What's going on? It's me here again,
bringing you something
different...
somewhat from my normal review.
This is going to be another one of these computer system overviews.
Where it's not so much a really in-depth,
pros and cons kind of, should-you-buy-it review
It's just...
me being really lazy and not wanting to put all of the effort into a review
but still wanting to show one of the systems
that I happen to like quite a lot, just to give you sort of an idea
of what it's like in action and to give you a little bit of history behind the thing as well.
So today, I'm going to be talking about one of my favorite little machines here,
the Compaq Presario 425.
This thing came out in 1993.
Compaq was already really well known for making IBM PC clones and such.
You know, it was just sort of a time where everything was
diverging into one specific thing. That is,
"Wintel."
Windows and Intel together.
This machine in particular I got in high school.
It was another one of those machines, I guess, due to its all-in-one design or cost or something
that for whatever reason, schools just loved this frickin' thing,
so they bought a crap ton of 'em.
It orignally came with an Intel 486SX processor running at 25 MHz
and I know it also for sure had this hard drive originally.
It is an old Seagate,
214 MB.
As you can tell, one of it's most defining features is that it does come with a monitor built in.
It's a 14" SVGA-capable monitor.
Any of those of you who might also be Macintosh users might be thinking,
Hey, that looks pretty similar to what Apple was doing with
the LC and Performa series of computers.
Well, yeah, you're exactly right.
They pretty much completely ripped the thing off when making the Compaq 425 and 430 series,
and other ones like that.
It's pretty standard in the back here.
You have your keyboard, your mouse, PS/2-compatible serial,
parallel game port and a built-in modem.
I think it's actually 2,400 baud, which is... suck.
I also went ahead and added a ubiquitous Sound Blaster 16 in here.
Unfortunately, this thing has really, really yellowed quite a bit over the years.
You can actually see the color that it used to be here. Heh!
Also along the line of Macintosh cloning,
is this interesting little feature.
Yes, the entire motherboard actually pulls right out of the computer.
Very much like a Macintosh LC series and Performa series.
I think this is pretty much awesome.
Although, it makes everything really, really cramped.
Being an all-in-one system, I guess this is sort of
acceptable.
I mentioned earlier that this actually came with a 486SX processor.
Well, yes it did. At 25 MHz, that's what it had.
But this one, when I got it,
it was actually upgraded with an Intel Overdrive processor.
Now this is one of the biggest reasons I wanted to show this computer.
This was a really interesting thing that happened in the early '90s.
Computers were evolving so fast
that literally a few months after you bought your computer,
it was almost impossibly obsolete sometimes.
So, in order to solve that problem,
people had to upgrade,
but doing so was extremely expensive.
Intel and other companies sort of
did away with that by coming out with these Overdrive chips.
Essentially, what they are is chips
to, in this case, take over the original CPU, and just
upgrade the crap out of it.
In this case, it takes the 25 MHz SX
and turns it into a DX4 100 MHz.
I also went ahead and upgraded this to the maximum 20 megs of ram, so
with the half-meg SVGA, 20 megs of RAM, and 100 MHz 486DX4,
this thing is ready to tear the head off of a horse.
Alright, let's get this thing started up.
Thankfully, this thing runs very quiet, unlike my 386,
which sounds like a rejected Boeing.
Now originally, this thing did come with MS-DOS 6.0.
I went ahead and upgraded it to MS-DOS 6.2
because, let's face it: 6.0 had its share of problems with
applications that I'll never use.
It also came with Windows 3.1 installed, so I'll go ahead and
start that up here.
As you can see, it starts things up really quickly.
[Windows 3.1 chime]
This actually came with one of those
older Logitech-style PS/2 mice.
I love this thing. It's so nasty.
And it's one of those I call a "toenail clipper" mouse.
Yeah, it's-- you know. It reminds me of, of clipping toenails. It's--
It's amazing.
You don't wanna do it so much, but
you-- you keep on doing it because
it feels so good.
