This is the first pc i had as a child.. wow.. i so wish i had this machine again! Thankyou for the memories, please take good care of it! ❤
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
That's awesome and I will!! I plan on doing a restoration video on it, so stay tuned! :)
@TomCee53
7 ай бұрын
Windows 3.1. Wow, I still remember my first pc and standing in line at Walmart in 1995 to get the Windows ‘95 upgrade.
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Yes!!!
@autingo6583
7 ай бұрын
The Mitsumi LU-005S was my first CD-ROM drive, circa 1994. The interface is NOT IDE/ATA. It's some proprietary stuff. Some soundcards from this era had an assortment of proprietary interfaces (Mat(su)shita/Panasonic, Sony, Mitsumi) on them, sometimes together with an additional IDE port.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Yes. I have a couple of SB cards that have the 3 interfaces on them. Makes sense why it has its own controller card.
@matthewday7565
7 ай бұрын
@@TheRetroRecall Speed 1x, not MPC specification qualified, not multisession, probably can't read CD-R, but would be amazing if this piece of history actually works ... didn't see you try a CD
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Saving the CD, floppy drives etc for the restoration vid - part 2 :)
@Robert08010
7 ай бұрын
I think a lot of the early ones used SCSI for the cd-rom because it was 2x faster than the common interface of the day. I remember having a scsi zip drive 100MB at about this era and using 1 zip to install Corel Draw - mainly because it was so big, it took up a large chunk of the hard drive.
@christophorusvids
7 ай бұрын
Great info thanks I have one of those drives and forgot what interface it was
@JVHShack
7 ай бұрын
I really wish that computers still came in this basic style case. I'm so sick of towers...
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
100%! I think SilverStone still makes the desktop form factor. :)
@paulpsomiadis5847
7 ай бұрын
Buy an old desktop ATX case and build a retro sleeper with modern hardware inside 😊
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
That would be a cool build
@paulpsomiadis5847
7 ай бұрын
@@TheRetroRecall it was, I already did it :-) 11th gen mobile i9 (china laptop CPU on ATX mainboard), 32GB DDR4, RTX3070m (china clone gpu), 3x 480GB sata SSD, 850W ITX PSU
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Now that's pretty sweet!!!!
@brainiac_brian
7 ай бұрын
Thanks for the trip down memory lane! wow- i was 32 then! My first was 8Mhz. MFM or RLL hard drive. MFM was first, then a new format was discovered. Reformat the HDD with the new format RLL and it doubled the size. I hope you know to park the heads before moving it. It wasn't always automatic. The DOS command was "park". If there were more than one HDD, the drive letter is specified after the command. On the machine, SX or DX denoted if there was a math coprocessor in it or not. They cost extra and it was a separate chip. There were certain internal mathematical equations the computer could not do without the coprocessor. Most users wouldn't know the difference. It was common to sell a SX for more money because the sales people could get away with public ignorance. That type of machine was the third one I had. Back then it was m ore common to build your own than purchase one. At the time, I built a 486 DX for about $800 and sold it for $3500 six months later. The 386 was the first to offer an integrated coprocessor. The DX versions had much realized speed differences.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
That's awesome and yes, I remember the park heads or PH command in DOS. I'm glad that's done automatically now :). Thanks for sharing!
@curtissimmons1085
7 ай бұрын
IRQ 2 and IRQ 9 conflicts along with IRQ 14/15 were the bane of my existance with older hardware
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
I can't remember exactly what conflicts caused me grief, however they definitely existed!
@davidr6447
7 ай бұрын
Mouse scrolling garbage data across the screen when it conflicted with the modem. I hear ya!
@simonlathwell
7 ай бұрын
I've had a number of times where a IDE, SCSI, or floppy cable has gone wrong, especially on older systems, and on servers with heavy drive use. As the copper cables are quite thin over time the cables get warm and the plastic casing of the wire slightly melts into the cable and causes signal faults. I've had it where a drive either won't show within Windows, or the drive does not work correctly. I've never actually seen it where it causes a whole system to refuse to boot, so learnt something new today.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Absolutely. This was my first as well!
@wilfredpayne433
7 ай бұрын
Copper work hardens, so repeated bending causes it to become brittle and can break, it's always weird to find a wire with intact insulation/jacket broken internally with no external damage 😂
@Robert08010
7 ай бұрын
That surprised me too. I would think a serious short would be required to stop the HD from spinning up. So I am surprised nothing else was damaged.
@oscarblaketon6563
7 ай бұрын
Had quite a few IDE/floppy cables fail over the years usually because of the contortions in serving narrow drive bays and before we sussed that warming cables over a radiator before fitting them was a good idea. A failed IDE to the HDD would inevitably prevent boot or hang in POST. Good fun troubleshooting them though.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
I was too, especially where I had turned it off and on many times. That said, it could be a break in the cable?
@delfincruz6786
7 ай бұрын
Oh boy, those noises sound familiar, I started with a 386 and at one point used Old AMDs and Cyrix processors, Thanks ❤️
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
No problem! Definitely brings back some great memories.
