondi Blue iMac? That's the vibe I got when watching... Super bizarre. Thanks for this video as always!

[@ThisDoesNotCompute]

Yeah, it definitely took some "inspiration" from Apple's lineup at the time. After the iMac launched, translucent colored plastics became a huge trend, not just in computing but lots of stuff...Nintendo released translucent N64 consoles and controllers, all sorts of personal electronics (portable CD players and the like), even office supplies like staplers. It only lasted a couple of years until everyone got over it, but I remember the era fondly.

[@ShiggitayMediaProductions]

@@ThisDoesNotCompute Yep I remember all those translucent gadgets... I had an early N64 back in the day with the "atomic" purple controller, and I think I had a translucent CD player at one point too.

[@litebkt]

Points at an ovoid shaped device and proclaims “corners were cut”. You crack me up. ❤

[@andycristea]

Try pressing Ctrl+a while on the main CMOS setup screen. On some setups, it will display hidden advanced options not normally available. Maybe you will find the floppy controller there.

[@OriginalThisAndThat]

Gives me strong flashbacks.. Installing drivers before internet..

[@alexis0a]

It's a weird computer, the design is like an iMac G3 and PS5 have a weird baby haha Great video as always!

[@mykie242]

I used to work at a PC Manufacturer back in the mid-late 90’s custom building and configuring computers One day, the owner of the company stormed into the warehouse, and announced that if he finds out that someone shipped a computer with a Biostar motherboard, they would be fired on the spot…

[@scotttait2197]

Thats a bit if a bad rapp ... they made sone really nice boards... although that was 15 - 20 years ago no idea whatvthe "quality" would be like now even though they do make a z690 skt1700 ddr5!

[@HansOvervoorde]

That input connector is a GX16-4, A.K.A. female 4 pin CB (radio) microphone socket. Definitely not a mini-DIN connector, as with (mini-) DIN, the distance between two holes on a row varies per row. And a DIN plug with thicker pins would, well, violate its very own DIN 41524 standard.

[@ram89572]

What the hell kind of "genius" engineer thought that repurposing a cb radio plug as a power connector for a pc was a good idea? I swear these people think up solutions in the moment and never give a single second of thought to the future of such an off the wall idea

[@MistahMatzah]

You're of course correct - a real mini-DIN4 will have pins that, if you used lines to connect them, look like a trapeziod. That said, when I see this connector in catalogues it always says something like "Mini-DIN 4 pin power connector."

[@bluefaolan]

I don't know how I missed this one last year, but this is fantastic.

[@Toonrick12]

Also, it's most likely that the computer shipped with Windows ME as it was the OS of choice for OEMs in 1999 and 2000.

[@SoukupSoft]

ME couldn't be the choice for anyone in 1999 because it officially came out in 2000. But if you are speaking about the Beta versions, then it's OK.

[@OhMyPoBoy]

Really love the long form semi-unscripted videos. Your troubleshooting and repair content is my favorite

[@DragoMorke]

I really like the look of the case. Its retro yet still feels modern in a way as well. Maybe this could be re-fitted with current hardware inside?

[@zaphodbreeblebrox9542]

A RaspberryPi would fit inside the case easily and would feature upgraded video and USB ! 🙂

[@kennethw514a]

I guess any ITX motherboard should do

[@DeadReckon]

This thing is so late 90's early 2000's it hurts.

[@vikkidoodle8121]

Ah, I just love this design! There is just something about the look of the pretty translucency of the colors! I don't care how suggestive the design is, I think it's cool and I'd would love to have the pink one cuz I like that color dammit! I remember having I think this translucent-ish dark blue hp computer and really liking the design. I wrote some stories on there but eventually stopped using it cuz I thought I needed to be connected to the internet to play games and I wasn't allowed to go into the internet so I eventually stopped using it and went over to my dad's eMachine where I could play my little solitaire games in peace. Though, the plain vanilla eMachine didn't look nearly as cool as the hp. Awesome video! It was so much fun to watch and I look forward to the vid about that pretty apple monitor as well as the next one!

