Look what I found... A Surprise from 1986!! in Thrift Finds EP 007!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ม.ค. 2025
- Let's go over the latest finds during my Thrifting adventures online and in store. We have some great donations and a very special preview of a Computer from 1986 found at an Estate Sale!! Let's Go!
#retro #retropc #vintage #vintagecomputer #compaq #portable #ewaste #thrift #thriftfinds #thrifting #memorex #tandy #realistic #sony #minidisc #software
We love always the content from TheRetroRecall. We love your channel. Nice goodies. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands
Thank you, I'm glad you are enjoying!!
That music tape thing was a modular cassette storage system. Useful for storing ones vast collection of music tapes back in the day. (God i feel old)
I think it's pretty neat now that I know what it is.
Back in the day I had a cassette storage system that was a 360 degree tower, about three feet tall. Very cool.
That adapter for the memory stick was to allow you to use one of their later model memory sticks called the Memory Stick Duo in older devices. The only use case I had for them was as storage for the PlayStation Portable.
Thanks!
Hi TRR, I'm just a few minutes into it and thank you for sharing everything!
We just had a new born baby last week, so I dont have much time for TH-cam lately and was so glad when I sat down and saw you in my feed!
It's actually HalfLife 2's 20th birthday today! (Nov 16 2004) Good timing for this Thrift Finds video, my favourite in your series btw!
Now, back to the video!
You are an amazing Human, thank you for the donations and congratulations on your new baby!!!!
Nice score on that Compaq! Your HP a305w is similar to what I used to have which was the HP Pavilion a320n which was a great machine for it's time.
I'm looking forward to dogging into both!
Its really funny to see tech from 1986, looks so alien. Got a Porsche 924S from 1986 as my daily driver for the last 20 years that basically still has no tech at all in it, not even a anti-lock braking system. It was the 1st porsche with liquid cooling in stead of air and an electric starting system. Also its outer body is load bearing, like the cyber truck. But the porsche has a timeless design so it still looks semi modern. Well at least you would not think the car is nearly 39 years old, specially looking at the compaq.
Hahah neat perspective! I remember when a car would break down and all you needed was a screwdriver, duct tape and some vice grips (clamps) and you were back on the road again. Today's cars... Forget about it lol.
I use Ronsonol lighter fluid to remove stickers from game boxes and laserdisc covers. I haven't had any issues with bleeding ink or ruining print. It doesn't leave residue or liquid spots.Just let it soak for a bit and peel slowly
Appreciate it, I will test it out, thank you!
34:45. Cool! A Compaq luggable. I remember when we got one of these at work. It was like magic. MS-DOS, Lotus 1 2 3, word perfect, first publisher, bouncing baby rescue…😂🤣
Haha!! And blazing fast 😂
Nice!
The music tape by capitol based on what I could find is capital records having its own company that produces empty cassette media, it seem to be meant for professional use.
Ohhhh neat!!! Thank you for looking into that. So I assume the trays would have blank media in them?
@@TheRetroRecall Maybe some kind of cart system media holder where you would record things for a radio station and use whenever needed?
Ahhhhh now I can see that, makes sense. Thanks again!
I appreciate the Adrian reference to that infamous virus! Not a bad haul you got there, hope you continue to feel better! 😉
Ahha indeed and thank you!!
Get well soon. Your are saving history here, Sir. I remember these dark CD-Rs - back then we always tried to get our hands on them, cause they were looking so cool. Just like the game CDs for PS1 etc.
Thank you!
38:40, stunningly beautiful! Thanks for sharing and what an amazing pick-up!
I'm looking forward to the full review in the future and have total faith you can get this fixed up!
Thank you! It will be fun, I just need to study up a bit on it first haha. I have great resources around me.
I used light scribe a lot back in a day. Still have couple blank DVDs in storage. It was great feature and when I had to buy external optical drive, I got one with LightScribe, so I should be still able to burn new discs when needed.
