The Comdex conventions during the 1980s showed the best capabilities of the various computer systems and their software programs at the time. I would have liked to attend them however I have to thank both The Computer Chronicles and others for providing excerpts from these Comdex conventions over the years.
When I started dreaming of owning a pc it was a 286. I was poor and could not.afford.top of the line. When the 486 was out I was still hoping for a 386. I lucked out and ended up with a 486. That thing ran everything great. For $850 + the monitor cost of $200 I got a 486sx33 , 4 meg of ram, 210 meg hd, onboard video with 512k memory, 2400baud modem and a 14" svga . 28mm dot pitch monitor. That same year, 1994, I added 4 more megs ram for $200 and a 28.8 modem for.another $250. I loved that machine and still have it...an AST Advantage with Packard Bell monitor.
Hey, me too. My first PC of my own (not the family’s) was an AST Advantage 486SX/25. I started missing it lately so bought another one from eBay. It’s a nice little machine. :-) The original one came with a 14” SVGA monitor - also 0.28mm pitch, and good for 1024x768 interlaced @ 43Hz.
I love watching these bringing back things I forgot. I was 6 years old and in 86 when I first wanted a computer. Other than a comodore it wasn't until I was 12 that I got an IBM XT and the world opened up to me at 300bps. My all time favorite was an Amiga 1200. Went on I think I was born a decade or so too late or I might have built something in my garage and "made it big" I had a decent IT career for someone with an 8th grade education and proving what I could do give or take the .com bomb and the rise of the HR department so I moved into a niche electronics area but having to retire for my health. If I had to do it over again honestly though I would have been an electrician which was the original plan.
Graduated from high school 3 years prior and tried to create a computer consulting business. Close this company since I had to handle my father's passing in 1985, in retrospect this was a blessing since I started with EDS soon after. Remembered this episode ... The Computer Chronicles was my "podcast" source of the current computer market and evolution while I worked on mainframes, DEC, Novell NetWare and ultimately computer networks (Arcnet --> Token Ring --> Ethernet (10Base2, 10Base5,, 10BaseT), and some FDDI. Thanks for posting.
There is the Stryd foot pod that is a million times more capable than the shoe seen in this video. It has an actual acceleramator that measures power (watts) in addition to the regular things. The micro controller has more computational power than the cray 2 supercomputer that was in use during the time of this video. All in the size of a tiny pod attached to your shoelace.
Amazing how much of these technological breakthrough products have become mainstream devices, some for quite some time now, but in packages that are cheap, affordable, and less goofy than they appeared here.
Wow 10mb 5¼" and 4mb 3½" disks? Why did neither of those take off? We were stuck with 1.44mb floppies until the late 90s before zip disks and USB drives started to take over.
So the love-sick PC in an Oregon library racked up a $1,300 phone bill calling long distance to the mainframe in Salem for 87 hours in one month. That works out to 25 cents per minute. AT&T sure had a good thing going there for a while.
I didn't know Threshold Technology invented the shoes that tracks your steps in 1985. People are talking about it just 6-7 years about fitness trackers. I feel it's a lot more accurate on shoes itself vs a watch that "senses" every steps. But instead tracks every "shake" of your hands. Nah mean?
My first PC after my Apple //e was a Sperry XT Turbo. I was able to use my 300 baud Lexicon acoustic coupler modem with it and loved it. That was 1984.
It took us nearly three decades to embrace electronic workout guidance. Now we let the companies behind see out every move and use that data for their own benefit. Soon your toothbrush will know more about you than yourself.
Wow, on 11-20-1986, I had just turned 15 years earlier that month, and I had started my Freshman Year in High School at Covina High in Covina, SoCal in September of that year, what a big year that was for me!
Ironic they show the Space Shuttle, we lost the Challenger in January of that year, I, and others of my generation remember EXACTLY where we were and EXACTLY what we were doing on the fateful day, it was to Generation X what the Kennedy Assassination was to the previous generations. I can see the entire day in my mind like a video playing back, it's that clear.
