Its actually quite hilarious that this video popped into my recommended, I work as an automation tech at a production plant and we recently JUST retired 4 of these AB 6180 industrial computers running Windows NT 4.0 and let me tell you, they didn't live easy lives. As HMI (human-machine-interfaces) they've withstood probably close to 15 years of production people tapping and beating the keys and haven't missed a beat! I have a model EXACTLY like the one you have down to the motherboard which shortly after taking out the hard-drive died in. I'd be happy to send you its motherboard to get you're going as I've already replaced it with a duel PIII motherboard. I think the reason you're second IDE channel gave out is simply due to the fragile state of the motherboard. As stated above, these units normally lived in sealed panels (the remnants is still around your unit) with little to no outside airflow in some cases. Combine that with PLC, starters, and other heat generating devices, as well as debris from the product that its original plant might have made can and do absolutely weaken solder points and PCB strength. I also still have the original driver floppies that came with these units. I'm not sure if you can still find them on the Rockwell website (Allen Bradley) but you'll need to register an account to even look. Maybe an old PLC forum might have a copy floating around. I'll have to check but I think I have disks for the Video Card, that proprietary ISA card that does the keyboard/mouse/and front panel buttons, as well as a range of industrial expansion cards we used in our plant for old communication standards like DH+ and Modbus. Let me know if you want a copy and I'll try and get them to you. While my units ran NT4 I'm pretty sure the driver disks had drivers for Win 95/98/ME as well as 2000. I absolutely loved/hated using the front panel mouse and its buttons to shutdown the unit when we had scheduled power outages since it just had that early 90s feel! And I definitely added these to my PC collection after learning they were to be scrapped. Might use one as an NT server to administer my NT domain. It'd be kinda cool. Lastly, as for adding new hardware, some sellers on Ebay DO have semi-modern motherboards that have ISA slots for upgrading these exact machines! I think the newest one I could find was a LGA-775 motherboard with two ISA slots, a CF card slot, 4 SATA, and DDR3 memory support. Not a bad little board for $250! Otherwise just be careful if you still want to use the front panel controls as that ISA card is what does that. Do they even make ISA-PCI conversion card? Love the video and hope to see more of this machine!
@Lurch I will look when I get back to work next week. There is a folder in an old filing cabinet that has any and all documentation for electronics dating back 20 years.
Of course you should do all three! That’ll give us at least three great videos to watch, and since the finale should be the mac option, you’ll have plenty of time to figure the pinouts out. 😁
I have to say, the Mac option seems most in keeping with the shenanigans we’ve come to know and love in the channel. But any shenanigans are good shenanigans, so far as I’m concerned!
Lgr had his IBM industrial PC and display mounted in a custom hardwood cabinet. He needs to get a cabinet made for it with a built in Keyboard and trackball shelf and make it look like a arcade cabinet.
Ooh, I like the cocktail table idea, but protecting the system would be an issue. You'd need glass over top, which means not being able to use the physical controls. And that's half the "fun" of this beast. (Sure, the membrane could be patched... but would you really trust a patch job to handle a spill?)
I thought you were going to say to mount it in a door... like, maybe, a security panel on the door itself to his mancave. to get entry you have to solve a Myst puzzle
Im mainly a PC guy, and I have a thing for industrial stuff so your videos of this are the best ones yet. And yeah, back in the day circa 1996/97 on my old AMD 486DX40, 8MB, 500MB ATA/66, Trident SVGA "garage sale parts special" I installed WIndows 95 from floppy (I wont lie it was copies) even though i had a 4x CD-ROM drive and it took forever and was quite monotonous.
My worst floppy install was MS Office 4.3 Mac (legit). 43 HD discs. Forty-three. Things you do as a vintage computer tinkerer. An advertising agency had a massive spring cleanup in the early 2000s and had a skip full of office furniture and old software on the street, all original in the boxes with licence agreements, keys and everything. That's where I got that Office 4.3.
@@Ragnar8504 had to do that install on 200+ puters when jobbing for an agency. circa 1998 iirc 3 x dos disks 1 x mem fix disk specific for the olympas brand 286 puters 7 x win 3.1 disks and then 40 0dd ms office 2.0 disks.. 3 of us spent weeks on it..
I did the whole dos 6.22 to Win 3.11 to Win 95 upgrade (all via floppy) on a number of occasions back in the 'good old days'. Still less frustrating that installing Windows 98 and forgetting to install the SATA drivers at the beggining...
I haven't used DOS in probably 20 years but I think you could boot the PC from a Win95 startup disk, then launch the Windows 98 installer from the drive plugged into the primary IDE port.
