Unboxing a Trash Picked 2000s Mystery PC!

[@HeroRareheart]

I can't belive you got a display out, I couldn't get it to do that no mater what I did. I was able to get a terminal output though. Like I said, the PC was brand new. No user accounts on it or anything, someone just built or bought this and tossed it out 15-20 years later. That computer is honestly my most bizare find, the Compact Portable being thrown out makes some sense but this just doesn't. I would love to see you go over that book, it had so really nice stuff in it which I think you'd love. P.S. Xenia>Tux, I'll take the badass trans fox over the doppy penguin any day ;p

[@agy234]

Maybe just needed some love from fedex first. Like reverse shipping damage

[@sadmac356]

Honestly yeah, I can't believe someone just tossed it out like that

[@xerzy]

in this channel we stan the true Linux mascot 🦊

[@RetroReviewYT]

@@sadmac356 oh hey! Small world!

[@sadmac356]

@@RetroReviewYT lol yeah!

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

I never have to pick through trash to find an MJD video.

[@seven7000_]

W

[@Eyetrauma]

Re: “why would someone build a custom computer, open it, then leave it in the box?” I watched a video from another creator where they did a retro unboxing and they’d said they only had the system because they had an automation system (for irrigation, I think?) and they bought *two* so there’d be no downtime if one failed. It never did, hence the pristine new system.

[@albertstadt9853]

I ran an electrical repair shop for a charity store system until 2006. To test computer stuff, I had a Pentium 2 233 mhz mobo screwed onto the wall above my workbench. Your loose mobo brought back memories!

[@k6kaysix675]

My parents took all my old PCs to the recycling site when they sold their old house :( I remember leaving behind a Frankenstein Packard Bell case which originally had one of those slot loading Pentium 2 233mhz (MMX!) which I somehow managed to upgrade to a later motherboard and processor despite a lot of proprietary case connections and also a self built PC from the early 2000s plus a brand new ATX case from around the same era which I never got round to using

[@HeroRareheart]

Ohhh that blows. Having to say gokdby to working tech is always hard, even if it's old.

[@dangero2000]

They did that without consulting you first?

[@elektrokinesis4150]

aren't parents just the worst sometimes???

[@ark9951]

Same, my parents had a 90s PC too but they threw it away even when I told them to not to throw it away.

[@tree_bark8081]

I had the exact same PC case. Unfortunately it wasn't in as good of a condition as yours, because the previous owner was a chain smoker and the inside of the case was covered with tar. It is very sturdy and weighs approximately 17.000 tons even when empty.

[@SinKillerJ]

Tux Racer could be a whole video in itself. Started as an open source game, became a ticket spewing arcade machine, then theres Planet Penguin Racer which went all LibreOffice.

[@TheReviewer63]

I would absolutely watch you flip through a piece of history like that netscape book! I think it would be interesting to see the types of things people were "astounded" by in the recent past like the 90s/00's. Also to really get an idea of just what was possible back then.

[@BlackFantasy470]

It's always curious what other people throw away. I've never found anything like this and doubt I ever will.

[@HeroRareheart]

With enough time in the right areas you will. I just happen to be in a good place for it, hence why I have 19 laptops.

[@steriftes]

@@HeroRareheart YOOOO THE MAN HIMSELF

[@Durkhead]

I found a desktop pc in the parking lot at wallmart

[@pioneer1131]

@@HeroRareheart i have ~5 desktops, 2 of which i just found in the trash. i also found a razer keyboard the other day! works perfectly!!

[@captaiawesome2260]

It takes time. People don’t throw away computers or computer parts all the time. My advice would be to always check apartments’ dumpsters, as people who live in apartments are more wasteful. I’ve had my best luck at apartments that are in and around college campuses, as college students are the most wasteful and throw away some good stuff. It’s how I built my PC.

[@EuFariaVideos]

15:30 OMG i used to play this game in my pc, i buyed a Magazine CD Games and it have this game

[@WhtKenny]

OMG! an in-win box! I remember back in the day when PC towers were all no-name beige cases, and then all of a sudden getting an in-win case was the thing to do!

[@toaster98]

Oh my god Tux Racer brings back so many childhood memories.