That's so true. I was in my fourth grade classroom watching it on television when it went boom. My teacher said, "I don't think that's supposed to happen." I think think most of us kids were thinking in reply, "ya no shit." Anyway, within a week I heard, "What does NASA stand for?" The answer was "Need Another Seven Astronauts". Also, "Where did the astronauts take their last vacation?" The answer was "All over Florida." I guess kids can be insensitive and funny.
my phone is like 1.000.000 times more powerful than the fastest computer of that time, if i only could go back in that time for a moment, imagine what it would be 30 years in the future from now.
Toshiba quad floppy did make it through at 2.88mb formatted. obviously floppies have gone away, but if you look hard enough you can find an internal 2.88mb HD drive and it's HD discs somewhere.
Computer at 4:00 has: 16MHz, 1MB RAM, 40MB HDD... and it is state of the art for that era... right now I am at 4GHz, 24GB RAM and 4TB HDD in total... damn
Nonsense, I was on my 3rd personal computer by '86 and had a Commodore Plus Four that had built-in word processor, database, graphics design and spreadsheet capability. It loaded in seconds and I had no problems with it. You hooked up your printer with one cable just like you do now. Compared with typewriters, these machines were a dream and almost everyone had a computer by then.
This 'Stranger Things' spinoff show just keeps getting better and better. I'm rooting for the PC and Mainframe!! True love knows no limits. And can we talk about Jan Lewis?! On more than one occasion I found myself saying, "Now Jan, you gotta buy me dinner first before you hit me with that pillow talk." Wow! This was an awesome glimpse into the eye of the hurricane.
The Comdex conventions during the 1980s showed the best capabilities of the various computer systems and their software programs at the time. I would have liked to attend them however I have to thank both The Computer Chronicles and others for providing excerpts from these Comdex conventions over the years.
When I started dreaming of owning a pc it was a 286. I was poor and could not.afford.top of the line. When the 486 was out I was still hoping for a 386. I lucked out and ended up with a 486. That thing ran everything great. For $850 + the monitor cost of $200 I got a 486sx33 , 4 meg of ram, 210 meg hd, onboard video with 512k memory, 2400baud modem and a 14" svga . 28mm dot pitch monitor. That same year, 1994, I added 4 more megs ram for $200 and a 28.8 modem for.another $250. I loved that machine and still have it...an AST Advantage with Packard Bell monitor.
My first was also a 486sx33 but with 2MG Ram and a 100MB HDD from Packard bell. Played Wolfenstein like a boss.
Hey, me too. My first PC of my own (not the family’s) was an AST Advantage 486SX/25. I started missing it lately so bought another one from eBay. It’s a nice little machine. :-)
The original one came with a 14” SVGA monitor - also 0.28mm pitch, and good for 1024x768 interlaced @ 43Hz.
Exactly... the best computers were produced in late 80's/early 90s -- Amiga and 386/486 PC's. I still use them for my daily work and play.
god I miss this amazing show thank you UA-cam for this treasure
The computer chronicles posted this. UA-cam is shitty to viewers and content creators
I miss the show and the different technologies. It was more fun in a way, but having to develop for a dozen platforms could be overwhelming.
I love watching these bringing back things I forgot. I was 6 years old and in 86 when I first wanted a computer. Other than a comodore it wasn't until I was 12 that I got an IBM XT and the world opened up to me at 300bps. My all time favorite was an Amiga 1200. Went on I think I was born a decade or so too late or I might have built something in my garage and "made it big" I had a decent IT career for someone with an 8th grade education and proving what I could do give or take the .com bomb and the rise of the HR department so I moved into a niche electronics area but having to retire for my health. If I had to do it over again honestly though I would have been an electrician which was the original plan.
are you excited about the cloning game?
R.I.P. Gary 😢
Love this show!
40GB in 1986, man. I know it's big but even the concept of that much was probably mindblowing
Wait til you see the bill!
Graduated from high school 3 years prior and tried to create a computer consulting business. Close this company since I had to handle my father's passing in 1985, in retrospect this was a blessing since I started with EDS soon after. Remembered this episode ... The Computer Chronicles was my "podcast" source of the current computer market and evolution while I worked on mainframes, DEC, Novell NetWare and ultimately computer networks (Arcnet --> Token Ring --> Ethernet (10Base2, 10Base5,, 10BaseT), and some FDDI. Thanks for posting.
