Opening Dozens of Retro Tech Packages You Sent In!
[smooth jazz music] [drive buzzes] [PC beeps] - Greetings and welcome to another LGR unboxing of your donations. Yeah, I do one of these videos every few months or something and, well, here we are again. Y'all have sent in tons of things very generously, all kinds of retro tech and software and hardware, oddities, no doubt. Let's just get right into it because there is a lot here and I am psyched to get into it. So yeah, let's get into it! All right, well, straight away I've got one here from Neil at RMC - The Cave. Oh, hey. [laughing] Well, look at that.
It's a Neil collector's trading card. I guess it's a business card. Wonderful. All right. Yeah!
One of the few "SimCity" releases that I have never had and actually have never played, "SimCity" for the CDTV. Yeah, look at that. It's even got authentic Neil fingerprints on there. Yeah, this is an Amiga CDTV multimedia disk. I actually don't have any CDTV games, much less a CDTV.
I do have a CD32. But yeah, he was pretty thoroughly unimpressed with this version of game when he did a video about the CD32. Anyway, he offered to send it over, and I'm like, "Heck yeah, dude. Don't have it."
Gonna stick my little trading card in there. Thank you very much, Neil. All right, got one here from Dallin. Oh! This is something I haven't actually unboxed yet. Yeah, we will come back to this.
All right. Got one here from Kevin. All kinds of goodies. Well, we got some Rad Dudes trading cards.
10 Rad Dudes. That is radical. Got a Pog. A little Banjo-Kazooie Pog with "N64THSTREET.COM." Monster in My Pocket cards. William Shatner's Tek World cards! Okay? So this appears to be a floppy disk with a CD in it.
Now that is a unique release. I've never seen that before. Ah, SimCity. Ooh, the Chicago expansion pack for the SimCity card game. I have a ton of the SimCity card game cards, including a lot of the Chicago ones, but I don't actually have any of the series sealed.
Yeah, Mayfair Games, fascinating thing that I keep meaning to do more of a video on. I mentioned it briefly in my SimCity retrospective years ago. Some fantastic "for oral use only" stickers.
I love these kind of advergames. "Volvo: Drive for Life." This looks like exactly the kind of silliness that I enjoy. Here was the main thing. This is a Cybiko Xtreme. It's a shame that I didn't get this before I did my Cybiko video.
Yeah, look at that. Got an antenna on the side inside of the back. That is much more robust-feeling. Does it power on? I guess not. Have to see if I can give it a charge. I don't know what the battery situation's like on the Xtremes.
Obviously the originals I went over in my video, they suck for batteries, they were pretty much all dead. It looks like these use USB. That's fascinating. Mini-USB? [laughs] Well, thank you very much for all the things. All right, continuing on. We got an envelope here from Crabill? Oh, from Bruce.
He's enclosed three similar but different labels for me, emoji. Thank you, I hope I will like them too. I'm sure I will. "Unlike the original, they are made from thin-gauge metal and should hold very well." This is for my "Missile Command" cabinet, my arcade machine.
Yeah, he just got in touch and offered to make these since I don't have any on my machines, so these are custom. Aw, these look so cool. So yeah, check this out. [laughs] These all look great. They're reproduction serial number... Plaques? Badges, sticker...
Badges, whatever, I don't know what you'd wanna call 'em. But my "Missile Command" cabinet didn't have one. It fell off who knows how long ago, so I don't even know what my serial number is on that. Yeah, I'm not as much of fan of this one just 'cause of the font choice. I love these two, though! This one looks very legit, but I also really enjoy the rainbow Atari logo on that one. Got a custom LRG model and serial number and everything there, 'cause yeah, obviously isn't gonna be the original serial number.
I don't even know what mine is. This is gonna look great on there. Yeah, let me go promptly put this one on my "Missile Command" cabinet. Okay, let's see here. So I don't actually know precisely where I'm going to put it or even where it is supposed to go.
I looked through the original manual for the cabinet and it just says there's the serial plate on the back of the unit. [laughs] Doesn't say where. So I don't know, I kinda like the idea of it being on the back of the access door here. And, you know, since it's not original anyway, I'm just gonna put it there and call it that until I find out anything different. I've got the other ones if I need to swap it out. Thank you once again for sending this in.
Okay, I got one here from Anthony. Okay, a note. So this is a CPU. "Probably one of the more interesting CPUs I've ever played with." Sat at the bottom of his parts bin for over two decades. It was his first upgrade from a 486 DX-66.
And, "Has been abused, overvolted, overclocked, and wants more." Sounds good to me. Aw yeah, look at that. Beautiful. So that is a Cyrix 5x86-120GP.
Looks like he did a pretty good job of bending things back into shape, honestly. 1995. Yep. So anyway, expect some kind of Cyrix video in the future. I don't know what form it'll take. Thank you very much, Anthony.
All right, got one here from Pigeon in Canada. Oh, hey now. All right, hopes I find the single on this "green AF floppy disk." "The entire song was made with a Roland D5, sibling of the MT-32," indeed, "and a Fostex 280 four-track tape recorder."
[whispers] Nice. Let's check this out. Duskstars Hunting Cactuses. "The Broken D5 Song." Fantastic packaging. Ooh. [laughs] Look at that!
Got the classic-style "don't do those things to your floppy disk" kinda warnings. Very green indeed. [chuckles] That's cool. All right.
Thank you, Pigeon. Let's take a listen. All right. Well, unfortunately it, ah... It doesn't seem like there's anything usable on this floppy disk. Zero bytes.
