Zenith eaZy PC review

[@tterbo128]

I think Windows 3.0 on a 8088 is a gimmick from today's standpoint. However my first Windows and PC experience was Windows 3.0 on a 10Mhz 8088 with CGA. Althought it looks slow to a 2018 person, myself included, I remember just taking that for granted as what a computer must be. It was faster than my typewriter and nobody else had a computer on our street at all. It's hard to get back to that place now but it is the honest truth. I was amazed by everything it did in 1990. It booted faster than my typewriter. It was a good enough computer to have me watching these nostalgia videos today. Maybe that's the best compliment I can give the 8088 and CGA.

[@GodOfAllThatWas]

25 seconds to boot in this video.... I think almost every typewriter I've ever seen is faster then that. My memory is that word processors are faster then that too. kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4OvqmeMprB6n68 makes it look like I remember right, clocking it at about 5 seconds. What's wrong with your typewriter? :-p Good points though.

[@MontieMongoose]

I remember running Windows 3.0 on a 286 with EGA and thinking it was too slow, I can't imagine it being very usable on an 8088.

[@greatquux]

@@MontieMongoose it was slow but usable. In fact when it came out I remember calling Microsoft support because i tried to run it with a VGA card and they said it would only run at that resolution on 386 or better. That got me to upgrade. 😁 I was like 13 years old!!

[@custardo]

A budget system, without the budget price. Apparently it was still successful enough to be sold for a couple of years, although you'd think be late eighties most PC users would be expecting a 286, a colour monitor and some kind of sound card. I worked in computer retail in the early nineties, and by that time you couldn't give away XTs anymore.

[@tallboyyyy]

I wonder if the name Eazy PC was a play on the UK term easy peasy.

[@mediacoregroupph]

+tallboyyyy probbably unintentional, but maybe yes.

[@shanebywater6628]

we use that in the states too

[@hotchalupa]

We use it in the states, too, but we don't know what it means.

[@ModMokkaMatti]

@@hotchalupa it's what we say when we make with the lemon squeezy. That's the secret of the hole, like a Yapple.

[@what9418]

😅

[@ViperJay5]

You KNOW your computer is slow when even Solitare runs slow. LOL

[@megabojan1993]

+Viper Jay 5 That's the slowest Solitaire I've ever seen :)

[@braydenpope3469]

Viper Jay 5 i hate you

[@braydenpope3469]

Viper Jay 5 no im not

[@braydenpope3469]

Viper Jay 5 your an asswipe

[@ViperJay5]

*You're *I'm Apparently you have anger issues or are just possessed by the devil. Now, I have better things to do than to talk to a 5 year old on the internet. Have a great life and try not to let your anger rule over you.

[@timmooney7528]

There used to be a BBS hosted by ZDS called ZUG/ HUG (Zenith users group / Heath users group) and they had a section for selling off discounted surplus items. I recall seeing boxes of these in the warehouse, but knew very little about them. Zenith made a well engineered product, but their sales staff overlooked the home consumer market in favor of large volume sales to the federal government and major corporations.

[@8bitMicroFan]

This was my first PC! My Dad bought it in 1988 (I think it was manufactured in Oct 1987) to write his diploma thesis and I got it later when he bought a new PC. It is the EZ-3 Model with the 20/21MB HDD. Haven't turned it on for a long time (I wonder if it still works...). The only issue I had with it, was the serial port. I couldn't get a mouse to work, but serial communication with another PC worked without any problems. Here in Germany I have never seen any expansion modules on ebay. Was looking for a serial/RAM expansion and a RTC. Played some games on it, wrote programs in QuickBasic 4.5 and used Norton Commander. I've always used MS-DOS 3.21D, didn't know it could run Windows 3.

[@obsoletegeek]

I saw one of these new in box at a local computer reseller a few years ago. I think they wanted $80, but I couldn't even justify buying it at that price!

[@chriskalkman3815]

The Obsolete Geek I was about to tell you why didn't you get it until I realized I was replying to the Obsolete Geek.

