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LGR - Exploring Two Late 80s Packard Bells (Patreon)

Published:
2022-06-15 00:34:18
Edited:
2022-06-17 14:56:34
Imported:
2022-06

Content

https://youtu.be/su_n2u2pERo

Packard Bell! It's a company name that always instills happiness in my soul, despite my brain knowing they weren't... eh y'know. Always quality.

Whatever! I enjoy them and I'm always tempted by machines I've never used before. So I imported some nifty late '80s PB XT clones from Canada a while back and finally got around to opening up the danged box and taking a closer look at them. And that's what this video consists of: unboxing, exploring, testing, and enjoying some old school PCs to the best of my ability. There's certainly more work to be done here in the end, but I think this is a fun start to a couple of future projects.

Hope you enjoy this retro diversion! I was really happy that at least one of these darned things actually sorta worked, ha. And yeah I'm still working out my new recording setup(s) so I hope the reverb and suboptimal camera angles weren't too distracting. Thank you for your ongoing support!

Files

Two 1980s Packard Bell Turbo XT PCs: PB 500 & VX88

Unboxing, inspecting, and testing two old Packard Bell PCs from the late 80s that need restoring! I imported these VX88 and PB500 Turbo XT PCs from Canada a while back and they each need some repair and testing. So let's do it! Or, as much as I can in the scope of this video anyway. I was happily surprised at their condition and how functional one them ended up being, and the other will have to wait for a future restoration. ● LGR links: https://www.patreon.com/LazyGameReviews https://www.twitter.com/LazyGameReviews https://www.facebook.com/LazyGameReviews ● Grab an archive of the ST-238R hard disk contents here: https://archive.org/details/lgr-pb500-hdd ● All background music licensed from: http://www.epidemicsound.com 00:00 Introduction & Unboxing 02:06 Two Nifty Old Packard Bells 04:45 1987 Packard Bell VX88 06:35 1988 Packard Bell PB500 11:30 Power Supply Testing 12:56 First Startup, Video Card Stuff 15:36 Booting Up the PB 500! 17:23 Backup with LapLink 18:31 A Moment of Zen 19:00 Exploring the ST-238R 23:50 Commander Keen 4 CGA 24:46 TopBench Performance Test 25:40 Silpheed 27:02 The PB 500 is Neat. 27:48 ATI GSSC Dip Switch Test 28:06 Plantronics Colorplus Graphics 29:26 Outroduction #LGR #retro #computers

Comments

Anonymous

Pretty similar to my XT computer around '89, the Blue Chip PC which was made by Hyundai. Must've been similar designs used by Korean manufacturers then. I liked the compactness with built-in ports while still keeping most of the expandability. I keep thinking of getting one again to play with but then I remind myself we only had it for less than year before selling it and moving up to a 286 with EGA!

Headset Guy

Looking at the FCC IDs for these machines, the top one points to Packard Bell for the grantee code (FOD), and the bottom one points to Samsung (A3L). Really interesting that the FCC ID for the one on the top would point to Packard Bell itself, especially considering that the remainder of the ID looks similar to the one from Samsung (9QKPBVX88 vs. 9QNSPC). Based on the fact that the model number contains "PB" in it, my guess is that they manufactured that specific model *for* Packard Bell, which is why the grantee code is for PB and not Samsung. Then again, I don't work for the FCC, so I don't know for sure.

Anonymous

I'm definitely not familiar with this era of Packard Bell. It's cool to see how far they came to being the 90s behemoth of budget PCs.

Anonymous

My first computer was a packard bell, I had no idea what was in it..but it ran windows 3.11 and had a CD drive... and had a purple stripe across the bottom of it I think. Packard bell always fires off those pleasant nostalgia bells for me. Thanks for the video, man. I hope the moving has been painless.

Anonymous

It's definitely unfortunate that there were all of those Color-plus compatible CGA cards out there, and nobody supported them.

LazyGameReviews
>>85861995

Sure is. It really seems like Colorplus capability was more common than I once thought, considering all these clones sold in such large numbers.

MichaelM

The later Packard Bells used to come with a “winmodem” which was a FAKE MODEM CARD that was basically some capacitors and a phone jack, with the actual modem implemented in software to save costs. They were an absolute nightmare to work with and support, and the CPU power limitation meant that 200 baud was all they could handle. Worst cost cutting example of that era.

LazyGameReviews
>>85860151

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Yeah the move is going smooth at this point, just gotta do some more work prepping some rooms before really settling in :)

LazyGameReviews
>>85869839

I've come across those before, back in high school! A nightmare indeed, I don't recall it ever working well enough to be worthwhile.

Anonymous
>>85860151

Hopefully the day the house becomes home is not to far away man! Take it easy and thank you for everything.

Evan B

hah mentioning the ATI made me look up prices for the old Ati AGP Radeon 9700 Pro's that used to be all the rage decades ago .. i'm astounded that it *still* is selling for ~$100 on ebay

Adrian's Digital Basement

I had to look up the V40. The reason it’s 68 pin vs a normal 40 pin like a normal V20 is it is highly integrated. It contains the DMA controller, interrupt controller, timers and clock generator internal to the CPU! Basically integrates most of the XT chipset right into the CPU! There is even the V50 which is an 8086 version with a 16bit external bus. Fascinating! I’m amazed it wasn’t used more back in the day.

BastetFurry
>>85861995

Same problem as with the Plus4/C16, you write for the lowest denominator. It wasn't until the Amiga and 386 days that game devs weren't always making sure that the lowest denominator could still play their stuff. On Amiga it was games like Dungeon Master that demanded a memory upgrade, on the PC you had games like Wing Commander and Doom that would let you play on some 386 SX16 but it definitely wouldn't be fun.

Anonymous

Love the Packard Bell! My very first PC. 486DX2 with a 250MB hard drive. Thanks for all the content you put out there, Clint. Really enjoying all of it.

LazyGameReviews
>>85905522

Wow, that's wild! I wonder if it was used more in industrial systems than the home, seems ideal for XT SBCs with an ISA backplane

Adrian's Digital Basement
>>85905522

Yes I think it’s that. Also for inside laptops of the time as it supports sleep and standby modes. The data sheet indicated it was for “highly integrated” use cases vs “performance” where one should use the V20/V30. I found the V40 data sheet here, for anyone who wants to see it: http://bitsavers.org/components/nec/_dataBooks/1990_NEC_16-bit_V-Series_Microprocessor_Data_Book.pdf Funny is these modern XT clones should use the V40 because it basically eliminates most of the other chips on the motherboard!

Bryan McIntosh
>>85886982

I paid $100 for a used 9700 Pro back in 2004, and thought that I'd lost it until I found it a couple of months ago. I just haven't got around to testing it out yet!

Anonymous

Those are some glorious hard drive noises :-)

Anonymous

Are you gonna fix/recap the other one? I'd love to see that :-)

Anonymous

I saw you updated the thumbnail. I like it lol