[@JasonBoon02]

I feel really stupid, but I don't see what's so suggestive about this design. It looks like an eye to me lol.

[@arcadedude1987]

@@JasonBoon02 Me too :( I'm missing out!

[@dalekofdoom]

@@JasonBoon02 yeah i don't see it either, just looks like an eye or football

[@linuxization4205]

That's what *he* said.

[@redleader6442]

It looks like someone removed the tube from an old iMac, stuck the iMac into a hydraulic press and then a reshaping mold, swapped the G3 for a K6, and sold it as a cute little blue and whitebox. I love it.

[@volvo09]

Yes, everyone was following that imac translucent plastic theme in that era. I personally hated that styling, everything had to be rounded and curvy, and colored plastic bits thrown on randomly.

[@Martin42944]

I had Windows ME. It wasn't great, but it was loads better than Vista. I'd still take XP as the go to Windows throwback though.

[@denniswoycheshen]

Windows 2000 was probably the best in my opinion, mainly because it didn't try to use all the resources for a flashy desktop.

[@kairon156]

enjoyable episode. I lived through the 90's and bought my own computer in the early 2000's because didn't want to share the family computer any more.

[@Frank_2023]

What a unique PC, thanks for the video. Btw a great utility for finding drivers on older systems is "Driver Easy" or "Snappy Driver Installer" both do a pretty good job of finding those hard to find drivers for older systems :) They've saved me lot of time in the past :) Keep up the interesting content mate :)

[@greenaum]

Just a tip for splicing wires like that... don't cut the wires to the same length. That is, for the white wire, have it short on one side, and long coming from the other. Then do the opposite for the red wire. That way, even if the insulation slipped off, the two bare copper splices wouldn't be able to touch each other cos they're at opposite sides of the splice. As long as they're connected nice and tight. Just good practice.

[@snizzsnazz]

I'm so psyched to see this! I happen to have two these little easynow rigs in my collection. One of them was unused when I got it, came as a barebones system with no hdd, memory, or cpu. Has the matching speakers, keyboard, mouse, cd, manuals etc. Ended up getting it set up with a k6-450 and Windows 98SE. Both are all aqua green... Unfortunately never had 100% luck with Windows-Me on these desktops (device manager code 10). Even tried a random sis530 driver with no go.

[@papelrex]

dude that's awesome. where did you find this pc? i've been looking to buy one everywhrre

[@snizzsnazz]

@@papelrexI've had my first Easynow rig since I was in elementary school. Was given to me by a family friend when they upgraded. I always thought it was really aesthetic so it never got scrapped or thrown out. The second rig, (the unused Easynow pc) I got on good old Ebay about 5 years ago by simply stumbling upon it while scrolling.

[@snizzsnazz]

@@papelrex Your best bet would be Ebay, yardsales, someones basement, and possibly storage auctions. They are really hard to find for sure. I'm honestly still really surprised to find one here on KZbin.

[@iClone101]

Biostar is actually still around and manufacturing current-gen motherboards. They're one of the few motherboard manufacturers to survive the Dotcom bubble in 2001, and remain quite relevant still.

[@AdrianBelmonte96]

imagine building a custom gaming pc with that case

[@deadendwaterfall]

A Friday night wouldn't be a Friday night without some quality technology entertainment from This Does Not Compute.

[@lilbill6089]

A few days ago I bought one of these off Ebay because of the funky look. Today this video shows up, so I watched hoping for some info to get it running. I wasn't disappointed! You saved me a lot of looking around for a sound driver. Near the end of the vid, FedEx shows up with the computer. What timing! You are right about the hard drive. Mine is a Maxtor with only 8.5 GB. The man date is January 1999, and the IC date codes in the computer are all mid 99 so I'm pretty sure the Maxtor is original. Your 30 GB is a good upgrade. Did you find an ethernet driver? I poked around inside and the Ethernet Phy IC is an AMD AM79C901JC. That might help finding a driver. P.S. Clint B: Sorry, I got the one on Ebay. There's sure to be more.