Yeah, there's just nothing here. And it doesn't open with anything, so yeah. I don't know, I've tried all the programs I got and I've tested different floppy drives. It's just a zero-byte file. So that's unfortunate, but still, thanks for the cool-looking floppy disk release, at least.
It is actually a song. You can go to the "Broken D5" single, Duskstar Hunting Cactuses' Bandcamp and... [energetic synth music] So yeah. Unfortunate that there's nothing on the disk. So anyway, thank you either way. All right, next one up is from Greg.
Mm! Voodoo stuff! "Sorry it's taken so long to ship this out." That is perfectly fine. "It's the Best Data Arcade FX Voodoo card." He has great memories gaming on it from his youth, "But I thought it was time to clean out the garage." "Also included are some old work badges from the Y2K era. They just need a 'Clint' label from a P-touch to make it official."
Dude! Got a Best Buy name badge here, employee thing. And CompUSA "Certified Product Specialist." Yeah, this'll go perfectly with the rest of my CompUSA cosplay. Because that's -- that's what I do. All right, so we got the little SLI pass-through thing if you have a second card. Arcade FX II, the CD-ROM.
Installation disc and games. Best Data. I have no idea of the history of that company. Oh yes! Look at that! We got memory on both sides.
Ooh. Ah, that smells good. [inhales deeply] That right there is a Voodoo2, model 3Dfx 200.
Yeah. Just, I... This is the only one of these I've ever seen. Thank you very much for sending this in.
Intrigued to try it. Well, this is a thing. This is from Harry in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Packages within packages within packages! Oh yeah! Wow, okay. Wonderful-looking IBM mousepad. [laughs] The classic Paul Rand logo going on there.
That is really, really cool. Ooh, got other stuff too. Got a disk in here. All right, here's the mousepad, hope it'll fit my PS/2 collection well. Certainly will.
"As a bonus there's a floppy and a homemade IMB tile wallpaper." Believe it'll look good on Windows 3.1, 95, or OS/2. Oh! From France/Dubai. I don't know where you're from, but I appreciate everything you've done. [chuckles] This is really cool.
Let me go and see what's on the floppy really quick. All right, this is not an IBM I've got set up here, but let's try the IBM wallpaper with Windows 3.1 anyway. Oh, just a nice little tiling IBM logo. Yeah, I would prefer that to be a little darker. Lemme see. That's a little too dark. [laughs] Maybe like...
Is it that gray that it uses? Yeah it is. How 'bout this? I like that. Yeah, that's better. Little easier on the eyes. Nice.
Okay, got one here from J. [chuckles] Okay. This is a Digital Research Technologies CD-RW, or at least the box. There's other stuff in here and a note.
So let's see. Ah, from JD. "Hope you don't mind the CD drive box I used for shipping. It's the right size." Good stuff. "Enclosed is a copy of MidiScan for Windows from me and a handmade surprise from Tamara."
Thank you very much to both of you. Let's see here. Oh my! [laughs] Okay. Vanishing Pearl, I suppose, is her web shop.
This, though... [Clint cackles] Look at the little Cool Crab. It's a Cool Crab pin made of little beads! That's so cool! [laughs] Oh, man. This is like a hair clip, I guess? Or something like that? But it's a hot dog. [laughs] Right? That's a Greetings Hot Dog.
That's totally what that is. Yeah, yeah, no! I see it now. It says "greetings." That is so cool! If you haven't seen my dot matrix color printing video where I printed these out on a Star Micronics color dot matrix, they've sort of become an LGR icon of sorts.
This is very, very cool. Check out vanishingpearl.com. That is wonderful. Okay, and in here, this is the only thing that I knew about. The other one was a total surprise. This is still kind of a surprise 'cause I've never used it.
I don't really know what entirely it does, but Midiscan for Windows, music reading software. "Breakthrough technology." "Converts printed sheet music into multi-track MIDI files." Ah-ha. Includes Cakewalk Home Studio. You know, if this does indeed do that, that would be pretty awesome.
Highly intrigued by this. Apparently it was a Goodwill find. I see the sticker there for $3.99. Wow, thank you very much, to both of you, for these awesome things! Hmm, this one right here, who could it be from? Could it be from Midiverse Modular? I believe so, from Kyle.
Oh, Kyle and Kayla. "Thanks for checking out our modules. Happy patching." Got some stickers. Whoa. Multiple little modules.
Yeah, a lotta utilities, but very, very useful. Okay. That's awesome. So yeah, this one's the Midiverse Modular MVM3. No serial number, ooh. YouTube.com/MidiverseTV. This is just a classic attenuator so you can really dial in those voltages, get things just right, if you're sending a kind of signal through there that it really needs to be adjusted in that way. Ooh, just some classic A/V switches going in between different little patch cable selections there.
And we got a couple of little multipliers, it looks like. Just unpowered little passive things. You can't have too many of these, honestly. So yeah, none of these are gonna make any sound on their own. They're for passing through different voltages and sound-making modular devices for a synth.
Yeah, say if you were to run some things through here and then you run them back through here and then can run them through here again and switch back and forth between different signals. Tons of possib-- Oh man, I'm thinking about all the things I can do with these. If you haven't seen my modular synth video where I go over a little bit of how this works, or just at least even what I do with that kind of setup, check it out. But yeah, these don't make any sound. They will just help me shape and modify my existing sounds. And do other little things. Split up signals.
I'm really intrigued by this. I don't have any switches like this. That's awesome. Yeah. Thank you, Kyle and Kayla. Okay, got a deceptively heavy one here from Ian.
