Thank you for watching, and a special thank you to Alan "Andrew Dalton" Suger for taking time out of his busy schedule to join us on this series. I'll be taking the MegaPC to "RetCon" expo this weekend so you can try it out for yourselves. A new T2T series will be underway soon. In the meantime if you need to stock up on tools for your own repairs then check out the video description for my curated Amazon store to help with ideas. I hope you enjoyed this one! Neil - RMC
@@winnerking The museum will be featuring soon! They have kindly allowed me to make some Show & Tell videos there, so you'll get to see more of it soon.
RetroManCave: After searching for quite some time along with the help of friends the solution to the right side linearity issue is found: on the original monitor replace capacitor C521 with a 2.2uf 200v Mylar one (original is 470nf). Linearity will not be perfect (it can't be on this monitor) but it will improve so it will not be noticeable in gameplay: i.imgur.com/at52yvQ.png
Packed hell they were known as back when I'd help my father fix computers for friends and family (and sometimes acquaintances who were willing to pay), Packard bell, amstrad, Compaq and others were often difficult due to their frequently proprietary natural in things like bios etc.
Reigns true today as well. HP has the shittiest built computers. I had a $800 2020 Pavilion gaming laptop from them with the display panel installed crooked. The SSD fried itself and so many bits of the cheap plastic housing just broke off in my backpack. Never buying another Hewlett-Packard machine in my life.
Awww thanks for the shoutout Neil ... that machine is looking fantastic now it’s all cleaned up and refurbished!! Always happy to help... that maths co-processor didn’t wanna go home :-)
Do you think you could print a different slider so that it doesn't interfere with the joystick ports? You should ask Neil to loan you the cover to have a quick measure up and see what you can get away with :)
@@Neffers_UK Anything is possible!! :-) We threw this together in a 30 mins and it took 20 mins to print... Given time, we could have done almost anything!!
@@DubiousEngineering Yeah time.. you can grow mushrooms quicker than 3D printing stuff haha, still, it's bloody awesome that it's possible though. I hope you and your wife are doing well, and enjoying the "summer".
I have far too many consoles & computers as it is but if i had the room i could see myself spending plenty of time on this bad boy. Neil ......... You're hired.
Hey. Your videos are absolutely wonderful. Watching your back catalog is one of the highlights of my day. Your channel is the first one I have ever joined. Thanks for the great content, you have made my life just a little bit better.
It would have been a nice thing to have, but no way my parents would have forked out that much for it. Great video series, I love the care and attention you give each project.
I’m so pleased with that summary you gave - the Mega-PC may not be a beefy powerhouse but it’s a fantastic little nice machine that you end up adoring. I loved my Mega-PC. I’ll get another one some day.
I'm really pleased with the effort you've put in to this series. You went way beyond what I was expecting, I thought I went quite far with the MegaPC but you took it to another level. No idea how I'm going to recap mine - far too concerned I'll break a classic. Can't wait to see what you have upcoming.
watching this video series has been a great journey, thanks for taking us on the ride, and I have laughed at one to many Alan Sugar impressions during this watch through
Have to say this was a really fun trash to treasure, totally enjoyed it. Living in Australia I never saw Amstrads other than the 464 and 6128, i had no idea they made so many different machines. I have to admit though i would have loved owning the Mega PC back then.
Minor League Gaming math is short for mathematics not mathematic, so yeah, very much plural and not singular. What i’m getting at is math is not a real thing and only maths is correct and all yanks are always wrong
Probably one of your best trash to treasure series. Have to admit I'd love to own one of these but for now I just have to settle for a megadrive sat on top of a 386 pc haha. Just out of interest what video RAM did you put into the 386. My own machine has sockets for additional memory and I was wondering if I could get some more performance out of it with an upgrade. Looking forward to see what you pull down from storage to restore next!