[@BillAnt]

Easy-PC is like easy-peezy folks!! lol

[@mspenrice]

Paperwhite greyscale is surely better than amber or green (or orange plasma), though? We used to play a few games on the monochrome laptops that our parents brought home, with black and white (or navyblue on weird greyish off-white in one case) and they worked well enough. Doing similar with a tinted mono display would have looked much weirder, even though that would have been rather more comfortable for text editing and using Windows in B/W...

[@gonzalogutierrez970]

Hola: Gracias por subir estos videos. Son muy entretenidos. Esos equipos me recuerdan a los computadores de mi colegio.

[@windowsfan95]

Presenting the new book: 16 shades of gray.

[@BilisNegra]

9:41 That ridiculously bulky hump, screwed on the outside of the computer case, just for housing a measly 128K RAM expansion is such a terrible design... And yet, it's what's makes a video like this worth watching.

[@ModMokkaMatti]

It's Qua-Z-modo.

[@MMSZoli]

Yepp, this idea came from PCJr of IBM.

[@mrchomyn]

I actually owned one of these pieces of crap. It had two 720K floppy drives.. and NO HARD DRIVE... it solely worked off 720K floppy disks. Very slow, crappy graphics and display. I got it in 1989 (I believe) One of the first IBM compatible computers I owned. Couldn't even support 1.44MB disks. It played some games with disk swapping, had MS-DOS on it, and I did some programming on it. It works better as a boat anchor than a useable computer :)

[@Caseytify]

You obviously never worked with an original PC/XT two 360k floppy system with a CGA display. :)

[@mrchomyn]

@@Caseytify My first computer was a TRS 80 colour computer 2 when I actually wanted to Commodore 64. I have used those older crappy computers when I was in high school but the Zenith was the second computer that I got for Christmas.

[@microsf121]

"...standard floppy drive any kind of modern PC would use" I think you and I have very different definitions of the word 'modern'.

[@vwestlife]

Compared to this computer, anything made in the past 15 years is "modern".

[@microsf121]

vwestlife Fair Enough.

[@TorutheRedFox]

and a lot of modern PCs have some way of connecting a floppy drive internally

[@ldchappell1]

It was amazing how much those old computers could accomplish with such little memory. The one in this video looks similar to the first PC I had in the early 90s That was about nine computers ago. The desktop I have now is super light. I found it discarded with a missing hard drive. I installed a 500 GB sata. When I found it, it was so light I thought it was an empty case When I opened it I was surprised to see all the works inside had been compressed to about the size two thick paperback books. 64-bit system with a dual-core processor and 4 GB of DDR3. It's still has a few problems but I'm working on it.

[@bobamu]

That advert the page after the review, that actually made me laugh. They really had no chance.

[@ArmyK9]

I love the sound of the keyboard keys, it sounds like an old AS400! It has such a 90s Hacker vibe!

[@uxwbill]

I remember looking through the Damark catalogs, and if memory serves, almost everything they sold was refurbished or reconditioned. I don't ever remember seeing this computer, though. That keyboard was made by Alps and bundled with some other Zenith computers offered earlier in the 1980s. The monitor has an excellent display, but monochrome seems like the wrong choice for any home computer from the late 80s. I'd be very surprised if a color model hadn't been considered. At half the price and with a color display, maybe it would have done better. Around these parts, XT-class systems held on surprisingly well into the early 1990s, as did their competition (such as the Apple II and Commodore 64). Didn't the box mention an RTC being included?

[@vwestlife]

The box lists the real-time clock as an option. The monochrome CRT may have been intended to help Zenith use up remaining stock of black & white TV picture tubes.

[@themaritimegirl]

That's a pretty neat, if lackluster PC. I thought at first that the ugly box on the back might be the power supply! That thing was pretty smashed up in shipping; props to you for getting it back together so well. What kind of hard drive was originally in it?

[@vwestlife]

The original hard drive was also a WD93028-X.

[@vibingwithvinyl]

That keyboard sound is very ASMR inducing.

[@megabojan1993]

Also it helps that vwestlife has a soothing voice to accompany the keboard's sound ;)

[@farhanatashiga3721]

+MegaBojan1993 his real name is kevin

[@typingcat]

+MegaBojan1993 He sounds like Fat Tony from the Simpsons.