@filter4now
6 ай бұрын
Every time I see the 2 7-segment LED display I think it's a 486 DX2 / 66. I had a couple of these I got for free in 1997-8 that served as my router / IRC server when we first got high speed internet. What a happy day that was - no more "phone wars" with my sister (over the one phone line) :)
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Hahah yes! I have quite. A bit of memories of those days :)
@ViXXiE11
7 ай бұрын
Loved this…your content is so engaging!! Great job!! Also love your genuine enthusiasm!! Keep ‘em coming!!
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Ah thanks!!!! Appreciate it. I really love sharing this old tech with everyone :). Especially when a computer is dead then comes back to life, it's a definite win!
@thepenultimateninja5797
6 ай бұрын
2:45 I think you're probably right in this case, but a difference in discoloration doesn't necessarily mean anything, except that the plastic was from a different batch. Lots of machines have some parts that are not discolored at all, and some that are badly yellowed, even when all the parts are contemporary to each other. A good example is the SNES, many of which have shells that are yellowed on the top or bottom half only.
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Good call out.
@MrHeem94
7 ай бұрын
Great job pulling out and swapping curds. High level technical work. High five!
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Thank you!!!! It's how I learned to troubleshoot these older systems and honestly could be aplloed to newer systems. Narrow down the issue and resolve. Thanks again!!
@Robert08010
7 ай бұрын
Beep Beep! Sarcasm detected! Beep Beep!
@thomasburns1846
7 ай бұрын
I really enjoyed this video! Glad you got the system up and running, and that old hard drive is still working after all these years. You definitely have a passion for these old machines.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
For sure! I love when they come back to life and are preserved, shared for all to enjoy :)
@kylemcclureazadsalahazadi
7 ай бұрын
This comment made me watch the whole video. Thank you.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
You're welcome!!
@ErazerPT
7 ай бұрын
Damn, that case was such a throwback... moment you showed the back i went "that's no 486" :D
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha indeed. To be honest, I truly thought it was going to be a 286, but I'm very happy with he results!
@ErazerPT
7 ай бұрын
@@TheRetroRecallTo be honest i also expected a 286... p.s. given old stuff tendency to go boom, I generally suggest disconnecting drives from data cables when doing "first power ups". Also helps with your particular issue, because if a drive spins on power alone and stops when you connect it, you (usually) have a cable > controller > motherboard issue. Some edge cases will be if the drive doesn't spin up until it receives a signal and/or if the drive logic is good enough to spin up but shot enough not to work further. A POST card, aka port 80 card is also a good thing to have around, and you can find inexpensive ISA+PCI ones.
@Robert08010
7 ай бұрын
That case reminds me of the old console TVs or console stereo systems. All it needs is some wood grain paneling.
@klausmoritzpeitzsch690
7 ай бұрын
Lucky you and congrats! I am currently dealing with RAM issues on my vintage 386SX. Thx for the content.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
No problem at all, happy to get this system and get it running again! Hopefully you can get yours going again - maybe some contact cleaner?
@klausmoritzpeitzsch690
7 ай бұрын
@@TheRetroRecall Update: I got totally different POST codes with every boot, so I decided to revisit the section with the battery leak and to give it a better clean. Turns out one of the LS245 chips was already loose. Unfortunately including the solder pads on the motherboard. And since I do not have the schematics I have no chance wiring sth up. So, well, I guess I have some spare parts to test now and to add to my collection.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
That's unfortunate. That's why it's so important for all of the retro community to upload everything we get, find to archive.org.
@sarhtaq
6 ай бұрын
My initial thought, when you replaced the I/O card the first time, was that the IDE card was turned in the harddrive aka plugged in the wrong way. The way the HDD led acted, and the no spinning up, triggered an old memory from back when we build those kinda systems ;)
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
For sure! In the end it was the cable itself. I even tested it afterwards to make sure it was installed correctly and it was - same results. Happy to have this system firing on all cylinders :)
@hoperp1951
6 ай бұрын
Awesome, brings back happy happy memories. My first PC was a 286SX with 40MB HD and Windows 3.1. At the peak, I had 3 PC's running continuously, a 486DX for my use, game, word processing etc, 2 x 386 SX running a Ham Radio BBS system and a Ham Radio Packet Node and Switch using 4 VHF/UHF Radios. Finally another 386 SX as a back up for either of the 2 Ham Radio connected systems. Happy days :)
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
That's awesome and yes, amazing memories.
@WiiAreTheBorg
7 ай бұрын
in the "old days" the first step to troubleshoot "no display" was to make sure that the HDD cable wasnt plugged in reversed on one end ( super common problem ). if i recall, on the HDD side the "pin 1" (side with a red-ish color) was on the "HDD power cable" side. then on the board the "notch" should make it obvious which side it goes
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Absolutely. In this case it was the cable as I did go back (after others had suggested) and confirm it was in fact connected correctly - which it was. As soon as I put the other cable back on it would boot without an issue. I am going to test that cable with a multimeter to see if I can find a short or a broken wire (as was common in my experience).
@WiiAreTheBorg
7 ай бұрын
@@TheRetroRecalloh i was just giving the information, from the video we clearly see you can troubleshoot computer problem. comment wasnt pointed at you 🙂by the way this is the first video of you that i watched. it gave me nostalgic vibes 😊
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Ohhhh no I know, no worries haha! My reply was just to put out there what I did... All good!!! :)
@Oregonian1
7 ай бұрын
My first PC was an IBM 8088 with two 5.25 inch floppy drives and 64K of RAM. No hard disk. I thought it was the best thing ever. My, how far we have come. Thanks for the video and the memories.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Your welcome and you are right, quite a ways!
