For me it still is, I mean, especially if its going to replace my current gaming PC or fill a niche I wanna use something for (like a media PC or a as a spare computer/NAS thingy)
The only new computer I've got was a netbook in 2009, everything else I've got used. To me the last time getting a new (used) computer felt like a big thing was in 2013 when I upgraded from a Core2 Duo E6300, Intel GMA 3000, WinXP system to a 4c/8t i7-920, Quadro FX 1800 (which I upgraded to a GTX 660 half a year later) and Windows 7. That was the first time I had a PC which was capable of running modern games. While my current main PC (X5670 6c/12t @ 4.4GHz, 24GB RAM, GTX 1080) isn't a fast system by todays standards upgrading from it wouldn't be anywhere near as big as upgrading from the C2D to X58 was back in the day. I have built more powerful systems for people (i5-12400F + RX 6700 and R5 5600 + RTX 3060) but the difference to my system didn't felt anywhere near big enough to even justify spending that much money to upgrade mine. I think I'll stay on X58 for few more years
It still is, computers are spendy. Mind you, whenever I get given a new dev laptop at work it's not so much "Ooh new bundle of power" it's "hello, next victim..."
I grew up in the 2000s but weirdly enough seeing those bundles of CDs bought back a lot of memories of getting a computer in the early 2000s (Some Time branded PC). Felt like a world of opportunities.
Having worked 12,5 years at Dixons in the Netherlands (growing from parttime help to store manager), seeing that logo always brings a bit of a tear to my eye. They went bankrupt in 2014 and was sold off for parts basically.
@RetroManCave These Trash-to-Treasure series video are one of the reasons I keep coming back. Thank You for the fun adventures! Please continue doing them!
Commented on the previous video but if you want the skinny microphone look for a 'Telex PC Microphone' it's the company who manufactured the microphone for Packard Bell. I think their 'M40' model has the same shape as the one that came with the PC, I tried looking for my Packard Bell microphone but couldn't find it.
When I was a kid my step-grandmother (married my mom's father) had the first PC, I believe it was an HP, that I ever really touched. It had the Encarta software, and there's something burned into my mind about this ENCYCLOPEDIA on a computer. To a small child with a deep curiosity and drive to learn, I loved going on it and just clicking on the multimedia pictures, or listening to the low-quality sounds of animals. It's just such a core memory for me, that even though I played video games like Diablo, WarCraft, Deus Ex, and more on PC, the thing that makes me immediately remember early 90s PC use is grainy Encarta images and midi files of frogs croaking.
So I've got a weird recommendation Neil - Encarta is PERFECT, but I think you should have an unboxed/open version there so people can look at the manual while they give the program a go. If I remember correctly the Encarta manual was a big thing that you consulted while using it, so that would be a big part of the nostalgia.
My family got one in 1994 that was a bit stripped down from this one, but it did include an offline CD-ROM based "multimedia" encyclopedia of animals where the main draw was 144 (maybe 200 something) video of exotic creatures. Also, some obscure Jurassic Park game. Arrived w/ a dead soundcard, which took months to get replaced. No modem, but did have a printer. Total in 1994: $2,500.
In 1996 I would have been mesmerised by watching the multimedia on the Packard Bell. Echo The Dolphin would have had me captivated for hours, not to mention all the other things. It's an excellent home PC and the styling is very attractive as well. I like the idea of networking all the PCs. Leave it reasonably stock I say. 😊👍
Thank you SO much for this series! My first ever not just PC but computer was the 75MHz version of this PB. That 'for kids' GUI/shell you showed sure did give me a good and proper nostalgia-smack. Prodigy, Encarta 97, 3D Body, etc. are what I remember most from the US bundled bloat. The pièce de résistance was beating Myst on this thing...which was so hard for me as a kid. Recently re-played it and it only took a couple of hours, if that haha. Time is a trip. Thanks again for taking the time to lovingly restore what to a lot of people is trash but what is certainly a treasure to me. Cheers Neil!
Supporting these when I worked for PC World, the restore CDs were the cause of, and the solution to most Packard Bell problems. I seem to remember replacements being surprisingly expensive.
Awesome nostalgia trip, we had a slightly earlier version of this PC (Pentium 75, 8 whole megabytes of RAM, no modem) when I finally persuaded my parents that the world was leaving my beloved A500+ behind. Brutally underpowered and shockingly overpriced to be sure, but the skills and enthusiasm I started cultivating on that machine still puts food on my table today almost 30 years later, so I've got nothing but fondness for this kind of machine.