[@HeelerHouse]

+Farhan Nazar I know

[@tonyend2001]

I bought this computer in 1988 or 89 from Montgomery Wards. It lasted me many years and I learned DOS on it. I had 512 MB ram and upgraded to 640K with the 1200 baud modem attachment. It was also the first computer I used to access Prodigy through which I did online banking in 1990. Thanks for the memories.

[@jacobh1995]

640K ought to be enough memory for anyone.

[@vwestlife]

-- a line often attributed to Bill Gates, even though he never actually said it.

[@jacobh1995]

+vwestlife Oh, I have no clue who said it. I just like the saying.

[@eila2088]

+Flac Or Gtfo Was standard for quite a while though. XP ran fine on 512mb for most of it's realistic life span and Windows 7-10 runs great on 4GB to this day.

[@Markski]

+Sean Metivier Windows 7-10 runs great on 2GB to this day :P

[@Xiefux]

+Mark Ski not if you browse the web or game

[@creepinwhileyousleepin]

that keyboard sounds like it's a joy to type on

[@TonyP9279]

Yeah. Now THAT's a keyboard!

[@jeffpatten5193]

My very first PC. I got mine in Sept 1987 and I still have it today, much to the chagrin of everyone in my family! Great for playing games that were programmed to run off the processor rather than the RTC.

[@Bmk812]

Thanks for the review. I had this EaZy PC with the dual drives as my first computer in 1995. I wish I knew more about PCs back then, it would have made my 8 year old life a lot easier if I installed windows 3.0! Having to learn DOS (or whatever it was) at a young age wasnt so bad I guess. Thanks again for the memories!

[@ctsfiddler]

I remember getting the Damark catalog back in the 80's or 90's. I eventually bought a Packard Bell pc. Lot of learning on that pc and that was fun times.

[@martijnvanzanen4075]

Nice video mate. Keep up the fun work. Ps: Love the old HDD sound and typing of that keyboard haha.

[@spaztekwarrior]

I won a Model 2 back in the day when I was a student at UBC in Vancouver. It did a lot of work for me… and played a lot of games too :)

[@compu85]

Have you tried the Hercules graphics driver with this system?

[@MichalGorkaTruskaw]

I had such keyboard and it was wonderful for Mortal Kombat two players mode, because it was allowing to press even twelve or more keys at the same time. :) Modern keyboards cannot do this.

[@Xiefux]

+Michał Górka 12 at a time is pointless, unless you have 6 or more fingers per hand

[@MichalGorkaTruskaw]

But I am talking about situation where two players playing Mortal Kombat using one keyboard at the same time.

[@Xiefux]

Michał Górka ok

[@1yaz]

+Michał Górka My Sidewinder X4 USB keyboard can have all buttons pressed at the same time without any issues! Most "gaming" keyboards can do this but the markup price for them is ridiculous. Not everyone cares about stupid lights.

[@MichalGorkaTruskaw]

That is a good keyboard then. :) Congratulations. If I want to play Mortal Kombat 4 with my sister i just plugging two keyboards at the same time and it works good. :)

[@RedBearAK]

My first real computer was a Zenith laptop from nearly the same time period, with grayscale CGA screen, 20MB hard drive, MS-DOS 3.21 and Microsoft Works for DOS. Virtually identical in experience to this. Brings back some memories.

[@IfYouLikeGoodIdeas]

I find it interesting that despite that expansion box not being the version with the modem in it, it's still labeled with the FCC Part 68 compliance notice, ringer equivalence, etc. as if it did have the modem...

[@frednance3988]

I used to have one. I got the piggyback modem/128k memory module. My Dad got if fr me in 1988 from Mont. Wards. Mine had 2x3.5 floppy drives and MS-DOS 3.20 and GW Basic. I used to connect to Prodigy back then. Before this one, i had a 1983 TI-99/4A home computer.

[@Caseytify]

A pleasant little system, and a nice addition to the Zenith collector. Alas, I don't have the money or the space to get one these days. The styling reminds me of the Zenith Z-148 pizza box. I have one with 1 360k floppy and a 40Mb hard drive. It has a physical turbo switch on the front to swap between 4.77Mz & 8Mz. And, yes, those old Zenith keyboards are nice. I have one XT model F style, and one AT model F (84 key) style. In fact the XT layout is very close to the AT model F layout. Much better than the original PC/XT layout. That double scan monitor is very nice for a text monitor.