If you pay attention the problem was that the IDE controller stopped working so he couldn't have both the SD to IDE and the industrial IDE flash drive both functioning at the same time
Or boot a DOS boot floppy, format the C: drive inside the industrial PC, then plug it inti a more modern system, copy over the setup files, move it back into the industrial behemoth, boot the 95 installer floppy and install off of the C: drive onto the C: drive
When you are done modding it, you should see if it can slide and spin around on your desk with the padding… to make a commercial for it… just like the original iMac commercials where the various colours came in from the side. Lol
10:37 Remember to tap Apply or OK after changing settings in Windows 1/2/3/NT4/95/98/2000/Me/Vista/XP/7 (and legacy dialogs in 8/10/11). Closing the dialog box with the X cancels any modified settings. Microsoft doesn't believe in insta-apply like Apple, except when it does in the 8+ era.
You are the best kind of UA-camr for those videos, and it's always fun to watch and I can tell that this is really something that interests and fascinates you, you do such a very good job! You deserve beyond 100000 subscribers, alone for all the effort you put into your videos for us! I have been watching you since 2021 and never regret it! :)
Back in the day we'd probably plug the harddisk into another machine, format it bootable and copy the windows installer, drivers and software onto it and then put it back in the original machine. Or connect a special harddisk to the parallel port or possibly use laplink to transfer said files over a parallel cable. Even back then multi floppy installs were for masochists.
These industrial computers were in Pulp and Paper mills all over the world. As for what you should run on it, there was a nuclear plant simulator (DOS) and you should try and run that on it.
Back in '95, I I had to re-install Windows 95 at least once a week. At least I had it on CD. I had a blazingly fast 😉 2x CD rom drive. That installation scene was hilarious!
You should buy a roll of 2" Kapton tape and just tape over those exposed contacts. Electrical tape works for rows of exposed pins, but it's a hassle for covering up more than just 1 row, which is where 2" rolls of Kapton come in really nice because you can just one-and-done the whole PCB. Highly worth it for preventing accidental shorts.
Option No. 4: Upgrade it to Windows 98 via floppies and then dual boot it with a period correct Linux distro on as penance for wrecking that coffee table... Also, you should totally mount it on the wall behind you as some weird photo frame!
I'd say restore it to its former glory, maxing out what is there with Win 98 SE/ME, and make it a set piece along with a few other interesting machines.
My guess is that the short on the IDE port must have damaged something in that region. But these old boards sometimes have electrical problems with capacitors that don't discharge, have you ever heard of a hardman short? It consists of removing the motherboard, removing the CMOS battery, and resting it on an aluminum foil, which in turn, will be above something soft (like a cloth, or styrofoam plate), the board will have the contacts all shorted together (off of course), and this will cause the capacitors to completely discharge. It worked a few times for me.
If you’re gonna rip it apart - my vote would be for a sleeper PC. Although finding a modern board with a FDD controller could be fun. Although it looks like the space where the FDD is, can be expanded out to 5.25” for an optical drive?
I think above all you should get a replacement Membrane from Allen Bradley. They are still available brand new directly from the manufacturer. Otherwise, I would like to stay a Windows machine
Potential future help for anything with one IDE, you can partition a drive into two with one partition containing the Windows Installer and one empty for the PC's drive. Unless my memory is failing, pretty sure I've installed Win 95/98 a couple times like that. Although then you miss out on the fun of installing via floppy!
Great! You have more patience than me. I'd be lazy and mount the CF card in VirtualBox, make it bootable, and copy over the installer. Or use MS LAN Manager (ethernet) ... or a null modem cable to copy over installers!
With Win95 installed, you could set up some networking to copy over the drivers too! I also use a program called Unknown Devices (by Halfdone Development) which helps identify components that don't have default Win95 drivers.
@@lurch1539 I respectfully disagree. Networking is retro. If it weren't, then why are there DOS methods and drivers available for networking PCs? Just because something isn't retro to you doesn't mean it isn't to someone else.
I had a P75 system as my first PC in 97 when I was 15. The PC made me back up 95's install files onto 28 (maybe 29?) floppies and for a few years that was how I did fresh installs. Just the process of Setup copying over the CAB file data took what must have been an hour, as opposed to a few minutes from a CD.
"Sled" is an interesting term for what is holding the floppy drive. It looks more like the kind of big hunk of metal you'd find bolted on the front of some Mad Max fire-belching killing machine. But it's very industrial, for sure.
Hehe, I remember installing windows from floppy disks, Win3.11 wasn't too bad, I think something like 6? But Win95 was insane, took forever, and forget about reliability of install since one of those disks not working right was really common.
And now for the question everyone wants to know the answer to... Will it play Crysis? Also, why not use the slave position on the primary IDE channel? Or do your adapters not allow a master/slave configuration?
