Ahhh... So!
I'm here again making something else.
Because I've been getting actually several requests for just...
plain videos!
I'm not really sure why.
Just some videos to kind of show some of the systems that I have.
Actually in action, because a lot of times when I review something,
I'll show footage from the system, but I don't actually show the system itself.
So, as long as there's at least a couple of people out there that want to see it,
I'm gonna do a video of it. And, so, here we go!
So for this video, really all I'm gonna do is show my most recent system that I've been screwing around with a lot.
This is the NCR Comten PC 386SX.
Quick specs on it: It is a PC-compatible machine, of course,
using a 386SX processor running at 16 MHz.
It has the base 640K of RAM, plus an additional 384K. So, it's at 1MB.
Does come with a hard drive built in. It is a 40MB Conner hard drive.
The graphics actually are VGA, and we'll get to that here soon.
And it comes with one 1.2MB 5.25" floppy drive.
This is an October 1988 model.
Model M.
So it seemed appropriate with the PS/2
basically coming around this time, and this is essentially a PS/2 clone.
Uh, more or less.
I just noticed this too, being from 1989,
I suppose it is somewhat appropriate to have a couple of Nirvana tapes laying around.
Well, 1989, so I--
I guess it'd be more appropriate if Bleach was laying around.
Uh, which it is now.
So, appropriateness commence.
Let's take a look at the back of it here.
I did mention this actually did come with an actual VGA card,
which I was very happy to see
because... it is...
a 15-pin regular SVGA/VGA kind of input,
so I could just use a regular monitor for this. I was really hoping--
Although, I would like EGA.
That would be great to have an EGA monitor,
but I simply don't have one due to their scarcity.
I also added a Sound Blaster 16
right in here.
It's good enough for the gaming that I was wanting to do on a 386.
The reason I went with a 386 anyways is, I have 486DX2 machines and such,
and Pentium 1s and a whole bunch of other things like that, but
there are just some games that don't run properly at all
on a 486 or a Pentium.
So you need something slower, but not so slow.
I have machines like the IBM 5150 for games like that.
So, sort of somewhere in between the
eh, AT range
low-end 286s and high-end 486,
So I went with the 386SX, which is the slightly lower-powered version
of the 386.
It's not quite the full 32-bit architecture.
It's almost like a souped-up 286, I suppose.
Like I said, it was sort of a PS/2 clone of sorts,
even though clones weren't as big of a deal at that point.
So it does have the PS/2 connector for the keyboard.
It doesn't have a PS/2 mouse slot yet.
They weren't quite caught on, so it does have a serial connection. So I just used a--
one of my random serial mice.
And you can plug that in here.
That always confuses me.
Up and down are not my strong suits.
Okay, that's enough random facts. Now let's actually get to the machine itself.
Now I mentioned it does have a built-in hard drive.
And it actually still works... uh, technically.
Heh.
So, let's go ahead and turn it on and see what I'm talking about here.
[click]
[hard drive whirring]
[scratch]
[Windows 7 startup chime]
Shut up, Windows 7!
You are not welcome here.
The reason I'm using an LCD instead of a CRT is, well, it's, uh...
It's a little bit nicer on the camera's eyes.
Eye.
Lens.
I suppose you heard that a little bit on startup.
The hard drive is very, very noisy.
Especially in a smaller room, it just sort of reverberates. It's, um...
Old. It sounds like a vintage refrigerator
preparing for lift-off.
To space.
[key clicks]
Now the hard drive came to me with absolutely nothing on it.
It had just been low-level formatted. That was it.
Ah, but I went ahead and installed MS-DOS 5.0 on here.
I went with that instead of 6.22 just...
because I--
I have 6.22 on all my other systems, it seems like. So I went with 5 on this one.
The disk drive on this thing is a little bit finicky. Um, for some reason,
when you try to put something in there,
you can,
but, uh...
If you see here, it doesn't do anything,
so you have to kind of push up on it, and then--
[click]
lock it into place.
The thing works perfectly, otherwise. It's just very...
particular in how it likes its disks inserted.
I suppose if I had big black disks being stuck in me all day too, I would be quite particular as well.
I also went ahead and loaded Windows 386, or rather Windows 2.11 version 386.
So, uh, let's see what we get here.
I'm not really sure what the point of Windows 386 is.
I've never really cared for it.
So, uh, let's see. I guess you can... run Paint.
Which really hasn't changed too much over the years.
It's-- it's Paint. Uh...
Uh, I'm just gonna put "GLR" because I'm feeling dyslexic today.
"Lysdexic," perhaps.
Uh, there is an internal clock
and, uh...
Hmm... What do you know? It is actually...
5 PM.
This thing is AMAZING!
Uh, let's see. We have, uh, the Clipboard, which is empty.
And...
a calculator...
Let's see. You know, really, it's nothing that you couldn't get on regular DOS, it's just that you could do it...
with more things at once. Uh, if you see here, I have...
Holy crap! Clipboard, Calculator *and* Write.
All open at the same time!
See, this is what you call AMAZING!
And...
completely frickin' useless today.
There is no reason to run Windows on this kind of machine.
As mentioned, it does have
a VGA card,
which I will prove to you right here by running the EGA game [laughs]
Commander Keen 4.
Uh, you know what? I don't think I've installed any VGA stuff on here yet, but
Commander Keen 4 is-- is impressive no matter what
And it'll also show off the AdLib capabilities of the Sound Blaster.
[Commander Keen music]
[fanfare]
[mimicking fanfare]
[Commander Keen music]
[fanfare]
[music and sound effects]
[sound effects]
The only way to play this game--
exploiting things!
Uh, no, no. Actually, I do have a VGA game on here.
It is... ahh...
You know what? I'm not gonna show it to you yet.
I'm going to turn on the mouse
and show a little bit of mouse action here.
[PC speaker music]
You know what, I shouldn't have gone for that.
[theme music]
[menu music]
[cruising music]
Okay, now here's a good example of a game that really requires a system of this speed.
Bubble Ghost.
You know, this is a slow enough 386 that it still works.
Because if you play this on anything faster or slower,
absolutely unplayable.
Uh, and yes, this is EGA graphics, even though it looks like CGA.
This isn't the greatest one to show off the capabilities of it.
Now, as sort of a comparison here to just really show what the 386 was capable of, as far as speed,
I'm gonna compare Leaderboard-- World Class Leaderboard
on the 386,
compared to the CGA version over here on the original IBM 5150.
This is actually more like an XT-class computer, now that I've upgraded it. So...
this is really what a lot of people were coming from back in the day
when they upgraded to a 386.
So...
Whoop-de-doo for nerdiness!
I'm trying to do this in...
as much unison as possible.
[typing]
[click]
And there we go. The 386 has already loaded the whole
bit of scenery and stuff
and the crickets are already chirping, somewhat appropriately.
And the poor PC over here is still trying to load the trees.
And there we go. Let's see.
[clicking keys]
Yeah, I pretty much screwed up that shot for both players, but again, ha
386 over here is just like, "Sup?"
PC is like, "Ah, dude, you're killing me."
This isn't fair.
So, yeah. 386.
For what is was, back in the day, holy crap!
This thing is amazing. It's fast, and having a hard drive helps too, but loading all the scenery,
that's just like, processor.
Uh, mostly, so...
It's not even accessing the disk drive over here when it's loading all that.
So, I mean, really, it's-- it's pure processor at this point.
And, um...
Really, these actually have about the same amount of RAM, so...
386...
Not bad.
Hope you enjoyed this video.
I'm gonna be doing some reviews now.