Look at this! Treasure chest! Ah, yes. "Thanks for responding to this offer to donate these 120 demo CDs!" Yeah. My pleasure in that respect! I've been planing a demo CD video for a very long time, so I just continue to collect them and some kind of a video is gonna result. "Mostly PC Gamer demo discs," excellent, and a few others.
Thank you! [laughs] What in the world? This is a lot! I already had a whole bunch donated from some other awesome folks, but man, look at all these. Oof. From a real golden era of PC Gamer demo discs, as well. These were an absolute godsend to me back in the day. Yeah, there's a whole lot of additional random things. DVDs. PCGAMES.EXE.
There's so much in here! Wow! This goes all the way up to like 2007. Here's something in a jewel case. Computer Gaming World Extra. That's a little older one. Wow, okay.
Ah! Brings back so many memories. I played a lotta these demo discs. Ooh, this one in particular, right there.
"Voyager - Elite Force" demo. I played so much of that. Oh, there's a lot. That is a lot. Man, so here's what I'm thinking, or have been thinking, because I want to do sort of an overall, kind of general retrospective, but I also want to dive deep into some of my favorites, perhaps.
I don't know. I mean, it would also just be fun to go through the boxes I have of these, because at this point I've got I think two or three boxes filled just as much. Oh! The classic May 1996 PC Gamer Disc 2.4, the "Duke Nukem 3D" demo. Ah! This is so cool.
See, this is the thing. I just keep going through these for hours, just looking at them. These are so good! Argh! I wanna play 'em all. It's weird. I have more almost more fond memories of a lot of these games of the demos than I do the full game. "High Stakes" demo? Good grief. Never played the demo for that.
Aw, there. Here we go. This is one of the absolute best. July of 2000, Disc 5.10. The thing is, these weren't all demos. Like, it had a lot of demos too, but... This was a Classic Games Collection. 12 complete, registered, full-version DOS games.
How awesome is that? Yeah, just on its own this disc is a collectible because it has so many classic games just registered in one spot, this was... Yeah. Another one of those wonderful things. When I saw it back in the day, I couldn't believe it. 'Cause to me, these were still kinda contemporary.
[laughs] I was always behind by a number of years, so to get these full-version games... [sighs] Anyway, thank you for the absolute treasure chest of goodness here. Now if I could just find some of the magazines, that would be a wonderful thing. Like specifically from 1996 to 2001, those are the magazines I'm looking for for PC Gamer, the U.S. edition in particular.
I don't even need a lot of 'em. I just want a few. They're oddly hard to find, the original magazines. Even harder to find than the demo discs. Anyway, now I'm rambling about a video I haven't done and, ah, you know...
Thank you very much. Okay, getting slightly larger here. This one comes from Eric. Ooh! Packing peanuts! Haven't see you in a while. At least they're the biodegradable kind.
This right here, what I'm about to do, is the worst feeling in my soul. [Clint gasping] It really hurts. Okay! Something cool in here. Yeah, delightful yellow packaging here. This is a boxed dial-up modem.
So we got a 2400 bps modem for the data side of things with 9600/4800 send/receive fax and... Prodigy! Why not? A boxed Compudyne dial-up modem. There's something fun about that in my mind. Yeah, look at this. And a little guy! Little, little guy in here. Copyright 1991.
I don't know, I just like the name Compudyne. [chuckles] And the fact that it's complete in box, you know? That's just neat. Oh, what is this cuteness? Got a little, tiny Prodigy.
And it looks like somebody partially opened it, but never... Oh, no, they did open it. Yeah, that's...
[whispers] That's awesome. That's almost the exact same disk that I had for my Packard Bell 486 as a kid. And a bunch of documentation.
We got some software here. Trio DataFAX. Well, anyway, thank you. I have actually been doing more and more experiments with these good ol' dial-up modems lately, just kinda creating my own dial-up ISP. Well, you know, of sorts.
And it's been successful, so yeah. Modems. [laughs] They will come in handy for whenever that project comes together. All right, got this one here from Kevin.
"Take note." I suppose I will. "Clint!" Here's the software he emailed me about. Thank you very much. Glad you enjoy the videos. Yeah, this is a piece of software, I actually ran across it while thrifting in one of the LGR Thrifts episodes a while back.
But I don't remember why I didn't pick it up. I think it was because it was for the Mac or it was some other version I wasn't fully interested in. But this one, yeah, this is for the PC. And you know I just enjoy old design programs. I find them fascinating, especially when they're for DOS.
I don't know. [laughs] There's something about it that's just highly appealing to me. And we got a couple of disks. KeyCAD Complete Disk 1. Hopefully that's the only one 'cause that's the only one in here.
And Key FormDesigner. Anyway, thank you for all this. SoftKey had all kinds of fascinating programs that are fun to pick up. Look at all these Key things. SoftKey. Oh, I guess that's why they're all called "Key."
Okay, SoftKey. I get it now. Anyway, thanks, Kevin. All right, this one doesn't have a name on it, so let's just open it up. [chortles] Look at that. That right there is a Duke Nukem belt buckle.
Ah, it's from Brett. Apologizing he's taken so long to send it. That's okay. It's always okay if it takes a while. "I also tossed in a Duke Nukem belt buckle," indeed, "from the EVGA 560 package." Yeah, I remember that "Duke Nukem Forever" graphics card bundle you could get back then.
So yeah, he's in the habit of watching the video in the living room on TV with his fiance. So when he was in high school he had a PalmPilot Pro hand-me-down. Got through high school and did some stuff on it and eventually graduated to the Palm Tungsten E.