I was watching this and when Alan said," I will destroy you" my wife walked in, heard that and left me alone for a bit lol thanks for the work on this tech, and love your content :)
@9:34 I have a 14" multisync CRT monitor from the early 90's which has developed the exact same warping fault. I'm 90% sure they weren't designed that way, so it may be worth testing for bad caps inside the monitor if you intend to use it. The 0.39mm dot-pitch mask on those old monitors was OK for 320x240 Megadrive games, but looks very grainy above 800x600 showing a static desktop. PS. So is Viglen no longer in business?
If you connect the battery backwards, then Time Trials last forever LOL. Imagine the fun if Alan had used one of his 3" disk drives on this LOL. As for Falcon and a Math co processor, it really helps with the Quake 2 Demo ;-)
Looks fantastic Neil, as you say, arcade classics on one side and then point and clicks on the other, shame it wasn’t a Megadrive Amiga hybrid, the Mega Amiga would’ve been epic
I have been binge watching all your videos recently, and I have to say they are all outstanding mate truly why the hell your not on bb2 God knows, but the quality, attention to detail and your personality are top quality, keep it up mate. P.s looking forward to see what you dig up on ultimate play the game now theirs a story!!!!
Thank you for the kind words Darren! Ultimate have always been quite shy when it comes to media attention but I might have something for you in the coming weeks which is related
Back when people didn't worry if their PC games ran at less than 300fps. 10-15fps was considered good on most of the systems I used back in the 90's LOL.
Yet again another fab video Neil. I passed on the Amstrad Mega PC due to cost back in the day and had a Mega Drive and Amiga 1200 with cd drive . I do like the idea of The Mega Drive and pc in one case but sadly came to market late in 1993. With the rise of the IBM pc and the 486 dx cpu then the Pentium cpu and the rise of 3d graphics cards but I have to admit love to have own one. Neil I look forward to your next Trash to Treasure somethink in line of sinclair
Nice work on this, it came out great. I think if this was available over here in the US I probably would have passed but I would have thought it was cool.
In response to your "would want to own one" question, no. Do I like the idea? Yes absofreakinglutly. It's just a shame it wasn't as affordable. You were getting a sub par PC with wonky useability, not to mention the MD was a cheap to buy console back then even if bundled with a 2nd hand TV from the freeads at the time. Still, it was very entertaining content Neil, the pleasure of restoration was enjoyed in a cathartic way, and I'm really pleased with the way it turned out in the end. I really enjoy your content. Please continue sir.
I always wanted one of these as a child and when my dad replaced our Amstrad PC8086 I tried tried to convince him to buy one but he got a custom built 486 instead. In retrospect it was a good decision as it meant he got a much better PC, I got a Mega Drive, and we could each use them at the same time haha.
Don't think I didn't notice. That arcade joystick in the opening promo had a raspberry pi built in to it! RetroPi I'll bet. I built one like that a few years ago.
I recall spending countless hours playing Gunship 2000, first on my 386 then later on my super speedy 486. After school and in the summertime with friends. Good times.
So, fun story; when I was a kid my Dad gave me and my older brother a choice between a MegaPC and an Amiga 1200 to replace our old and aging Amiga 500. I wanted the MegaPC because Megadrive, but my brother wanted the A1200 so he could carry on playing his football games (anyone else remember Sensible Soccer or Championship Manager?!). I was always a little bit gutted that he got his way, but having watched this series of videos I can kind of see that my Dad made the right decision.
A friend of mine had this PC and I can confirm they mostly used it for adventure games, but it would play Falcon 3.0 quite well even with out a co-processor.
We have 240 volt power in the U.S.,we just don't know how to use it. We have a British kettle in our kitchen. It shares a circuit with the water heater and draws almost as much power.
I use a multisync monitor on my Windows XP computer. A HP vs17 although it has a weird ratio of 5:4 it was designed to display both 4:3 and 16:9 images. It pretty easy to find online so I wonder if this would be a good replacement monitor for the Mega PC and maybe some others?