[@hoosiergamer2885]

This was my first computer back in 1995. I didnt have a GUI OS though, only DOS and was Model 2 (Dual floppys). Thanks for the memories!

[@somecoder3054]

The keyboards of these things are worth more than the entire unit, so it's a shame they'll probably throw away everything else, including the CRTs, which are starting to become more and more rare outside the US.

[@Lemonidas75]

The Hard disk results are particularly interesting to compare them to modern mechanical hard disks ... 73ms for this, when a WD black HD today can do around 8-10ms. The capacity also has skyrocketed of course. Impressive improvements in technology when you think about it :)

[@vwestlife]

The WD93028 was actually a Tandon design. In the late '80s Western Digital bought out Tandon and carried over their old drives until they could start designing their own new hard drives -- the Caviar series, which were a massive improvement in performance and reliability.

[@plaidzior]

Does It run GTA VI?

[@doug834]

I remember the Damark catalog. If they got you on their mailing list you'd get those things forever it seemed. Plus they used to buy up big sections of advertising in magazines to put mini versions of the catalog in all sorts of publications. They generally sold low-quality stuff, but as a lover of electronics I always looked through them to see what they had ;-)

[@NicholasMarkovich]

So I'm guessing it can't run Doom.

[@Lachlant1984]

No it can't. It can't even play Wolfenstein 3D.

[@SailorMaxie]

I doubt this would even run Lemmings

[@WildDiamond07]

But can it run Minecraft? Of course not. What do you expect from a computer that old?

[@Yapostadodat]

Thanks for this trip down memory lane. $1600 brand new! Wow! Commodore 64s were about $600 brand new bare bones; no drives or modem just the bread box. I bought my first 486 DX 33mhz with SVGA monitor for $1200 in '94.

[@darklinggolem]

"Easy to afford PC" More like for Compaq

[@Sarruji]

That MEK is nasty stuff. We used it to remove the glue holding the heaters onto the C-130's propeller blades.

[@alecjahn]

Thanks for sharing this one with us!

[@ssnoc]

MS Works … Wow I remember using that to write papers for school - great memories - Thanks👍

[@DaniRadioCat]

Do you know anything about the "IBM PC Radio"? Saw it on eBay fairly recently, and despite being an IBM fan/collector I'd never heard of that laptop before ;) (in the middle of restoring a 765D and a PS/Note 386)

[@KOSMOS1701A]

found the box for my uncle's IBM Aptiva desktop in the closet a few years ago. I'm surprised he didn't throw it out

[@jaykay18]

I wonder if the increasing repeat rate would be considered an unfair advantage for certain games, yet a nuisance for others. At least it can be toggled on and off (though sometimes not without ending your game!) The monochrome CGA is really rare, at least in the paper white variety. I'm surprised bricks ran on it that well. Would be kind of funny to program in BASIC on that machine, even to the point of writing a program that would display text with various "colors" on the screen, then copying it to a floppy and bringing it to a friend's house, and seeing it in color, finding out those weren't the colors you were expecting.

[@vwestlife]

The grayscales go in linear order from dim to bright, which don't necessarily match up with which colors are brighter than others. In some programs this causes odd effects such as when text that is supposed to be highlighted actually appears dimmer than the rest of the text!

[@jaykay18]

vwestlife My point exactly!

[@SumeaBizarro]

I restored one of these, Model 1 though and European in my temporary work as "Computer guy" for a recycling center. While the boss did not believe in retro computing after getting right 720k disks written for the zenith and booting stuff like space invaders clone and alley cat in CGA mode the system was sold to some retro computing enthusiast extremely quickly, and I was proud about handling stuff like opening the system getting it dusted and everything. That black and white/grey monochrome monitor made most CGA games it could run look better in my opinion, like high grade gameboy games. It was a real fun system to learn about hard drive free life of a IBM clone. While bosses or "the boss" did not like me playing around with "retro toys" a lot, to me I think it was fair nice deal. I got to play around with a retro tech just about as long as I wanted to, along troubleshooting it up to even grabbing soldering iron etc. I restored/Tested Commodore amigas to IBM AT's and PS/2's and I got really offended when boss said "we do not do personal 'for me' projects on work time" since I had only interest in playing around; not owning any of these PC's - I had no space nor time, and he clearly did not appreciate the prices these things potentially brought in and how fast too - Retro in the place sold much better even if it was priced high than any of their "usable modern" laptops or desktops that took weeks or months to sell... Oh well, salt and fondness both in my memories for this type of job, which sadly is temporary in nature.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Damn, the bosses not seeing how quickly the retro stuff sold and demanding you stop, to focus on… what wasn’t moving… what terrible business acumen.

