[smooth jazz music]
[drive buzzes] [PC beeps]
- [Clint] Oh yes.
Look at that.
Greetings, and welcome to another LGR unboxing
of something delightfully new old stock.
And this right here
is something I have never seen before
complete in the box like this, still sealed up.
This is gonna be really special.
This is an IBM ThinkPad 380ED,
Model 26356AU,
which is a laptop notebook computer introduced in 1997.
Sold through 1998 before being withdrawn from the market,
but yeah, you can see this one's actually put together
on November 17th, 1997.
And yeah, it's still in the box after all this time.
How in the world did this happen?
Well, this is all thanks to the generosity
of an LGR patron named Matt Hrushka.
He got in touch on the Patreon page for LGR
and said, hey, I got this thing,
it looks amazing, but I haven't opened it yet.
Would you like the honor of opening it up on your channel?
And I'm like, [chuckles] are you kidding?
But yeah, I'm just going to read over this letter here.
"Greetings from Santa Barbara," he says.
"I'm a bit of an IBM collector
and amazingly came across this one a little bit ago.
I had gone back and forth on just storing it untouched
or cracking it open and enjoying it.
Decided that it's just too good of a find
to sit on a shelf," I agree.
So he'd like as many people to share
in the unboxing as possible,
with requests being to leave stickers
and film intact if possible,
but I can open it up and install some software.
And also, "Please install 'Doom' on it."
A special copy is included inside.
This right here. Look at that registered copy of "Doom."
Yeah. Aw yeah, there we go.
So this is the mail-ordered registered copy of "Doom."
Version 1.666. [chuckles in evil]
And I do have a copy of this myself,
but awesome to have his on here.
So this will be the first thing we're gonna install on here,
but of course, I'm also expecting...
I mean, just all sorts of cool things,
because it's got Windows 95
and whatever IBM decided to install on there.
Thing is, I don't know if this is actually going to work.
Of course, there's only one way to find out:
opening it up and plugging it in and turning it on,
so we're gonna go ahead and do that in just a second.
But I do expect that, you know,
maybe the batteries might not be going.
There's the CMOS battery and, of course,
the laptop battery itself.
So who knows? We'll see.
If you'd like to go ahead and skip straight to the unboxing,
go right here to this timecode in the video.
That's when the actual unboxing will start.
But real briefly, though,
I just wanted to go over the specs of this thing
so you know what it is we're getting into.
So this this is a printout from IBM's website, October 1998.
It had been withdrawn from the market by that point.
But yeah, Pentium MMX 166 CPU, fantastic.
A CD-ROM and a floppy drive both integrated into the unit.
That was one of the big selling points of this.
Before that you had to swap them out for the most part.
And this version being the 6AU model,
it's got a 3-gigabyte hard disk
and a 12.1-inch TFT color display.
And of course,
a NeoMagic MagicGraph 128ZV SVGA accelerator.
That should be awesome.
And 16 megs of memory installed.
Among all the other things on here. So, anyway.
And another thing I always try
to figure out with these things
is what it would've cost brand new,
because the fact that it was sitting there...
This one, apparently, was just in an office
for like 23, 24 years or whatever,
unopened, but bought brand new at some point.
So how much did they spend to just never use it?
Well, here is the original IBM price list
I found from the announcement.
So this is from 1997.
This is this model right here, the 26356AU.
$5,199! [laughs]
Imagine spending that much
and then just never using the thing.
Now, this is the original suggested list price
from IBM themselves to their business partners.
So, of course, the street price was always lower.
So this is an article from CNET
announcing the same series of 380s, the ED and such.
So they talk about the one with the 150 megahertz,
2-gig hard drive, na-na-na, costing $3,899.
Of course, this is the ED with a 3-gig drive,
so it was definitely more than $3,899.
If I had to guess, maybe around $4,000,
maybe a little more than that
for this particular model brand new.
But, of course, the street price.
There were always discounts when you got them
actually in a store or from an IBM business partner,
either in person or ordered.
So you can see one here that is this particular one. $3,649.
And this was a little bit later.
I think this was the end of 1997
or the beginning of 1998.
I'm gonna say 4,000 bucks is probably what it cost.
So yeah, that's enough ogling the cardboard-encased glory.
It is just paper, after all, we're looking at,
and it's the contents,
all the electronical goodness, that counts.