The VAX Station? That was way back when I had no storage space, and it was one I bought (not donated). I sold it to a programmer who wanted to code on it, which I thought was a very suitable home for it, so I no longer have it
Don't quote me on that, but I have memories of my 386DX having a co-processor socket. The difference between SX and DX (in 386s) was bus witdh. I think the co-processor went into the DX with 486s
What surprised me was Amstrad didn't make a Mega Drive card for other PCs after this didn't do so well, if it was sold in a bundle with a controller but no game for the same price as a Mega Drive with a pack-in game it would have been a far more sucessful venture and would likely not hurt the Mega Drive sales.
whaaaaat that amstrad controller is a exact copy of the one on my dos machine it uses a regular soundcard gameport does the amstrad one have the same connector ? im looking for these controllers for sooo long are the sliders / linear portentiometers are the same crappy ones that dont stay put whitout ducktape ? u sir just made my day /me*storm´s off to ebay*
Thank you for watching, and a special thank you to Alan "Andrew Dalton" Suger for taking time out of his busy schedule to join us on this series. I'll be taking the MegaPC to "RetCon" expo this weekend so you can try it out for yourselves. A new T2T series will be underway soon. In the meantime if you need to stock up on tools for your own repairs then check out the video description for my curated Amazon store to help with ideas. I hope you enjoyed this one!
Neil - RMC
What about a tour in the museum!?!
@@winnerking The museum will be featuring soon! They have kindly allowed me to make some Show & Tell videos there, so you'll get to see more of it soon.
Love your work..so methodical, and engaging. Thanks! Also the closing tune is very nice! Lovely fat baseline!
upload the disk images :)
RetroManCave: After searching for quite some time along with the help of friends the solution to the right side linearity issue is found: on the original monitor replace capacitor C521 with a 2.2uf 200v Mylar one (original is 470nf). Linearity will not be perfect (it can't be on this monitor) but it will improve so it will not be noticeable in gameplay: i.imgur.com/at52yvQ.png
That 387 really didn't want to go in the socket.
I shall miss Alan.
Yea, I was amused at how it kept popping out!
It was like "Nooooooo, not maths again!" xD
I was screaming at the screen: don’t bend the PCB!!!
I am so glad Alan Sugar accompanied you on all this. He is truly a great help onto these videos.
I've never heard "Packard Bell" and "rock solid" used in the same sentence before.
Yeah, that was clearly a typo.
Packed hell they were known as back when I'd help my father fix computers for friends and family (and sometimes acquaintances who were willing to pay), Packard bell, amstrad, Compaq and others were often difficult due to their frequently proprietary natural in things like bios etc.
Reigns true today as well. HP has the shittiest built computers. I had a $800 2020 Pavilion gaming laptop from them with the display panel installed crooked. The SSD fried itself and so many bits of the cheap plastic housing just broke off in my backpack. Never buying another Hewlett-Packard machine in my life.
Awww thanks for the shoutout Neil ... that machine is looking fantastic now it’s all cleaned up and refurbished!! Always happy to help... that maths co-processor didn’t wanna go home :-)
Do you think you could print a different slider so that it doesn't interfere with the joystick ports? You should ask Neil to loan you the cover to have a quick measure up and see what you can get away with :)
@@Neffers_UK Anything is possible!! :-) We threw this together in a 30 mins and it took 20 mins to print... Given time, we could have done almost anything!!
@@DubiousEngineering Yeah time.. you can grow mushrooms quicker than 3D printing stuff haha, still, it's bloody awesome that it's possible though. I hope you and your wife are doing well, and enjoying the "summer".
I have far too many consoles & computers as it is but if i had the room i could see myself spending plenty of time on this bad boy.
Neil .........
You're hired.
I remember seeing this thing in the news pages of the local computer magazines. The idea of a console in a computer blew my mind.
“Our kettles boil faster”. Had me choking on my tea!! A great video, as always.
Neil, the stock music you choose always goes great with your videos. It never feels like stock music!
Hey. Your videos are absolutely wonderful. Watching your back catalog is one of the highlights of my day. Your channel is the first one I have ever joined. Thanks for the great content, you have made my life just a little bit better.
Thank you Kyle! and welcome to The Cave!
It would have been a nice thing to have, but no way my parents would have forked out that much for it. Great video series, I love the care and attention you give each project.