With that one he fell in love with more of the PopCap games, classic "Bejeweled," "Rocket Mania," heck yeah. Those were good stuff. And I hope you and your fiance continue to enjoy the videos. Oh, and there's a little extra more here. Tossed some swag in from his personal YouTube channel. All right. Got some pins.
That's a nice pin. Some stickers. Dolinmyster Plays. Shout-out to you, sir, and thank you once again for sending these in. The Duke belt buckle is pretty awesome. And then we have the Palm m130 handheld.
Yes, "Bright color and more." Still sealed! Yeah, I am just not familiar with this model, so when he offered it, I was like, "Yep, send it over." It's sealed, that's a thing. I can do something with it. I just don't know what yet.
[laughs] I need to cover more Palm devices. I love old PDAs, pocket PCs, and Palms. And some of these color ones, oh, these were always just the most lustworthy for a short couple years in the 2000s. Aw, man, look at all those cool little faceplates.
Thank you very much. All right, another one on here I don't see a name. Oh. "Enjoy." I will! So there's no note and I don't see a name, but I'll put whoever this is from at the bottom of the screen there. Thank you very much.
I do remember you telling me about this. This is a fascinating little external PCMCIA CD-ROM. ProMedia 4XR. By Azonix? Axonix? [chuckles] I don't know! Yeah, Axonix Corporation, Salt Lake City, Utah. All right. So it takes 5-volt DC, 1.5 amp max. And it's got this, it looks like, plugged into the power thing, I don't know what...
Would this plug into some other kind of adapter or... Something? I have to look into it. But yeah, here is the interface itself, so that's awesome. Looks like it just plugs into the back of the drive. And we got your PC card, ProMedia interface here, neat.
Yeah! Very plastic. Just plastic everywhere. [laughs] I wonder how much this cost back in the day 'cause it seems like they took a lot of liberties in terms of cheapening things and making it more affordable. Either way, thank you very much. I'll have to figure out this power situation. All right. Got a package here from Anthony.
Mm-hmm! Yeah, I remember his email about this, a game that I have played but I never actually owned, in the box. All right. "Please enjoy this box of 'Return of the Phantom' for which the 'Phantom' CD will hopefully return." [laughs] "I love you, but not like that. Unless..."
Indeed. Thank you, Anthony. Let's see here. Inside the box... And by the way, I've always thought this box is really cool-looking, just because of the simplicity of it. I mean, it gets the point across. You got the mask, what else do you need? And the rest of it's just darkness.
So yeah, as implied, the CD is not in here. However, I have the CD on its own already, so I'll have to dig that out of my loose box of discs and pair it with this. And yeah, that's perfect, because that'll have an awesome adventure game in the collection I didn't have before in a box.
It's worth checking out, it's just a neat game, if you've never played it. Anyway, thank you, Anthony. All right, somebody was into some Adidas Superstar shoes. [laughs] This is from... Oh! Ernest Cline.
So yeah, if that name sounds familiar, well, that is indeed the author of "Ready Player One" and "Two" and "Armada," of which I have read all three. Oh, there's an extra thing in here. What is this? That's cool. Yeah, I don't see any notes. Anyway.
So Ernie got in touch on my Patreon. I guess he was a Patreon supporter. I didn't know. I don't get notified who signs up. So anyway, he just sent out an email and he was like, "Hey, I want to send you some stuff, if you got an address," and I'm like, "Sure... Guy that's worked with Steven Spielberg."
Yeah. So thank you very much, Mr. Cline. These are nice hardback books of all three of the books that he's done at this point. I've never owned any of these physically. Actually, I haven't read them.
I listened to them all, the Wil Wheaton audiobooks, on various road trips over the years, so... Oh, hey, wait. Here's a note. [laughs] "From the desk of Ernie Cline." "Dear Clint, thank you for creating my favorite YouTube channel."
Aw! Well, thank you! That is very cool! [chuckles] You just never know who's watching. So yeah. Those three books, that's neat. Is there anything in the other ones? Ah, got a little note in the "Armada" one as well. See if you say anything in this one. Ah! [chuckles] "Shall we play a game?" I wonder how many of those he signed. [laughs]
'Cause I know with me, I always put the same three or four phrases on anything if I sign stuff. It's just a fascinating experience when you're going through in bulk signing things. So anyway, whatever, and thank you very much, Ernie. And I wanna check this out. What the heck is this? "The Question and Answer Book About Computers."
"Old glue, binding is about to crack. Fragile." Well, old fragile glue about to crack is basically my middle name, so I'm okay with looking at it. I have actually never seen this. Oh yeah, I see the cracking glue there. 1983! [laughs] That's pretty awesome.
"What is a computer?" Aw, heck yeah, dude. Look at those kids enjoying that. What is that, a TI-99/4A? Could be something else, it's hard to tell.
What are the computer there? What is computers? "It's a machine that obeys a list of commands stored in its memory. You give the computer these commands by typing them on an electric typewrite wired to the computer." It's a keyboard, folks! Man, this is awesome! Dude! Betcha this would've been one of those books I would've absolutely gone nuts for as a kid, seeing at the library, but then it would probably never be at the library because so many people would've taken it and it would've gotten ruined. [laughs]
But still. Really awesome illustrations. I'm digging these. "Two girls battle for points during an arcade game of 'Football.'" That is a very direct description.
[laughs] Threepio just at a soldering station? I feel like I need that as a poster. Aw yeah, there we go. Apple II Plus. Ooh, the HERO 1 robot. What is this?