[@awesomeferret]

Dang, you yoinked it from LGR somehow. He posted a comment here saying that he's been looking for one for awhile. Edit: heh, you saw his comment.

[@TimurTripp2]

I kind of want one of these now even though I have absolutely no use for it.

[@kane2103]

I had a system with that same SiS chipswt, got some nostalgia seeing the SiS green heating when you opened it up.

[@ypoora1]

These kinds of brick powered computers tend to take 12V straight from the brick, so it might be your brick is not doing too amazing.

[@padawanmage71]

I Love the pause after you plugged in the power supply…and nothing happened. I could almost hear that silent sigh during that pause. ;)

[@TECHNOGEEK20000]

THANK YOU COLLIN! for pointing out that Windows ME is not the nightmare OS that people make it out to be. It's like Windows Vista, I use Windows Vista on a daily basis for business tasks and it works just fine and XP and 7 combined. I have used Windows ME back in the day and I ran it on a old Gateway 2000 GS model, a dell dimension 2350, 2400, 3000 and every other computer and it worked just fine. Did not crash any more or less than win98. I too agree people need to let it go. I always hear about how bad it was.

[@MichaelSmith-on1ig]

Whoever decided to put the cd-drive slightly off-center and call it a day has my respect.

[@Otakunopodcast]

You know, as much as the PC snobs in the audience loved to turn their nose up at these "value" machines (and I was one of them) -- and yeah they were definitely built to a cost -- but they did their job reasonably well. That job being, getting the Jones family on the internet, for an affordable price. Sure, they would periodically have to get help from that techie kid/neighbor/whoever when they inevitably get it crapified with adware or viruses or whatever. But they worked reasonably well, and at a quite reasonable cost. A lot of my friends and other tech-minded people I know got their start on machines like these.

[@awesomeferret]

And we live in such a golden age of this now that people don't even realize it. A 4th gen dual core Haswell really does browse the web as well as a modern CPU does, but many people would have a hard time believing that even if you showed them side by side. Usable computer hardware is so accessible now that you can literally find usable computers at the dump (guess how I know that, haha).

[@death03125880]

Now I kinda understand where Valve got their idea for Portal sentry turrets from

[@robsquared2]

It's the PS(negative)5.

[@medleysa]

This is one of my favorite videos of yours. The number of times you simply threw up your hands (“Alright, we’re installing Windows ME!”) has me laughing.

[@cracklingice]

I trust those software voltage reports about as much as I trust Windows ME to be stable. I could always tell who would be calling on a regular basis whenever I ran into a Windows ME system.

[@ilovethe70s]

The voltage reports are in the BIOS though, nothing to do with Windows.

[@PhirePhlame]

Namely, for those wondering about Windows ME having better USB support than 98, the biggest upgrade is iirc that it has built-in support for USB drives right out of the box. But yeah, I've used it for years on my childhood box, and it's the perfect blend of legacy support and forwards compatibility for my own retro computing needs as someone who grew up with both 98 and XP.

[@singletona082]

That is the first computer power socket I've seen that isn't a standard three prong. And this is... WORRYING.

[@josuanrodriguez5175]

Love your channel and content, just found it and cant stop watching! :)

[@braelinmichelus]

Now, that's just an awesome computer! Maybe not in user experience, but design is just... pure late 90s neo-futuristic fun! Aside from it looking like it belongs in the waiting room of an OB/GYN, just screams "IT'S THE NEW MILLENNIUM, MAN!" and I absolutely adore it! Can't help having nostalgia attack, being a kid of the early 2000s. I really want that translucent CRT monitor and the matching keyboard and mouse. Could leave the computer itself out, as the accessories are truly blessed with the 00s æsthetic. Though If I did my hands on the computer, I'd definitely mod it with a modern mini-ITX board. And it'd be running nothing else other than Linux with KDE 3 desktop. Perfect match! 😍

[@pseydtonne]

I had never seen one of these and I used to look high and low for crazy minis to turn into Linux terminals as internet kiosks. Great find, great video!

