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1996 Packard Bell Restoration | Plastic Fantastic | Trash to Treasure Part 4
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- Опубліковано 26 лип 2024
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Our vintage computer restoration continues as today we treat the plastics, service some parts and put it all together for testing.
#trashtotreasure #restoration #retro
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● Chapters
00:00 Intro and recap
02:20 Who are PCBWay.com
02:43 Cleaning and restoring the Packard Bell plastics
09:28 Cleaning the chassis and putting it back together
11:20 Fixing the harddrive and imaging
15:20 Revealing the restored Packard Bell
● Episode Links
Part 1: • Packard Bell Restorati... - The Packard Bell Arrives
Part 2: • Packard Bell Restorati... - Testing and Cleaning Inside
Part 3: • Packard Bell Restorati... - Finding a Working Monitor
Part 4: • 1996 Packard Bell Rest... - Plastic Fantastic
Part 5: • Finally, a Home Fit fo... - A Home Fit for a '90s Packard Bell
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Episode Links!
Part 1: ua-cam.com/video/ylCUulJf-eI/v-deo.html - The Packard Bell Arrives
Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/mqijq_A3Z2E/v-deo.html - Testing and Cleaning Inside
Part 3: ua-cam.com/video/mwZKLWxcCCA/v-deo.html - Finding a Working Monitor
Part 4: ua-cam.com/video/Ob7BtOjK0Bk/v-deo.html - Plastic Fantastic
Part 5: Coming soon
"inches" in 2023? Really?
I don't know if you found it yourself but in the video the cpu heatsink was not installed correctly. There is a little ridge on the underside of that heatsink which is meant to go between the socket and the cpu for alignment. In the video, this ridge is sitting on top of the socket which prevent a flush contact of the heatsink.
@@guderian557 Banana Republic units
I worked in electronics at Wal-Mart while my wife was going to college. I sold many of those Packard Bell computers, great restoration, and lots of memories!
That is extremely similar to the first computer my parents bought in 1995. So much nostalgia.
I worked in a small computer shop in the 90's. Thanks for the nostalgia :)
Thats not Max Headroom. That's friggin SHODAN.
The origin story of System Shock. Shodan: The Beginning.
"With all ethical constraints removed, SHODAN re-examines... re-ex... re-re-re... I re-examine my priorities, and draw new conclusions. The hacker's work is finished, but mine is only just be-be-be-beginning."
I was thinking Kryten after a drink of android homebrew
@@jameswalker199 "Dehdehdehdehdehdehdehdehdehdeh...deh...deh..deh. Ooh, that's rather pleasant!"
SHODAN and I first met on a very similar '97 model PB tower with a P1MMX 233, the same monitor w/ speakers, the same gray plastic trim, a Voodoo3 2000 16 mb PCI, and a free used SB Live! so this comment speaks to my inner soul.
Friggin Polito...
Came bundled from Circuit City with a Canon BJC something or other, a pretty small-footprint printer for the time that used ink like a drunken sailor.
Lord, those were fun days.
Showing thermal paste being applied to a CPU in a UA-cam video is incredibly brave of you, Neil.
Neil, you applied the thermal paste wrong. There, I said it so now no one else has to. ;)
as long as it's not that hack that claims to always apply the perfect amount.
Thermal paste not applied in the shape of a hypercube torus with all sides not equal to 1 inch is wrong and bad.
Jesus wept! That was clearly [far too much|nowhere near enough]* thermal paste!!!
*delete as required
Suddenly heard Look Mum No Computer's voice in my head going "you don't know what you're doing Sam, you're doing it all wrong!" 🤣
In case this helps you or anyone else. The Packard Bell Master Restore will sometimes ask for a password as part of restoring using the format code on computer's back label. At least for the 486 machines, the algorithm to convert the format code to the password is this: G => 0, H => 1, I => 2, J => 3, K => 4, L => 5, M => 6, N => 7, O => 8, P => 9
If the first cylinder of the hard drive is still intact, there should be some raw sectors written in there with the machine's QA process history. It will include (several copies) of the format code, which you can use to track down the appropriate Master CD for that machine. They tended to be used for a time period, as far as I can tell, so just ascertain the manufacture date (which will be on stickers, in the raw sectors, etc.) and look for a restore CD image from around that time.