So let's go ahead and open this up as carefully as possible
and try to keep these things intact.
Yeah, let's just unbox a brand-new IBM ThinkPad.
[smooth jazz music]
[voiceless, respectful unboxing]
All right, security seal is broken.
And it looks like these cardboard flaps just kinda come out.
Ooh.
Ooh!
Hoo-hoo! [laughs in new old stock]
Ah.
Ho-ho!
It is hard not to just go crazy here.
So straight away we get a Quick Setup Guide
with that style of artwork IBM was using
in the late '90s there.
"Quick Setup Guide provides you
with information on how to set up your computer quickly."
Well gosh, I would hope so.
Oh, look at that!
Just numbers and pictures.
Basically just put the battery in, plug it in, turn it on.
Good times.
And around back we got some other things here.
Yeah, there's the startup thing if there's no OS installed.
Hopefully we won't see that.
"Operating system screen. You can start computer operation."
Look at that. Japanese versions of Windows 3.1 and OS/2.
Okay, let me move my camera here
so we can get a little better view of this.
Oh yes. [laughs]
This is really neat to see all of these
in their original distribution,
instead of just loose.
So accessories. Look at these.
Got a new lithium-ion battery there.
Who knows if that'll still hold a charge?
Course, the AC adapter.
And a nipple. Oh, a couple nipples, mm.
These are worth their weight in gold nowadays.
You used to be able to find these so easily.
Now, to get this particular style of TrackPoint nub,
it can be rather difficult, the rounded ones
with the fuzzy, kind of sandpapery texture.
Anyway.
Like, you can still get 'em.
They're just not as easy to find on their own anymore.
And here we go. Ooh.
A substantial portion of paperwork. Mmm.
[chuckles] "PUBG."
"PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" Group?
"Tips for using tour IBM ThinkPad comfortably and safely."
Uh...
Yeah, don't use it inside of a volcano,
don't drop it off a cliff, that kinda stuff.
And lift this out of the way.
Ooh.
Yeah!
Software, I'm assuming. More documentation.
Oh-ho-ho. And the ThinkPad.
Ooh, that came right outta there,
so that glue has deteriorated.
It's kinda nice, actually.
I like not having to cut it apart
or tear it open or anything.
Yeah. Look at all this stuff.
Let's see what we got here, man.
A little booklet thingy.
"International service information."
It's just phone numbers
for all the IBM places around the world, okay.
And got some stickers. "Need Help?"
Wow. [laughs] Four of 'em!
If you really need help, just stick 'em all over the office.
Ooh, a special offer inside.
A special offer in the form of registering.
Did you get anything for registration? Looks like you did.
"For completing and returning the attached thingy,
IBM will send you a nameplate
you can place in the cover indentation
to personalize your IBM computer."
Now that's cool. Look at that!
A custom nameplate on a ThinkPad?
Did anybody do that? Let me know in the comments.
Oh man, and all kinds of ads. [laughs] Sure.
CompuServe, of course.
Premier protection for IBM whatever.
Artisoft CoSession Remote?
"Access your PC from anywhere at any time."
[laughs] AOL 3.0. 50 free hours!
Yeah, I remember these diner ads.
Ooh. Never seen this exact little brochure/pamphlet thingy.
It's a little larger than the ones I got in the mail.
And some license agreement stuff.
Oh, a bunch more license agreement stuff.
Well, yeah. IBM.
"Hints and tips for using a PC card," indeed. PCMCIA.
Neat.
"Read me first." Hmm.
"Thanks for purchasing an IBM ThinkPad." You're welcome!
I totally purchased this.
"The Recovery CD..."
Okay, that's awesome too. I'm gonna image that.
That can be rather hard to find,
some of these ThinkPad recovery things.
You find a lot of the drivers and software on their own,
but having the original media or even copies of it is...
Yeah.
What do we got here? "Additional information."
CardWorks, CardSoft, CardWizard,
a lot of the PC card programs.
Cool.
"Personal carrying cases for ThinkPad."
These are kinda hard to find too.
I've been trying to find one for my 380XD.
Haven't yet found one. Not the originals, anyway.
Look at these things.
With the cool leather ThinkPad badge and everything.
Here's a full overview, just a list of all of 'em,
in case anybody's curious.
Looks like the most expensive one
is the Executive Leather one, $280 U.S.
And now, of course,
the star of the show.