These pizza box pentiums have actually became my favorite. Small, compact, enough horse power to run any dos game and early windows games. ISA slots for old sound cards, PCI slots for new graphics adapters. They were originally for business but now days make fantastic retro gaming rigs.
My wife had a multimedia Packard Bell setup back in the day. We both still miss the excellent Packard Bell Navigator software included with it. It made harnessing the power and capabilities of the PC really fun and easy.
Beautiful work, love these Packard Bells! The days of pack in software enticing you in to buy new computers in Computer Shopper magazine and the like - those were the days!
The first PC my family got as a kid was one of those 486 (66Mhz) all in one Compacs. Looked exactly like that one. Either I or my parents still got it stored somewhere, we added a 10mbit network card to it as well. What a great machine that was. So many memories that are brought up by this series. Keep up the good work!
I got chill seeing the whole thing set up on a desk. It looks _exactly_ like the one I had in junior high school. I spent _so many_ hours sitting in front of that computer. Such nostalgia. I wish it were mine. I would never be able to afford to source all this stuff. Thanks for making these videos. I can at least see it again. I got another chill when you mentioned trying to network all these computers together. Well, it was more of a shudder than chill. Oh, the nightmares and horrors of trying to do networking in Windows period, much less very old Windows.
Great content! I just finished the series, found a lot of info here that I couldn't find anywhere else. And the timing... it's just out of the ordinary. Right about at the time of the release of this episode (without me knowing the existence of this channel) I acquired a complete Packard Bell Executive Multi-Media system.
Got my first family PC back in 94. Was a Compaq Presario which had a case identical to that Presario at 20:09 in the video. It was a 486 66mhz, 4mb RAM later upgraded to 16MB RAM, 200 ish MB hard drive, 2x cd rom. Had it for years and absolutely loved it. Wing Commander III & IV, Tex Murphy adventure games, Descent, so many classics. I miss the 90's.
Seeing those voodoo boxes sparks a sense if childlike joy in me, I remember seeing them on the shelf in the typically brown computer store we used. I was unaware that the graphics card we had was much newer and more powerful, the packaging made those things look genuinely badass. I would also would later realise that having a graphics card means nothing if you plug the monitor into the on board graphics. Not something I learned until many many years later...
Those packard bell execution sounds brought back some memories, ours was a later model though, but remember it having a similar box of software and the missing red boot floppy disk.
I didn't see one. But you need an Amstrad PC 1512 in there too. Anyone in the late 80's to very early 90's who did any sort of computer course almost certainly did it on an Amstrad PC 1512 or the PC 1640
Your video brings back many memories and frustrations; for I had a Packard Bell tower that I bought December 1997. The computer case was a very unique tower design shaped like an Art Deco skyscraper, with a broad base and a tall slim section that rose above, containing the CD player and floppy. The computer used fantastically expensive EDO-RAM that had to be installed as precisely matched pairs - the cost of maximizing the memory to 128mb was a staggering 1,400 dollars in 1998! I did have a mediocre matching monitor with speakers attached to the sides, a rather fragile looking microphone, and a keyboard with a few dedicated buttons. The computer had a restore disk that was maddening to deploy for 9 times out of 10 the restore program failed to boot. The computer developed a weird issue with the main IDE interface that caused the PC to take 15 minutes to cold boot - but I still had a lot of fun, actually installing Windows 2000 on it and then using it for five years as a server for my home network and it did not once crash despite leaving it on 24/7.
I had a Packared Bell just like that. I loved and still love the waved design asthetic. I also love the way the speekers mounted on the monitor and were designed to to so. I truely miss this age of computing. So much excitement. Thesedays computing just dosent seem as exciting.
I've loved watching this series, so many memories. My first pc was a Packard Bell in the mid 90's. It was an all in one that wasn't really an all in one. It had many of the characteristics of this one but the crt and pc were in one case, as an all in one would be, but they were separate. It had speakers like that on the side amd came with the sane mic. it had a Packard Bell media player that mimicked a midi hifi of the time. Pretty sure it was a 486 of some sort.
This was my first own computer in 1995 with a pentium 120. I remember all the funky software that came with it :) It came with 1mb graphics card memory that I could upgrade to 2mb. My favorite game was Mechwarrior 2. thank you for sharing this
This series does bring back a lot of 90's memories for me, as in high school I took computer network technologies, and we cut our teeth working on so many Packard Bell systems. 👍
Thanks for rebuilding this. Loved watching. That's a really cool feature with the analog phone. This was honestly the golden era for computers. There was so much creativity and new features. Nowadays it's all the same thing, nothing new or creative
Wow, you brought back some memories! I remembered owning Civnet, but also remembered seeing the advisors with funny videos, which was only in Civ 2, so now I know how I played it. The Batman & Robin Cartoon Maker and Magix Music Maker were amazing. And even though the PC was new, I remember that we had to upgrade the RAM to play FIFA 97.