[@Lachlant1984]

Since pins are missing from the serial port, do you know if it would work with external speech synthesisers like the Artec Transport or DECTalk or DoubleTalk or others?

[@vwestlife]

I have no idea.

[@FennecTECH]

likely so many pins on serial cables are dead/unused

[@johnn0hj]

Greetings. Even though I know you've since sold your EaZy PC I'm wondering if you played around with changing out the XT-IDE drive with a different model or even trying newer SD-IDE adapters. I'm about to open mine to see if I can add a drive replacement solution for my -2. Thanks in advance. Your XT-IDE video is fabulous BTW.

[@Lachlant1984]

I think your computer reviews are getting better and better as time goes on, they just seem more professional and informative. As for the PC itself, I really don't think having the monitor permanently attached to the case was a good design choice at all, can you rotate or tilt the monitor? You say this computer was expensive considering its specifications, how does it compare in terms of price to, say, the Tandy 1000 SL? If the monitor and the system unit weren't bonded together like that, the plastic may not have suffered that bad damage.

[@vwestlife]

Yes, the monitor does have a tilt/swivel base. The Tandy 1000SL originally cost $899, plus the monitor (ranging from $129 for a monochrome monitor to $399 for a hi-res color CGA monitor).

[@Lachlant1984]

I see, so it was still cheaper than this PC. I wonder why Zenith went with a black and white monitor and not a green phosphor display.

[@JimLeonard]

Wonderful look at a unique system. Nice work. What camera did you use to shoot the video footage?

[@vwestlife]

I used a Canon FS200 for the handheld footage and a Sony HDR-CX360 (in SD mode) for the screenshots.

[@JimLeonard]

vwestlife If the fs200 is a standard def camera, what (other than qtgmc) are you using to upscale such that KZbin recognizes it as 60p?

[@Lachlant1984]

If you turn off the key click and then later turn off the PC, will the status of the key click setting be remembered between sessions, or will the key click default to on each time the computer is turned on and the keyboard gets power? When did Zenith Data Systems stop making PCs?

[@vwestlife]

The key click defaults to on every time the computer is turned on. Zenith Data Systems was bought out by Groupe Bull and stopped making PCs around 1996 - 1997.

[@thatlinuxguy]

getting inside the eazy PC isn't easy is it?

[@SonicHacki]

I was wondering about two things, the bonding of the plastics and the 720k floppies. I have a desktop tower which has its front fascia loosely in place because the plastic tabs are broken. I wondered if the MEK can bond the plastic tabs onto the fascia itself. Secondly, I have a 286 which has a 720k floppy drive, but in my stack, I only have four 720k floppy disks, and it was filled with Lotus 1-2-3. I wondered if it is actually possible to convert a usual 1.44MB High density to a 720k floppy, since formatting it doesn't really work.

[@vwestlife]

In order to format a 1.44 MB disk to 720K you need to cover the hole opposite of the write protect hole with black tape. That is the "media sense" hole which tells the drive you're using a 1.44 MB disk.

[@jeremym9011]

I remember the Damark catalog- I loved reading it when I was little, mainly because it had a lot of electronics.

[@EC18FEA30B]

Does the base of the CPU stick out of the chassis? Isn't that bad for it?

[@diggydude5229]

Devices with heavy metal bases and lightweight plastic upper cases tend to be easily damaged in shipping. Examples: Casio FZ-1, Technics SL-7.

[@rommix0]

Definitely. The best trick for any item like that is to use a lot of bubble wrap. I sometimes sell vinyl records online and have a habit of using a lot of it.

[@amdirentinc3596]

I have this machine but no system disk. Do you have one available? And if so can you make and test a copy and upload?