I’m so pleased with that summary you gave - the Mega-PC may not be a beefy powerhouse but it’s a fantastic little nice machine that you end up adoring. I loved my Mega-PC. I’ll get another one some day.
Always great to have Alan's opinion.
I love your Trash to treasure series. I can not get enough of it. And you learn from it as well.
Thank you Peter, I also learn a lot along the way it's a pleasure to make them
Alan, will you be having Neil on your show again at some point in the future?
Arghhh fly that Falcon 3.0 I want nostalgia to hit my brain and soul ;-)
Tbh this restoration turned up GREAT, I think one of the best restoration projects i've seen in my life. And also one of the most odd hardware as well
I'm really pleased with the effort you've put in to this series. You went way beyond what I was expecting, I thought I went quite far with the MegaPC but you took it to another level. No idea how I'm going to recap mine - far too concerned I'll break a classic.
Can't wait to see what you have upcoming.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, my first PC was a Mega PC, was the sole reason I failed a lot of my GCSE's.
Good times were had though...
A great update video, I love the inputs from Alan. So funny!
watching this video series has been a great journey, thanks for taking us on the ride, and I have laughed at one to many Alan Sugar impressions during this watch through
Literally screaming at my phone saying "It's slow"! Great video series, even here in the states. Thank you. :)
I must admit that 'Tat' has turned out quite nice! God bless you Neil and God bless all the bottles of white vinegar used to store it! ;)
Great video as always. The Trash to Treasure series is probably my favourite of yours :)
Really enjoyed this series, and Alan was an inspired touch. Thanks for sharing!
Im shaking from all the Nostalgia
Have to say this was a really fun trash to treasure, totally enjoyed it. Living in Australia I never saw Amstrads other than the 464 and 6128, i had no idea they made so many different machines. I have to admit though i would have loved owning the Mega PC back then.
I don't think that co-processor will work in the UK as it is not a 'maths' coprocessor , :)
Math is singular if you want maths to be singular, then the plural would be mathss, and no one wants a mathss processor
Minor League Gaming math is short for mathematics not mathematic, so yeah, very much plural and not singular. What i’m getting at is math is not a real thing and only maths is correct and all yanks are always wrong
@@concretecodpiece from Latin, Mathematica, math, singlar
Minor League Gaming en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics
Congratulations on completing it! I´m very impressed.
Great series, thanks for all the work you put into it!
Ahh Gunship 2000.. classic game. I brought that for my very first PC. Fun game. Great video!
Probably one of your best trash to treasure series. Have to admit I'd love to own one of these but for now I just have to settle for a megadrive sat on top of a 386 pc haha. Just out of interest what video RAM did you put into the 386. My own machine has sockets for additional memory and I was wondering if I could get some more performance out of it with an upgrade.
Looking forward to see what you pull down from storage to restore next!
Dig the intro beats! awesome content to boot!
Sir Alan's presence is so imposing, he virtually dominates every scene he's in...
Alan would be proud of the restoration
I personally would love to have one of these Machines. Great ending to a Great Series...
I know you would never do a silly video but I could watch Alan to you talk for 20 minutes. Dude, who is with me?
We need a 486 DX2-66 video next as that was the killer system when the original Doom was released!
I was watching this and when Alan said," I will destroy you" my wife walked in, heard that and left me alone for a bit lol thanks for the work on this tech, and love your content :)
That Alan Sugar voice is so funny. Props
6:22 Sorry, that _Top Gun_ reference went right over my head.
@9:34 I have a 14" multisync CRT monitor from the early 90's which has developed the exact same warping fault. I'm 90% sure they weren't designed that way, so it may be worth testing for bad caps inside the monitor if you intend to use it. The 0.39mm dot-pitch mask on those old monitors was OK for 320x240 Megadrive games, but looks very grainy above 800x600 showing a static desktop.
PS. So is Viglen no longer in business?
3:24 As long as the 3D printer is invovled, I'd lean towards printing a new cover with a cutout for the joypad ports
Cool a new mega pc video or as alan would say "its mega because i made it!"