Now that you've reused the same pretty-obscure KMFDM reference (Don't Blow Your Top is their best album, this is the hill I will die on), you clearly need to craft a Wax Trax! based win95 theme.
Out of curiosity, have you watched Ncommander install W98 on a 486.....from floppy? I'm just wondering now what the most cursed combination of Windows and obscure/ancient hardware can be done, the touch KVM plus NC's 486 mobo is the worst I can think of so far.
@@aaaalex1994 I’m probably biased because I’ve run XP on low end hardware before but that just feels more painful than cursed. Although now it’s making me wonder if you could use a small Linux distro to run an emulator of some kind? Making it appear to be a Macintosh, Amiga, etc.
I am debating to recreate this system but with modern things. 3D Print the frame, use an old laptop LCD, Would say a raspberry pi but I got a Pineboard kicking around and some MX-Cherry switches instead of the membrane keyboard. Looks handy to control my CNC machine.
I have one of those hyperdisk industrial dom at 32Gbs. On my old retro computer I couldn't get the cf to ide card to work. So, I used the internal drive that came with the retro pc and found a new old stock external cf card reader to parallel port. Which makes it so I can copy files to my retro computer. I than couldn't get bios to see an SSD and got tired of using my original xbox hdd so I bought the dom. Best purchase ever it connected like normal and was instantly auto detected by the bios. I than cloned my old drive to the dom and found another tool to add the space back.
If it were me, I’d use a 32GB SD card in an SD to IDE adapter since I have a hard time finding compact flash as it is and on top of that I seem to remember that CF is kinda finicky in adapters. Regardless, depending on the operating system 4GB likely wouldn’t be enough, 32GB I would say is the sweet spot
I think you should embed that industrial monstrosity into a wall (preferable outside the front door) where it belongs and then install HollyOS so that Norman Lovett can greet visitors with all kinds of pithy wisecracks. If the hardware allows, you could even upgrade it to HollyOS 89 which features Hattie Hayridge.
I'd say keep it as a Windows PC, maybe upgrade to 98. See if you can find something to mount it in. Really shine that "diamond". I'm wondering if there's a way to fabricate a replacement to that membrane keyboard? Certainly there's someone who can do that.
Well, if nothing else. You could make the worlds most zen ASMR video by just making a video of the install without the sped up footage.. just live floppy installation of win95.. :D
Dos powered system. Mounted to a wall, connected via serial to Arduino's connected to stepper motors which would raise or lower a more expensive modern display.
Regarding the video driver issues, try installing windows 95d lite, it comes preloaded with tons of drivers from the 90s to the early-mid 2000s and automatically installs them
If you could somehow rig it up with that internal display, adding an mpeg card or a new video card with mpeg decoding on board would make this into the world's clunkiest DVD player.
I like the idea of cramming a mac in it. You can very likely use one of those early core duo macbooks (since they can run tiger and are pretty undesirable for most people since they max out at 10,6,8) and fit its screen into the membrane cutout. I would HIGHLY suggest that if you continue to mess around with this "totally normal computer" that you build it a box that it can mount in and put some felt feet on the sides to avoid damage to anything it touches.
Ahh I remember setting my 13" display to something like 800x600 and ending up after a reboot with a postage stamp sized rendering, had to do a system restore :(
You need to explore some other missions than retro gaming for your resurected retro computers. There must be a task one can uncover for these machines other than retro gaming. The idea of a host for Home Automation software comes to mind as one mission. There are likely others.
I scored an old (basically unused) industrial box like yours, luckily mine just has rack ears so it can sit on a table without any real issues. I'd add rubber feet, but that would stop me putting it back into my 19" rack. Mine has two front drive bays, a 3.5 floppy, and an unused 5.25" bay, probably intended to take a CD drive. I have a few plastic 5.25" removable IDE drive caddies, I probably should install one, as I did with another DOS machine I have, The removable case on that one has a IDE to CF adapter in it, making for really easy CF card access. If you can pick a few up, this makes for real quick swapping between a CF adapter and a real spinning platter HDD.
You may laugh, but in manufacturing we still use many of these type of machines. For work I have a dedicated laptop for each OS starting with win95 all the way to win10. That includes ME and Vista too! 5.25" floppys, SRAM, we still use em all.
I'd recommend completely removing the motherboard and thoroughly washing it. An ultrasonic cleaner would be ideal, but actually washing it in a tub with liquid and detergents to remove as much dust as possible would probably work well enough. I've seen enough industrial equipment to recognize what steel dust is, and that whole PC is coated in it. My current theory is the steel dust is causing an intermittent short of the address/data pins on the IDE ports on the motherboard, thus why it stopped working even with Deoxit on the pins. The Deoxit would just turn the steel dust into a conductive paste underneath the header. Another possibility is the CPU may have been damaged from prolonged hours running with the loose heatsink, and is only working marginally enough to limp along. It would explain the odd behavior this machine is displaying.