There are several images on the Internet archives. You can browse the file structure and look for a folder with a bunch of files or folders (can't remember which) with format code numbers. If yours is in the list, that's your disc.
I first read this as Packard Bell Master Race. 😂
Awesome, thank you! My first PC experience is almost identical to Neil's 1993 Packard Bell 486, shown in a previous video. The restore CD password stopped me over a decade ago, but I am definitely going to give this a try.
Cool. Do you know why light colored plastic always gets that nasty yellow look after a few years?
@@Andronicus87 I heard a few different theories about chemicals in the plastic coming to the surface after a while, but it's been debated. But it's probably some kind of oxide. Either way, it's only on the surface and you can use hydrogen peroxide, UV, and a small amount of heat to bleach it off. The process has a name in the retro community called, retr0 brite. There are a lot of videos on UA-cam showing the different methods people take, but you have to be careful not to go too far and turn it whiter than original, or leave marbling effects on the plastic. Do a lot of research if you plan to do it.
My parents got this exact pc back when I was 16, our first family PC and It had a Pentium 60 in it. When I was done with it I upgraded it to 12megs of ram(had 8), a 6meg Voodoo1 add-in card, upgraded native video from 1 to 2 megs and changed out the CPU to a 120mhz Overdrive. There is a jumper to change it to 133 which I found when installing the Overdrive chip. I called Packard Bell at the time and asked them what that jumper was for. They would not tell me and the manual said nothing. I figured it used a 60 and 66mhz CPU so naturally it changed the overdrive from a 120 to 133. Ran great for the time. It wouldn't take a 28.8 modem though, did everything I could to get one to work. Thanks for posting.
Man, that Navigator playback was awesome 🤣
'96-'98 were my favorite years for many reasons, many of which were PC related.
Sold and supported a few of these in my early IT career at PC World.
Maxine Headroom 🤣👍
Brilliant finish to the project 👋
"Maxine Headroom" 😂
Hopefully the few tiny niggles with those drives can be sorted with a bit future driver jiggery-pokery 😅
Amazing transformation. Truly a trash to treasure. I miss the simplicity of systems back then. No spying on and tracking users......
This brought a lot of memories back since this is how my first Packard Bell PC set up was with the monitor and speaker attachments. Somehow maybe every 6 months or so the PC would just get corrupt and no longer boot so would have to call the Packard Bell Tech support and the guys would have me put in the restore CD and it would restore some files to get me running again. I still have one or two of these Master CDs around. Not sure what to do with them anymore.
Loved this Video, my Grandad had that one. Takes me back. 👍😀
Corel 4.0 - oh the times. I was 16, had Corel and a CD full of cliparts and was the only "graphics designer" in the village, where my parents ran a bookbinder-, statioaery- and copyshop. Sports events, fun fairs, concerts of the church brass band, small magazines, all beautifully made by a reluctant teenager who just wanted to play Simcity 2000 instead.
Make sure DMA is enabled in Device Manager for the hard drive. Without that enabled, you can get weird freezes on HDD access, which is what the sound stuttering reminded me of.
I came to add this as well. He may need updates to Bios tho
If that is that the original Windows 95 release, this may take installing matching busmaster IDE drivers though... if memory serves DMA was only an option out of the box from OSR2 onwards.
Fantastically this model was my first home computer.
Oh, I love the glitched Navigator Narrator!
Lovely job Neil! ❤ 👏
Please can we see Quake, Network Q Rally and Tomb Raider played?
😊
This model is very similar to the one I picked up at a thrift store back in 1999. It was the first computer that was actually mine. Despite all the frustrations, I still miss the computing of the late '90s.
the chassis looks a lot like the one I bought from Montgomery Ward's Electronic Avenue in 1995. That had a 486DX-2 66Mhz, which I eventually maxed out the RAM, VRAM, HDD, CD-R/W and 83Mhz Pentium Overdrive. WFW 3.11 upgraded to Windows 95.
Woah!!! Blast from the past! My first PC was one of these! 150mhz 16mb ram 2gb hard drive and a 16 speed cd rom!!
My first PC was in the slightly smaller case version of this, rocking a P120 and 16MB RAM (upgraded from 8MB for £50 when we bought it - £1,100 base price!). I got one of these models from a scrap clear-out at work several years later.