Nice! I think it is a neat piece of tech. I hope someone starts to make the discs again!
@@TheRetroRecall True. I didn't even realize, that they are all sold out for some time.
hey theretrorecall what a great haul ! I hope you are feeling better . having covid sucks! one tip i can suggest is to make a backup copy of the Windows 7 CD set and use the copy to do daily installs . that way the original discs stay in good shape and usuable. just a suggestion. great video and good luck .
Glad you're feeling better. Amazing finds, and donations. I remember taking those ball mouse apart bi-weekly to clean them out. Back then we were taught to be gentle with sensitive electronics, so cleaning them was like performing surgery for me.
Haha yup I remember those days.
@@TheRetroRecall Yea, being a serious gamer at that time meant you had to have a clean ball mouse. They say necessity is the mother of invention, but so is being broke. lol!
Lol!!
I played RR Tycoon on a Packard Bell 486SX. The manual was necessary as the anti-piracy scheme asked for the name of a station that would be displayed before the game could start.
Ahhh yes I remember games that did that in the past. Stunts 3D racing was also one of them IIRC.
Another good haul!👍👍
Thanks!
Now that's one historical thrift find. Awesome 👍
Thanks, I agree!
You are VERY welcome! THE RETRO RECALL IS AWESOME!
Thank you!!!! It's not possible without viewers like you :)
Lot of good finds here!
Agreed!
Those VHS tapes bring back memories of when I had my VCRs set up to duplicate videos. I wish I still had them.
Yeah, there's just something about this old tech - including VCRs
1980s was common to engrave your drivers license number into everything to allegedly prevent theft. Mostly for VCRs. Why you would bother with a clock, I'm not sure.
Interesting!
Light Scribe. LOL, though cool and I did it on a couple, takes longer to burn 1 image than burning 12 data discs. lol
Haha definitely a niche product!
20:08 I had a light scribe drive in 2011 a USB LG one
Nice!
no way i also just got covid and am feeling the aftermath ugh. get better soon man!
Thank you!! It's taking a while this time around but hopefully I'll be 100% soon!
@@TheRetroRecall i am sure you will!
I'd be willing to bet you could use a universal remote to operate the creative drive. May universal remotes have a seek function to help discover the code that works with a device. Might be useful as a stopgap solution until you can find the original.
I appreciate this, I'll give it a try!
ive had some experence with a portable of the similiar style . i love seeing those kind of vids . for me it doesnt bother me if your inactive for a wile ill still poke my nose in on the channel and like seeing what you get and get up too . i hope you get to feeling better soon. ive wanted to get a dead portable like that to mod with a raspberri pi and batteries to make it a neat little system granted i know it wrecks the value of such a system.
Thanks, I'm feeling much better now. Life is quite busy though haha. Oh, a raspberry pi project in a Compaq portable?
@@TheRetroRecall yep because it would fun to do granted i think of stupid and crazy crap like that like making a toy computer like kids use in to a true computer.
Yeah that would be a fun project
@@TheRetroRecall maby some day . for now keep up the good work and stay safe
Nice findings. Hope you get well soon.
Thanks! Definitely feeling much better now.
Dave Plummer at Dave's Garage might be able to help with the disk drive in the Compaq. He has a collection of computers, some way older than that.
I had a IBM USB floppy drive a long time ago. It got recycled with all the other hardware.
I have a Sony CyberShot DSC-W80 from 2007. It uses a Memory Stick Pro Duo, a shorter version of the Memory Stick.
The 16GB MSPD I ordered from Amazon turned out to be an adapter with a 16GB micro SD inside.
Your adapter uses Memory Stick Micro M2 cards. Still available.
I appreciate this info, thank you. I'll reach out to him, I've seen a few of his videos!
Dave Plummer was also behind a bunch of scam malware in the early 2000s. The kind of software that went like: "Warning! We found a bunch of viruses on your computer! Buy our software to fix it!"