Playing Wolfenstein 3D on that on-screen membrane keyboard is absolutely ridiculous. Thank you for sacrificing your hands and sanity for our entertainment
Speaking of old computers I have a Aquarius from 1983 it was brand new in its box with the expansion kit and I got it for a whole $100 they're only sold for 4 months and 20,000 made I'm proud of myself for seeing it.
A good "middle of the road" gaming solution might be to put something like an lga1366, 1155, 1156, 775 or and am3 motherboard in there, that will give you the power to play modern games AND the legacy support for floppy drives, serial, parallel, PS2, pci, and even possibly isa with the right industrial motherboard, for all sorts of fun down the road and add ons for gaming and fun.
Option #4: Put LinuxCNC on it and get into machining your own bits, bobs, and do-dads. (No, I have no idea how well LinuxCNC will work on that motherboard, but hey - it’s an adventure!)
I like the idea of making that thing a DOS gaming rig, though I would also like to investigate the idea of building in some sort of amplified speaker for the sound card, or else trying to figuure out some sort of era appropriate panel mount speaker solution that may be expected in a factory environment.
Well i would either keep it a DOS machine or try to squeeze in a modern Ryzen machine with Linux. Something like Manjaro KDE or Garuda which are good for Gaming.
I think minimum requirements for Garuda is something like 4gb of RAM. And this old Pentium 100 will never run it either. Nice idea though to put Linux on it.
Whichever option(s) you go with, you NEED to build a wall for this thing to reside in. It needs that to be authenticate. You can even put casters on the wall if you want to make it portable.
Its actually quite hilarious that this video popped into my recommended, I work as an automation tech at a production plant and we recently JUST retired 4 of these AB 6180 industrial computers running Windows NT 4.0 and let me tell you, they didn't live easy lives. As HMI (human-machine-interfaces) they've withstood probably close to 15 years of production people tapping and beating the keys and haven't missed a beat!
I have a model EXACTLY like the one you have down to the motherboard which shortly after taking out the hard-drive died in. I'd be happy to send you its motherboard to get you're going as I've already replaced it with a duel PIII motherboard. I think the reason you're second IDE channel gave out is simply due to the fragile state of the motherboard. As stated above, these units normally lived in sealed panels (the remnants is still around your unit) with little to no outside airflow in some cases. Combine that with PLC, starters, and other heat generating devices, as well as debris from the product that its original plant might have made can and do absolutely weaken solder points and PCB strength.
I also still have the original driver floppies that came with these units. I'm not sure if you can still find them on the Rockwell website (Allen Bradley) but you'll need to register an account to even look. Maybe an old PLC forum might have a copy floating around. I'll have to check but I think I have disks for the Video Card, that proprietary ISA card that does the keyboard/mouse/and front panel buttons, as well as a range of industrial expansion cards we used in our plant for old communication standards like DH+ and Modbus. Let me know if you want a copy and I'll try and get them to you. While my units ran NT4 I'm pretty sure the driver disks had drivers for Win 95/98/ME as well as 2000.
I absolutely loved/hated using the front panel mouse and its buttons to shutdown the unit when we had scheduled power outages since it just had that early 90s feel! And I definitely added these to my PC collection after learning they were to be scrapped. Might use one as an NT server to administer my NT domain. It'd be kinda cool.
Lastly, as for adding new hardware, some sellers on Ebay DO have semi-modern motherboards that have ISA slots for upgrading these exact machines! I think the newest one I could find was a LGA-775 motherboard with two ISA slots, a CF card slot, 4 SATA, and DDR3 memory support. Not a bad little board for $250! Otherwise just be careful if you still want to use the front panel controls as that ISA card is what does that. Do they even make ISA-PCI conversion card?
Love the video and hope to see more of this machine!
Woah awesome, thank you for sharing this!
@Lurch I will look when I get back to work next week. There is a folder in an old filing cabinet that has any and all documentation for electronics dating back 20 years.
@@ActionRetro I hate to ask this in a comment but is there a PO box I can ship these too? Or email?
@@unknownsoldier4156 if he doesn't get back, check his Patreon. Most UA-cam creators leave their contact info there.
@@richardestes6499 Appreciate it! I'll check there.
I really have to respect the effort of actually getting a coffee table just to scratch it with an indrustrial 90's PC for a 3 seconds gag on a video!
"Life Choices" totally has to be in the Billboard Top 10 for industrial gaming funk.
6:26 That diskette handoff was perfectly executed.