[@XeonProductions]

As someone who suffered through Windows Me for like a year before swapping to Windows 2000, I disagree with your assessment that it's "not that bad". That operating system constantly had BSOD errors, program crashes, driver issues, and caused extreme mental anguish. It's easy to use Windows Me for all of one hour to make a video, but if you were to use it as a daily driver back in the early 2000s... you were in for a world of suffering.

[@CommodoreFan64]

Got that right I can't count how many times I had to reinstall ME on machines for people, and eventually gave up, and went back to Win 98se, or just put them on XP after it came out if their computer was powerful enough for it. The main problem with ME was it was sold with so many lower end garbage computers that barely met the specs for it like eMachines of the time with places like Best Buy suckering people who knew no better into buying them for a low price just to get them out of their inventory, with my late step dad being one of those people who got suckered, and I eventually just maxed out the RAM in that poor machine, and went back to Win 98se as it still had all the drivers I needed for it, and it was far more stable.

[@nickwallette6201]

I'm sure that was the case for some people, but ME was my daily driver back in the day, and it was totally fine. Well, as fine as Win 9x ever was or could be, anyway. I dual-booted between ME and BeOS, and to be honest, I spent as much time in BeOS as I possibly could. But, I was also into PC gaming, and did a bunch of audio stuff (multitrack editing in Cool Edit Pro, MIDI stuff in Cakewalk Pro, and so on), so I clocked significant time in Windows as well.

[@IkarusKommt]

Everyone here used Windows ME because it had all the recent drivers and recovered automatically after user errors.

[@AtoManPL]

I remember ATX Flex-based computers being heavily marketed in Europe with all the fancy variants, they were clearly intended to be "your first, cool computer you are getting for education, probably".

[@doggoli]

I don't really get the ME bashing either, it can be a fun os, however I must admit that in my use it really was pretty unstable. That's why I mostly use 2000 on my old PCs, you get nice stability and the retro looks of the older OSes.

[@harshbarj]

This is why the bashing -> "however I must admit that in my use it really was pretty unstable."

[@doggoli]

@@harshbarj Yeah but it's far from the worst thing ever, and getting unjustifiably angry about an OS that came out over 20 years ago at this point is just absurd to me.

[@nintendoatarikiller]

30:24 I grew up in this era and yea that 90s/2000s aesthetic with frosted blue tinted glass/plastic and silver painted plastic was everywhere.

[@SubstituteRealitiesChannel]

Its not uncommon to see 11+VDC on the 12 volt rails of this era of computers, be it desktops with cheapo 50dollars PSUs or SFF with external power bricks. I have system rebuilt and troubleshoot a lot of the AMD k2 to XP era stuff and most of the computers I seen have 12 volt rails of below 12VDC and they work fine. But that 8.99VDC is definitely something wrong with the components.

[@nickwallette6201]

Computers like this (that took a DC input) rarely actually regulated the 12V rail at all. It was usually a straight pass-through from the supply, since converting 12V (+/- some tolerance) to a regulated 12V isn't (or wasn't, in 2000) trivial. You can step down easily enough, and even step up, but a regulator that could buck, boost, or work at around the same as the input voltage, is a little more tricky. Plus, in a space-confined application like this, it would have been desirable to only have a buck converter for 12-to-5V and 12-to-3.3V, plus an inverting regulator for a token amount of -12V and -5V, but not have to worry about 12V. It's entirely possible the voltage monitor is just straight-up lying.

[@Lifter976]

I worked at a small computer manufacturer/shop in the late 90s, early 2000s. They had a pallet of these things rotting in storage that they were never able to sell. If I remember correctly, they didn't have CPU, HDD, or memory and they would be configured as ordered. I could be wrong though...