Hello and welcome back 😊
Thank you!
I love grabbing old Big Box PC software when i find it. Usually its ebay because thift stores here dont carry stuff like that
Yeah. I'm lucky that our thrift stores do, but you need to jump on them as there are a few collectors out there.
Color me jealous. I have some experience with that old Compaq luggable. In the late 1980's, I had a friend that had one. We used to surf BBS systems looking for GIF's. Then, in 1993, I was taking a "Computer Field Service" course at a local technical college in Washington state. The college had a couple of pallets of those computers donated to them. As a student, we had a perpetual job of seeing how many of them can we get working.
What you have is an XT compatible system. I can't remember what processor they had in it. It would either be an 8088, or an 8086. I believe most of them had about 640K ram. A 360K 5-1/4" floppy. The one unit I worked on in my technical college, had the Seagate ST-220 20 meg half Hight drive. They were MFM. I do believe a few of them had RLL drive in them also. What is cool about this system is the internal monitor is a green screen monochrome monitor capable of displaying CGA graphics. If I recall IBM called it MDA. The display port on the right side is a CGA card and I believe below that is a composite video out. When you plugged in a CGA monitor, both external and internal monitor would display the same images.
You mentioned in the video that it would post but not boot. If this were my system, I would first pull the case off. Look for any suspect electrolytic capacitors. Then test all of the tantalum capacitors. If they all check out, then all you need to deal with is the no boot problem.
The next step is seeing if you can get it to boot into DOS. First is cleaning the floppy drive and seeing if it will boot. If it doesn't, then see what the issue is. I usually clean the heads, and then verify the belts are good and the motor is spinning the floppy up to the proper RPM's. There are a lot of video's on TH-cam for that. When you get it to boot, then see if you can get onto the C drive.
MFM drives are easy drive to diagnose. First doses it spin up? If it docent, take a small hammer and lightly wrap on the drive. If it starts to spin up, listen to the drive. Most issues are motor bearings. They start to wine and get loud. A good sounding drive will not be that loud, spin up to an even RPM and not very. Usagi Electric has a good video where he was testing some old school MFM drives. Watch that one. He had some good examples of what different drives failures sound like.
If drive spins up and does not boot, then it probably lost its low level formatting. Most manufactures had there own low level format utility. It has been a minute since I've played with low level format utilities, but I'll bet you can find one online. I can't wait to see the video on it. I hope you feel better soon.
I know you live in Canada, but I'm not sure where. I live in the lower mainland of BC. If you wish do DM me, i would love to help out on this project.
I love all of this! Thanks! Send me a note to youtube@bravtech.ca and we can go from there :)
I wonder if that Luggable runs DOS or CP/M. Fer ghu's sakes don't percuss a hard drive that doesn't autopark, you'll kill the heads and scrape up the platter. Chances are even if it spins up, it needs a low-level format. Meanwhile, handle the thing like a broken egg, in case the heads aren't parked.
Didn't know Lightscribe discs were no longer made -- I have several spindles of them here somewhere. (And several Lightscribe drives, tho I never used that function.)
I have a little 386 Zenith netbook that looks suspiciously similar to yours. Mine still works, tho the battery doesn't hold a charge. Sometimes you can replace the battery cells in those old units -- I used to have a 386 laptop someone had done that with -- inside the battery case were a dozen off-the-shelf rechargeable AA batteries, soldered in series. Worked fine.
I think it is DOS and I hear you loud and clear on the drive. Let's see if it spins up first and go from there :). Send me ALL of the lightscribe discs lol. :)
Looks like you got quite the haul there! That Compaq Portable is definitely the highlight though. They're very neat machines and it definitely looks to be one of the original series. Should be a 4.77mhz 8088 in it, and should be upgradable to 640k ram if it's not already there. I've got two of them to combine into one good system and if that hard disk is original it's likely either 10 or 20mb, judging from the faceplate on it I believe it is. It was an original option and I believe having it makes it a Portable Plus. The base configuration did not have a hard disk. The keyboards on them can be problematic as they're a foam and foil design however if you have issues with it there are sellers that have kits available to re-foam/foil them.