[@vwestlife]

www.winworldpc.com has disk images of MS-DOS. If you have any PC with an internal (not USB) 3.5" floppy drive and some 720K (not High Density) diskettes, you can make your own system disks for it.

[@amdirentinc3596]

Ok thanks I will try this out!

[@DavicPwns]

Thanks for the really in depth look at this system.

[@theseob]

Have you tried replacing the capacitors on the old floppy drive? I fixed my ps/2 model 30 720kb floppydrive by just replacing the capacitors. I would say it's worth a try, since capcitors don't cost much.

[@vwestlife]

It was clearly a mechanical problem preventing the disk from spinning.

[@andygozzo72]

@@vwestlife quite possibly, i've had odd mechanical issues, old capacitors arent to blame for everything, unlike what some may think 😉

[@andygozzo72]

as 'scraping' sound, maybe something dropped out of alignment when the machine got dropped? if it uses a hall effect motor, maybe the magnet ring dislodged from the rotor and scraping the stator electromagnets?

[@ObligedTester]

Is the BIOS ROM stacked with the RTC?

[@EverydayLinuxUser]

That was a thorough and informative review. You presented it very well.

[@sammiches6859]

I hope I will be the owner of one of these come next Wednesday. There's one at a local shop that I negotiated for $150 and it comes with a keyboard and mouse as well. I dearly hope it works as I can't seem to get a working 80s PC to save my life.

[@PrincessZoey]

which modern PC uses a floppy drive?

[@vwestlife]

Mine does.

[@dave4shmups]

Excellent video as always! That stinks about that eBay seller, but this was still a great find. I've looked for Leading Edge computers on eBay; they also made IBM clones, and they sponsored some episodes of The Computer Chronicles. I haven't had any luck, though. The company was based in the Boston area, so people back there probably have an easier time finding one of their computers.

[@vwestlife]

Leading Edge was a popular budget brand in the Northeast, similar to Packard Bell.

[@dave4shmups]

+vwestlife Gotcha, thanks!

[@marccaselle8108]

@@vwestlife my first computer was a Packard bell. I don't have it anymore but I kind of miss it. It was one of those desktop pizza box style computers. When it was new it had windows 3.11 even though windows 95 had come out 6 months prior to that. People crap on Packard bell but I never had any problems with mine. It was a Packard bell legend.

[@geotechmore8855]

To fix the rest of the cracks on the case you could try Elmer's Wood Filler. I used it to fix my dropped Chromebook 😀. The Wood Filler sounds strange but actually it works very nice in my opinion 😀. The keyboard is very nice 😀. It looks like a Model M 😀. I have a Unicomp Model M which is very nice to type on even though I'm not a great typist but I do type better with it 😀. Nice reviews as always 😀.

[@stephanieholland4469]

OH EM GEEEEE I had this same computer!!!! MEMORIES!!!! That was state of the art back then!!!!

[@frednance3988]

Around that time, my Mother worked for a bank and she came home with a Compaq Portable PC, it had a hard drive in it and a 5.25 floppy dirve.

[@webrik33]

nice repair job on the broken pieces! did you use fiberglass mesh as someone suggested?

[@und4287]

he used mek

[@andygozzo72]

@@und4287 could also stick scrap patches of plastics across the crack to improve strength . .also mek is a bit 'vicious' for some plastics, as i've recently found, not melting it properly but making it go 'fluffy' and not stickable, in those cases acetone usually works ok

[@douro20]

Vadem's primary business was ASICs, for which purpose I don't remember. They did make some very nice handheld computers.

[@AiOinc1]

What performance test program were you using?

[@vwestlife]

PC Tools SI (System Information).

[@wafcon6349]

But can it run crisis?

[@wafcon6349]

***** Any time :3

[@muhdiboy]

+Wafcon Gaming + GFX omg you stole my comment idea :DD

[@wafcon6349]

muhdiboy >:D

[@timpeng4418]

You will be having a crisis if you try to run "Crysis"

[@emralcrewrblox]

Yes, at 4K 140FPS.

[@retroguy74]

None of my business, but just curious, how did you handle this issue with the seller? Most people would try to return it, ask for a credit, and/or leave negative feedback, but just curious how you handle these issues?

[@vwestlife]

The seller agreed to give me a 50% refund due to the shipping damage.