[@NikHYTWP]

I think Windows ME is actually quite fitting for that computer

[@perrytheutkonos]

This was (and still is) my dream computer

[@anon_y_mousse]

I suspect that the floppy drive is an artifact of 32 bit x86 Windows, that it couldn't not have a floppy drive even if one wasn't installed. I'd love to see you install Linux onto that machine. Also, yeah, the look of that shell, totally looks like an eye turned on its side. Yep, completely suggestive of that. Definitely nothing else. ;)

[@ajax700]

*I suspect that the floppy drive is an artifact of 32 bit x86 Windows, that it couldn't not have a floppy drive even if one wasn't installed.* No. It's a BIOS configuration issue.

[@yet_another_communist]

A lot of my older computers had this problem, no floppy drive, but a floppy drive showing up in Windows (XP in that case).

[@IkarusKommt]

There is no SiS drivers for Linux, so that is a silly idea.

[@anon_y_mousse]

@@IkarusKommt According to the internet there are, so duck it and update your database.

[@nexarian2523]

Windows XP would have been the quickest install & go os. XP was amazing in its support for older hardware & it's capability to run on it.

[@salsbar]

Looks 'eyeball' shaped to me

[@kirishima638]

I kinda like it. I have a soft spot for weird form factor mini PCs and vertically mounted CD drives.

[@thomasandrews9355]

You gotta be careful with replacing caps on these, they need low esr in power regulation section. This is a general tip. My business checks the original caps specs before replacing them.

[@ek8710]

Do you desolder every cap before testing?

[@thomasandrews9355]

@@ek8710 no. But if im replacing them, I note position and cap type. Then I look up datasheet. If I can't find one I use very best cap I have depending on placement

[@ek8710]

@@thomasandrews9355 but then how do you get an accurate capacitance reading without desoldering

[@thomasandrews9355]

@@ek8710 cap is labeled. Caps are old enough that better to just replace anything critical.

[@FrankJohn]

I'm one of those people who loved Windows ME. More than the other Windows available. Until XP.

[@TJC450]

Not the pcussy 😩

[@HowieIsaacks]

I like that you don't give up while trying to get something to work. I'm the same way but it sometimes causes me more trouble than it's worth.

[@unf3z4nt]

Does not look like an egg and barely resembles a woman's junk. More like the outline of a human eye.

[@CustomComputing]

Wow you go through everything I love your due diligence it’s amazing and I truly respect it so much!

[@FuckMargaretThatchher]

"ROFL They even sold a pink one. The designer didn't get the joke." is what the flashed text said at: 29:16

[@Themaxleydog]

i have a small collection (4 or 5) of rare colored translucent aftermarket pc cases from the late 90s that i treasure a lot. Basically impossible to find anymore.

[@lurkersmith810]

I do remember seeing ++ as the BIOS command, and I believe it was the Award BIOS also. I wish I could remember what system it was on. Maybe E-Machines (remember them?) Yes, it's a perfectly good gaming machine, if the games you play are Reversi and Solitaire! Has anyone actually tried making these useful in the 21st Century by finding a lightweight Linux version that will run on it? It would be a more secure way to surf the 'net more securely than an ancient version of Windows.

[@Sb129]

I do remember that era, I loved that translucent look, still do. I still have a computer from then, a very tiny sub notebook Sony Vaio running WinME, it is about the size as a netbook.

[@BlueShotgunShells]

It's good to know you had a great experience with ME. Couldn't say the same for myself. I used 98SE for most of my computing back in the day because Win ME just kept crashing on me after about 2 weeks. Tried to give ME another shot, but it didn't work out.

[@ModricoTV]

Kinda like how carriers sold HTC phones under their own brands. For example, the HTC Excalibur being sold by T-Mobile as the T-Mobile Dash.

[@slayersdeath]

I had one of these in the uk it was branded as advent e.go still remember my grandad coming in with it thought it looked fantastic

[@aeonjoey3d]

disappointed that you didn't show the outer shell removal, honestly the industrial design and the gymnastics used to make these work is the most interesting part of these kinds of PCs