[@MattExzy]

I just had a flashback of all the hours wasted on it lol

[@juanignacioaschura9437]

6:06 Fun Fact: The side panel ducting was the result of a pair of standards Intel released in 2001 and 2002: - Thermally Advantaged Chassis (TAC) - Chassis Air Guide (CAG) Of course, Intel being unable to make their Pentium 4 chips run cool, they released these sets of standards to case manufacturers so they could build designs that would help keep the chip cool. TAC mandated that the air flow had to have neutral pressure, with an intake fan at the front and an exhaust at the back (and according to Intel, the exhaust fan had to be at least 92mm in size and provide 55CFM of free air airflow). CAG was a component of TAC and consisted of a side panel with venting and a duct to ensure outside air was specifically channeled through the CPU cooler and heatsink. Intel claimed these standards helped avoid internal temperature rises above 3°C and keep ambient temperature inside the case below 40°C. Intel abandoned TAC and CAG with the switch to the Conroe generation (Core 2 chips), as it was unnecessary by that point and besides, there wasn't widespread adoption from the case manufacturers, both standards were not subsets of ATX and AMD chips didn't require TAC and CAG to run cool and perform properly.

[@vwestlife]

And then when all of that still wasn't enough to keep the Pentium 4 cool, they invented the BTX form factor, which put the CPU and its massive heatsink at the front of the case, directly behind a huge fan.

[@bippaasama]

Tux Racer is still available for modern distros and it's been somewhat updated since the olden days. Core gameplay is still identical though.

[@Alex-xs5hf]

You never forget to entertain us Michael keep up the good work man 😁

[@Alexander_l322]

This comment section ain’t big enough for the both of us…

[@6QG2P9X77W]

@@Alexander_l322 xD

[@ariadnavigo]

Such a nostalgia trip seeing GNOME 2.x and KDE 3.x there! ❤️❤️❤️

[@pioneer1131]

i recently recovered a PC that my dad custom built back in 2004. my dad has always had super powerful pcs. it has 4gb of ram (the max amount xp can handle), LIQUID COOLING ON A PENTIUM 4, a 500w PSU (it had a 450w, but we upgraded it), and equipment for the pc to work as a DVR for...... uhh... reasons i cant say lol (but most of it doesnt work anymore) the pc works well and boots, after we replaced the reservoir, coolant lines, and put some new coolant.

[@CRYPTiCEXiLE]

i'm very good with unix-like system and its always fun to watch people figuring out stuff and congrats.. we all been there at one point and honestly the learning and figuring out stuff in these system to me personally is the most fun way of these kind of systems... now that i know a lot it is freaking boring :(

[@michaelstechnology]

Everyday there is a new MJD video, the day automatically gets better

[@andresbravo2003]

Might be good to see another Donation video Michael. That’s awesome.

[@InsanityPrevails]

"dictionary word" Michael: What do you mean directory word? 😋

[@pum6454]

I'd love to see more linux related videos using this pc, maybe we can name it the free 2000's fedora pc, like the 5$ windows 98 pc, and do a bunch of crazy experiments with it, using linux

[@AstralTeaLeaf]

I enjoyed the full footage of the Office 97 video and I would absolutely enjoy a video of you just flipping through that book too.

[@QuaaludeCharlie]

That Looked so fun . I would have been Lost at trying to reset the Password . Thank's HeroRareheart and MJD for this Most Wonderful Video to Exist , all the toting and Packing and Shiping . Right 0n :) QC

[@DonCarlosofFreiburg]

I remember playing TuxRacer in the ComputerLab of my school back in 2005… you can do massive jumps if you ignore the fish and just go for the bumps 😄😄😄

[@SamanthaTheSonicFan]

What I find cool is the amber-brown/amber-gold motherboard! There probably are a lot of them out there, but it’s pretty cool to see a different color other than green (in my opinion).

[@snarkyman]

I recognize the case badge - it's from Main Board Computers in Waltham MA. My company bought PCs from them in my first IT job in the early 2000s. The Internet Archive has captures of their website through about April 2006.

[@HeroRareheart]

Waltham is prety close to shere I am so this is a logical orign.

[@Iristallite]

Oh man, that Tux Racer gameplay is bringing back _ancient_ memories of an old netbook I used to have... until I spilled yogurt on it.

[@xtellaris3981]

Damn, even before the firefox !! I CANNOT imagine a Linux distro without firefox.

[@EternalxFrost]

I used Fedora Core for many years. And the reason why you get a Red Hat logo is because Fedora is built (or at least was built back then, I don't know now) on a Red Hat kernel.

[@kbhasi]

I was thinking it had a Red Hat icon because Fedora didn't have its own logo mark at the time

[@m598lmr]

21:30 "And they leave you no room for error. Huh! I guess is pretty appropriate for Linux users, right?". One of the most clever comments I ever heard about Linux.