You know, it's one of those things that nobody talks about, but, you know,
clipping toenails and clicking one of these mice is...
It's darn near orgasmic.
So Windows 3.1 is a VAST improvement over Windows 2.
and even a bit of an improvement over Windows 3.0
I don't know all of the little ins and outs of it, but, you know, it's the same basic thing.
Except now it works. Ha.
And you actually have applications for it.
It originally came with a whole mess of stuff on the poor hard drive.
Used to come with stuff like Quicken and America Online.
Crap like that.
So I kept the good stuff.
A Symantec Game Pack was one of them.
These are really, really simple games.
This is one of 'em that sucks.
But it does have some cool ones, like Hangman here.
There's no sound in any of these, which is a shame
because Hangman needs like
bargaining and relentless pleaing for his life.
I mean, this guy is about to hang, but
you know,
maybe he's already been hung.
I've always wondered that about Hangman. I mean, this guy is being put back together.
Maybe this guy was already, like, hacked to pieces,
and then you're putting him back together.
And *then* hanging him.
That's... really morbid.
Jacks, which is... lame.
Memory Blocks, which is a simple memory game.
Pick Up Sticks, which is...
probably the stupidest idea I've ever heard of for a computer game.
This is so stupid.
And Smart Dots, which is another one of those,
well, I guess they were using the Hangman engine and figured out that was kinda lame
so they're like, "Let's make something else."
And this is that... weird... line game.
It's kind of like Tic-Tac-Toe meets lame.
I'm not exactly impressed with the Symantec Game Pack.
It also came with PFS Applications,
which is essentially the poor man's Microsoft Works.
Where you have the thing for making charts, for making spreadsheets, database,
a Terminal application, an Address Book, a Label Maker, and a Word Processor.
[typing]
Ohhh, yay. I'm processing words.
But these Overdrive processors. Holy crap!
They were frickin' awesome.
I mean, this is what everybody wanted to play
and what they got these Overdrive and upgraded processors for:
frickin' Doom!
[gunshots and monsters screaming]
[gunshots]
And thing can even run Duke 3D quite well.
[gunshots]
[explosions]
[gunshots]
This is another one of those that, at least I, wanted a 486 for.
SimCity Two-Freakin-Thousand!
[music]
[explosion]
[air siren]
[maniacal laugh]
[Male voice] "Mayday!"
[explosions]
I'm gonna go ahead and turn on the 386 over here, too.
Just to get sort of an idea and just kind of show
what the difference really was between the two systems, as far as speed.
A great example of this is Wolfenstein 3D.
And on both machines,
it'll run...
but the 486, especially with this upgraded one, is so much frickin' faster.
Now, you can see on the 386 one on the left,
the frame rate--
You know, it's playable. But it's... kind of crap.
Frickin' 486, though, has got the full, what is it, 70 frames per second on this thing.
So it's so, so much better.
And really, just makes the game, you know, infinitely more playable.
Of course, to any upside, there's always a nice realistically negative downside,
and Test Drive III is a great example of that.
On the 386 over here, we have it running pretty much how it should be.
And on the 486 it runs
way, way too fast. Now,
sure the menu may look nice here. That spinning car looks all cool and 3D and stuff, but
this is actually how it's supposed to look.
And you can't really see the timer here, but the 386 on the left--
This is running how it's supposed to. I mean, the seconds are counting up,
you know, the amount of time that you play properly,
thirteen, fourteen, fifteen...
But the 486,
holy crap!
Yeah, I've just spent thirty seconds
in game time doing that.
Whereas, this game, you know, on the 386 is playing exactly how it should.
But the 486?
No, no. You're, you're frickin' screwed.
So for what it is, the 486,
especially when it was upgraded to one of the higher DX versions, is an amazing chip.
And it really brought in the whole multimedia PC revolution, so...
I think it's cool.
I really like this all-in-one machine. I just wish
there was someway for me to be able to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on it.
But, no. It's only on 5.25", so I will stick to my 386.
For that.
And Test Drive III
and other games that are significantly slow.