[@retroguy74]

+vwestlife That's definitely fair. It's hard to ship anything nowadays without it getting damaged. What is it that uxwbill calls them, United Parcel Smashers or something?

[@Lachlant1984]

+Retro Active Yes, he does call them United Parcel Smashers.

[@booterduder5732]

I have an ezpc 3rd gen. I opened it up and no hard drive. Putting it up for sale. Still have the box, keyboard, mouse and some 3 1/2 floppys. Do you or anyone else have a working Western Digital like the one in the video?

[@vwestlife]

It can also use a Seagate ST-325X or ST-351A/X hard drive. They are easier to find in working condition than the Western Digital drives.

[@TheBrainSquared]

A good Epoxy Plastic Welder will do quiet well in bringing broken plastic that is resistant to most glues together.. I use it often with repairing old Transformers with great success where other Epoxies or Glues wouldn't hold or be to brittle..

[@amimasteronline4675]

Does this computer have an ISA slot or something similar?

[@vwestlife]

Did you watch the video?

[@amimasteronline4675]

I wanted to say it like this: Is the expansion port where the RAM expansion is connected with compatible with an ISA slot?

[@LarryRobinsonintothefog]

Reminded me of using my old Heath/Zenith computer that used Z-100 (or maybe it was ZDOS) version of MSDOS.

[@NukTap]

Zenith, the king of color CRTs, has the audacity to use a monochrome monitor on their computer

[@timmooney7528]

Zenith Data Systems was a stand alone subsidiary of Zenith Electronics Corp. No shared engineering.

[@andygozzo72]

that floppy may use a more original shugart type interface? i have a 3 1/2 floppy like that, has a 4 position drive select switch, only works as a 1.44mb high density, in a normal pc, has no 720k capability but weirdly had it working on a spectrum plus3 as external drive, 180 ish kb, running at 720k/ double density data rate, on 720k disks??!! limited data i could find on it does say 1.44mb only.....didnt know there was such a thing, especially back then!

[@vwestlife]

Correct, I think it uses the Shugart interface, not IBM's modification of it.

[@andygozzo72]

@@vwestlife what brand/model is it? (the replacement) mine is citizen osda -45a, it certainly looks identical to mine.. it may be possible to rig up an adaptor to use a normal pc one? may have to 'bodge' a ready signal, i had to do that to use it on a spectrum +3, but cant remember what i did, it was in the mid 1990s!

[@AiOinc1]

Reminds me a lot of the Commodore PET and the compact macs.

[@johnmcollins4063]

Is it model 56v?????

[@abergethirty]

I would have liked to have seen you run GEM rather than windows 3.0, noticed that it was in the directory on the HD. It's the GUI that ran on the Atari ST.

[@andljoy]

That double scan text mode looks lovely.

[@cornsyruptrucker]

Rats, 404 on that forum link I think ill start calling hdd's "winchester" now. whats the backstory of that?

[@BigFredMachine]

I wanted to see the pictures :(

[@connorm955]

Damn that sucks. I remember it working like 2 years ago maybe.

[@nukedathlonman]

Ah, my first computer (and only pre-built unless you count the laptops I've owned). I believe the original HD was a Conner Technologies hard drive (at least that's what mine was equipped with). The NEC V40 CPU was pretty good - it did allow some 286 software to be run it that actually won't run on an IBM or clone 808x based system. But for sure there was some incompatibilities (once in a while I'd hit a program that would set off an V20 opcode miss-match error). The mouse port is just a stripped down com port, and yes one can use a modem on it (COM port 2) - believe the issue your experiencing is the line detect is missing and does require some work around else the modem would disconnect because of the missing line detect pin. I ran a Supra 2400 then a Hayes based 9600 baud modem on it with out issue (once I figured out how to work around that little issue). Never found an accessory that would allow one to use standard ISA cards though - I'd be a little hesitant on trying anything. The keyboard was very nice to type on, and there is a way to turn off the clicker (I don't remember how off hand - been waaaaaaay too long ago). For an all in one, it wasn't a bad system for the day... It just wasn't good either (too quirky and very limited expansion option as you put it).

[@wilkes85]

Oh man, that thing was completely shattered! Nice job on the repair. Hey, now you'll know what to do if it happens again!