It's a robot that can be assembled from a kit? Heathkit Zenith Educational Systems ET-18 HERO 1 robot. What? [growling] Gotta find me one a those. "A child sits at a home computer." Oh, well, actually, I believe you'll find that is a terminal. [smarmy chuckle] And I've already broke the book.
Well... [laughs] All right, well, thank you again. Mr. Cline. I appreciate it. And flattered you enjoy the videos.
Mm-kay, got one from... Myer. I don't know if that's a first or last name. Mmm, graph paper. Here is the "Kiss Pinball" he promised. "Sorry it took so long." Absolutely okay.
"The extra game you can keep or trade. Keep up the good work." Oh, this from Andy in New Jersey. Aw yeah, look at this.
"Kiss Pinball," in the box. Fantastic skull Statue of Liberty right there. I've never played this, I don't believe. By Wildfire Studios. Hmm. Here's another one. "Ultimate Pinball."
RSAC advisory: nudity/sex. Revealing attire. It's a level one. Like, this is as much as it gets in this. I have played this one.
I also just noticed the one packing peanut in there. Bravo, sir. Dude! Yeah, Vintage Computer Festival. And the forums.
And I mean, you know, if you've ever talked to me over email about communities to look into, I always recommend VC Fed stuff. But yeah, thank you, Andy, for the pinball. All right. Slightly larger ones coming now. This one is from Brandon of Geek Werks. Well, I presume this Geek Werks, computer service and repair in Washington State.
So, as per the discussion we had on Patreon, there are three MFM hard drives taking up shelf space at his repair shop, the Geek Werks. "No idea if they work or not, but they came from a widow whose husband was a huge radio and computer geek from the '70s through early '90s before his passing. Happy they're going to someone who'll actually try and use them."
I certainly will try. [laughs] MFM hard drives, you never know. But thank you very much, I'm glad you enjoy the show, and it's provided some inspiration and entertainment while you work on computers. Ooh, and on the back is a Maxtor patent.
I mean, that is supremely apropos for old hard drives. [groans] Ooh, man. That explains how ridiculously heavy this is for the size. So yeah, each of these are going to be MFM hard drives of some kind. Looks like a full-height. Two half-heights.
Presumably no controller cards, which will prevent, probably, being able to see if there's anything on them, but... Here's hoping. I mean, they were probably wiped anyway, or they need to be, so whatever.
Yeah. I hope that at least one of 'em works. I would love to have another working MFM drive. I think I've only got two.
This one is a Maxtor of some kind. Hoo-hoo! Wow. Look at this thing. Look at all that. [Clint laughs] So this is a...
Whoo, it's bigger, bigger drive than I thought it'd be. 230 megabytes. Maxtor XT-4230E.
So there's one of the cables. [metal scraping loudly] Man, look at that! Metal logo just stamped in there like that. Truly a monster of a drive. Much more capacity than I'm used to seeing on MFMs.
Okay, a comparatively tiny little half-height. A Seagate. Ooh, ST251. Hmm, and stickers with any geometry information seem to have been taken off there.
I'll put at the bottom of the screen how much of a capacity this one would have. Oh, here's another one. [laughs] It's also got the drive rails still on there, these plastic things. These can be somewhat difficult to find. No front faceplate on this one. Ah, yeah. Really cool stuff.
We'll see if they work at some point. [laughs] You just never know with these things! Either way, much appreciated for sending these heavy beasts my way. Mm-kay, this one here comes from Susan.
Look at that! Matrox Graphics Accelerator. This is one of the MGA Impression cards. I'm assuming it's more of a GUI accelerator than anything for games.
Ooh, yeah. Look at all this. "The fastest graphics accelerator for any platform." Yeah, "The accelerator for Windows and CAD acceleration." Probably sucks for games. That's okay. I am so always on board for these kind of accelerators from back in the day.
[laughing] That card is huge. Oh, man. So I don't actually think this is the MGA card. I think that is down in there somewhere. So this is different.
Got some memory expansion on there. That is a serious card! Vermont Microsystems. Oh yeah, "Render-ready graphics array." And this is also not that Matrox, but this is something else pretty beefy too. Big, long boy. A Video Seven board, 1988.
Uses the Headland GC205-PC. That's pretty awesome too! And these are each rather intense, like serious business kind of CAD graphics cards. So yeah, I guess this was just the box that these were put in. Doesn't have the software, the videotape, or the card itself even. Maybe we can find those separately or something, but either way, these are fascinating too.
Sort of along the same lines, but older. Yeah, I had to go check my email for a little extra context. So it comes from Joe, actually.
These accelerator cards belonged to his father Ed, who passed away nearly five years ago. "He was a mechanical engineer and design draftsman whose interest in computers started well before computer ownership was common and computer shops were plentiful. Even back then, he was doing his design work mostly on paper. He could see computers' massive potential, so he built his first computer and even created a few learning programs" for him and his brother to use when they were kids. That is so cool! [laughs] "He was also quick to adopt AutoCAD, which he used daily for the more than 30 years he spent running his own business."
So apparently he purchased those cards when they were new, "And they likely saw use when he was working on several of the prominent and groundbreaking projects he participated in." So yeah, Joe, his brother Paul, mother Susan, I guess that was her name on the shipping, they miss Ed every day, "As does the world of design and engineering." No doubt about that. So yeah, thank you for sending all these in. This fantastic packaging.