[@lisandro3614]

Nice time capsule! All it needs is a decent AGP card. The Slot 1 motherboard is a Biostar M6TBA, version 1. It has 100 MHz FSB support, but the multiplier goes to 5.5x max. Faster Pentium 3s would probably work with some modding.

[@whoam2784]

It's a good machine for testing Windows 2000 in 2022-2023. I can bet it can run smooth with a opera version for html5

[@Aeduo]

As a linux user, I'm happy you tried to figure it out, but there's definitely those out there who are just out to stroke their ego by putting people down even if they've figured out the solution, not that such things are appropriate or productive even if it wasn't figured out. But yeah almost 20 year old distro. Nowadays single user mode tends to ask for the root password though so it would've been more difficult to reset. Would've needed a bootable media to chroot in and fix it.

[@philtkaswahl2124]

"There's actually a warranty sticker on for Megatron Computer." This would be the part in a Transformers movie where Michael discovers the mysterious old bit of tech he found in his possession was actually a dormant fragment of Megatron.

[@Akselmoi]

It's nice to see retro linux content. I hope to see more of it :)

[@LKonstantina915]

Tux games are so nostalgic

[@RadikAlice]

Big ups to Rareheart for sending it your way! Man, this was fun. It's like a look back at typical desktop Linux way before I was even aware of it, speaking of Linux on the desktop. Yeah, screw the neckbeards We don't like them either. But honestly, I would've just paused recording to try and look online after way more tries, that is. And yes to the book reading, vids like this already have an ASMR Bob Ross feel

[@alfinosaurus]

omg the icon pack is full nostalgia

[@agy234]

Fan ducts like that were common in the s478/s775 era

[@gwgux]

Wow, that was a wave of nostalgia for Linux as it was back then! I lived in KDE 3 for everything back then!

[@generalsquirrel9548]

7:24 love that my modern framework laptop's bios look litterally the same

[@xGMV]

At 6:14 there you showed the tunnel over the CPU fan, saying you never seen it before. My first PC, a NeoPC A123 (good luck finding anything about it online) has this. It came with a schoolarship edition of Linux, or something along those lines, a Motorola modem card, 512MB of DDR2 RAM and an Intel Celeron 420, plus an 80GB HDD and a DVD read/write drive. The machine itself is from around 2008. I still use that computer with Windows XP, with many of the software you showcased on your channel. Just wish I could upgrade its RAM, a friend sent me DDR2 sticks but they got lost in the mail and I cannot find them locally.

[@MrDragonflair]

Lol as you mention grabbing your ifixit kit im like, 'oh are they sponsoring?'. Got my answer like 3 seconds later. Lol but you're right, they should sponsor you lol

[@JustPyroYT]

Great Video! 👍 Time to install UwUntu Os in this PC...😂😂

[@cemmy410]

I'd also love to see you flip through the art book

[@0xEARTH]

watching you experience Tux Racer for the first time was rather entertaining LOL

[@musicbyapo]

Ok, i've learned more linux commands from this video than everything i learned in my whole life. Thanks, Michael!

[@batstick8571]

Would love to flip through some old books with you

[@madson-web]

It would be interesting to see if the update works or try to update it without uninstalling

[@kantraa]

you should do a video about the Katana Desktop Environment! it's a modern fork of KDE 4 with tons of patches, quality of life improvements and security updates.

[@lulu-belle1203]

Flip through the book Michael, you know you want to. Do it!

[@stephensalex]

Booting Red Hat to single user will mount the root filesystem read-only. That's what caused the errors, because you weren't allowed to write to disk. Easiest way around it is to remount / as read-write. Not a Linux elitist, but I wanted to pass that along in case you run into this in the future. Awesome video as usual, Michael.

[@Travis_DeGee]

Make part 2 for the compaq please

[@summerlaverdure]

lmfao "directory word" DICTIONARY 🤣

[@vincentsolomitajr4029]

Nice computer not sure why people are complaining a lot of this stuff your doing is not easy!

[@lejoshmont2093]

It was nice getting to see gtk2 fedora. It actually looks pretty polished for the era. Save that install don't install anything over it. Get a new drive if you want to do that.

[@HeroRareheart]

I couldn't get it to run properly no mater what I did, couldn't get it to output the GUI properly. I COULD use a keyboard shortcut to get a terminal output though.

[@SimonQuigley]

Ehh, just download an old iso and install it in kvm if you care about it

[@lejoshmont2093]

@@SimonQuigley I don't overwrite the original drive. I suspect it has been modified a little. Surly it didn't come with that many programs originally?

