วีดีโอ

That .using wasn't from any of the James Bond movies. It was from Mission Impossible.

For that first try .... you really should use a "Dim Bulb" device. (do a search)

This computer (or very similar model) of Packard Bell was my first computer. Bought it for $80 from my co-worker. Don’t even remember what I did with it after I bought a Sony desktop to replace it.

I've learnt a thing or 2 while working on vintage machinery. If it's in unknown condition ALWAYS assume someone worked on it and quitted halfway so DON'T turn it on before carefully checking some things. Also assume every touchable metal part is live unless proven otherwise bij checking the resistance between the earth pin on the plug and those parts. More than often someone cuts the earth connection due to a tripping GFCI or pulls out a bunch of relays/ contactors. A bunch of times there's some cut/ loose wires somewhere in the machine. The kind of machinery I work on has some higher level of risk because most of them work on 400/440V up to 21kW (sometimes a lot more). Especially the risk of arc flash is dangerous. A 3 pole 440V 50A bakelite switch can make quite the fireball when it shorts out! That's a big reason to put the enclosure back together before testing.

Those AT power supplies used a single throw double pole (STDP) power switch thus the hot and neutral line were disconnect from the power supply primary input.

I wish I had one, these seem so cool

That was the first computer I ever owned!

My family had this machine going up, I took it with me to college. Ours was P75, 4MB edo ram, onboard video.

We had the 486dx2 66mhz w/ 4mb. We didn’t really knew how to use a pc other than for typing school reports or running some of the built in games like the 3d dinosaur or Mandy old dos games like trot. It was a big leap in learning how to operate such a machine.

One of my PCs has an inverted case, P2-era. There's modern cases I've seen reviewed on Gamers Nexus that are actually convertible between inverted or standard orientation. I was thinking for your Apple ][ sign that maybe you could have it in a different position on the garage door so that the light hitting it differently would make the logo more visible. Anyhow, happy to see another 486 getting some love. That era was the most nostalgic for me.

4:56 it's NOT BEIGE.

I have that same model. Answers the phone. Pages me.

I had one of these. I also upgraded it with an Overdrive, more Ram, and a multimedia kit from Creative and a sound card from Turtle Beach who i worked for in the early 90s

Red keys match the old logo just fine, almost perfectly.

Think the mother board was installed in that orientation to compress the chassis. But the motherboard they selected require the io card, so it kind of doesn't matter, but it would if the ide and floppy controller were on the motherboard. A dx 2/66 would be perfect in the expansion slot

in the late 80s early 90s there wasn't a right way to put the mobo its only in the late 90s they mainly did them one way so mainly the rigg on the right.

It has been my experience that Negative rails always read low with no load on them. I'm thinking if you loaded them it would read better.

All the electrons are going to fall out.

I need a old pc to run windows 95/dos

Honestly, we think the black looks better for the Apple II sign than it would look if it were brown.

Pentium without L2 cache on the motherboard. PB was really sneaky at cutting corners then.

I've seen a few different "upside down" cases like this, but have no idea why they made them that way. It wasn't exactly common back then, though.

I feel super glad to see it can live longer in the hand of the right man

Nice little machine, and the case is in good shape IMO. Not yellowed at all ! I have a similar case where everything is upside down, same time period (486). The only "problem" is that the chips on the extension cards can potentially run hotter (but at that time heat was not really a problem).

As a PC tech back then we used to call them Packaged Hell....a real piece of junk

I had a very similar case that I built a PIII out of for a custom build. IIRC it's called "Ugly Pentium III build" or something like that on my channel.

I had this exact box. It was our first family computer, I was 16. It was a pentium 60 and I upgraded it with a 133mhz overdrive and added 8megs of ram (from 4) along with a 6meg Canopus 3Dfx accelerator add on. You can also add 1 meg to the onboard video making it 2 whole megabytes! I couldn't get any 28.8 modem to work, my model had a 14.4 built in. Very upgradable otherwise.

Owned this one. It came with reference cd's that were just awesome.

Loved that monitor

I'm tempted.. but I don't know what I would do with it.. I was surprised to see you are just over the bay from me :) So pickup is an option, but what would I do with it lol

I have a CM Stacker which is convertible from ATX to BTX, I don't know why BTX failed. I've seen a couple of other inverted cases over the years too. The owners didn't even know.

I had a case like that at one point except it was a mid tower, not a mini. 4x 5.25" & 2x 3.5" bays, iirc. I always assumed the inverted layout was just to make the optical drives etc more accessible when it was sitting on top of a desk instead of under it. I think what made these cases go away was the ATX standard since that specified a lot more things regarding the layout of various things on the motherboard, etc which would have made this style of case impossible to conform to.

That processor socket isn't for a math coprocessor. It is for upgrading the board to a different CPU like a faster 486 or a Pentium Overdrive. The 486 already has a math co processor built in the CPU. Also, did you know that there are epoxies for plastic now? They bond to plastic better than standard epoxy.

I like these cases, they are different but their only issue is that sometimes, depending on the motherboard, the drive cage can get in the way of components. i.e. cpu fan/heatsink, mosfet heatsinks etc..

Had a Socket A AMD Abit MB. Put it together turned on the power and POP. The socket roasted some of the transistors around the die. Have a few AMD CPU's found a Brand new TYAN socket A MB ironically in the Abit box on my shelf. It also had the extra 4 pin CPU plug. It was fine. Got WIN98SE on it just for giggles. I still have a couple brand new never built MB for Pentium 2 slot 1. One Intel, 1 Asus and 1 Gigabyte. All still in the bags. Have the CPU's but don't think I am gonna build them anytime soon. Been building since 1995 a room in the basement looks like an old PC store.

The theory was the power supply being low in the case would be better for cooling. I remember these types of cases but wouldn't say they were common.

Packard Hell

Excellent Reminder!!!

i have one of those type of cases, it came with a 386 and i saved from a recyclyng plant so no history on it

This was my families first computer!

Don't throw away the botched dallas chip, the business end is really small, inside the potted casing and you can extract it and solder it on custom pcbs.

intel tryed to bring them case`s called BTX

I actually like the black background on the apple ii sign. I think it helps it pop. Great video.

Yeah btx format is a pain I got a dell 500 series case that's btx

This is almost the exact model I bought as my first PC. I picked it up from a pawn shop back in 1997. I used it for a couple years before I built my first custom build PC. Such great memories with that Packard Bell.

A motherboard that takes 32-pin SIMMS? That must be unique.

I had the exact same case as you showed as an other example. I had it from a local school, and IIRC, the dates were from the very early 1990s. It had a 286 board inside, running at 16 MHz, these low end computers were quite common in the early 1990s in (Czecho)Slovakia, since PCs were expensive for what the people were used to. Unfortunately I gave it away :( Later the BTX motherboard standard had this inverted design.

I have a 486 with the same case

futureshop/bestbuy hp towers were inverted in xp/win7 era on hand here i have two with model numbers if you're interested in more details h8-1011 (phenom ii 1085 b.e.) & 700-239 (haswell i7)

Isn't the Turbo button wired backwards? Should be pressed for Turbo, depressed for compatible. I don't know where people got the idea that it's the other way around. I've even seen a few videos about it. VWestlife confirmed that the button should work as expected: pressed for Turbo. Although I guess in the end it doesn't really matter.