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LGR - Setting Up a 1996 AST Advantage PC (Patreon)

Published:
2023-02-05 03:51:55
Imported:

Content

https://youtu.be/WCdDKPonXXA

Greetings, folks! Today's been a strange one, ha. Woke up to that weird Chinese balloon flying overhead, got a pic of that while drinking my morning coffee. And the rest of the day was spent finishing this video up while the news went on about fighter jets and missiles off the coast... unusual times.

So anyway, here's an old computer! An AST Advantage 600-series, specifically the 622 model from early 1996. I purchased this last year under the assumption it was new in box, but while that ended up not being the case, it's still an incredibly well-preserved example. And JEEZ is it slow, haha.

There are still a few bits of b-roll that I need to film and add in later, but the video's like 99% complete so I hope you enjoy the early look at it.

Files

This 1996 PC Was Obsolete Before You Got It Home: AST Advantage 622

Unboxing and testing a minty AST Advantage 600 series! A lower-end Windows 95 desktop computer from the mid 90s that bundled lots of software and games with a 100MHz Intel Pentium CPU and a whopping… 8 megabytes of RAM. Whee. Let's get this one up and running for (maybe) the first time! ● LGR links: https://www.patreon.com/LazyGameReviews https://www.twitter.com/LazyGameReviews https://www.facebook.com/LazyGameReviews ● Archived images of the model 622 restoration media: https://archive.org/details/ast-advantage-600-restore ● ISO image of the Mayo Clinic/Bellybutton disc: https://archive.org/details/mayo_button ● All background music licensed from: http://www.epidemicsound.com 00:00 An intro and overview 02:28 AST Research history 05:26 Unboxing the PC! 12:41 The computer itself 14:27 Inside the case, battery check 17:42 A light cleaning 18:02 First power on! 20:49 Windows 95 setup 22:06 AST OEM software 25:10 Hover! 26:05 MIDI music test 26:58 More AST bundled software 28:56 Microphone test – it's awful 29:21 Fun & Learning...? 29:58 Data disc, AVI files 30:33 Eco: East Africa 32:06 Mayo Clinic 32:57 What is a Bellybutton? 34:20 Welp, lots of things don't work 35:30 Oregon Trail II 37:13 Raptor Call of the Shadows 39:08 Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition 42:04 WinQuake 44:17 Tomb Raider for DOS 46:14 Valuing the undervalued, outro #LGR #Retro #Computer

Comments

Anonymous

I was laughing so much after the initial boot the AST explanation your reflection in the screen had me dying 😂😂😂

Anonymous

These computers were pretty solid for the time, except for the modems. Those were crap. And Spot was awful. Synchro Multimedia connect was useless.

LazyGameReviews
>>101234353

I’m kinda curious if any home users chose the store demo mode on startup by accident. This is the only time I’ve seen such a thing on first boot!

LazyGameReviews
>>101232660

The talking heads just kept going and going and going… felt like I was stuck in a timeshare meeting, heh

Anonymous
>>101234353

I don’t recall that specifically. But sometimes the store would sell the display model without restoring the HD and thus the customers would call in to ask how to get rid of the demo mode.

Anonymous

Just a note, missing B-Roll shots 11 and 7 there at the beginning. Thanks again for the awesomeness, nevertheless!

LazyGameReviews
>>101250396

Yes, that's what I was referring to in the post with "a few bits of b-roll that I need to film and add in later." Thanks though, they're in the next edit :)

Anonymous
>>101250396

Oops. I was watching the video, quickly browsed that there was no comments... aaand happily skipped the initial post. Duh. 🤦‍♂️

Gareth P

Nice! Was a nostalgia hit to see Grolier mentioned, pity the disc wasn't included - think I got a copy with a Creative CD-ROM upgrade kit in the mid-90s. I think in 1996 I still had a 486 and it wasn't until 1998 that I inherited a used P120 machine with a Diamond Stealth (2MB?) graphics card. Seem to remember it had old AT-style keyboard and mouse connectors, if that even makes sense?? Not sure what would dictate that instead of PS/2 ports!

Anonymous

capcom must've seen the what is a belly button disc and thought that was a great idea.

LazyGameReviews
>>101253957

AT connectors were still used on certain mainboards up until the Pentium 3 era, though I’m not sure why! I’ve come across a number of Socket 370 boards like that.

Chad Armstrong

"24/7 support...or talk to Dave Murray (sp?)". :D Interesting side-history about AST and how large they once were. I probably only heard about them through the 8-bit Guy's stories about working for the company. I remember Tandys and IBM Aptiva's being sold at Radio Shack, but never recall AST computers. (shrug)

Gareth P
>>101253957

Around that time my house-mate helped me build my first ever PC - we started with an A-bit BX-133 Socket 370 & Celeron 1GHz and my house-mate was perplexed when he saw my PC case & keyboard connectors... "um, we're going to need to upgrade more than just your mobo & CPU!!"

LazyGameReviews
>>101266949

It was only for a brief time in the grand scheme of things. Another nail in AST’s coffin was when Radio Shack stopped selling AST machines in favor of IBM in late ‘95 https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-08-10-fi-33645-story.html

Anonymous

Maybe it's just me but I love an under powered 90's pc. It's the authentic experience for me as me and my friends never had high spec systems then, struggling to get your games to work was all part of the fun :)

Anonymous

Their graphic design department was definitely in a "malaise era". That box is charming in it's own way, but it's amazing how much they crammed on there!

Anonymous

I love the reference to David Murray's career in AST tech support.

LazyGameReviews
>>101291550

Fully agreed! It's arguably more interesting these days than a fully specced-out PC that can run anything from the 90s. We've seen so many of those, but the authentic lower-end stuff is increasingly uncommon!

Anonymous

Those Labtec speakers just transported me all the way back to some specific childhood memories. Also, loved what you said at the end. Like you, I never had the envy of other computer users, but... I was blessed enough to _have a real computer_. And it was easy to take that for granted.

Anonymous

Fun fact…I currently work on the Irvine campus shown in the beginning, and it’s got a new address and is not AST anymore 😅

Anonymous
>>101338892

I mean obviously it’s not AST anymore, but it’s just odd that it’s the same campus. My father worked there for a long time, and a lot of family friends were from AST.

CubicleNate

Golly, I thought this was just GREAT. I love that era of PC, when it was becoming more common for people to get computers, me getting jealous that my Amiga 1200 was getting showed up by "Windows" computers... getting an A4000T with the intention of putting a Pentium Bridgeboard card in it... yeah... those were the dayz!

LazyGameReviews
>>101446162

Nice, happy to hear it! I’m increasingly enjoying revisiting this era myself, especially the mid-to-low end setups. Just something special there.