I remember as a teen in the Pentium era, when a Packard Bell salesman came to our house and setup a PC to demo for us. It was a pretty cheesy sales pitch, and we ended up buying a custom built instead from computer salesmen who also visited us at home. Weird times lol.
Thanks for this series! The first PC my family had was a desktop Packard Bell and I have very fond memories of cutting my teeth on that. The Cave keeps getting better, wish I was in a position to visit. Keep it up!
i've enjoyed this series a lot, computers like this one might be boring to some but to me my very first computer was a packard bell just like this one. that machine even introduced me to the world of computers i have vivid memories playing dos and windows 95 games on it hell i even experienced dial up internet and made a geocities site on it. that crt monitor with the terrible speakers that clip onto the sides is instant nostalgia to me lol
I had a similar remote back in the day, you should be able to see the remote codes coming in over the serial port with something like hyperterminal, if you don’t get codes it could be your remote or your receiver, you can try other IR based remotes with your receiver to half split the problem.
I absolutely loved this series and it's one I can relate to, with a very similar Packard Bell replacing our Amiga. We didn't have many games for it beyond the bundled titles, but it didn't matter! This is the machine I learnt much of what I know today on and it grew with me, adding more memory, a second hard drive, a scanner and eventually a dial-up modem. For me games paled in comparison to the rich world of multimedia that could be explored on these systems, and as my first stepping stone to the Internet it holds a place in my heart that far outweighs it's modest hardware.
Oh my, I think my parents bought this exact model with the printer for me many many years ago (obviously). It was my first step up from the 386 I was using before!
Neil, you can point the remote into a phone camera in low light to establish if the remote is actually transmitting IR. This might help narrow down where the problem lies. 😊
Total great series loved it... It brought back memories of my younger days jumping on my mothers office work computer which was this Packard Bell it was the first PC in the department.. great times.
I don't know if you have water pipes or a heater or anything around, but since you are doing a museum, something to think about is getting risers for any PC that's on the floor. For a school I worked for we picked up cheap little PC tower caddies with casters on them for around $20. Water leaks hopefully never occur, and if they do, ideally MANY years apart.. but none of the less with hard to replace hardware.. Risers are a nice and easy thing to protect the equipment! Many of the "Caddy" items are larger and may impede on the look of the tower, but most PC tower "Riser" labeled products are more like simple stands and may look better and be less obtrusive.
That microsoft Sidewinder FFB 2 joystick... ahhh.... so many memories. I've bought it back in 2004 and it cost me a small fortune at the time. But it was worth every penny. I still use it and it still works very very well!
I cut my computer teeth on a friends Packard Bell he got for christmas. Our minds were blown to see actual video on a PC in the form of a mime in the introduction, we would scour Grolier's Encyclopedia for any video clips. CD-ROM was new to the world and all was great.
Even if its just your typicl beige box computer of the 90's its nice to see this old machine cleaned up and brought back to life. ALSO if they made a USB version of that media key thingy, I'd love having it under my current monitor for all the buttons.
This does bring back a lot of memories for me, this was my first PC as a kid. I had a P150 MMX with 16mb of RAM but surfing the web on my 56k in my bedroom was unbelievable at the time. I still have some of those pack in CDs, mine came with Comix Zone for the PC and a few other classics. Threw the computer in a skip about 10 years ago...
I remember those Packard Bell's being available new from Dixons. They always felt different to other PCs, but not in a good way. Somehow less flexible; less open. Worked just the same but they didn't feel like machines you could mess around with. Seemed like they were meant for people who weren't hobbyists.
Man this is a huge nestalgia hit for me. I remember our first computer. It was a packard bell. Man it was garbage lol at the time i thought it was the most amazing thing in existance, but it was outdated in the blink of an eye. I remember the mic that came with ours was rediculously sensitive. I used to play arouns with wave recorder recording things, slowing them down, speeding them up, and playing them backwards. One time i was recording dead silence and i saw sound waves displayed like it recorded something. I knew it was silence so i played it back and i heard an alarm clock alarm playing in the recording. I thought it was odd so i walked through the house and found my parents alarm clock was going off in their room all the way across the house and their door was closed. I couldnt even hear it till i opened their bedroom door.