[@SimonQuigley]

@@lejoshmont2093 then just image the drive into a file and attach the file as a drive to kvm

[@YearsOfLeadPoisoning]

The computer is cool, but that "New Media" book is just sensational.

[@HeroRareheart]

I will miss that book, but I'm happy to pass it on to someone else.

[@12Tecpatl]

I'd love to see videos of you going through old tech books!

[@zeos386sx]

Looks like Fedora Core 1 but with the 2.6 kernel, the original owner was a man of culture.

[@RetroGamerOG_]

Never heard of it but it is very vintage

[@HorrorFuse]

I remember when I think my dads friend gave my dad a whole Mac Pro out of the trash with just a missing hard drive but my dad and me thought it was just dead

[@tieman733]

8:00 When you are the computer guy and only speaks in binary "Wdym it's based on a directory word" Something is wrong, I can feel it

[@JustPyroYT]

Always Nice to see an Unboxing video! 👍

[@mats520]

What a vintage PC, installling Linux, Windows NT 4.0, 98, 2000 or XP on a separate hard drive on this PC would be great, so the PC still has Fedora 👍

[@5-Consecutive-Hairpin-Turns]

Seeing the tux racer menu gave me nostalgia man

[@muzscaly_main]

Me 2 bro

[@hahahhaha8146]

i used to play tux racer a lot.. as our school PC was linux and they allowed us to do that it used to be pretty fun.. old memories revived

[@abx42]

I love it anyway since there's no personal information on it I can get a disk image to play around with?

[@MegaFlorin111]

Trinity Desktop was and still is my favorite, simple, fast, friendly and stable .

[@98xp]

michael is such a good tech youtuber keep up the good work!

[@queballaus]

It could of been a PC built by a shop which the owner never picked up or they went under and it became lost dead stock.

[@ianw9171]

Intel® Desktop Board D865GBF/D865GLC A good board, look it up. Its the last chipset with official 98 support, also an excellent xp board. The i865 is the best board for 98, can run a 3.2G cpu & 2g ram with the R Lowe patch. I Have an ASRock version with that setup. The slot 1 is a BIOSTAR M6TBA also a good board, supports coppermine in some revisions

[@alisharifian535]

Good old days of school,when Pentium IV was still a thing and friends were coding on C++ and playing Tux racer on their free time.I miss those days.

[@frostech3149]

Was expecting the computer to be a whole lot more complicated, seeing as though the box implies it's the Vim computer

[@GunnerSiIva]

It’s just the safe shutdown thing that is complicated.

[@generallyunimportant]

vi is like a million times harder than vim.

[@punkerman7908]

Thats really cool! Didn’t expect Linux to be installed on there!

[@no-xu3eo]

This computor were in trash bescause of that

[@1FireyPhoenix]

@@no-xu3eo I mean.... It's not like Windows wasn't on store shelves during that era.... Actually now that I think about it, I think there are?

[@linuxstreamer8910]

a real chad installs linux from scratch, arch linux or gentoo on it gentoo sound the best i can't wait how long it will take it install with the compile from source part

[@scottdunn4506]

I find a lot of computers in the trash especially laptops a lot of times they still have the hard drives in them I always wipe them clean

[@gen_angry]

That build is an absurdly good build for a late Win98/XP dual boot setup if you throw in a decent AGP card (that has drivers for 98SE). However, I think it'd be better off if you at least kept an image of that old fedora install. I use a similar type of system with a different board with the same chipset, it's rock stable and shreds anything in 98SE with ease while having enough power to handle the vast majority of XP era games.

[@f0rkz21]

I almost watched you ignore the snaps and break the case side off.

[@busterscrugs]

I had a similarly spec'd Dell Dimension 4700 back in the day. Same 2.8GHz Pentium 4 but with DDR2 and a Radeon X300. I regret throwing it away.

[@H31MU7]

You not having seen a CPU cooler duct on a case before makes me feel old lol

[@AstralPhnx]

WAIT YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF TUX RACER???? HOW WHAT HOW???? IT'S LIKE, ONE OF THE ICONIC LINUX GAMES

[@Chop43]

TUX RACER, I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT YOU SHOWED THIS GAME THAT I SEARCHED FOR 10 YEARS.

[@Turnbull50]

I had that book at one time

[@keiiko]

Tuxracer what a classic, I played that on windows xp a lot in the day 😅

[@sburton015]

Looks like this computer has about the same specifications as my older Toshiba laptop from 2004. This PC is likely from 2003 or 2004.

[@trulyirrelevant17]

This system has the exact specs as my 2004 Gateway E-4200 lol except mine has a Radeon 9600 pro

[@ninethetwotailedfox]

When it’s a Sunday and you get a micheal video, it’s a perfect day.