@bite-sizedshorts9635
7 ай бұрын
To answer the question, it's an old desktop computer from the days of CRT monitors that would sit on top of the computers. You can guess at its age from the presence of the "turbo" button, which was meant to slow the computer down to operate older software properly. A computer that old probably has a hard drive that bit the dust years ago. Out of all the hard drives I still own from that era, only one (1998) can be read today.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha did you watch the video?
@oscarblaketon6563
7 ай бұрын
I remember the day when our "new" 386 arrived in the office with W3.1 and WordPerfect. Such a step up from MS-DOS and Wordstar. I don't miss having to rip off the margins from all the reports we had to print on microperf though. Thank you for the opportunity to reminisce.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha! But the sounds lol! I did a dot matrix printer video as one of my first ones. Loved watching it print out the work I just created on screen. As for ripping the tractor feeds off, I didn't mind right up until the point of ripping my document sending me ballistic! Hah
@nicholas-k8j
7 ай бұрын
yeah i remember too the same computer in 1992 with win3.1 and word perfect... playing solitaire all day but that word perfect didnt last , ms works became popular shortly after.... those dot matrix 24 pin printers from 1991 you could print thousands of pages on a single cartridge and boy were they cheap on ink compared to today... computers were still pretty tricky then to set up all those IRQ and DMA ports to configure and conflict, all those ms dos commands in dos 5 i had to remember with a black screen, so complicated, loading that power menu red and blue menu every time instead of windows on load up.
@davidkennerly
6 ай бұрын
I called it: a 386. It was apparent to me just seeing the front panel and the configuration of drives. This reminds me of every clone computer I put together myself after going to the Cow Palace (San Francisco) Computer Fair held once a month (from memory) on Saturdays. Intel, China, Taiwan, and Korea produced all of the needed components. My very first such clone was in about 1986 or 1987 after attending an enthusiastically attended night seminar at Ft. Mason. There were many, many mom-and-pop shops all over the country that put together "clones" with their own crudely-designed brand and adhesive badge and reselling them, for those not willing to put the pieces together, themselves. This one is probably one of those. The economics of that business model eventually became unviable. Having developed my computer chops during that era, it holds little allure for me. I'm not terribly nostalgic, thank you. I'm awfully glad technological progress left all of this in the dust. I remember trying to get the first version of Photoshop to run on one of these dinosaurs. Painfully slow. Applications were entirely aspirational back then, the hardware never kept up with the ambitions of software and we were always looking hopefully to the future. Fortunately, that future eventually arrived. Now, it's on to another.
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Thank's for this detailed perspective, and yes you definitely called it! I just love seeing this old tech - reminding us where we came from and reliving some of the old apps, games etc on real hardware with all of their quirks :)
@GenerationPixel
6 ай бұрын
That machine is a thing of beauty, my friend, and I was probably as pleased as you when this old boy booted up. This video made my night 😎👍
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Haha totally and amazing! Glad you enjoyed!
@LordLeeCH
7 ай бұрын
The red line on an IDE cable indicates pin 1, which is USUALLY the top left pin. Before the cables came keyed it was the easiest way to tell.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Yes. I confirmed after that it was in fact Installed correctly and is a bad cable. The new one is working without an issue.
@mega408
7 ай бұрын
Brings back loads of memories. Thanks for sharing! I was in 8th grade.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Awesome, that's what this channel is all about!! Glad you enjoyed :)
@EddieSheffield
7 ай бұрын
Tandy sold a version of that CD-ROM drive in the early 90s - the CDR-1000. It was my first CD drive. The Tandy version had a slightly different front face on the drive and came with an 8-bit card. It's such a weird mechanism. But the alternatives at the time were almost all caddy-based drives and were a huge pain. So not having to mess with a caddy was really nice.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Yes I remember my first interaction was a Sony caddy 1x drive. Constant buffer underruns in that thing but when it worked, I was so pleased.
@thetinpin
6 ай бұрын
Pretty pimped out rig for it's age! 386sx 33, CD-ROM, 512k video card, 5 1/4 AND 3 1/2 floppies, true Sound Blaster Pro 2.0... I bet that was a pretty penny back in the day! I wonder if that is a single speed or double speed CD-ROM? Throw a DX CPU, a little bigger HDD, a couple 2MB SIMMS and you're SET for the early 90's "Multimedia PC" experience!
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Haha indeed!! It is a 1x Mitsumi drive :) lightning fast!
@maartenhappel9014
7 ай бұрын
This brings back SO MANY memories!! Computers were so great then... My first computer had a harddrive of.... drumroll... 10MB
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha! You will NEVER fill all of that space!