"Perfectly"
Of course you should do all three! That’ll give us at least three great videos to watch, and since the finale should be the mac option, you’ll have plenty of time to figure the pinouts out. 😁
I have to say, the Mac option seems most in keeping with the shenanigans we’ve come to know and love in the channel. But any shenanigans are good shenanigans, so far as I’m concerned!
i love Computers Shenanigans!
I feel like, since it's already 'panel mounted' into a door, maybe you could put it in a panel booth or even turn it into a 'cocktail' table PC?
Lgr had his IBM industrial PC and display mounted in a custom hardwood cabinet. He needs to get a cabinet made for it with a built in Keyboard and trackball shelf and make it look like a arcade cabinet.
Ooh, I like the cocktail table idea, but protecting the system would be an issue. You'd need glass over top, which means not being able to use the physical controls. And that's half the "fun" of this beast.
(Sure, the membrane could be patched... but would you really trust a patch job to handle a spill?)
I like the cocktail table PC idea!
I thought you were going to say to mount it in a door... like, maybe, a security panel on the door itself to his mancave. to get entry you have to solve a Myst puzzle
That would be insanely awesome! Cool cocktail cabinet AND web browser!!!!
As a welder who interacts with 20 year old Allen Bradley products on a daily basis, and still being productive, loved this video.
You can sing, play guitar, fix rare vintage electronics. Impressive 💅💅💅
This is a ridiculous channel and I love it 😁
Im mainly a PC guy, and I have a thing for industrial stuff so your videos of this are the best ones yet.
And yeah, back in the day circa 1996/97 on my old AMD 486DX40, 8MB, 500MB ATA/66, Trident SVGA "garage sale parts special" I installed WIndows 95 from floppy (I wont lie it was copies) even though i had a 4x CD-ROM drive and it took forever and was quite monotonous.
My worst floppy install was MS Office 4.3 Mac (legit). 43 HD discs. Forty-three. Things you do as a vintage computer tinkerer. An advertising agency had a massive spring cleanup in the early 2000s and had a skip full of office furniture and old software on the street, all original in the boxes with licence agreements, keys and everything. That's where I got that Office 4.3.
@@Ragnar8504 had to do that install on 200+ puters when jobbing for an agency. circa 1998 iirc 3 x dos disks 1 x mem fix disk specific for the olympas brand 286 puters 7 x win 3.1 disks and then 40 0dd ms office 2.0 disks.. 3 of us spent weeks on it..
@@larkbox8427 I feel your pain! That must have taken ages!
@@Ragnar8504
It was a job ;) and i developed great floppy disk muscle memory that served well for another decade ;)
I did the whole dos 6.22 to Win 3.11 to Win 95 upgrade (all via floppy) on a number of occasions back in the 'good old days'.
Still less frustrating that installing Windows 98 and forgetting to install the SATA drivers at the beggining...
This gaming experience was insane in the membrane.
I haven't used DOS in probably 20 years but I think you could boot the PC from a Win95 startup disk, then launch the Windows 98 installer from the drive plugged into the primary IDE port.
Yea, or use a null modem cable to transfer files over!
If you pay attention the problem was that the IDE controller stopped working so he couldn't have both the SD to IDE and the industrial IDE flash drive both functioning at the same time
@@Helladamnleet master/slave drive config perhaps?
@@lurch1539 for the novelty! I like to change up the ways I do installs too.. it is fun to try different approaches
Or boot a DOS boot floppy, format the C: drive inside the industrial PC, then plug it inti a more modern system, copy over the setup files, move it back into the industrial behemoth, boot the 95 installer floppy and install off of the C: drive onto the C: drive
When you are done modding it, you should see if it can slide and spin around on your desk with the padding… to make a commercial for it… just like the original iMac commercials where the various colours came in from the side. Lol
6:10 this was me the other day trying to install legacy nvidia HD drivers on my windows XP build FML took me 3 days
10:37 Remember to tap Apply or OK after changing settings in Windows 1/2/3/NT4/95/98/2000/Me/Vista/XP/7 (and legacy dialogs in 8/10/11). Closing the dialog box with the X cancels any modified settings.
Microsoft doesn't believe in insta-apply like Apple, except when it does in the 8+ era.
You missed CE
i'm full of cold and 'I'm questioning my life choices' did not let me stop laughing for 2 solid minutes, thank you.
You are the best kind of UA-camr for those videos, and it's always fun to watch and I can tell that this is really something that interests and fascinates you, you do such a very good job! You deserve beyond 100000 subscribers, alone for all the effort you put into your videos for us! I have been watching you since 2021 and never regret it! :)
I love the antics you get up to. I could have seen myself trying to use one of these beasts if I found it discarded somewhere.