That was pretty much my exact first computer. Also as far as the mic goes, a tin can and a string would have been an improvement. I never knew about the remote.
I have wonderful memories of my family’s Packard Bell. It was from 1996 and the same style as this one. I remember the sound-card/modem combo had surprisingly good SoundBlaster compatibility in both DOS and Windows games and had a nice sounding wave table. It came with a restore CD that included Windows 95 on it, but it did not come with a standard Microsoft Windows CD.
I've seen another comment here saying the Windows disc came with the system. I was surprised. A friend got a PBell when XP was first released (I helped him set it up) and that didn't have a WinXP disc. I can't recall exactly how it worked but I have a vague memory that the hard drive included some sort of shadow partition of XP. Then, using a floppy, you could make a backup CD (or CDs?) of XP by following a program on the floppy. Archaic!
Loved all the parts getting this pc back up and running Neil. So wanted a pc back in the day just way out of my price range . Finally got one I think early 2000s made from second hand parts I managed to beg , borrow steal from friends upgrading bits The pc room looks amazing. Voodoo 2 s and sidewinder so many memories
I'm not sure what sort of brand cachet that PB's had in the UK, but across the pond in the states, they were always known to be bargain basement specials. I sold PB's stateside in the late 90's (using the design language of the unit that you have in the video), and it wasn't uncommon to find two examples of the same SKU using vastly different parts. It was speculated at the time that this was not a manufacturer error, but rather just extreme cost cutting. We once found a case wherein there were four examples of the same SKU, and they all had different optical drives. Same thing discovered on the modems which were either a riser board or ISA slot type (PCI on later models). While a similar model from Compaq would almost always use the same model parts for a entire run of a given SKU. The net result of this is that sometimes the machines didn't work 100% out of the box... this was not a case of bad components per sé, but rather it was almost always a driver issue that the customer buying the computer couldn't easily resolve on their own. PB's tech support was crap too - waits of 2-3 hours on hold were common, so most people brought the units back to the store, and then when we told them that we could get the unit working, but would take 1-2 hours of paid labor. This caused many returns. Glad you were able to get yours going.
Buying a new computer was a big event in the 80's and 90's. So many memories.
For me it still is, I mean, especially if its going to replace my current gaming PC or fill a niche I wanna use something for (like a media PC or a as a spare computer/NAS thingy)
The only new computer I've got was a netbook in 2009, everything else I've got used. To me the last time getting a new (used) computer felt like a big thing was in 2013 when I upgraded from a Core2 Duo E6300, Intel GMA 3000, WinXP system to a 4c/8t i7-920, Quadro FX 1800 (which I upgraded to a GTX 660 half a year later) and Windows 7. That was the first time I had a PC which was capable of running modern games.
While my current main PC (X5670 6c/12t @ 4.4GHz, 24GB RAM, GTX 1080) isn't a fast system by todays standards upgrading from it wouldn't be anywhere near as big as upgrading from the C2D to X58 was back in the day.
I have built more powerful systems for people (i5-12400F + RX 6700 and R5 5600 + RTX 3060) but the difference to my system didn't felt anywhere near big enough to even justify spending that much money to upgrade mine. I think I'll stay on X58 for few more years
I feel like my dad went computer shopping every weekend for a solid 12 months before he pulled the trigger on our first PC in 1992 😂
It still is, computers are spendy.
Mind you, whenever I get given a new dev laptop at work it's not so much "Ooh new bundle of power" it's "hello, next victim..."
I grew up in the 2000s but weirdly enough seeing those bundles of CDs bought back a lot of memories of getting a computer in the early 2000s (Some Time branded PC). Felt like a world of opportunities.
That karaoke app will become a HIT of The Cave for sure!
Came for the Packard Bell...stayed for the singing!
Having worked 12,5 years at Dixons in the Netherlands (growing from parttime help to store manager), seeing that logo always brings a bit of a tear to my eye. They went bankrupt in 2014 and was sold off for parts basically.
That hand rub when you add echo to the microphone recording... chef kiss
Got my first PC with a 120 MHz CPU back in 96, so this brings back memories! :)
have to admit, I have loved this series, brings back so many memories of the early 1990's
did your Pacard bell computer go to heaven or hell??
@@raven4k998 kind of a personal question, no? haha
@RetroManCave
These Trash-to-Treasure series video are one of the reasons I keep coming back. Thank You for the fun adventures! Please continue doing them!