@jhonwask
7 ай бұрын
I built one of these in the early 90's. I always wanted the latest innovation, but kept the old stuff as well.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Love that. I was similar then ended up getting rid of my stuff. In hindsight I wish I hadn't :)
@charlesballard5251
7 ай бұрын
WOW!!!! I LOVED Minesweeper!!!! I'm completely blown away that you were able to get it to post and boot so easily. American Megatrends, Config.sys, Autoexec.bat.... I'm feeling nostalgic... but I do NOT want those days to come back. And those dipswitches on that card!!!!!! I remember having to decide what we wanted in our machines and what we didn't want because we'd run out of interrupt requests. Remember INTERRUPT REQUESTS?!?!?! Now, you want to put something in your machine it's simply a question of "Do I have the room for it and will it work on my motherboard"? Yeah. Yeah.... fun.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Hahahah so true!!! It was frustrating at the time, but fun now lol! Having to relive all of those memories of setting up hardware/software just to get a game to work. Minesweeper was the devil :)
@charlesballard5251
7 ай бұрын
@@TheRetroRecall I loved Minesweeper. We had it on our computers at work (dispatching for AAA, graveyard shift). One of my coworkers and I got into it for a a few days where we tried to beat each others best time. I whipped the hell out of her her when I clicked on a square and the entire board auto-cleared. You can't get any faster than that so the competition stopped for good at that point.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Hahaha!! That's great.
@petecollins4925
7 ай бұрын
Thank you so much for some great memories. I'm a long retired desktop computer repair tech and it was so amazing to see that Windows 3.1 splash screen appear. Exactly the fault finding procedure I would have followed too, had more than a few dodgy IDE cables cause problems for me back in the day! Wondering if the power supply was unscrewed because of somebody suspecting the PSU as the reason for the fault? Really enjoyed this video.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
I spoke to the seller and he said he opened it up and not much else.. But you never know so that is definitely possible :) glad you enjoyed the video!
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Hahah the previous owner.
@Robert08010
7 ай бұрын
Dude, you got Maahjong!!!
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha yes!
@Crusty_Camper
7 ай бұрын
I am really enjoying this channel. I am very much a computer user and no expert about what goes on inside, but it's great to see these old models being brought back to life. My first real computer, other than a ZX81 and a spectrum, was an IBM PC with 16 kb RAM, 20Mb hard card and two 5 1/4 floppy drives. When I turned it on, I could go and make myself a coffee and when I came back it would just about have booted up. Great memories of those simple screen displays and think how amazing the programmers were to get so much out of such tiny, slow components.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha the wait to boot up some of these older systems was a very real thing! It was such an exciting time seeing these older systems come to life and always wondering what was next. I'm glad you are enjoying the channel, happy to have you along!
@pcbuilderlover4271
7 ай бұрын
The PC was probably a local PC builder. There were so many back at that time. The only way if at all to find them would do a search of PC builders in the town you purchased it in. I am sure they are no longer in business, good luck. The fact the PC doesn't have a modem means no internet yet for that builder to display their company. In my home town we had a local PC builder that did this and charged a lot more for the PCs. People would buy them because they said you would get local support.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
For sure. A few have suggested this as at the time many local companies were popping up only to close down a year or so later - leaving their mark with their self branded PC's. Neat piece of history though.
@fridaycaliforniaa236
7 ай бұрын
I subscribed before the 4K and I have absolutely no regret =)
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Love having you here! Thanks for sticking around for the craziness :)
@c-martz2846
7 ай бұрын
Bumped into your channel and huge thank you for taking back to those computing days. You deserve a few thumbs up for explaining an old computer into a subject of conversation and joy. Thanks🫡👍👍👍👍
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Thank you, glad to have you along!!! Glad you enjoyed :)
@j_m_b_1914
6 ай бұрын
FYI -- if you ever get a chance to restore an old computer like this and it actually boots, IMMEDIATELY try to backup the hard-drive. A lot of times when the hard-drive hasn't been running for years or decades, it will be on its last legs so you want to try and salvage as much data as possible just in case the HD decides to truly die on you.
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Done. It's a practice I do right after filming the footage. :)
@PeterStawicki
6 ай бұрын
I absolutely owned and built, rebuilt, and expanded computers like that. It is a beauty!
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
That's awesome and yes I agree - going to be fun restoring it.
@newleaf6992
6 ай бұрын
at 13:14 my brain suddenly said "Wait, how are all of the cards FLOATING?!" It finally clicked, thank God it did because otherwise I'd be worried. Like your content btw keep it up!
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Haha thanks - it was magic 😂😂
@davidr6447
7 ай бұрын
So many memories watching this video! It was fun working on the old 8 bit Z80 processor systems. Setting the IRQ's, reserving Direct Memory Address space, and blocking out Upper Memory Blocks was all a great learning experience. Some of the early functions like Booting to DOS from a 5" floppy or holding down the break key at boot so it loaded BASIC, swapping out bad E-Prom memory chips on expansion cards, and getting a FABULOUS NEW 5 MB hard drive was a dream!. Then came the Plug and Pray resources. I could go on and on but I think you know the story! Once you learned how to NOT let the smoke out and understood all PC's ran on the "FM" theory you were good to go!
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Hahahaha indeed! Just reading your comment triggered some memories.
@branscombe_
7 ай бұрын
just got back from out West and had this queue up ready to go, BUT before I watch it I must go watch the Thrift Finds video.. those are my favourite series of yours : ) brb to watch/comment on this video soon!
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Awesome! Welcome back!