Back in the day we'd probably plug the harddisk into another machine, format it bootable and copy the windows installer, drivers and software onto it and then put it back in the original machine. Or connect a special harddisk to the parallel port or possibly use laplink to transfer said files over a parallel cable. Even back then multi floppy installs were for masochists.
These industrial computers were in Pulp and Paper mills all over the world. As for what you should run on it, there was a nuclear plant simulator (DOS) and you should try and run that on it.
Back in '95, I I had to re-install Windows 95 at least once a week. At least I had it on CD. I had a blazingly fast 😉 2x CD rom drive. That installation scene was hilarious!
Actually laughed out loud at the table scratching 😂
i laughed the hardest of all your videos on the intro of this wow 2023 is off to a great start!
I've binged so much of your content in the last 2 days it's insane. Thank you sir.
You should buy a roll of 2" Kapton tape and just tape over those exposed contacts. Electrical tape works for rows of exposed pins, but it's a hassle for covering up more than just 1 row, which is where 2" rolls of Kapton come in really nice because you can just one-and-done the whole PCB. Highly worth it for preventing accidental shorts.
I've been waiting for my Saturday morning television!
Option No. 4: Upgrade it to Windows 98 via floppies and then dual boot it with a period correct Linux distro on as penance for wrecking that coffee table... Also, you should totally mount it on the wall behind you as some weird photo frame!
I'd go with doing all of those options. I like seeing you step outside your comfort zone a bit. I'm excited to see what you'll do next.
You need to build that into a nice 19" Industrial cabinet with casters on the bottom so you can tow it to that LAN party.
This is so funny to me and therefore I feel like it must be done.
Your use of tow makes me imagine him dragging it behind his truck. It'd probably survive, all things considered!
I'd say restore it to its former glory, maxing out what is there with Win 98 SE/ME, and make it a set piece along with a few other interesting machines.
I really like the idea of shoehorning modern fairly high end components into it and making a sleeper computer.
7:19 "adb"? You mean ps/2?
My guess is that the short on the IDE port must have damaged something in that region.
But these old boards sometimes have electrical problems with capacitors that don't discharge, have you ever heard of a hardman short? It consists of removing the motherboard, removing the CMOS battery, and resting it on an aluminum foil, which in turn, will be above something soft (like a cloth, or styrofoam plate), the board will have the contacts all shorted together (off of course), and this will cause the capacitors to completely discharge. It worked a few times for me.
You silly goose. I like the macintosh route. Seems like a good home for Steve's AIO motherboard if he ever gets it fixed.
If you’re gonna rip it apart - my vote would be for a sleeper PC. Although finding a modern board with a FDD controller could be fun. Although it looks like the space where the FDD is, can be expanded out to 5.25” for an optical drive?
Yeah that's what I was thinking - optical drive and modern guts... at some point at least!
Have you tried downloading a Driver Pack for Windows 95? They have pretty much every driver ever made for the OS and are super easy to use.
I think above all you should get a replacement Membrane from Allen Bradley. They are still available brand new directly from the manufacturer. Otherwise, I would like to stay a Windows machine
Potential future help for anything with one IDE, you can partition a drive into two with one partition containing the Windows Installer and one empty for the PC's drive. Unless my memory is failing, pretty sure I've installed Win 95/98 a couple times like that.
Although then you miss out on the fun of installing via floppy!
i was just watching your older videos and then i seen a notification for your new one and i was like yes
A big thumbs up to Option 3. Would love to see a Mac (classic or otherwise) shoehorned into that industrial beast.
Ty so much i was really waiting for this!!!!!!
Great! You have more patience than me. I'd be lazy and mount the CF card in VirtualBox, make it bootable, and copy over the installer. Or use MS LAN Manager (ethernet) ... or a null modem cable to copy over installers!
With Win95 installed, you could set up some networking to copy over the drivers too! I also use a program called Unknown Devices (by Halfdone Development) which helps identify components that don't have default Win95 drivers.
@@lurch1539 I respectfully disagree. Networking is retro. If it weren't, then why are there DOS methods and drivers available for networking PCs? Just because something isn't retro to you doesn't mean it isn't to someone else.
I had a P75 system as my first PC in 97 when I was 15. The PC made me back up 95's install files onto 28 (maybe 29?) floppies and for a few years that was how I did fresh installs. Just the process of Setup copying over the CAB file data took what must have been an hour, as opposed to a few minutes from a CD.
"Sled" is an interesting term for what is holding the floppy drive. It looks more like the kind of big hunk of metal you'd find bolted on the front of some Mad Max fire-belching killing machine. But it's very industrial, for sure.