Thanks for this info! I know I'll need some help really getting to know it. Thanks again!
@@TheRetroRecall For sure! Let me know if there is anything you need a hand with. I don't have a ton of experience with mine yet but can always dig into them if need be or if you need to compare notes. I'm out of town during the week for the next few weeks but am at home on weekends so can always dig into them then.
@lttbriantheelectrician you're awesome thank you!
Capital named all of the blank tapes it produced, reel-to-reels, 8 tracks and cassettes "The Music Tape."
Neat.
26:26 I assume you said Toshiba without meaning it, mixing things up just for a moment, but of course TravelMate has been an Acer model range for a long time, and yes, TI sold its mobile computer branch to Acer in 1997.
Keeping you honest as requested: TI owned the trademark on TravelMate until 1997, when they sold their PC division... To Acer. (Toshiba is nowhere in the mix)
Ohhh yes!!!! Acer, not Toshiba, thank you!!
i don't compare the minidisc format to cd, but rather to compact cassette. it was a perfect successor to the compact cassette. the ability to record, the portability, now with the added digital convenience of the cd. instantly searching for tracks, instantly skipping tracks, programming track order. no speed inconsistencies, no azimuth alignments, no chomped tapes.
did it fail? or was it... sabotage? hmmm.
Haha interesting perspective. I just know I think it was a missed format.
The Canadian maple leaf seal of quality.
Hahaha yup!
Cool stuff. That is wife kryptonite 😂
Lol
If you want a GOOD! USB drive that supports both formatting for 1.44 and 720K diskettes , get a hold of an original IBM thinkpad USB floppy drive.
I have one - I was fortunate to find that while Thrifting too!
17:30, wow now that drive is AWESOME!
I just got an early 90's PS/2 IBM Mouse and IBM Keyboard recently (with the ridiculous eBay prices) and this would be too cool to add to my system, but dont have the I/O input for it!
Agreed! Yeah, eBay prices are junk. Overpriced for sure. Now you need an older IBM pc (which I may be able to help you get)
@@TheRetroRecall I'm def interested! My first PC was an IBM PC jr : ) Chat soon and wishing you speedy recovery!
and while you were away i bought an LG P1-M2XPV Express Dual laptop for almost nothing at all
Nice!!!!!
@@TheRetroRecall it needs new thermal paste and cr2032 (it overheats and shuts down fast)
Pretty straight forward items.
That Compaq portable machine likely has an Intel 286 CPU. Came from the factory with MS-DOS 3.3. They may have also later offered an Intel 386 model. The included 9" display is only black & amber, but the rear CGA port can output low-res color. The 1.2 Mb 5.25" floppy drive can be swapped out & upgraded to a 3.25" 1.44 Mb floppy, if you can find a similar sized one that fits. Should be capable of running MS-DOS 6.1, but probably not enough memory to run Windows 3.1.
I appreciate this! All the info I can get the better!
@@TheRetroRecall Even if the MFM hard drive can't boot, you could try creating a bootable floppy. Then maybe run some disk diagnostics from there on the hard drive.
Thank you! I also think there are some projects that will allow me to run a sta dard drive or flash memory?
@@TheRetroRecall Don't give up on the drive just yet! A low-level format can sometimes revive these old MFM drives that've seemingly lost their ability to be read.
Got it, I guess I'll have to start by creating a book floppy and going from there.