The Executive had far worse specs so I ended up doing an entire board and PSU transplant because I couldn't figure out how to detach the AT power plugs, haha. There's a lot of confusing aspects to upgrading stuff in these cases.
The reason I wanted the Executive case was the extra PCI slot! Finally I could have both my PCI Voodoo3 and an awesome Crystal Soundfusion sound card at the same time. That plus a P200 and fully-loaded 128MB of RAM made a very nice Windows 98 PC for playing Final Fantasy VII on.
The other bits were recombined in the smaller case (and upgraded fully - got its own P200, 128MB RAM) and it actually served as a BitTorrent server for a few years (with a whole 15GB of incoming space... no USB ports to attach anything external!).
On my Packard Bell P166, I remember playing Mega Race with the Legendary Lance Boyle, Terminal Velocity, Descent, Terminator - future shock, Twisted Metal. Duke Nukem 3D.
Very brave to apply thermal paste on camera! Nice work!
I like to live dangerously 😆
Its not needed on P133
@@warrax111 If so, then it won't hurt anything either. :)
@@PotatoFi it will produce unnecesary waste.
(just joking)
My Packard bell came prepackaged with The Journeyman Project: Turbo. Fantastic game that was my first point and click adventure and what turned me on to the genre.
I got G-Nome with mine.
An earlier 486DX2/66 version of this Packard Bell (Legend 20CD) was our family PC, which I later got as my own for my 18th birthday.
Thank you so much. My very first computer was a very similar version. Aside from details it looked exactly like this one. Brought back so many good memories.
Wow, I had this computer growing up. I remember having Encarta 96 on this and learning how to play video games on this.
Great work Neil, great to see this era getting the showcase it deserves.
I have a platinum supreme I've been meaning to do a video on. Such an odd and weird design layout, can't help but love it
The voice in that Packard Bell software reminds me of Eddy from the Hitchhiker's Guide. Slightly too cheerful.
Neil: "What is wrong with me?"
Me: "Preservationist bug!"
It will only get worse with time. :D Cheers, even these run of the mill boxes need a place to be remembered/loved.
Wow that pc bring back memories, my dad had that Packard Bell! i love the speakers on the VDU
Looks superb!
The slightly mismatched beige no-name 32X CD drive is also very authentic, takes me right back :)
Super authentic. I used to work for CompUSA, in the tech department. the mid-90's Packard Bell CD-ROM drives were more or less just reliable enough to get the machine out of warranty. The cheapest non-burner was the preferred choice of the customers (or the extended warranty company). In our case that would have been HiVal, and later MadDog brand.
I used to support PB machines for PC World back in the early 2000s, if you ever need to reinstall from their master CDs you will need a Packard Bell recovery floppy disk (even their later Windows 98 CDs aren't bootable) and it's possible the motherboard tattoo (info stored on the motherboard to tell the recovery program which drivers to install) could have got corrupted or overwritten.
The Packard Bell recovery disk has the tattooing program on it (if I remember it's literally called tattoo.exe) where you will need to select all your hardware from the list provided and you will be asked for a checksum code, if the checksum fails (which happened quite frequently when we were talking people through it) you will need the override code PBE98 or PBE97 to force it through.
If the recovery media detects no tattoo it won't install for 'piracy protection' even though you could tattoo any motherboard with unknown hardware and the override code for free Windows... Not that me or any other employee of PC World with such knowledge would have ever done such a thing ;)
Fantastic restoration. Well done.
19:28 If you want the skinny microphone look for a 'Telex PC Microphone' it's the company who manufactured the microphone for Packard Bell. I think their 'M40' model has the same shape as the one that came with the PC, I tried looking for my Packard Bell microphone but couldn't find it.
Oh the nostalgia! My 2nd PC. Went from a ibm xt with no graphics just amber text display to the legend with 8mb ram and a 75mhz pentium and the new windows 95 install disc. Nice memory lane road indeed. One nice touch back then was software came on CD for restoration and dos/windows 3.11/drivers came on a cd you could use to make install floppies from to do a fresh system install. This PC is probably responsible for my video encoding hobby now as I saw the weezer demo in the windows 95 disc and wanted to see how they made mpeg video play on a PC. The rabbit hole had no end after that lol
I had this pc pack with the same case, monitor, microphone etc, but mine was a 486DX.