"our kattles boil faster"
Neil's gags are priceless
I didn't know police quest 3 existed, I spent countless hours on 2! I shall investigate forthwith, thanks!
Nice machine. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for one of those
That was a very satisfying to watch trash to treasure! Great work
If you connect the battery backwards, then Time Trials last forever LOL. Imagine the fun if Alan had used one of his 3" disk drives on this LOL. As for Falcon and a Math co processor, it really helps with the Quake 2 Demo ;-)
Never had one of these, but remember spending days and nights at a friend's place with his 386 :)
Looks fantastic Neil, as you say, arcade classics on one side and then point and clicks on the other, shame it wasn’t a Megadrive Amiga hybrid, the Mega Amiga would’ve been epic
I'd love to stumble across one of these machines. It's the perfect retro combination for me
wow i completly forgot this existed thanks for that blast from the past i would defo one if i could ever find one
Great series 👍👏 and really highlighted a machine I never knew existed. Keep up the good work rmc
What version of Sonic 2 were you playing with the bridge missing?
Edit:
On second look, it seems to be in the wrong place as opposed to missing.
I have been binge watching all your videos recently, and I have to say they are all outstanding mate truly why the hell your not on bb2 God knows, but the quality, attention to detail and your personality are top quality, keep it up mate. P.s looking forward to see what you dig up on ultimate play the game now theirs a story!!!!
Thank you for the kind words Darren! Ultimate have always been quite shy when it comes to media attention but I might have something for you in the coming weeks which is related
Question, is it a PAL or an NTSC board on the MD? if is it a PAL it runs at 50hz (slower) you could do a mod to place a 50/60 Hz switch.
Back when people didn't worry if their PC games ran at less than 300fps. 10-15fps was considered good on most of the systems I used back in the 90's LOL.
You big tease Alan... Yes we would love to see Falcon 3 played on the MagaDrive.
Now I am off to search TH-cam for Falcon 3 played on a 386 with a math coprocessor.
Yet again another fab video Neil. I passed on the Amstrad Mega PC due to cost back in the day and had a Mega Drive and Amiga 1200 with cd drive . I do like the idea of The Mega Drive and pc in one case but sadly came to market late in 1993. With the rise of the IBM pc and the 486 dx cpu then the Pentium cpu and the rise of 3d graphics cards but I have to admit love to have own one. Neil I look forward to your next Trash to Treasure somethink in line of sinclair
Nice job! Congratulations...
Nice work on this, it came out great. I think if this was available over here in the US I probably would have passed but I would have thought it was cool.
Great script. Very funny with all the references.
Hi Neil. I have a machine (Atari 400) that I would like to donate to your trash to treasure series. How to contact you?
Beautiful machine! I'm sure this restoration would make Alan proud lol
Pride is not one of Alan Sugar's vices.
First time "Packard Bell" and "rock solid" have been used together! ;-)
In response to your "would want to own one" question, no. Do I like the idea? Yes absofreakinglutly. It's just a shame it wasn't as affordable. You were getting a sub par PC with wonky useability, not to mention the MD was a cheap to buy console back then even if bundled with a 2nd hand TV from the freeads at the time.
Still, it was very entertaining content Neil, the pleasure of restoration was enjoyed in a cathartic way, and I'm really pleased with the way it turned out in the end. I really enjoy your content. Please continue sir.
Great video!! A funny way to get interested in amstrad. Hope to put a amstrad to my collection soon. Love the channel!
Always love watching a new RMC video! :D
Another great video a pleasure to watch you mentioned you may up load images of the software that came with the Pc as I like to get a copy of it
I always wanted one of these as a child and when my dad replaced our Amstrad PC8086 I tried tried to convince him to buy one but he got a custom built 486 instead. In retrospect it was a good decision as it meant he got a much better PC, I got a Mega Drive, and we could each use them at the same time haha.
Don't think I didn't notice. That arcade joystick in the opening promo had a raspberry pi built in to it! RetroPi I'll bet. I built one like that a few years ago.
He normally says level up your rpi, not sure why he changed it this time
Another great video roll on the next trash to treasure.