Laughed really hard at the karaoke bit at the end there 😂 Neil, you're a delight!
Makes you want to restore one of these things just to sing along to karaoke! Haha!
Commented on the previous video but if you want the skinny microphone look for a 'Telex PC Microphone' it's the company who manufactured the microphone for Packard Bell. I think their 'M40' model has the same shape as the one that came with the PC, I tried looking for my Packard Bell microphone but couldn't find it.
That looks like a nice streamer setup. It has the mic, it has the "stream deck" and remote. :)
When I was a kid my step-grandmother (married my mom's father) had the first PC, I believe it was an HP, that I ever really touched. It had the Encarta software, and there's something burned into my mind about this ENCYCLOPEDIA on a computer. To a small child with a deep curiosity and drive to learn, I loved going on it and just clicking on the multimedia pictures, or listening to the low-quality sounds of animals.
It's just such a core memory for me, that even though I played video games like Diablo, WarCraft, Deus Ex, and more on PC, the thing that makes me immediately remember early 90s PC use is grainy Encarta images and midi files of frogs croaking.
You and the team should get an MBE order for the hard work in preserving retro legacy. I will visit the mill as soon as possible. Have a great summer.
One man's Packard Bell is another man's Packard Hell!
So I've got a weird recommendation Neil - Encarta is PERFECT, but I think you should have an unboxed/open version there so people can look at the manual while they give the program a go. If I remember correctly the Encarta manual was a big thing that you consulted while using it, so that would be a big part of the nostalgia.
red windows 95 brings back memory's🤣🤣🤣
Love your channel and I love your cave! You are a terrific host!
Thank you Bob
My family got one in 1994 that was a bit stripped down from this one, but it did include an offline CD-ROM based "multimedia" encyclopedia of animals where the main draw was 144 (maybe 200 something) video of exotic creatures.
Also, some obscure Jurassic Park game. Arrived w/ a dead soundcard, which took months to get replaced.
No modem, but did have a printer.
Total in 1994: $2,500.
In 1996 I would have been mesmerised by watching the multimedia on the Packard Bell. Echo The Dolphin would have had me captivated for hours, not to mention all the other things. It's an excellent home PC and the styling is very attractive as well. I like the idea of networking all the PCs. Leave it reasonably stock I say. 😊👍
Thank you SO much for this series! My first ever not just PC but computer was the 75MHz version of this PB. That 'for kids' GUI/shell you showed sure did give me a good and proper nostalgia-smack. Prodigy, Encarta 97, 3D Body, etc. are what I remember most from the US bundled bloat. The pièce de résistance was beating Myst on this thing...which was so hard for me as a kid. Recently re-played it and it only took a couple of hours, if that haha. Time is a trip.
Thanks again for taking the time to lovingly restore what to a lot of people is trash but what is certainly a treasure to me. Cheers Neil!
Packard Bells of this era were just so beautiful.
On the outside.
I used to repair these things at component level.
I'm glad they're history.
Supporting these when I worked for PC World, the restore CDs were the cause of, and the solution to most Packard Bell problems. I seem to remember replacements being surprisingly expensive.
90's beige PCs have always looked smart to me, I'd love the style to make a comeback.
Awesome nostalgia trip, we had a slightly earlier version of this PC (Pentium 75, 8 whole megabytes of RAM, no modem) when I finally persuaded my parents that the world was leaving my beloved A500+ behind. Brutally underpowered and shockingly overpriced to be sure, but the skills and enthusiasm I started cultivating on that machine still puts food on my table today almost 30 years later, so I've got nothing but fondness for this kind of machine.
These pizza box pentiums have actually became my favorite. Small, compact, enough horse power to run any dos game and early windows games. ISA slots for old sound cards, PCI slots for new graphics adapters. They were originally for business but now days make fantastic retro gaming rigs.
I love the way you have all of the PC compatibles together.
My wife had a multimedia Packard Bell setup back in the day. We both still miss the excellent Packard Bell Navigator software included with it. It made harnessing the power and capabilities of the PC really fun and easy.
Beautiful work, love these Packard Bells! The days of pack in software enticing you in to buy new computers in Computer Shopper magazine and the like - those were the days!
I miss working at Packard Bell. That was a fun place to work.
That recording has a very 'dystopian Packard Bell controlled future'-vibe to it.
The first PC my family got as a kid was one of those 486 (66Mhz) all in one Compacs. Looked exactly like that one. Either I or my parents still got it stored somewhere, we added a 10mbit network card to it as well. What a great machine that was. So many memories that are brought up by this series. Keep up the good work!