@WillSwitch2
3 ай бұрын
This was a fun find. Thank you for sharing this.
@TheRetroRecall
3 ай бұрын
No problem!! Glad you enjoyed and thanks for watching!!
@laurencejohnson4106
7 ай бұрын
A lucky find!👍👍 In my opinion, it looks like it would have been used in an education establishment.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Ah very possible. Lots of word processing, security and educational software.
@LordFenixBloodstone
6 ай бұрын
back in the days when i worked on computers a non-POST I would find the IDE ribbon would be the issue about 9 out of 10, watching this video reminded me of my first real computer that I mod so much it was a slow beast, the MOBO was big boy and I think it would still work to this day if I had it (I wish) but yeah IDE cables was a bulk of my repairs to the point that I had over 100 new ones of them (Was pricy but made me a boat load of money from those repairs) thanks for the walk down memory lane. reminds me of 1992 life.
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Yes, like you I had many of these ribbon cable repairs. The frustrating ones were the intermittent ones that would work then not all due to a fracture in the cable usually caused by the design / folding of the cable. Glad you enjoyed the video :)
@dean-ph2ww
7 ай бұрын
We had that same computer model in our lounge in the early 90s. It had no internet access. Tenants used it for Word Perfect and Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets. You KNOW you're old if you can still remember the keyboard template for Word Perfect. Let's get freaky and merge. 😅
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Bahahahahaha yes I am that old lol. However I would say I was quite young when I saw keyboards with the templates taped all over them - often ripped with some hand written text haha!
@vonhapen1
7 ай бұрын
That is such a nice time capsule. 100 MB HDD was boss for such a 386-system. And great, methodical troubleshooting with that harddrive. Also great having an external battery installed instead of some leaking stuff.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Agreed and thank you! Yes, the discovery of an external battery VS a Varta truly saved this machine from the very beginning.
@SLLabsKamilion
6 ай бұрын
ah, man, that brings back memories. Before you even had the case off, I knew that had a trident 8900CL and a soundblaster pro 2.0 in it. So iconic. That card'll play doom and duke nukem great.
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
It's funny because after I had imaged the HDD, I thew doom on here and played for a bit. It's nice having real hardware from this era to play on.
@ShookD
7 ай бұрын
TY, Man did that video take me back. It took me back when I was a newbie at teching. 29 years ago.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha that's great!! Nostalgic memories are the best :)
@i80386sx
7 ай бұрын
19:01 that was the most genuine cheer I ever heard on one of these retro videos.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha it was truly genuine! I was shocked (and pleased) as it was the last step before looking towards the MB.
@Megalocade
5 ай бұрын
Takes me back to my first 386 back in the 90s, ive had a couple of cheap ide cables go bad even expensive ones
@TheRetroRecall
5 ай бұрын
It's hard to believe something so simple could cause the issue. Most people probably tossed them as a result.
@MichaelStoneham
6 ай бұрын
Yep I liked this video, can't wait to see the follow up cleaning etc.
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Thanks and yes, there will definitely be one!
@lxgfusion
7 ай бұрын
Feel like a kid again watching this, all the stuff i grew up with here :P
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha awesome! That's what it's all about :)
@olivierpericat9224
7 ай бұрын
Nice video ! Actually I'm pretty sure that the original IDE cable was fine, but plugged backwards. It's the typical behavior when you reverse the IDE connector on one end : you gat a black screen, no POST and the IDE LED on. That's exactly the case here : when you observe the control panel when you power on the PC, the IDE LED is constantly on.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Thanks for the info! Another viewer had suggested that so I had tried the original cable again pinned correctly and it resulted in the same behavior. Once I put the replacement cable back on it booted again. It looks like the cable truly is bad.
@davidmayers3563
7 ай бұрын
The floppy drives run off one cable, a twist in the cable tells the machine what one is A or B. I have seen a problem with the reset switch being shorted out causing a problem with booting, So I would of unplugged that to do trouble shooting. The turbo switch would enable cache memory. That cd rom would play a music cd rom and you could plug head phones right into the cd rom and use the volume control.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Thanks for the info. In this case it was the cable to the HDD.
@AJComputerServicesUK
3 ай бұрын
Another fine Video Squire, I had to watch the section a couple of times when you’re showing what Cards are in the System thinking that I’d missed the description of the Sound Card and you realised that you hadn’t shown that Card at: 30:30, Graphics Card’s nothing special but as long as it works then that’s the main thing, Interesting CD-Rom Drive & like the inclusion of the Left/Right Phono Sockets on the back of the IO Card, I’ve got quite a big collection of Optical Drives of different types now but not one like that, Oh btw, I pronounce it “Mayvis” regarding the Mavis Beacon Typing, Think I’ve got a copy of that somewhere, I’ve got a 286 & 486 PC but not a 386 although I’ve recently found a couple of 386 Motherboards so will hopefully get one up & running and do a Video on it at some point soon hopefully! 🙂 Anthony - Birmingham/UK 🇬🇧
@TheRetroRecall
3 ай бұрын
Hi Anthony - I would LOVE to see you do one of those videos!
@itsaperfectdork
7 ай бұрын
This would be a nice sleeper build with modern tech
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
For sure, I just don't want to mess with it, it's such an awesome system.