Maybe I'll be able to track down the actual MGA card at some point, but honestly, those other two, because I know nothing about them, are even more fascinating in a way. So yeah, thank you. Honored to give your father's stuff a new home. Okay, I got this one, came in from Switzerland, from Doomi.
"LGR.txt." "A little delayed, but as promised, some oddware. PcGuns! It's like Nintendo's 'Duck Hunt,' but worse." [laughs] Perfect! "It comes with an ISA card and connects to the graphics card via VGA Feature connector." That is a thing! And, "Included the graphics card," oh, awesome, "so you don't have to find one that fits the connector.
More than 20 years since I last used these." So I've seen various gun controller options for older computers. But these? I wasn't familiar with these, exactly. The first and second, I like how they sell them that way. Yeah, totally separate products, they just sell them that way, first and second.
You couldn't just sell the same things and just be like, oh, buy two and it's fine? No, they had to label 'em. This is from A4 Tech. Eh? Model PG-5 for DOS and Windows 95. "Realistic shooting fun." Mm-hmm. Question is: is it going to be compatible with anything other than these cheesy little minigames that it comes with? This is like the premier thing, I suppose. "Overseas Mission A.D Cop."
'Kay, looks like a cheap "Virtua Cop." So there's the... Yeah, interface that connects to your graphics card. [Clint laughs] So this is fascinating. Look at this little warning on the bottom there. "Do not repaint or alter the appearance of the PcGun.
It's been designed to reduce the chance that it will be mistaken for a real weapon." [laughs] If you painted that, I guess that would be a thing. Yeah, that looks familiar. You can tell that they were a bit inspired by the various guns for, what is it, the Sega CD and... I don't remember that one. Sega Saturn, whatever. Anyway, yeah, a classic revolver design.
They call this one the Pursuer. Little start button here. RJ11? Is that what that is? So yeah, thank you very much. This is going to make a fascinating video indeed. Oh, I guess that's why they have the first and second, 'cause the interface is only included with the first.
The second one is only just this extra game and another gun. All right. Anyway. Okay, got one here from a David. Hmm. [laughs] Got a punch card note here.
"Thanks for all the great videos. Hope this helps. David." I'm sure it will. Look at this. So this is a Timex Datalink watch. Yeah, I have been putting together some additional resources to do a video on this for a little while now, since I got the other one in one of the other videos.
But yeah, some of these things can be a little bit iffy, and plus, this one had a slightly different design, different watchband, better condition box. Yeah, this has been coming together. I've got another two or three devices that also happen to use, I think, the same wireless interface, so it communicates with your CRT monitor. Just point your watch at your screen and that's how you get your information. It's such a cool concept. Thank you, this is excellent.
Okay, just got a few more larger ones here. This one comes from Bethany and Mark. All kinds of things in here. "I hope you find the contents of this box entertaining. It's certainly a hodgepodge of crazy, a trip through the past, if you will. My grandmother passed away in March 2020 and we started the daunting task of cleaning out her home.
Since my husband Mark is huge of your YouTube channel, we decided to take some of the more items of old tech and send them to you. Why my grandmother had these things, I will never know. She never understood how to use any of the computers she had, but was determined to have the latest and greatest machine on which to retype and store her genealogy research."
Ah, the Sharp PC-4501 laptop. That was the main thing they got in touch about. Apparently that was the oldest machine they found, but there were also two electric typewriters, three desktops, two laptops, and 11 cellphones? Uh, maybe Grandma was more into tech than you thought? "Hope you enjoy the items that she saved lovingly for reasons unknown. Have fun. Bethany and Mark. Did make sure all the disks were cleared except for the older disks that came with the Sharp.
Whatever craziness is on them is our gift to you." Well, that's fun. And, uh... [laughs] This is certainly a hodgepodge! A Razer tin, straight away. The Razer...
What is this? Boomslang mouse? Haven't seen one of these in a while. This is that... Yeah, Strategic Commander, a SideWinder product. "Madden 2003." "Madden 2005." I'm beginning to think Grandma was actually a gamer bro in the mid-2000s. Yeah, and a whole bunch of random floppy disks.
Ah-ha, I like this one. CompUSA. And a manual, awesome, for the computer, which looks like is down in there somewhere. A serial adapter, DB9 to 25. Yeah.
Hmm, whole bunch of delightfully colorful disks. I guess all blanked out, different kinds. Yeah. And a computer. And here we go. Check this thing out. This is a Sharp PC-4501.
Don't know from what year, but these are '80s portable computers. Looks to be in great shape. Not yellowed, just a bit dirty. Ooh. Ooh! Okay. Little bit loose on the screen, but other than that, this is lookin' awesome! Not bad, not bad! This thing just looks so cool. I'd only seen photos of these randomly, I'd never actually seen one in person or seen one in action.
Wow, looks like there's an add-on section here, these little punch-out things, I guess, if you had different cards or some kind of expansion. Yeah, like an expansion area here. Oh, and two floppy drives. A little contrast knob.
Wow, dual floppies. Fancy! But seriously, having the manual for any old laptop is just great. Yeah, here we go, 1987.
Rarely do you get the manuals alongside the computers. Huh. A color monochrome CRT adapter. Looks like a card you can just install in there to get some extra outputs or graphics modes.
Oh yeah, also in there was the power supply. Thank goodness. Look at that. Aw, man, I kinda just wanna [chuckles] plug it in and see what happens. Oh, that would be somewhat irresponsible, but, um... [fingers drumming impatiently] Hmm.