So good to see the final package all together. Great work as always.
I got chill seeing the whole thing set up on a desk. It looks _exactly_ like the one I had in junior high school. I spent _so many_ hours sitting in front of that computer. Such nostalgia. I wish it were mine. I would never be able to afford to source all this stuff. Thanks for making these videos. I can at least see it again.
I got another chill when you mentioned trying to network all these computers together. Well, it was more of a shudder than chill. Oh, the nightmares and horrors of trying to do networking in Windows period, much less very old Windows.
Great content! I just finished the series, found a lot of info here that I couldn't find anywhere else.
And the timing... it's just out of the ordinary. Right about at the time of the release of this episode (without me knowing the existence of this channel) I acquired a complete Packard Bell Executive Multi-Media system.
It really was the whole package back then!
I'd been looking for that yellow box of software for ages! Lovely to see one find its way to the Cave.
My 19 month old would love that Old Macdonald karaoke program! 😂
I love Comix Zone; I had no idea it had a Win95 port, but finding out it did makes a whole lot of sense.
Got my first family PC back in 94. Was a Compaq Presario which had a case identical to that Presario at 20:09 in the video. It was a 486 66mhz, 4mb RAM later upgraded to 16MB RAM, 200 ish MB hard drive, 2x cd rom. Had it for years and absolutely loved it. Wing Commander III & IV, Tex Murphy adventure games, Descent, so many classics. I miss the 90's.
Would love an episode on everyone’s favourite X-Copy.
You can test the IR remote by pointing it at your phone camera and pressing a button. The phone camera will show the light flashing if it's working.
I won’t give up on it, thanks for the tip
@@RMCRetro I don't recall seeing you put any batteries in it!
Some cameras filter out IR, so you’d have to find one that doesn’t.
@@jamesdecross1035That was my first thought as well!
Honestly... I just love how you say Packard Bell ..
So many warm memories. Thank you 🙏
Another wonderful restoration. Nostalgia overload
red windows brings back memory's yay I can make it red ok back the grey red looks bad🤣🤣🤣
Seeing those voodoo boxes sparks a sense if childlike joy in me, I remember seeing them on the shelf in the typically brown computer store we used.
I was unaware that the graphics card we had was much newer and more powerful, the packaging made those things look genuinely badass.
I would also would later realise that having a graphics card means nothing if you plug the monitor into the on board graphics. Not something I learned until many many years later...
Those packard bell execution sounds brought back some memories, ours was a later model though, but remember it having a similar box of software and the missing red boot floppy disk.
I didn't see one.
But you need an Amstrad PC 1512 in there too.
Anyone in the late 80's to very early 90's who did any sort of computer course almost certainly did it on an Amstrad PC 1512 or the PC 1640
Yes! I have one in the store room maybe we can find room to have that out
I've really loved this series. We had a Quantex but my neihgbor had a Packard Bell of this vintage.
Your video brings back many memories and frustrations; for I had a Packard Bell tower that I bought December 1997. The computer case was a very unique tower design shaped like an Art Deco skyscraper, with a broad base and a tall slim section that rose above, containing the CD player and floppy. The computer used fantastically expensive EDO-RAM that had to be installed as precisely matched pairs - the cost of maximizing the memory to 128mb was a staggering 1,400 dollars in 1998! I did have a mediocre matching monitor with speakers attached to the sides, a rather fragile looking microphone, and a keyboard with a few dedicated buttons. The computer had a restore disk that was maddening to deploy for 9 times out of 10 the restore program failed to boot. The computer developed a weird issue with the main IDE interface that caused the PC to take 15 minutes to cold boot - but I still had a lot of fun, actually installing Windows 2000 on it and then using it for five years as a server for my home network and it did not once crash despite leaving it on 24/7.
I had a Packared Bell just like that. I loved and still love the waved design asthetic. I also love the way the speekers mounted on the monitor and were designed to to so. I truely miss this age of computing. So much excitement. Thesedays computing just dosent seem as exciting.
I've loved watching this series, so many memories. My first pc was a Packard Bell in the mid 90's. It was an all in one that wasn't really an all in one. It had many of the characteristics of this one but the crt and pc were in one case, as an all in one would be, but they were separate. It had speakers like that on the side amd came with the sane mic. it had a Packard Bell media player that mimicked a midi hifi of the time. Pretty sure it was a 486 of some sort.
Brings back so many memories. I had that exact same cd collection.
