I started drooling when I saw all those Packard Bells in that factory. If I could only travel back in time and grab a fresh PB system right off the line..
Nostalgia overload. We got our Packard Bell computer in the fall of 1995. I had just turned 14 years old and was in the 8th grade. I remember the excitement of setting it up, seeing Windows 95 for the first time, and then signing up for AOL on our screaming 33.6k dial-up modem (which was upgraded to 56k the following year). I remember having my friends over to mess around on the internet for literally hours. Those days were the best! That Packard Bell has been sitting in storage in my parents' garage for the past 20 years, but we do still have it. It hasn't been touched since 2001. It sure would be like a time capsule to boot it up after all this time and see what's on it from two decades ago. Fun fact: Up until just a few years ago, my dad was still using his original AOL email address from 1995. He FINALLY took the leap to Gmail in 2017 or 2018.
Fall of 1995.... September 25 to be exact (I remember this because there was some PB system info screen that showed the date the computer was setup or registered and I saw that date many, many times growing up). I was in 6th grade and for the first few months we didn't sign up for any internet provider. But then December rolls around and we put our 14.4 modem to work with AOL and whoooooo booooyyyyyyyy. Encarta 95, Journeyman Project Turbo, Spiderman Cartoon Maker, Minesweeper, or even just playing a CD on the bespoke Packard Bell media player..... those were the days!
What is most interesting from this video is how Packard Bell ran on Packard Bell systems. Their manufacturing line and their support center were both using Packard Bell desktops, rather than a competitor's enterprise line. They probably slapped a network card in and re-imaged the system to a corporate OS baseline. Interesting. Probably cheaper for them to buy from themselves too, at cost. Apple and Sun were also eat your own dogfood shops. Sun proudly touted that they engineer new SPARC CPU's on SPARC systems. Apple showed off the Fremont, CA plant in a 1988 video and proudly made clear that the automated factory ran on Macintosh II and Macintosh SE systems.
Yeah, I imagine that instead of using their own Master CD, they probably either used a retail Windows 95 install disc and something like Norton Ghost, or spun up their own internal use Master CD that contained all their site-licenced software and such, as well as software for different departments.
Makes me miss the Packard Bell PB 2900 my family got in 1996, it was such a beauty with that wavy space gray trim and the speakers on the sides of the monitor. Wish I could find one now, I’d buy it for the nostalgia.
Fun, now I can see the QA people who let slip a 1995 Legend 812CDT with a hard disk that failed in less than 6 months, lol. This was truly great... so much slick '90s corporate imagery going on here. I wish there was an endless supply of this stuff :p
I started drooling when I saw all those Packard Bells in that factory. If I could only travel back in time and grab a fresh PB system right off the line..
Nostalgia overload. We got our Packard Bell computer in the fall of 1995. I had just turned 14 years old and was in the 8th grade. I remember the excitement of setting it up, seeing Windows 95 for the first time, and then signing up for AOL on our screaming 33.6k dial-up modem (which was upgraded to 56k the following year). I remember having my friends over to mess around on the internet for literally hours. Those days were the best! That Packard Bell has been sitting in storage in my parents' garage for the past 20 years, but we do still have it. It hasn't been touched since 2001. It sure would be like a time capsule to boot it up after all this time and see what's on it from two decades ago. Fun fact: Up until just a few years ago, my dad was still using his original AOL email address from 1995. He FINALLY took the leap to Gmail in 2017 or 2018.
Fall of 1995.... September 25 to be exact (I remember this because there was some PB system info screen that showed the date the computer was setup or registered and I saw that date many, many times growing up). I was in 6th grade and for the first few months we didn't sign up for any internet provider. But then December rolls around and we put our 14.4 modem to work with AOL and whoooooo booooyyyyyyyy. Encarta 95, Journeyman Project Turbo, Spiderman Cartoon Maker, Minesweeper, or even just playing a CD on the bespoke Packard Bell media player..... those were the days!
That intro was the peak of mid-90s cheesiness. And I love it.
This makes me motivated to buy some outdated technology
What is most interesting from this video is how Packard Bell ran on Packard Bell systems. Their manufacturing line and their support center were both using Packard Bell desktops, rather than a competitor's enterprise line. They probably slapped a network card in and re-imaged the system to a corporate OS baseline. Interesting. Probably cheaper for them to buy from themselves too, at cost.
Apple and Sun were also eat your own dogfood shops. Sun proudly touted that they engineer new SPARC CPU's on SPARC systems. Apple showed off the Fremont, CA plant in a 1988 video and proudly made clear that the automated factory ran on Macintosh II and Macintosh SE systems.
Yeah, I imagine that instead of using their own Master CD, they probably either used a retail Windows 95 install disc and something like Norton Ghost, or spun up their own internal use Master CD that contained all their site-licenced software and such, as well as software for different departments.
Makes me miss the Packard Bell PB 2900 my family got in 1996, it was such a beauty with that wavy space gray trim and the speakers on the sides of the monitor. Wish I could find one now, I’d buy it for the nostalgia.
Thank you so much for sharing this. It made my day.
Behind the scenes of the QA testing! Interesting!
The face of technology logo was nicknamed "Randy Roadkill" within Packard Bell
Very nice quality video! What did you use to rip vhs?
A mid-2000s Dell USB TV Tuner. I did a video about it earlier this year. Uses MPEG decoding so it looks near broadcast quality.
Fun, now I can see the QA people who let slip a 1995 Legend 812CDT with a hard disk that failed in less than 6 months, lol. This was truly great... so much slick '90s corporate imagery going on here. I wish there was an endless supply of this stuff :p
I Think the Packard Bell Production Facility Was Destroyed or is being used for something else. The Whole Section is called Packard Bell, CA
That was cool af
Nice!!!
My family had the one at 3:33 a 386 from Costco
It's DOSember now, but whatever.
Too much strobing at around 1:00 minute mark.
Wow, that was interesting.
Nunca respondes los mensajes 😔
Yeah Jarvy, I noticed that too, he needs to interact with his subscribers.
He did 2 hours ago
Corporate propaganda hasn't changed a bit! I love how they made videos back then though. Reminds me of watching TV as a kid.