@Collinormous
Ай бұрын
Whenever I see the HDD light come on solid like that and no drive spin I always check the orientation of the IDE cable. Had a lot where they were installed upside down before cables started being keyed.
@TheRetroRecall
Ай бұрын
I had in the video and it didn't work. So I replaced the cable and no issue. Funny thing - I featured it in another video where I did a followup on it with the original cable and it worked perfectly. My guess - flakey cable or oxidation.
@phirzcol
7 ай бұрын
as someone who was there when the lore was written..... i miss these days..
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha love this comment.
@tonywilliams4066
6 ай бұрын
OMG! This brought back some really good memories! And I have said Sound Blaster Pro in a very, very long time. I’d open up Quicken. See what the dudes finances were.
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Haha that's awesome!! Lol, I try to avoid someone's personal info. I think they genuinely thought this computer was dead lol!
@timmooney7528
7 ай бұрын
I worked on a 486 that wouldn't provide a bios prompt unless a card was removed or something affected configuration. The bios battery consisted of an external AAA battery pack, and I had to unplug it to make the configuration screen appear.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
I've worked on a few systems like that before. I have an Aopen socket 7 board like that.
@lastangelman
7 ай бұрын
THis machine was manufactured by AST Research, based in Irvine, CA. Originally they manufactured expansion cards for IBM PCs, then changed into one of the many PC compatible manufacturers.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Interesting. I am familiar with AST, just didn't think that they made this machine.
@MrRupus2020
6 ай бұрын
@@TheRetroRecallIt does look similar to AST, but you said iymt had a different maker emblem on the case. My first PC was an AST 486dx2 It was a Windows 95 machine VERSION C! I never tried to add usb, though.
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
I'd love to get a decent 486 on the go. That would be my childhood system.
@MrRupus2020
6 ай бұрын
20 years ago, I had a trailer load of them. I bought them from a local college. But, I haven't seen one in several years.
@benaerialsbedford
7 ай бұрын
You don't really need the seperate CD-ROM controller card as there is a controller built into the SBPro card, as a bonus if you were to use the SBPro card to run the CD drive any CD audio would also be played via the same speakers as plugged in the sound card rather than needing separate amplified ones via the RCA plugs.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Nice! I thought it may be a different standard (the interface card VS the SB card).
@pep7890
7 ай бұрын
This brings back a lot of good memories. Thanks for sharing.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Your welcome, I'm glad you enjoyed!
@NapierNimbus
7 ай бұрын
What a gem of a machine frozen from early 90s era and that hard drive sounding so sweet.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Yes and deserving a full image so I don't lose any of the info! :). There's just something about spinning rust that gets me every time. :)
@AlexCOM1986
7 ай бұрын
thats Cool, nice work Sir
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Thank you!
@AlexCOM1986
7 ай бұрын
@@TheRetroRecall my first PC was a 486-DX66 or something close to that
@arnlol
7 ай бұрын
I didn’t even know a bad IDE cable could prevent a whole PC from posting… That’s a really nice machine, also these TEAC hard drives certainly aren’t the most common so it’s great that it is fully working!
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
For sure and yes I've also been told that a reversed cable can do the same thing :)
@PaulM-d7k
6 ай бұрын
This makes me feel old. I remember building these and believe it or not, in the manufacturing plant I work in, I still have a handful of them running DOS. I've reworked them over the years to keep them running and even put SSD's in them but they're still there chugging away.
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
An SSD in one, that would be quite interesting to see - that and you still have them going, awesome! Thanks for sharing.
@PaulM-d7k
6 ай бұрын
@@TheRetroRecall Startech makes an IDE to SATA adapter that has worked 90% of places I tried it. I've supported 300+ production systems for over 30 years now. When the last floppy disk plant went under about 10 years ago, I bought a bunch of boxes of them.. Still use them to update schedules on some equipment...
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Nice! Yes, I'm familiar with Startech stuff. There are also a lot of different brands on Amazon that I have used that have served the purpose. Not sure about longevity to be honest.
@DonnyHooterHoot
6 ай бұрын
Ahhh ye olde turbo button from days of yore! Love it had one! Cool viddy!
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Thanks!
@peterthill
6 ай бұрын
That reminds me when I started with computers. *damn* How could it be happen to be that old 🤪
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Hahahahaha I think that almost everytime I work on one of these lol.
@riccochet704
7 ай бұрын
I find it amazing that there's a CD ROM drive in a 386. Considering CD drives didn't really come in to play until the 486 era. Though I'm assuming that interface card was for older systems. I do love these older systems. Takes me back to me BBS days
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Agreed however it's not the first one I've seen. This is a 1x cdrom at that! So it's pretty old :)
@rennegaddefoxxe
7 ай бұрын
I had (Have? Somewhere?) a CD-ROM with a similar loading mech; used it as one of various places to stash a small fold of cash (when I actually had any). Yes, mounted in a PC.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha no way! Well, no cash in this one lol.
@olias2k979
7 ай бұрын
I had a case with that config layout, it had a 40MB HDD 8086 Turbo M/B, 2MB ram, Gemini Sound Card, GoldStar CD DRive. 2.5" Floppy, 5.25" floppy. Rage Graphics. Used to be a developer system for business software. Played some basic games and surprisingly had QBasic installed on it. I was impressed with Windows 3.3 update on it, but ceashing was an order for each hour.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha that's awesome - outside of the crashing every hour!