This was my first own computer in 1995 with a pentium 120. I remember all the funky software that came with it :) It came with 1mb graphics card memory that I could upgrade to 2mb. My favorite game was Mechwarrior 2.
thank you for sharing this
Looks great and wow you definitely have a chance at winning The Voice
This series does bring back a lot of 90's memories for me, as in high school I took computer network technologies, and we cut our teeth working on so many Packard Bell systems. 👍
I had a Packard Bell just like that, loved it.
You NAILED IT for nostalgia hit... it's a GREAT start!
pc room looks great, loved the nostalgia boxed goodies esp the sidewinder2
Ah, the memories... this deserves multiple "Likes"!
Great video! As an aside, that Compaq 486 All-In-One is the PC I've been hunting for years. 😂
Thanks for rebuilding this. Loved watching. That's a really cool feature with the analog phone. This was honestly the golden era for computers. There was so much creativity and new features. Nowadays it's all the same thing, nothing new or creative
Unreal Tournament - Facing worlds! Fantastic level :)
"i'm not sure how long 20 hours' free internet access would last me these days"
20 hours
Wow, you brought back some memories! I remembered owning Civnet, but also remembered seeing the advisors with funny videos, which was only in Civ 2, so now I know how I played it. The Batman & Robin Cartoon Maker and Magix Music Maker were amazing.
And even though the PC was new, I remember that we had to upgrade the RAM to play FIFA 97.
I remember as a teen in the Pentium era, when a Packard Bell salesman came to our house and setup a PC to demo for us. It was a pretty cheesy sales pitch, and we ended up buying a custom built instead from computer salesmen who also visited us at home. Weird times lol.
Thanks for this series! The first PC my family had was a desktop Packard Bell and I have very fond memories of cutting my teeth on that. The Cave keeps getting better, wish I was in a position to visit. Keep it up!
i've enjoyed this series a lot, computers like this one might be boring to some but to me my very first computer was a packard bell just like this one. that machine even introduced me to the world of computers i have vivid memories playing dos and windows 95 games on it hell i even experienced dial up internet and made a geocities site on it. that crt monitor with the terrible speakers that clip onto the sides is instant nostalgia to me lol
I had a similar remote back in the day, you should be able to see the remote codes coming in over the serial port with something like hyperterminal, if you don’t get codes it could be your remote or your receiver, you can try other IR based remotes with your receiver to half split the problem.
Soft-spot for PB machines; met the wife on AOL Chat, both of us using PB machines. Constantly having to rebuild the damn things, but good times.
I absolutely loved this series and it's one I can relate to, with a very similar Packard Bell replacing our Amiga. We didn't have many games for it beyond the bundled titles, but it didn't matter! This is the machine I learnt much of what I know today on and it grew with me, adding more memory, a second hard drive, a scanner and eventually a dial-up modem. For me games paled in comparison to the rich world of multimedia that could be explored on these systems, and as my first stepping stone to the Internet it holds a place in my heart that far outweighs it's modest hardware.
Oh my, I think my parents bought this exact model with the printer for me many many years ago (obviously). It was my first step up from the 386 I was using before!
What a nice setup!
Neil, you can point the remote into a phone camera in low light to establish if the remote is actually transmitting IR. This might help narrow down where the problem lies. 😊
Edit:just spotted someone else has posted the same suggestion 😅
Total great series loved it... It brought back memories of my younger days jumping on my mothers office work computer which was this Packard Bell it was the first PC in the department.. great times.
Love the ending!
My first computer was a Packard bell.
Great video! Not bored for a second! I love the setup btw with all the software on the shelves.
Nice. I love the new "PC corner", too!
So cool, love the progress you've made.
My first computer was this chassis. P100, 8mb RAM, 1GB HDD. Couldn't ask for more back then.
I don't know if you have water pipes or a heater or anything around, but since you are doing a museum, something to think about is getting risers for any PC that's on the floor. For a school I worked for we picked up cheap little PC tower caddies with casters on them for around $20. Water leaks hopefully never occur, and if they do, ideally MANY years apart.. but none of the less with hard to replace hardware.. Risers are a nice and easy thing to protect the equipment! Many of the "Caddy" items are larger and may impede on the look of the tower, but most PC tower "Riser" labeled products are more like simple stands and may look better and be less obtrusive.
That microsoft Sidewinder FFB 2 joystick... ahhh.... so many memories. I've bought it back in 2004 and it cost me a small fortune at the time. But it was worth every penny. I still use it and it still works very very well!