Hope you recover quickly friend. Oh wow, you got an old Compaq Luggable??? great find! I wish I had kept mine :)
Thank you! I am definitely feeling better. I may pick your brain since you had one :)
@@TheRetroRecall I pretty much just had it for the sake of having it, I ran DOS 5 on it but didn't have any disks to load other software on it so I couldn't really do much, and that 5" (or whatever) screen was kindof a pain to read, even in the 90's when my eyes were still good :D
Hahha oh how time passes:)
When i had my first computer, it came with groliers multimedia encyclopedia and megarace and 3d dinosaur adventure and other stuff
This was in 1994
That's a trip down memory lane!
that era of hp desktops shown here are actually known for failing power supplies. if that light on the back of the power supply is flashing it is indicating a failure.
Good to know! Thank you.
@ The hp desktop we had with that exact power supply was manufactured in 2004 and had failed in 2010. Oddly enough the computer was working up until we had shut it down to move it across the room and then discovered the blinking light on the power supply. Hp customer service said the blinking light on the power supply was a failure indicator. They told me this despite not having a valid warranty for that computer. Fortunately it is just a standard atx power supply and is easily replaced. I’m certain that the whole problem was based around the capacitor plague that was going on at the time. That would make it a really good idea to check for any bulging capacitors on the motherboard before attempting any kind of power up even with a known good power supply. I remember checking our old board back in 2018 and despite not noticing any physical problems it definitely had issues as it wouldn’t post.
Early!!!
I am! I figured I would release slightly earlier as I haven't released a video in a couple of weeks :)
Oh Geez. I did have one of those Compaq's. Easily 50 pounds and it did work. That was way back in the mid 90's that I had it and one of the things I lost over time due to too many moves. I still kick myself in the butt for giving away a mid 90's HP server. Big, bulky box on wheels with 2 pentium MMX processors. No, not the socket 8 type. But still. Painful when looking back.
I remember those! I think we are all guilty of tossing out 'old' equipment that we wish we still had today.
Wish I could find a thrifting find like that, though I'd settle for a complete in the box Voodoo 2 or 3 card or a SB AWE series card
I've been lucky for sure, but also have a lot of great support.
@@TheRetroRecall indeed some lucky finds and donations.
Oh yeah we have the green home premium version of that windows 7 32/64 set, first copy of 7 we had
Nice!
I have a Compaq Portable which didn't include the cover, but did include the original disks and manuals. The keyboard restoration was the worst part of it ;)
That's awesome and yes - I've heard the keyboard rebuild is a nightmare.
@@TheRetroRecall I only misaligned a single replacement foam and foil pad, so I found the rebuild to be easy enough. It was just a bit tedious. And a huge mess. They are wonderful machines, and well worth the restoration effort.
Looking forward to testing out this system.
That Dr. Brain game mentioned a "Thunderboard". I managed to get one for free a few years ago and I have yet to test it...
I've never heard of a Thunderboard, however I assume it is related to Audio?
@TheRetroRecall Yes, it's a "Media Vision Thunderboard." Mine is an 8-bit ISA sound card. I think that it was meant to compete with the AdLib.
@@JVHShack It's a Sound Blaster 1 clone, mono digital audio and OPL2 FM (Adlib). One of the more notable examples of original Sound Blaster clones.
Are those numbers on the realistic radio station frequencies?
Interesting thought. Know where this came from, I am not sure if they are.
looks like the realistic was made in 1985
This was the very first computer I ever had!
Nice!!! It looks like a pretty neat machine.
I heard VHS cleaner was good for uhhh... something NSFW.
Oh my
Half-Life 2 - I've never played this. I wanted to, but I have a moral objection to Valve demanding that every copy be permanently tied to a Steam account. A couple years ago, I saw a complete copy in Goodwiil for $5. I passed on it. What good is a used copy when it's already registered to someones account?
IBM Optical drive - It seems to be a rule of the universe that when a device needs a custom power supply, it will be missing. Whether in a thrift store, or in the trash. Also, the chances of having the power supply with it, will be in inverse proportion to how rare/obscure the device is.
Yes for sure, I find even if it came with the drive to the thrift store, they tend to separate them and sell it separately.