@ToniHiltunen1980
7 ай бұрын
Thank you of your interesting video of your PC found. Few days ago I found it at a flea market Dell Optiplex 755 system from 2006, included with its own LCD display. It was a very cheap found, there was -50% sales on flea market, so the total cost i paid was 5€. I made some upgrades for the system, added 2gb memory(previously was 4Gb), also a GPU. Now it is good retro machine. Keep up making these good videos :)
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
That's an awesome find, glad you were able to get it and upgrade it! I always tell people that if you keep your eyes open and look around, there is always a piece of retro tech hiding waiting to be found at a good deal :). Glad you enjoyed, thank you for watching!
@GamerisawesomeYTonPSN
5 ай бұрын
This reminds me of those windows 95/98 pcs
@TheRetroRecall
5 ай бұрын
For sure. Windows 3.1 on this one - surprise!
@bindig1
7 ай бұрын
Wow. Blast from the past
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha indeed.
@donixion4368
7 ай бұрын
This looks like a system we used in the office of the Theater I worked for. It collected all register totals and stuff. This was in the early 1990s.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
It's a pretty neat system.
@paulwilliams7816
7 ай бұрын
IV had that exact thing happen with an ide cable with an old 486 system I bought. Swapped out the cable and it was fine
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
I've had them break inside the cable before, a simple swap out fixes them. That said, I never recall them preventing the machine from booting.
@savage-goose
6 ай бұрын
In 1995-96 I worked for a non-profit that often received donations of PCs. Many were late 80s/early90s PCs and back then of course a 3-4 year old PC was basically considered obsolete. Some were name brand, many many clones. I basically did what you are doing in the video, except with a few hundred PCs at a time. I would check them over, clean them up, and then we would sell them, usually for $200 and the proceeds went to the IT department of the non-profit. Of course a lot of these PCs were despite being not that old at the time, not really salvageable or useful --- so before sending them to the recycler I would strip them for parts. My on hand "spares" area of the equipment room sort of got out of control. :) The good news was though, generally if we had a failure of a PC in the office, I could repair it from parts on-hand without having to spend any money. As a non-profit we were always strapped for cash. This brings back memories of an "exciting" part of my life where I still considered computing "fun". Thank you for making this video!
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
No problem, thanks for sharing your experience... I love reading these and thanks for watching!
@thespongeisright774
7 ай бұрын
This reminded me of my Dad's Tandy T-1000 where I would play Space Quest and King's Quest.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
That's awesome!
@sebastian19745
7 ай бұрын
If the HDD cable is connected backwards, the computer will not post with no HDD activity either, the simptom that you had there. I remember (maybe I am wrong) that the computer is hold in reset by the HDD through the IDE port. On the older HDDs with exposed pins on the IDE connector, was easy to connect the cable flipped, same on the IDE connector on the multi I/O board. That seems to be the case here.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Another viewer had suggested this as well. After recording I tested the cable again with the right connections and it still did the same thing. It seems the cable was truly the issue. :)
@sebastian19745
7 ай бұрын
@@TheRetroRecall Well, the joy of playing with old hardware. One never get bored. :)
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Ahha so true!
@rensuchan
7 ай бұрын
Nostalgic reminder of my first computer as a kid, a 486DX/33 MHz system which I later did my first ever CPU upgrade with to a 486DX2/66. Amazing thinking about how much you could fit on a 100 MB drive back then and now you have games taking up 100 GB lol
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha yes, so true! You will never fill that 100mb HDD!! :)
@pietjepuk9575
7 ай бұрын
486? Dude, i had a 286 😂😂😂
@rensuchan
7 ай бұрын
@@pietjepuk9575 The first computer I ever used was a 386, but that was technically a family computer and I was quite young so I didn't use it very much. The first computer I could really call my own though was that 486. It was a hand me down and pretty outdated at the time I got it but having something to mess with at that age was better than nothing lol
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Absolutely!
@madscientist15808
7 ай бұрын
Found this video through the recommendations and instantly subscribed. Really like your style, especially how you go in depth to explain everything. I'm currently working on a mystery computer myself. It's an 286 that was used in a TV station to provide a time signal. It's in a 19-inch rack-mount case and contains some REALLY weird cards. Like a receiver for the DCF77 time signal transmitter in Germany, a graphics card that has three MCX coax connectors for red, green and blue aswell as a card full of EPROMs. Sadly, I can't find any information for any of those cards online. At least I caught the BIOS battery before it could leak and removed it, so one less thing to worry about :)
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Now that seems like an exciting system to figure out! As you said, good thing you were able to catch the battery before disaster occurred! Good luck on the project and welcome to the channel!
@Cybercolascorner
7 ай бұрын
This was my first PC that i inherited from a relative as he upgraded, around 1997-98 ... amazing. Oh.. and ... the turbo button didnt do crap back then either... haha! I just remember it lighting the diode... well good video bro! Subscribed!
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Awesome - glad to have you onboard! Get ready for the fun! HAHA! Great info on the turbo button - saves me some future trouble. Thanks again!