Yeah, whatever. Throwing caution to the wind, plug it in. Let's just see what happens. [laughs] Where's the power button? It's a weird little thing. Oh! Ooh! I see something. I see blueness. [computer beeps] Oh! What? That booted! [laughs] Are you kidding? I was not expecting it to work halfway decently already.
Okay, so batteries are dead. That completely is expected. The CMOS battery, of course, is gonna need some kind of replacing. And if there is still an internal one in here, it's... Kinda feels heavy enough that it probably still has it in there, but there's not doubt that that is dead too. Might be some big ol' lead-acid monstrosity that needs to be taken out of there.
But hey, whatever, got the power supply. [clucks] That's a thing. [laughs] Seems to be working. Well, I got two different speeds.
Slow and Standard, so it is a turbo computer. Key clicking. Console? CGA. MDA.
EGA? I'm assuming if we had one of those little cards in there... Let's just with default setup. [computer beeps] Mm-hmm. [computer boops] Dude, look at this! Everything's passed. 640K RAM! Ooh, hey now. That looks pretty normal. [laughs]
So it's trying to load from the bottom floppy drive over there. I don't hear any sound, but the light is on. And yeah, that's the top one, Drive B. Wow! Now I wonder if there's a boot disk in here for this system in particular. I mean, obviously we'll just be able to...
Hey, hey, hey, hey! Startup Boot Disk. Let's just try it. I mean, we could pretty much any MS-DOS- [blows] compatible version. This is a really dusty disk. I don't know. Eh. Ooh, I hear something there.
[drive chittering] It's loading. Or it's trying, anyway. [drive buzzes] Ah! Dude! [Clint laughs] Wow! So we got DOS 3.2. I'm sorry, I know you can barely see it. Eh, still. That is so neat! Ah! [Clint chuckles] All right! Well, this computer is working. What in the world?
Let's try the other drive. [drive chittering] That's working too! Are you kidding? I was expecting to at least have to clean the drives. This disk isn't even that clean. Well, holy crap.
This is really neat. Thank you once again for all the weirdness, but especially this computer. The fact that this is still working, like it seems to be completely... Not even a problem typing on any of the keys. Ah, that's just really neat! Thank you very much. What in the world? Next up I've got a box here from Brent and it's labeled in such a way that I guess you can guess what it is.
Okay, a little letter here. "Hope this finds you well." It does! "It's been a long time coming, but thanks to the relentless support from Brian Flores at Cognetic in Houston, I'm finally able to offer you a working Portfolio. Wish I had the box, but sadly not." That's okay. Thank you, Brent.
Wow. There's a lot in here. Dude. Immediate collection of Atari Portfolio goodies. Now, I'm not gonna be keeping all of these.
I'm gonna be sending a number of these items back whenever I'm done with them, just so I can have some really cool stuff to show in a video. But as with many of you, I always thought these things were extremely cool-looking as kid, just 'cause of "Terminator 2." Dadgone it, John Connor, hacking ATMs. Ah, but anyway, I don't know exactly what the experience of using a Portfolio is like or what all of these little cards and add-ons do, but I suppose that is for me to find out and report back on in video form at some point. Atari BASIC. Atari Chess.
That's really cool. Got some manuals for the things. Little Fastpay program card. [laughs] Atari Portfolio Memory Expander Plus. Module just plugs in on the side. It's like a RAM disk.
Another little sidecar thing. Parallel interface. Plug in some printers and things over there. This packaging. Oh, it's terrible. [laughs] Very of its time. Mmm. So this is one of the more intriguing parts of it to me, I thought, when he offered the Portfolio.
But also, this, yeah, I'm really... I don't know, just intrigued to see what it's like to connect this to a PC with the card drive here, this interface, and look at this. Check out that Atari computer.
Wouldn't that be a crazy thing to find? They did indeed make PC compatibles. Not a whole lot of 'em, but... Yeah, so this has got a ISA card, cables, the drive, software hopefully. That's just really neat. Last but certainly not least...
Oh-ho-ho, look at this! Wow. Wow! Atari Portfolio. Yep. I have never had my hands on one of these before. HPC-004. That is... [sighs]
It's still such a cool little lustworthy device, if you ask me. Can see why they used it as a prop of sorts in "T2." It sure does feel like I can hack an ATM. Oh man! It turned on.
Wow! It's got "Tetris" on there. [grunts gleefully] "Portris"! All right, so W, Z. W, Z, move left and right? Is this a vertical mode game? S is rotate, A is drop. It's gotta be, 'cause it's like...
Oh, man. [laughs] Well, what do you know? That is a fascinating, if a little, um... Yeah. [chuckles] Aw, crap. Wow. I mean, it is "Tetris," but...
[Clint chortles] That is amusing. Oh my goodness. [Portfolio beeps] Ooh, a little beep. A little tone. So this is gonna be a fascinating thing to cover at some point, especially with this PC card drive interface and software.
Hopefully it's all gonna work. And yeah, thank you very much for going through all that you did in order to get a working Portfolio. This was like a months-long thing. He just kept sending update emails like, "Oh, this happened and this came through and I got this and that," so it ended up being a bit of an ordeal on your end, so very much grateful to you for going through all that, just volunteering your time and resources and this really cool old tech.
Truly fascinating machine. I don't know how a lot of this works. 16-bit personal computer in the palm of your hand. It's the future, folks.