Hehe, I remember installing windows from floppy disks, Win3.11 wasn't too bad, I think something like 6? But Win95 was insane, took forever, and forget about reliability of install since one of those disks not working right was really common.
And now for the question everyone wants to know the answer to... Will it play Crysis?
Also, why not use the slave position on the primary IDE channel? Or do your adapters not allow a master/slave configuration?
love this, I would personally recommend having a custom carry case built for it,like what DJs use for their getups
Now that you've reused the same pretty-obscure KMFDM reference (Don't Blow Your Top is their best album, this is the hill I will die on), you clearly need to craft a Wax Trax! based win95 theme.
Out of curiosity, have you watched Ncommander install W98 on a 486.....from floppy?
I'm just wondering now what the most cursed combination of Windows and obscure/ancient hardware can be done, the touch KVM plus NC's 486 mobo is the worst I can think of so far.
haha yep! i couldn't get win98 disks to write correctly for some reason
You can install Windows XP on here...
Assuming you have enough RAM and disk space, of course.
@@aaaalex1994 I’m probably biased because I’ve run XP on low end hardware before but that just feels more painful than cursed.
Although now it’s making me wonder if you could use a small Linux distro to run an emulator of some kind? Making it appear to be a Macintosh, Amiga, etc.
I feel like the Macintosh idea would be the funniest, but I would love to see them all.
I would love to see a sleeper build in that thing but whacking a mac in it seems way more on brand!
Great vids, cheers dude.
ALL OF THEM! Sounds like the making of a series to me!
"Should we do all of them", I know i'd totally 100% be up to see all of those crazy ideas.
I am debating to recreate this system but with modern things. 3D Print the frame, use an old laptop LCD, Would say a raspberry pi but I got a Pineboard kicking around and some MX-Cherry switches instead of the membrane keyboard. Looks handy to control my CNC machine.
I have one of those hyperdisk industrial dom at 32Gbs. On my old retro computer I couldn't get the cf to ide card to work. So, I used the internal drive that came with the retro pc and found a new old stock external cf card reader to parallel port. Which makes it so I can copy files to my retro computer. I than couldn't get bios to see an SSD and got tired of using my original xbox hdd so I bought the dom. Best purchase ever it connected like normal and was instantly auto detected by the bios. I than cloned my old drive to the dom and found another tool to add the space back.
If it were me, I’d use a 32GB SD card in an SD to IDE adapter since I have a hard time finding compact flash as it is and on top of that I seem to remember that CF is kinda finicky in adapters. Regardless, depending on the operating system 4GB likely wouldn’t be enough, 32GB I would say is the sweet spot
This is best retro tech video to enjoy!
You are definitely crazy and it seems that we are a few to absolutely love it - totally normal computing as a result
You earned the thumbs up with the industrial joke, and you lost it when you brought shame to your inner Larry David by scratching the wood.
In windows fashion, you need to hit apply or ok when changing settings. The mouse speed didn't increase.
I vote for option one because I want to see more of the innards.
You are the most adorable tech masochist on UA-cam and perhaps the internet.
The Mighty Thonks have returned!
I think you should embed that industrial monstrosity into a wall (preferable outside the front door) where it belongs and then install HollyOS so that Norman Lovett can greet visitors with all kinds of pithy wisecracks. If the hardware allows, you could even upgrade it to HollyOS 89 which features Hattie Hayridge.
I want this! 😀
HollyOS? cool :) If someone can do a Holly OS i will install it
If you install it into a wall, some drunk will put their cashcard into it, thinking it’s an ATM!
@@stevearkwright so you're saying he should install a card reader...
How does this not exist?!
custom soundtrack ... awesome
I'd say keep it as a Windows PC, maybe upgrade to 98. See if you can find something to mount it in. Really shine that "diamond".
I'm wondering if there's a way to fabricate a replacement to that membrane keyboard? Certainly there's someone who can do that.
Yeah, pimp it like a late 1990s gaming machine. Paint it black and slap a window in the case.
Well, if nothing else. You could make the worlds most zen ASMR video by just making a video of the install without the sped up footage.. just live floppy installation of win95.. :D
Dos powered system. Mounted to a wall, connected via serial to Arduino's connected to stepper motors which would raise or lower a more expensive modern display.
Regarding the video driver issues, try installing windows 95d lite, it comes preloaded with tons of drivers from the 90s to the early-mid 2000s and automatically installs them
That coffee table dramatization got you a subscription.
If you could somehow rig it up with that internal display, adding an mpeg card or a new video card with mpeg decoding on board would make this into the world's clunkiest DVD player.
All of the options sounds good
The industrial mac build would be pretty great.