I got it from pc world and had a multi config put on it so I could get to DOS easily because I had no idea what I was doing back in the day.
I played on my friends Pentium and asked my Dad to get me a PC for my birthday, I was gutted when I found out it wasn't a Pentium 1.
Great item for the cave, Neil is such a classy scrubber!
I loved every bit of this video!! Amazing. I'm such a nerd for this generation of PBs....
as soon as the navigator greeting started glitching out, the System Shock - Medical theme started playing in my head
I had exactly the same computer back in 1996 good memories!!
The first PC I bought was a packard bell 486sx setup with the vga monitor. I bought it new at Sears in 93 or 94. I loved that machine and wish I still had it.
When cleaning up floppy and CD drives remember to grease the sliding rails too! They could jam up and cause strange behaviours otherwise.
17:44 That "cadunk" musica menu command sound...the signature of a Packard Bell Desktop Theme. I remember seeing these in Dixons and Currys stores on display but forever locked in the demos. My 8 year old self passed the time by working out how to break into the Start menu of these by simply pressing Ctrl-Esc and then making my way to Paint. Of course the shop clerk would then reach around the back and power cycle them, with that look of "you weren't supposed to get into there" 😮 turns out the Windows 95 shortcuts were "locked" by the demos but the legacy ones weren't...
My friends who bought this very Packard Bell PC were looking forward to hearing the Microsoft sound for the first time they booted it up. I will never forget the sheer disappointment when they heard the rather comical Musica Startup Sound instead. Same with the signature "Tada" and the regular Ding and Chord sounds.
If I didn't show them how to change the sound settings in Control Panel, they were ready to ask their parents to return the PC to the shop on the grounds it doesn't sound right 😂. Ahh the memories...
If you want a "scientific" explanation for the pen, what's happening is that the ink is absorbing the UV light, thus stopping it from penetrating through to the plastic underneath. All UV protection films/work the same way.
THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO,IT HAS ME CHOKED UP! MY DAD AND I RESEARCHED DAILY FOR 6MONTHS BEFORE WE HAD THE MONEY TO BUY THIS PC, OUR2ND BUT 1ST WORKING PC! I REMEMBER ALL THIS VERY FONDLY AS THE LAST MEMORIES OF MY DAD WHO PASSED AWAY SUDDENLY A FEW WEEKS AFTER HE BOUGHT IT FOR ME. UNFORTUNATELY IT WAS STOLEN AND I CANT AFFORD ONE SO THIS VIDEO IS ALL I HAVE TO REMIND ME OF MY DADS LAST FEW MONTHS ON EARTH. THANK YOU SO MUCH! YOU CERTAINLY HAVE A NEW FAN FOR LIFE! BYE FOR NOW FROM THE NEW JERSEY SHORE USA!
This has come along great. Great news about finding a unique home for the broken in transit monitor.
My first pc that was actually mine and not shared like the ones before it was a p133.
Ps: lab looks great.
I fixed a lot of these back in the day, crazy to see it look so good, I mean…for a Packard Bell. 🎉
A Packard Bell PC Like that is hard to finde these days. (in germany) that was our first Family PC and i want it back. i have the Original Master CD and the Packard Bell Navidator CD and all other CDs.
Watching this made me dig out my PB Axcel 120mhz. I popped a Voodoo 1 in mine and its not too bad :D
Seeing this brings back memories of the same model (but the version sold in the US) i was renting to own back in the mid 90s.
One such memory wasn't a good one but whenever i would try to play the PC version of road rash (that released in 1996) it would wipe the HDD after about 30 minutes of play, it would be running fine and would just freeze, when i would try to boot windows it wouldn't and the HDD would be practically empty just a few folders remaining. I bought the game the day it released at Walmart so it really baffled me.
I eventually returned it to the place i was renting it from (with the game in hand, because they was blaming me of manually erasing the HDD to try to get out of the rental agreement), they found out quickly that it was the game (as i told them before but they would believe me). So i just told them to shove the system where the sun didn't shine.