@IndigoJo
7 ай бұрын
Turbo is actually the computer's standard speed, the one stated on the processor and in the advert you saw before you bought it. If you turn turbo off, it's a slower speed for the sake of compatibility with some software (particularly games) which relied on an older processor's slower clock speed.
@songsan807
7 ай бұрын
Wow, such a great video. Had one of these computer in the mid 90s. Would spend hours and hours daily playing with Win 3.1, Solitary, and shareware games. Still have a few old computers in the garage, and going to give it a round or two of dusting it up and turning it back on.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
That's great!! Good luck getting it back up and running and bringing back those memories :)
@daviddunmore7076
7 ай бұрын
Very similar to my original 386SX in the mid 1990s
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Nice!!
@lifegoaltv3308
7 ай бұрын
I have the same PC in 1995 with i286, 4MB RAM, 40MB HDD and Win 3.0
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Whoa! A 286, nice!! Win 3.0.... Classic :)
@JakubChalupnik
7 ай бұрын
Immediately spotted the LU-005 CD-ROM drive! I wish I did not sell mine like... 30 years ago :)
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha 30 years, holy! Yup, that's the cdrom. Going to be testing things out in the restoration video.
@richardcutts196
7 ай бұрын
Hadn't seen one of those bios setups in years.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
An oldie for sure!
@mrsillywalk
7 ай бұрын
Takes me back to the old says with Xtree Pro and Gold.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Love when these videos trigger memories for viewers!
@RandomYouTuber52602
7 ай бұрын
Thats cool, and speaking of thrift finds, i found a Toshiba Satellite L35-S2151 Laptop from around 2006. When i first booted it up, it said "Operating System Not Found", and when i went into the BIOS, it didn't show info about a hard drive. I unscrewed the plate where a hard drive would go, and i didn't see a hard drive. So i put in a hard drive from a Dell computer and it worked. I installed a Toshiba OEM Copy of Windows XP, and now it works.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
That's awesome, glad you were able to get it going again!!
@twinshobbytwinshobby3863
7 ай бұрын
Awesome Video !
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Thank you, glad you enjoyed!!
@dash8brj
6 ай бұрын
All caused by a 25c cable! Great detective work :)
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Thanks! Very happy to see this system up and running again.
@themeantuber
6 ай бұрын
Great machine!
@TheRetroRecall
6 ай бұрын
Thanks!
@kght222
7 ай бұрын
funny thing about that cd rom, that is pretty much how laptop drives usually work
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
You know what, minus the cover you are right. Never really thought about that haha!
@cloud1930
7 ай бұрын
Looks similar to the first Intel 286 computer I purchased used back in 1992 which I PURCHASED when in college.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Oh my... That would have been a tank back then... And not cheap. I wonder how many people came to you in college wanting to use it haha.
@orangejjay
7 ай бұрын
Love it! This is one cool lookin' machine. For once the KZitem algorithm has recommended a new channel that I can easily love. 😂❤❤❤
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Awesome, happy to have you along for the ride!!! Stay tuned!
@chrisrudi7162
7 ай бұрын
It works great 👍 Can it run Crysis? 😂 I also have a 386 DX with 40 MHz, 64 MB RAM and 32 GB SD card but with Windows 95. These old I/O interface cards can even address large disks with Disk Manager. However, you should take a lot of time to describe them. But it's still not enough for Doom in full screen mode, the 386 doesn't have enough power for that. Your computer is really very contemporary 👍😃 very nice device. You can hardly find these iconic CD drives in particular these days. They were very slow at single or double speed. But they were built to last. Many newer ones have problems with CD drawers getting stuck etc.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
I can definitely see that happening! It's a 1x Mitsumi drive as I found out. I'm looking forward to restoring this system!
@paulstubbs7678
7 ай бұрын
Never seen that style of CD rom, crazy The front panel MHz display is LED, not LCD
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Yeah, it's the first time I have seen one in person! Thanks for the correction - force of habit :)
@coewayman7507
7 ай бұрын
My first pc was an i386sx 16. 1mb ram 40mb hard drive with a cdrom. This really takes me back throw some id software games on it and wow what fun.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Yes for sure! Glad it brought back some memories for you :)
@lennybaker4060
7 ай бұрын
My very first hard drive based computer was an old knock off IBM compatible from Sears back in the early 90's. It had a whooping 286 16mhz with turbo that dropped to 8mhz. at the beginning it had 1mb of ram and a simple OS called Geo-works. After attending college and learning more I boosted it to 4mb of ram and Windows 3.11. To say it was slow is an understatement!!! But it got the job done. Oh yeah... it had a 40mb Hard drive which I filled up quickly with MIDI files LOL.
@TheRetroRecall
7 ай бұрын
Haha that's awesome, and back in the day we would NEVER fill 40mb right?!?! 😂
@parkdigwig3447
6 ай бұрын
Oh ya. I remember seeing stuff like this. We have at work a computer running WIN 3.1. Or maybe NT…..the young kids didn’t know how to get the main screen to pop up…. They were at the C: prompt but didn’t know what to type in to get Windows to work. They had to come get an old guy to get the computer to work. Uhhhhh…type WIN. hit enter. It was funny nevertheless.
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