Ah! That's so awesome! Okay, got one here from Matt. And yeah, this is the same Matt who sent in that new old stock IBM ThinkPad laptop that I did a video on, an LGR, a while back. And in that video, I noticed in the product catalog that it came with that there were awesome IBM ThinkPad bags and, well, [laughs] here's the note from Matt Hrushka: "Found one!" [Clint laughs] Now that is a nice-lookin' bag. I was wanting one for my own ThinkPad, the 380XD, 'cause I've just been keeping it in a cardboard box for years. I never had a real bag for it.
And check this out. This is not only just any computer bag, it is a proper ThinkPad bag. It's got the nice logo and a place to put your information and such. All leathery goodness, nice zippers and protective bits. [laughs] This is just awesome.
So thank you very much, Mr. Hrushka, for sending yet another thing. Got my own ThinkPads and this is gonna be fantastic for just keeping all my stuff in there. Dude. Yeah!
So many little holes. [laughs] Pouches. I don't know why holes came to mind first. Yeah. Zippers and holes! Places to put computer things.
Aw, dude. This is a nice, nice bag. Look at that. Awesome little area here to put a power supply. And, of course, computer's gonna go in there. All these hard plastic bits and everything.
Sold by IBM, but made by Safeport Protection Systems. Hmm, protective bag. Yeah, I doubt it's slash resistance. Yeah, thanks again, Matt. This is fantastic. Exactly what I was looking for! And I've kind of always just lusted after back in the day, you know, in the '90s, seeing business people go around with their fancy computers and their fancy cases.
Ah, yeah, let's get a ThinkPad put in there, my 380XD. All right. Out of the cardboard box. This looks just about right. Yeah. Let's see.
Oh yes! Ah, nice and snug! Look at that! So I can put all my other crap in there, 'cause I've got... You know, batteries and chargers an additional hard drive and software and some nipples and all kinds of things. This is great! Thanks again, Matt. All right, so final two items here are rather large.
And do you remember that package I opened pretty early on that I'm like, "Oh yeah, I haven't opened that yet, we'll get back to it"? We're gonna get back to it, 'cause that's related to this. Gonna go ahead and open these up and we'll talk about it. Look at that! All right. [laughs] So this is a Vendex Turbo 888-XT HeadStart Computer System. And it is complete in box, or at least pretty close to it. I don't know, it's got the boxes, and that is what that smaller package near the beginning was about.
We'll get to that. But yeah, here's a note from Dallin. "As promised, here's the Vendex HeadStart" he's donating to LGR. It's got the WPC unit, 14-inch monitor, and a keyboard... Which is this right here. Lovely-lookin' XT-class kinda thing.
[laughs] I like the little green LEDs. Those look neat. Thank you very much. And I love covering these things, these XT-era turbo computers, like the Epson Apex. That was kind of a similar situation where somebody found one of those very lightly used, still in the boxes.
I don't know, I loved doing that video. And I had a lot of people mention the Vendex HeadStart when I did that video, as well as some others where I've talked about turbo computers. And really, that just means that there's a button or a command or a switch or something somewhere that allows you to go into a separate speed so you can run at the 4.77 megahertz of the original PC or 8 megahertz.
And the fact that this is a CGA monitor, I mean, come on now! That alone is just useful. Don't know if it works, don't know if it's complete with all the stuff that it originally came with. Light pen's not included. Aw!
[laughs] Still, though, it's just a neat computer. And having had so many folks bring up their memories of it in the comment sections of other videos and just constantly running across it in old magazine ads and newspaper things doing research on other computers, it seems like one of those computers that was kinda popular for a while just because it was so affordable in the late '80s. And so this happens to be some additional stuff to come with it. Another note: "Sometimes the stars align to make something truly amazing happen."
The gentleman who gave him the Vendex HeadStart texted him later to tell him out of the blue he'd found the original system disks, "And asked if I wanted 'em." So yeah, this should pretty much complete it, or at least bring it to more of an original condition. I love having the original disks for anything. But these, they just looked so cool.
Look at all the colors. A phenomenal selection of colors. Reminded me of some of the Amstrad PCs, PC1512 and such, I've got one of those that came with some rather colorful disks for the system software and other things. Neat. MS-DOS 3.2.
Oddly enough, this should be very similar to that Sharp laptop. It's just in desktop form. Same version of DOS, same turbo function, two drives, CGA color. Yeah, only 512K memory, but who knows? Maybe it's been expanded. Thank you so much, Dallin, for going through all the effort of acquiring and sending this over.
That's truly excellent and I hope that it turns into a really awesome video because I think this era of computers is fascinating. It may be rather similar to some other things I've covered. You know, like I said, the Epson Apex, but there's always little quirks and little things about it that are interesting. Like, I love this three-in-one graphics card. It's got a CGA, a monochrome, and Hercules, all right on there.
Hercules! Built in! That's just neat! So yeah, it's just fantastic to have this system to do a video on. All right, and there we go, another LGR unboxing of donations video thing out of the way. Aw, my goodness. Y'all are ridiculous! [laughs] Thank you so much to everyone who sent in all of this excellent stuff.
There is a lot of video material here. I truly don't know how in the world I've ever gonna catch up to all the things that have been sent in at this point, so yeah, y'all got nothin' but my gratitude and I'm gonna do my best to cover these things as I can. Also tons of appreciation to those of you who offered to send things, 'cause I have to turn down the vast majority of offers, but I still appreciate the consideration regardless. So yeah, and I hope that you stick around. If you enjoyed this, I've done plenty more unboxing of donations videos in the past and I guess I'll keep doing 'em as long as I can maintain this and find storage space. Stick around for other videos.
I do all kinds of things each week here on LGR with retro stuff. And as always, thank you for watching.
2021-07-11 00:36