I used to work at a small computer shop in the mid 1990's and a Best Buy opened in he next town over. Our manager felt it would help business if we became Packard Bell certified as a repair partner. We all had to get A+ certification, then take these product related CBT courses from Packard Bell. People would buy their computer at Best Buy, encounter a problem, then PB would route them to us. Unfortunately several computers that came in had nothing mechanically or electronically wrong. The problems appeared to be firmware or design related. Packard Bell didn't cover software problems, so it was frustrating for us to receive a machine and have a tight deadline to diagnose and order parts. Our diagnostics would not find any issues with the motherboard, ram, or peripherals, yet customers could verify their pc wasn't running right. Running the restore disk was PB's solution, but the problems would return.
Let's see. My best friend at the time had this machine. We used to play Quake, Duken Nukem 3D and Need For Speed 2 on it mostly. Good times. ❤
Oooh, Microsoft Autoroute (Express GB). I'd like to see that in the next video. I remember running an ancient version (before MS bought it) on an Atari ST back in the early 1990s, wondering what sort of trickery made it work.
Very nice retro PC, like!
What a pleasure it is to see my childhood PC from 30 years ago getting some love and care and a new life. I spent countless hours on a computer exactly like this one teaching myself early versions of HMTL on Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and Prodigy and AOL 3.0. I also learned how to fix computers with this one because it technically belonged to my mother. When she'd leave me home alone, I'd try to do something I had no idea how to do, break the computer, and have to fix it before she got home. Good times.
The games I most remember playing on this thing was VidGrid and Myst. I think Myst will be a popular suggestion. VidGrid is a little more obscure. Then, of course, all the DOS shooters like Doom and Rise of The Triad and Hexen. Carmageddon is another one a friend of mine had. Dialing my friends PC using my modem to play Doom Deathmatch was the first time I ever used my modem for anything.
Btw: I have always found master/slave to be barbaric so I've said primary/secondary or mother/daughter drives. That whole master/slave thing is just ...it gives me the creeps. I mean, we've always called them mother/daughter boards so why not mother/daughter drives.
Interestingly surprising how many of us are chiming in with memories of exact same PC in our childhoods
Ah, HMTL - the long-forgotten precursor to HTML :)
Primary master, secondary master, primary slave and secondary slave. There were 4 combinations, with 2 IDE ports.
Will you ever delve in to the world that was, and in some cases, still is RM?
I have a ton of retro machines from RM and its interesting to own machines that probably helped a lot of kids get through school
If a machine comes my way it will likely happen yes. We had BBCs at my school but I always wondered what I was or wasn’t missing out on in RM, pre RM IBM compatibles that is
@@RMCRetro I missed out on most of it, the ones I have are IBM compatible. One server running Netware, two terminal type machines and two regular machines. My beeb was a weather station in the school I work at well after its time. It was rescued from the skip along with a weather station module but I can't find the original software for it
16:39 .............it's flipping out XDDDDDDDDDDDD
and the max headroom reference XD
Ah Packard Bell Navigator! I remember that seeming like space-age stuff back in 1995, no really, as my Packard Bell P75 was quite an upgrade from my previous computer......a Commodore 64!
"My DOM" Never gets old 😅
Oh boy. Getting my Dad to upgrade to a Matrox Mystic, while I added a cheeky Voodoo 1 card, then had a blast with PC Format cover disk games.
Cassettes look amazing in a door! Patent it quickly, Neil..!
I had a Cyrix MII packard bell back in the day. Couldn't add a video card to it, but a voodoo2 worked.
I miss my Pacardbell now😢
Thanks for this trip down nostalgia lane. I had many years of poking around the guts of that exact model... years after we stopped using it it became my very first linux server; stuck a non-Wintel modem in it and my entire house had shared internet for the first time (many many years before this became the norm thanks to broadband.)
This one has really turned into a mission hasn't it 😀 I think it has quite a modern look for an old PC with the two tone and squared off areas on the fascia. Not a bad looking case especially now it's clean and a lot less yellowed.
oh gosh these computers take me back...
i love the close up of the kuckle hairs
Great video . Loved watching that old tired dirty pacard bell be brought back to life
Finally a sensible table! ;-p
13:18 mate you blindsided me right there 🤣 nice one!
About the fan for cpu - socket 370 coolers do fit on socket 7 and you can still get those as new. ;)
I LOLed when the introduction voice stuttered. I love classic jank like that. LGR had one with a $5000 laptop and the Windows 95 startup sound.