I mean, it's all the star,
but this is like the star among stars.
Oh, man. This is crazy. [laughs]
Just seeing one of these that hasn't been touched? Ah!
They're always in such...
Not always, but they're usually in pretty terrible shape
because of the materials that they used on the outside.
They get all gouged up and scratched up and they fall apart,
and it's weird seeing one still in the plastic.
The IBM styrofoam.
Ooh, what is this? "Important, read before removing."
I suppose we will. "Before breaking the seal..."
And license stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well.
I accept everything in 1997's agreements.
Now, can we keep this intact? [laughs]
I have my doubts. This is a pretty big sticker.
Let's just try our best to keep it looking half-okay.
[mellow lo-fi music]
All right. Man, I feel like I need gloves for this.
[laughs] I'm gonna get some gloves.
Nobody wants excited computer geek hand juice
on their new ThinkPad. [laughs]
Oh!
Would ya look at that?
Yeah.
That is incredible.
That is by far the best-looking ThinkPad 380 series
I have ever seen. [laughs]
And I've seen a good few of them.
I've had probably four or five of these things
over the years.
Only one ED and that was a long time ago.
This...
Aw, man.
Yeah, I'll have it out next to my 380XD here in a bit
so you can get an idea, but...
Suffice to say they never look this good.
Aw! Fresh ports!
[whispering] Aw, look at this!
Oh yeah. Look at that! [inhales deeply]
So yeah, it really has that classic
late-'90s computer smell.
It's like a slightly acrid... [laughs]
You know, you can tell it's... [inhales]
It's degrading, it doesn't smell as good
as it would've completely brand new.
It almost hits the back of your throat in a peppery way.
That's just the plastics and other various electronics,
the rubbery coating that it has on here.
It's just that smell, I don't know.
If you've smelled it, you know what it is.
Not a bad smell,
but not like that new-car smell that you get
with certain things that are sealed up incredibly well.
But yeah, just...
Man.
All this being so nice underneath.
These get so scuffed up so easily
'cause, you know, they were used very harshly
for at least a good 10 years.
Yeah, that Windows 95 blue sticker there.
I really like that.
And again, untouched, not scuffed.
All those clean battery connectors and everything. Ah!
This is where the RAM will be.
And there should be a CMOS battery in there
that we may have to replace.
We might.
I will go ahead and do that
if I have the battery on hand and we need to.
Yeah, there is really one of the biggest
selling points of this.
You got the slim CD-ROM
and slim 3.5-inch high-density drive right there,
integrated in one so you don't have to swap out the units.
This was one of, if not the first,
ThinkPads in this price range to do that.
'Cause yeah, you'd only get one or the other
on the previous ones.
We've got two PCMCIA PC card slots.
A wonderful power button that's never been used.
PS/2 mouse and AC adapter there.
Nice to see one of those AC connections
that is not complete crap.
Those things fall apart.
Here we go. I don't wanna get it any scuffed at all.
Even on a wood tabletop.
So let's see what we got here.
Look at this!
Oof.
Yeah.
Ooh, that's a sight to behold.
Brand-new TrackPoint nub.
Untouched keyboard.
Got the fantastic black Pentium MMX badge there.
I've always loved the way that looks.
A lot of these you see, that badge has been removed.
Yeah. Really enjoy the keyboards on these.
They're quite nice.
Nothing mechanical, of course, but they feel good.
And these are solid things to type on and work on, game on.
And then, of course, this display. Lovely TFT.
You got the brightness right there.
Absolutely pristine.
Wild to see one of these with no scuffs or scrapes
or just anything that normally happens to these
after 23 years.
Got the little microphone right there. Oh yeah.
So. [laughs]
I mean, we knew it was gonna be gorgeous,
but yeah, this is...
This is wonderful.
I'm gonna go ahead and get it plugged in, turned on,
see if the batteries are still doing their thing.
Got my doubts, but who knows? You never know.
Sometimes the CMOS will be okay
if it's just sitting in there, not being used.
This, I don't know.
Let's hope that it all just works wonderfully, though.
And try out this delightful 1997 380ED
for the first time since it was in the factory in '97.
Ah! This is a good day.
[smooth jazz music]
Okay, so that is the AC adapter
and a power cable ready to go.
And the lithium-ion battery ready to install,
or at least try out and see if it works.
And yeah, almost forgot about
the other package of documentation,
all the stuff that is in here.