I like the idea of cramming a mac in it. You can very likely use one of those early core duo macbooks (since they can run tiger and are pretty undesirable for most people since they max out at 10,6,8) and fit its screen into the membrane cutout. I would HIGHLY suggest that if you continue to mess around with this "totally normal computer" that you build it a box that it can mount in and put some felt feet on the sides to avoid damage to anything it touches.
"I'm Questioning My Life Choices" is my new jam
Ahh I remember setting my 13" display to something like 800x600 and ending up after a reboot with a postage stamp sized rendering, had to do a system restore :(
You need to explore some other missions than retro gaming for your resurected retro computers. There must be a task one can uncover for these machines other than retro gaming. The idea of a host for Home Automation software comes to mind as one mission. There are likely others.
If it can handle the hmi controls of a big machine, it can handle home automation
I scored an old (basically unused) industrial box like yours, luckily mine just has rack ears so it can sit on a table without any real issues. I'd add rubber feet, but that would stop me putting it back into my 19" rack.
Mine has two front drive bays, a 3.5 floppy, and an unused 5.25" bay, probably intended to take a CD drive. I have a few plastic 5.25" removable IDE drive caddies, I probably should install one, as I did with another DOS machine I have, The removable case on that one has a IDE to CF adapter in it, making for really easy CF card access.
If you can pick a few up, this makes for real quick swapping between a CF adapter and a real spinning platter HDD.
I actually screamed when you dragged it across that table.
You may laugh, but in manufacturing we still use many of these type of machines. For work I have a dedicated laptop for each OS starting with win95 all the way to win10. That includes ME and Vista too! 5.25" floppys, SRAM, we still use em all.
Ever since you said you used to be in an emo band, I've been asking for songs. Finally, my requests have been answered.. sort of.
Ahhhhhhh 95 from floppies, I remember the joy of that. My CD-Rom hung off my soundcard back then and the installer was having none of that.
I'd recommend completely removing the motherboard and thoroughly washing it. An ultrasonic cleaner would be ideal, but actually washing it in a tub with liquid and detergents to remove as much dust as possible would probably work well enough. I've seen enough industrial equipment to recognize what steel dust is, and that whole PC is coated in it.
My current theory is the steel dust is causing an intermittent short of the address/data pins on the IDE ports on the motherboard, thus why it stopped working even with Deoxit on the pins. The Deoxit would just turn the steel dust into a conductive paste underneath the header. Another possibility is the CPU may have been damaged from prolonged hours running with the loose heatsink, and is only working marginally enough to limp along. It would explain the odd behavior this machine is displaying.
yes a sleeper system for modren games. but you need to some how get absured amounts of RGB lighting. lmao
Playing Wolfenstein 3D on that on-screen membrane keyboard is absolutely ridiculous. Thank you for sacrificing your hands and sanity for our entertainment
I love all the options, though I can’t wait to see it as a Mac!
You can connect two IDE devices to one connection on the board. Use a Cable Select style cable.
Option 3: The Industrial Hackintosh!
Speaking of old computers I have a Aquarius from 1983 it was brand new in its box with the expansion kit and I got it for a whole $100 they're only sold for 4 months and 20,000 made I'm proud of myself for seeing it.
Option 2 sounds awesome honestly.
After 2 minutes the engineer would have found an old mouse lying around to use. You, sir, are a masochist.
That was great! Could a blindfolded speedrun be next? With that keyboard, not seeing what's happening wouldn't make the experience that much harder :)
A good "middle of the road" gaming solution might be to put something like an lga1366, 1155, 1156, 775 or and am3 motherboard in there, that will give you the power to play modern games AND the legacy support for floppy drives, serial, parallel, PS2, pci, and even possibly isa with the right industrial motherboard, for all sorts of fun down the road and add ons for gaming and fun.
Option #4: Put LinuxCNC on it and get into machining your own bits, bobs, and do-dads. (No, I have no idea how well LinuxCNC will work on that motherboard, but hey - it’s an adventure!)
I think you should do all of them, but you should definitely do the modern on first! That would be awesome.
love the song of course we want it all because we love the shenanigans
I like the idea of making that thing a DOS gaming rig, though I would also like to investigate the idea of building in some sort of amplified speaker for the sound card, or else trying to figuure out some sort of era appropriate panel mount speaker solution that may be expected in a factory environment.
Well i would either keep it a DOS machine or try to squeeze in a modern Ryzen machine with Linux. Something like Manjaro KDE or Garuda which are good for Gaming.
I think minimum requirements for Garuda is something like 4gb of RAM. And this old Pentium 100 will never run it either. Nice idea though to put Linux on it.
Whichever option(s) you go with, you NEED to build a wall for this thing to reside in. It needs that to be authenticate. You can even put casters on the wall if you want to make it portable.
lol, this is just awesome on so many levels.