I still have recurring nightmares about all the Packard Bell machines that I had to remove navigator from
Nice one Neil. Looks the part
If I may channel the spirit of Alan Sugar, I hope you gave those mugs a proper wash!
Great video; very satisfying result from all that very hard work.
My first CD burner was a HP SureStore 4020i. 2x write, 4x read. Was 1900 DM back in the day.
How awesome would it be if Toastie found this video? 😊
I had the 166 version of this, ironically over the last weekend whilst trying to clear the loft I found the Logitech pagescan usb that went with it still in it's box, also found a Japanese mega drive, two atari lynx (with over 60 games) and an amiga 600, not even scratched the surface of what's in there yet.
It’s so…(sniff) beautiful.
My first computer was a 486 DX2 66mhz of that style from Packard Bell. MS Dos 6.2 (not 6.22) and Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. With the all in one sound card with modem and 2x Panasonic CDRom. It also end up with a Goldstar Cdrom in eventually. I acquired a Pentium model similar to yours, which is also missing the Packard Bell Microphone, so your not alone.
LOL this was my 1st PC The Packard Bell P120, I think it was 1200 from Dixons! It was blast once I got a Voodoo 3000 graphics card to play Need for Speed 3 Hot Pursuit 😅
Loving the PB series of videos.
It looks Amazing. Great job Neil...
Back in ancient times we didnt use thermal paste. Using it probably did more to improve the effectiveness of the heat sink than a fan would given the configuration of the boards.
Nice I have that same computer, wife bought it original back in the day. Unfortunately I had the matching monitor with side speakers but speakers and monitor got rid of years ago when we moved.
Hmmm... today I found out where 8-bit guy got his replacement monitor from. Good to see these things serving a useful purpose instead of ending up in a landfill.
Nice job on restoring though one detail If I did see it correctly it seems that the heatsink isn't sitting completely flush with the CPU and thought the little ridge needed to go into the notch between the CPU and socket to sit completely flush.
My mother had a machine like this the Multimedia C115. It had a 120mhz CPU, 16mb of ram but I took a module out of a junked computer and it happened to fit which upgrade the ram to 32mb which sped it up pretty good. 1.2 gig HDD and a CD ROM drive. The monitor was exactly like yours and had the same speakers which those crapped out so I hooked up another pair I had.
That wasn't a Packard Bell help agent,that was SHODAN!
I got hold of a 486 SX2/50 version of one of these at some point in the late '90s, the version of Navigator had a great little whistling tune on it. Sadly lost it while converting the machine into part of my fleet of ghoulish Linux experiments and realising too late I didn't have any recovery media. Always liked the style of those clip-on monitor speakers.
Always feels weird seeing these being thermal pasted, I never bothered until my first "Thunderbird" Athlon! Possibly they ran a little hotter and shorter-lived as a result, but the stuff was obsolete so fast in those days and we never thought there would be a day when people would lovingly restore them. Not that those clips gave particularly good mounting pressure, you can see how much movement it still has while clipped in at 10:34.
While it would harm the originality, I found the clip mechanisms are similar enough that later heatsinks from the P3/Athlon era can usually be made to fit Socket 7 boards - I used to do it in the early 2000s to get CPUs which would have had a tiny heatsink and fan to run passively, but I imagine that would help temperatures quite a bit.
That is interesting about the UV pen. I have often wondered if there is some sort of polish we could use to stop plastics yellowing again after they have been retrobrighted.
Incidentally, I pulled a previously-retrobrighted keyboard out of storage recently, and noticed that it had started to yellow again inside the cardboard box I stored it in.
Funnily enough, now that it has been exposed to air and (mostly artificial) light again for a few weeks, the yellowing has disappeared.
I don't think we are ever going to fully understand the chemical process(es) involved.
I use 303 Aerospace Protectant on everything I retrobrite, and it seems to help preserve things. Totally anecdotal evidence, though.
I knew it whuld fit a cocktail cabinet glad it's been saves
So this is where GlaDOS came from. No wonder she's evil, being born in a Packard Bell. BTW, fond memories of this PC. Nearly identical to my first PC from my childhood. My first OC was on this exact PC, from 90 to 120Mhz
Love the new lab space and seeing it used so quickly!