This was the year I moved to Vegas. I lived there for 17 years. Went to Comdex in 2000 and 2002, I think. Was so much fun!
did you get a blue chip ibm pc?
The Zenith laptop's pop up disk drives are pretty sweet!
The fitness shoe thing really put it in perspective for me on how far we’ve come
Some of those shoes are on ebay for thousands of dollars now.
There is the Stryd foot pod that is a million times more capable than the shoe seen in this video. It has an actual acceleramator that measures power (watts) in addition to the regular things. The micro controller has more computational power than the cray 2 supercomputer that was in use during the time of this video. All in the size of a tiny pod attached to your shoelace.
And they even say "technology" instead of "tech"! 🤯
Amazing how much of these technological breakthrough products have become mainstream devices, some for quite some time now, but in packages that are cheap, affordable, and less goofy than they appeared here.
admit it you wish you had a 32 inch crt monitor🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Wow 10mb 5¼" and 4mb 3½" disks? Why did neither of those take off? We were stuck with 1.44mb floppies until the late 90s before zip disks and USB drives started to take over.
They both relied on incredibly expensive drives that were heavily patent protected by one company.
Interesting how one of the shows sponsors Leading Edge wound up shutting down after repeated fraud (not sending orders after being paid)
So the love-sick PC in an Oregon library racked up a $1,300 phone bill calling long distance to the mainframe in Salem for 87 hours in one month. That works out to 25 cents per minute. AT&T sure had a good thing going there for a while.
Always wanted to go to Comdex. Never got there though. 😢
Wow, tragic suspicious death for Gary, less than 10 years later
Yeah, the Deep State finally got to him. RIP.
It's nice to see that most of these companies are still competing in some degree
I didn't know Threshold Technology invented the shoes that tracks your steps in 1985. People are talking about it just 6-7 years about fitness trackers. I feel it's a lot more accurate on shoes itself vs a watch that "senses" every steps. But instead tracks every "shake" of your hands. Nah mean?
I was 9 in 1986 and thought my Commodore 64 was the pinnacle of technology.
My first PC after my Apple //e was a Sperry XT Turbo. I was able to use my 300 baud Lexicon acoustic coupler modem with it and loved it. That was 1984.
300 baud you poor poor man I pity you for having such slow internet access😭
It took us nearly three decades to embrace electronic workout guidance. Now we let the companies behind see out every move and use that data for their own benefit. Soon your toothbrush will know more about you than yourself.
OK I want the shoe. Ain't catching me running for anything but a Big Mac but plugging a shoe into your computer...cool.
16:02 Where can I find more into on that video storage thing? No Google, I don't want Windows Movie Maker. 🙄
I love the room sized disk jukebox that can hold up to 40gb as I watch on my handheld GPD Win 4 with 4tb ssd drive.
I just love the old keyboards. Would use that today if I could get one adapted
Juſt buy a Unicomp
Wow, on 11-20-1986, I had just turned 15 years earlier that month, and I had started my Freshman Year in High School at Covina High in Covina, SoCal in September of that year, what a big year that was for me!
Ironic they show the Space Shuttle, we lost the Challenger in January of that year, I, and others of my generation remember EXACTLY where we were and EXACTLY what we were doing on the fateful day, it was to Generation X what the Kennedy Assassination was to the previous generations. I can see the entire day in my mind like a video playing back, it's that clear.
That's so true. I was in my fourth grade classroom watching it on television when it went boom. My teacher said, "I don't think that's supposed to happen." I think think most of us kids were thinking in reply, "ya no shit." Anyway, within a week I heard, "What does NASA stand for?" The answer was "Need Another Seven Astronauts". Also, "Where did the astronauts take their last vacation?" The answer was "All over Florida." I guess kids can be insensitive and funny.
Natural Speech Recognition -- Possibilities for this technology are as limitless as the imagination.
Me: "Hey Google, why do my farts smell so bad?"