[@mattig89ch]

I would be curious to see you try and run some updates on this thing. See how it performs pre & post updates.

[@Aeduo]

Not sure if the update servers would even still be up. Could put something newer on it but a lot of the most supported linux distributions are 64 bit only. A modern 32 bit one should work depending on how much RAM is in there.

[@mattig89ch]

@@Aeduo they might not be. Still, would be interesting to see if its possible or not.

[@Anaerin]

Fun Fact: The Mozilla suite is still available - It's now known as "Seamonkey" and includes FireFox, Thunderbird, ChatZilla and Mozilla Composer all in one application.

[@anon_y_mousse]

Having played with RH from back then and earlier, I have a certain affinity for it and Fedora and CentOS. I played Tux Racer a lot, and there are keys for speeding up, slowing down and jumping, you just have to figure out how they're bound and/or change the bindings. I had a lot of fun making and editing maps for it, they were simple gray scale height maps. Back then I thought that game was huge, it was like 10mb, but I also started with a 10gb hard drive. It's kind of a shame what happened to Jasmin.

[@RPGRekiMusic]

Wow, if restorecon did the trick, whoever used that PC liked pain, or was just paranoid enough to enable SELinux. Even today that stuff is just pain in the butt to use.

[@Alexisadingus]

The only letter that describes this is W

[@ilyasovich]

SO many memories, my 1st PC was a Pentium 4 @ 2.4 GHz in 2002 and started using Linux around 2004 or 2005, Ubuntu and Kubuntu, this KDE desktop and programs brings me some damn old memories, but I didn't stay on linux for long, it was still too conversome to use and install some stuff, like my USD xDSL modem, my Radeon 7000 card wasn't easy to install too, it was fun, but not usable as a daily driver for me at the time, so I came back to Windows and never looked back again

[@svgaming234]

try linux again, it has much better driver and program support now

[@ilyasovich]

@@svgaming234 Yeah I know, but I can't use most of the software I need on Linux for now, and games support is still very random, despite Valve's efforts to make more and more games compatible.

[@RealEpikCartfrenYT]

You did the right thing. Linux will never leave the experimental stage. Too many complications, hardware incompatibilities, and the fact that Ubuntu is sadly the most widespread distro when there is less buggy alternatives

[@ilyasovich]

@@RealEpikCartfrenYT Yeah, Windows isn't perfect, but WAAAAAY more user friendly,

[@svgaming234]

@@RealEpikCartfrenYT Hardware compatibility issues? I had way more success in linux with obscure hardware than windows I agree with the thing you sad about Ubuntu though. Linux Mint should be the deafult distro for begginers. Also, it's not that hard to use. Easy distros don't even require the use of the terminal. I wouldn't call it "experimental", it is very stable.

[@TuxPeng]

TuxRacer 1.1 first (only) commercial version, opensource versions still exist, but Sunspire studios doesn't. TuxRacer's available on the internet archive

[@hugosimoes5119]

That's a little nice pc case. It can ONLY accept socket 478 cpus judging from the heatsink+fan thing cover the cpu. It has a PSU with a 120mm fan which pushes a lot of air out. Most of capacitors seem ok but if they are getting round at top.. it means trouble. As long as the temperature inside of the case is cool around the capacitors area, it should be ok. That's Fedora Core X where X is a number. The 2.6.9-667smp is the kernel version and that one is pretty old and smp means symetric multi processor which is great for that cpu with hyper-threading. I would probably wipe that hdd and treat it as new experiments pc. It's fast.

[@HeroRareheart]

Yeah that system was clearly built/bought by someone who wanted a beastly machine for its time, but they just never used it and chucked it. I can't fsthom how it happned.

[@hugosimoes5119]

That sounds like me. The last pc I build was like that one. PSU with 120mm fan, socket 478 motherboard with a pentoum 4 3.0ghz and.. I can't recall now how much memory it has and the rest... (build 2 months ago) and then I just basically shelfed the case. I simple take it out from time to time to power it up or so something like upgrading some component.

[@cidsx]

I've played an unreasonable amount of supertux and it is the one game i am good at.

[@RareNogginStuff]

I think you should put Windows XP on this and call it your $0 Windows XP PC to compliment the $5 Windows 98 PC, LOL!

[@FlipidusX]

you can play all race tracks if you click on "Practice"

[@NewRepublicMapper]

That would be great for 2006 Hackintosh stuffs

[@CRYPTiCEXiLE]

aw man i miss the blue curve theme :(