I worked in the factory in Angers on these models when I.was à student. Haha it was something the smell there of fresh components packed
I cut my computer teeth on a friends Packard Bell he got for christmas. Our minds were blown to see actual video on a PC in the form of a mime in the introduction, we would scour Grolier's Encyclopedia for any video clips. CD-ROM was new to the world and all was great.
Even if its just your typicl beige box computer of the 90's its nice to see this old machine cleaned up and brought back to life.
ALSO if they made a USB version of that media key thingy, I'd love having it under my current monitor for all the buttons.
This does bring back a lot of memories for me, this was my first PC as a kid. I had a P150 MMX with 16mb of RAM but surfing the web on my 56k in my bedroom was unbelievable at the time. I still have some of those pack in CDs, mine came with Comix Zone for the PC and a few other classics. Threw the computer in a skip about 10 years ago...
I remember those Packard Bell's being available new from Dixons. They always felt different to other PCs, but not in a good way. Somehow less flexible; less open. Worked just the same but they didn't feel like machines you could mess around with. Seemed like they were meant for people who weren't hobbyists.
They felt kind of like a poor man's Olivetti, if anyone can remember those...
I have memories of this computer and I'm glad to see it finally take its rightful place in the cave.
Yup, we had this exact Packard Bell back in the day. Good to see it take it's rightful place in the cave !
Excellent PC corner you worked hard to get the relic Packard Bell running thank you for the sharing. Cheers
OMG, we had that printer with the Packard bell we had as a kid.
What an amazing Packard Bell setup
wow, packard bell was my first pc in 1996 probably, i am from Russia) i remeber one of taht cds and OS with rooms and skiing game
Man this is a huge nestalgia hit for me. I remember our first computer. It was a packard bell. Man it was garbage lol at the time i thought it was the most amazing thing in existance, but it was outdated in the blink of an eye. I remember the mic that came with ours was rediculously sensitive. I used to play arouns with wave recorder recording things, slowing them down, speeding them up, and playing them backwards. One time i was recording dead silence and i saw sound waves displayed like it recorded something. I knew it was silence so i played it back and i heard an alarm clock alarm playing in the recording. I thought it was odd so i walked through the house and found my parents alarm clock was going off in their room all the way across the house and their door was closed. I couldnt even hear it till i opened their bedroom door.
Great finale episode to a great series (
That was pretty much my exact first computer. Also as far as the mic goes, a tin can and a string would have been an improvement. I never knew about the remote.
Adding all that echo immediately brought to mind Neil addressing a stadium full of people - can we make that happen? :D
I have wonderful memories of my family’s Packard Bell. It was from 1996 and the same style as this one. I remember the sound-card/modem combo had surprisingly good SoundBlaster compatibility in both DOS and Windows games and had a nice sounding wave table. It came with a restore CD that included Windows 95 on it, but it did not come with a standard Microsoft Windows CD.
I've seen another comment here saying the Windows disc came with the system. I was surprised. A friend got a PBell when XP was first released (I helped him set it up) and that didn't have a WinXP disc. I can't recall exactly how it worked but I have a vague memory that the hard drive included some sort of shadow partition of XP. Then, using a floppy, you could make a backup CD (or CDs?) of XP by following a program on the floppy. Archaic!
Loved all the parts getting this pc back up and running Neil.
So wanted a pc back in the day just way out of my price range . Finally got one I think early 2000s made from second hand parts I managed to beg , borrow steal from friends upgrading bits
The pc room looks amazing. Voodoo 2 s and sidewinder so many memories
I'm not sure what sort of brand cachet that PB's had in the UK, but across the pond in the states, they were always known to be bargain basement specials. I sold PB's stateside in the late 90's (using the design language of the unit that you have in the video), and it wasn't uncommon to find two examples of the same SKU using vastly different parts. It was speculated at the time that this was not a manufacturer error, but rather just extreme cost cutting. We once found a case wherein there were four examples of the same SKU, and they all had different optical drives. Same thing discovered on the modems which were either a riser board or ISA slot type (PCI on later models). While a similar model from Compaq would almost always use the same model parts for a entire run of a given SKU. The net result of this is that sometimes the machines didn't work 100% out of the box... this was not a case of bad components per sé, but rather it was almost always a driver issue that the customer buying the computer couldn't easily resolve on their own. PB's tech support was crap too - waits of 2-3 hours on hold were common, so most people brought the units back to the store, and then when we told them that we could get the unit working, but would take 1-2 hours of paid labor. This caused many returns. Glad you were able to get yours going.