I wonder when I will be able to buy one of those 386 computers?
my phone is like 1.000.000 times more powerful than the fastest computer of that time, if i only could go back in that time for a moment, imagine what it would be 30 years in the future from now.
your phone has more performance than all the computers that participated in Comdex 1987 put together. Have pity on them lol
If I could travel back in time over there with my PC and mobile phone :)
If a grandma had a moustache. ...... we don't need more show-off people, there is alredy a lot
Do you weigh the same as a duck? Are you made of wood?
You'd get asked "But does it run Lotus 123?"
Toshiba quad floppy did make it through at 2.88mb formatted. obviously floppies have gone away, but if you look hard enough you can find an internal 2.88mb HD drive and it's HD discs somewhere.
yeah but why would you want to?🤣🤣🤣
Hmmm voice to texts.... nahh that'll never take off
Wow forgot hyundai started as a computer company
It was just one division of a conglomerate.
I want an in depth look at the acupuncture package and how they did chinese character
Tim Bajaran, Jan Lewis, and George Morrow all in one episode: the trifecta of Gary Kildal fill ins who annoy me for some reason
They had 32 bit computers in '86?
Yep - the 386DX was a full 32 bit memory path system.
386 was frontier to next level, Linus would say more 😀
Linus wouldn't care he gets wet over nasa tech🤣🤣🤣
I can tell these people which storage media never happened.
iShoe - Für Gesundheit
Computer at 4:00 has: 16MHz, 1MB RAM, 40MB HDD... and it is state of the art for that era... right now I am at 4GHz, 24GB RAM and 4TB HDD in total... damn
What they were doing though software-wise with those specs was pretty bangin' for the time.
Other than the internet, productivity will be same I think😆
@@squaretrianglez internet existed then to
@@briankelly9347 That depends upon how far youre willing to stretch the machine. When 386 came it was 1986 internet definitely did not exist
Killer machine in its day!
Now all in a phone that costs 200 bucks.
8:36 They sell Computers and Computer accessories. :)
seems like a head ache using those old machines
Computing really was for nerds and business back then!! Getting anything to run was always a pain in the ass!!
Nonsense, I was on my 3rd personal computer by '86 and had a Commodore Plus Four that had built-in word processor, database, graphics design and spreadsheet capability. It loaded in seconds and I had no problems with it. You hooked up your printer with one cable just like you do now. Compared with typewriters, these machines were a dream and almost everyone had a computer by then.
10 MB on a diskett did not know about that
There was lots of different "super floppies" back in the day. But none every got the market share to become a standard.
6:31 Compututers
Competitors
that NEC was neither slim or compact
It was back then! HAR!
21:34 - Everyone back then could afford a $1,000 laser printer, huh? 34 years later, a brand new laser printer is as low as $50!
But you're forced to pay $1000 for their illegally DRM'ed ink.
@@estusflask982 Sure, ink for the laser printer. ;)
@@estusflask982 Depends on the printer, no chip on the cartridges for my Brother, even has a hidden toner reset menu!
Nup! Hardly anyone could afford a printer. Maybe a dot matrix 🤦♂️💩
plugging in your shoe no i dont think so
3:30
That would be 10,000$ in todays money. 💀
Get perpendicular!
PMR in 1986 wow! Standard on hard drives 25 years later
Budget price: $4000 lol
Anyone pick up at the end about the software the US was selling to Iraq lol
@Castlegrad Yeah he was fighting Iran and we *hated* Iran for what they did. So the enemy of my enemy is my friend type of thing.
A good looking successful bloke like Gary with all those gorgeous business women running around..yeah I wonder whatever could have happend to him.
This 'Stranger Things' spinoff show just keeps getting better and better. I'm rooting for the PC and Mainframe!! True love knows no limits. And can we talk about Jan Lewis?! On more than one occasion I found myself saying, "Now Jan, you gotta buy me dinner first before you hit me with that pillow talk." Wow! This was an awesome glimpse into the eye of the hurricane.
These days old men don't understand computers.
@10:48 This guy is completely wrong on how the laser or LED works. It fires on an optical drum, not paper.
Cumdesk?!
I can this computer as a table I have a wooden plank it nail !!
Gary was busy getting drunk and his head kicked in. Thats why he couldn't make it.