I recall spending countless hours playing Gunship 2000, first on my 386 then later on my super speedy 486. After school and in the summertime with friends. Good times.
Great vid, cool tune :)
I love the Alan stuff.
you can try Retro City 486 . the minimum system requirements are 386SX with 387 :)
So, fun story; when I was a kid my Dad gave me and my older brother a choice between a MegaPC and an Amiga 1200 to replace our old and aging Amiga 500. I wanted the MegaPC because Megadrive, but my brother wanted the A1200 so he could carry on playing his football games (anyone else remember Sensible Soccer or Championship Manager?!). I was always a little bit gutted that he got his way, but having watched this series of videos I can kind of see that my Dad made the right decision.
A friend of mine had this PC and I can confirm they mostly used it for adventure games, but it would play Falcon 3.0 quite well even with out a co-processor.
this is Cool :-) I always wanted one of these. and Yay for the Shout out for PhilsComputerLab he is another Favourite of Mine :-)
We have 240 volt power in the U.S.,we just don't know how to use it. We have a British kettle in our kitchen. It shares a circuit with the water heater and draws almost as much power.
Damnit....well....well.....well......we have..........let me get back to you on this
On the big box games, Indeed!
I had one of these. If only the PC was slightly higher spec'ed it would have been a smash hit.
Obviously Alan's nickname would be Sugar Glider...
I use a multisync monitor on my Windows XP computer. A HP vs17 although it has a weird ratio of 5:4 it was designed to display both 4:3 and 16:9 images. It pretty easy to find online so I wonder if this would be a good replacement monitor for the Mega PC and maybe some others?
Wow, amazing classic machine and very good work :)
you have way too many machines : ) also pity that alan.. i mean lord sir sugar (lol) didn't get a chance to say goodbye.. xD
This is amazing. I’d love this! I wonder if “Nocturne” would work?
How does the MD games sound like? Does the system come with the better, early-era sound system or the inferior ones, mostly found in MD2 models?
Can't wait for the next trash to treasure, did you ever do anything more with the workstation you restored? The IT nerd in me is very curious indeed
The VAX Station? That was way back when I had no storage space, and it was one I bought (not donated). I sold it to a programmer who wanted to code on it, which I thought was a very suitable home for it, so I no longer have it
Oh yeah! Like number 100 heheh! Great conclusion to the series mate! Enjoyed every bit of it.
Don't quote me on that, but I have memories of my 386DX having a co-processor socket.
The difference between SX and DX (in 386s) was bus witdh.
I think the co-processor went into the DX with 486s
That's right, people often confuse the two but SX and DX meant different things on 386 (bus width) and 486 (maths copro)
Someone make a 10 hour loop of that math coprocessor not clicking into the socket.
What surprised me was Amstrad didn't make a Mega Drive card for other PCs after this didn't do so well, if it was sold in a bundle with a controller but no game for the same price as a Mega Drive with a pack-in game it would have been a far more sucessful venture and would likely not hurt the Mega Drive sales.
I'd like to have seen that with the cart slot on the 5.25" bay. A bit like the 3DO Blaster card
I would love to add one to my collection!
whaaaaat that amstrad controller is a exact copy of the one on my dos machine it uses a regular soundcard gameport does the amstrad one have the same connector ? im looking for these controllers for sooo long are the sliders / linear portentiometers are the same crappy ones that dont stay put whitout ducktape ? u sir just made my day /me*storm´s off to ebay*
Am I the only person who is filled with anxiety when someone repeatedly pushes down on a board and it flexes?
Hehe no you're not, I was too when I was editing this, even though I knew it would turn out OK!
That Amstrad CRT is due for a re-cap -- geometry weirdness is frequently fixed by doing this. Maybe a topic for an upcoming video...
LOL !!!! laughing at the Kenny Loggins song!!! ;-)
"Our kettles boil faster so who's laughing now?" We mostly don't use kettles. Coffee is our hot brown of choice, not tea. :P
Alas, how does one fill a cafetiere without a kettle?
@@RMCRetro They're not terribly common either. I had to actually look up the term :P