[@PaDaZ83]

My first PC. Just had the 512K RAM. Loved it anyway. Made my first steps in DOS and QBASIC with this "Beast" :-D

[@BMRStudio]

Working... Whatahell :) After 27 year? No dead caps?

[@zacharysass3811]

This is cool... This youtube channel has actually taught me a lot about computers :) Thanks VWestLife

[@mraiwa1000]

I actually don't recall ever seeing a Zenith branded computer before. I can tell the monitor is definitely Zenith's design. Is that top plastic part of the computer casing yellowed or is it actually that color? Odd how they painted the monitor but not the top half of the computer casing

[@vwestlife]

Zenith bought out Heathkit's computer division in the early 1980s and made computers until the mid-1990s. The plastic on the computer casing is yellowed. Probably it was made out of a different kind of plastic than the monitor.

[@andygozzo72]

@@vwestlife i have a zenith z-select 100 486 thing, unfortunately motherboard has been damaged by a leaked nicad in storage, it used to work ok when last powered up in 2010ish, when i replaced the original nicad with a nimh on wires in a poly bag, away from where leaking could cause further damage, its seems i didnt get rid of the original corrosive goo well enough 😢and the new nimh has similarly leaked , luckily contained in the bag...

[@JessicaFEREM]

"the quality goes in before the name goes on" this insinuates they have a version that's not zenith with lower quality. backdoor deals, anyone?

[@michianaelevators2582]

I watched this video bunches of times and tonight when you were showing off the box and the back of the monitor I just noticed that the address was St. Joesph, Michigan which is interesting because it’s in my home area of Michiana. After doing some research I found out that Zenith Data Systems was based in St. Joesph/Benton Harbor, Michigan which is pretty cool.

[@zaprodk]

I think the problem with the floppy drive is leaky capacitors. The floppy in my IBM P70 died because of them leaking all over the board, so i removed them, cleaned the board and fitted new. Good for next 25 years in service.

[@我-r9t]

+vwestlife Can it run Windows 1.0 or 2.0?

[@vwestlife]

Yes.

[@infinitecanadian]

Too bad you didn't open up the RAM expansion module. I wanted to see inside that.

[@andygozzo72]

likely just a load of 4164s or 4464s or similar,

[@infinitecanadian]

@@andygozzo72 Still nice to see.

[@andygozzo72]

@@infinitecanadian yep, and photo it for historical purposes..

[@mspenrice]

I wonder why the dual floppy / hard drive ones had less memory at first... did the extra 128k sit in the place where the second drive went? So the external box was a way to give the dual disc systems more memory? Shame it can't do the higher resolution graphics... I wonder if it might just need a more specific driver, and whether Zenith ever supplied any for Windows or other programs that could do 640x400? The extra memory is a bit redundant after all, unless it's actually running a graphics mode in order to display DOS text (which would surely be unacceptably slow given the performance we see here), or is double buffering the CGA modes to prevent too much "snow" artefacting, it's not going to be used at all. Or perhaps it originally had AT&T/etc compatibility, but doubling up the number of pixels on screen made it run so glacially slow that they figured the mode was essentially useless and locked it out? (I mean... damn, that's slow, even in straight CGA mode... I thought trying to use a 286 in Windows with a Trident ISA card set at 1024x768 8bpp was sluggish, but it still would have outperformed this...)

[@theminecrafter891]

thanks for some information i recently found one of these in the wild. mine is the 2nd modle (dual 720k flopy drives 512kb ram). unfortunately i didnt get the keyboard for it however i got the box with it too. its unfortunate thats yours got smashed like it did but im glade you fixed it and got it running again

[@Mikeywil0003]

I wonder if the case and display they used for this was adapted from a dumb terminal. That the dumb terminal version would have had the power switch in the front. I don't think it would have been to much effort for them to develop an XT class board that would fit in the bottom of one of their existing chassis.

[@CoffeeChaos]

had one of these back in 1989, bought it on close out at montgomery ward.... $449 if I remember correctly. Fun little DOS system.

[@darkhelmet169]

I was given an XT clone when I was 5 years old (in the mid 90s) that I never really used for anything because the only program I got with it was WordStar. No printer either.