And inside of there you got a whole bunch of stuff
we'll just briefly go over here.
So we got the main user's guide, hundreds of pages.
Some additional information about the ThinkPad.
Lotus SmartSuite 97,
Windows 95 OSR 2,
a ThinkPad options guide,
and the recovery CD-ROM and such inside a little package.
And yeah, in there you have a CD,
as well as a boot disk so you can boot your computer
and then get into CD-ROM support
and do the recovery stuff for the system.
Aw man, and I was really hoping
to be able to image this CD,
but this is something I've never seen before.
The plastic of the CD sleeve
is basically adhered to the actual CD itself.
It's just stuck on there.
I guess heat, over time, has stuck the two together
to the point where I was not able to get it out of there,
at least not confidently and safely.
And it actually looks like some of the plastic
had started to pull away
at the data side of the disk as well.
I'm just not even gonna touch it or image this.
I just can't get it out of there safely,
so I'm gonna leave it to Matt
to do whatever he wants with it.
But yeah, that's all that.
Let's go ahead and finally just turn the thing on.
Gonna get the battery in there first,
just to see if it works.
And the power.
Right back here.
Ooh. I saw lights.
All right. Moment of truth.
Ooh!
Hey.
We got a 161 and a 163 error.
That is completely expected.
So that means we do have a dead CMOS battery.
And we can actually get the computer going just fine
without that battery.
We just put in the information that it needs here.
But instead, I am actually going to see
if I have a replacement for it.
Okay.
Ooh.
Nice and tight screw.
I swear I'm not trying to sound dirty with this.
It just kinda happens. [chuckles]
Okay. Hey, there we go.
So that is where you would expand the memory.
And then there's the little coin cell.
What is that? A CR1220.
This one's a little bit of a smaller boy.
Yep. There's that.
Little Sony CR1220 3-volt.
A bit smaller than the 2032s.
So I do happen to have some of these.
And there we go. Nice and simple.
Awesome.
All right, so... [chuckles]
Let's hope that is the only thing
that we're gonna have to do.
I'm assuming it is.
All right, so 173 error,
which means we'll have to go into the...
Yeah, so we got the time to fix
and then just general BIOS stuff.
Mmm, Y2K compatibility.
Hey, Flerbnerb, what time is it?
- [Flerbnerb] It's 12:36 p.m.
- [Clint] Okay.
So that's that.
And I don't think we'll have to do anything else on here.
But...
This is the BIOS.
I always liked the little custom flapping-bird mouse cursor
and things that they've got in here.
All right, and now, hopefully,
we shouldn't have any errors on startup.
[ThinkPad beeps] [drive buzzes]
Nope, none at all. Excellent.
Ah! Windows 95.
Never been booted. [laughs]
Oh, this is nuts, man.
It's just been sitting there since 1997. '98, more likely.
Oh yeah!
Mmm. Well, I'm not gonna register it to myself, so...
I don't know.
You can change this later, but I'm just gonna... [laughs]
Okay, so I got the serial...
That'll be in the documentation.
All right. "Windows 95 saved all information."
Oh, dude.
[Windows 95 startup music]
Okay, let's get some sound right there, 'cause why not?
I'm gonna put my time zone
because that's where I am, anyway.
This is interesting.
I don't think I've ever actually done
an OEM first-time setup thing for Windows 95.
I usually just install it fresh myself.
Well, not usually. Always.
The fact that we're doing it
through a factory installation thing...
Wow! Oh.
So yeah, this is just how it came from the factory.
Look at all the things!
All this stuff right over here
is just your standard Windows 95.
Then you have Complete ThinkPad Customization.
Netscape & IBM's Global Network. Okay.
PointCast. Preloaded Applications.
380E Presentation. [laughs]
ThinkPad Information. ThinkPad Tools.
Uninstall a 380E demo, register the device,
and just something called ThinkPad.
Let's just open that. Oh, okay.
Fuel! [laughs]
All right. So we got some battery stuff right there.
I guess showing the charge level, or that it is charging.
That's cool. Personalization Editor.
What? It's some sort of background generator.
Wallpaper. That's that.
So, Register, that's pretty self-explanatory.
We don't need to do that. ThinkPad Tools.
Okay, IBM AntiVirus, Emergency Recovery Utility,
Registration, CardWorks.
Diskette Factory.
That's probably the thing that allows you
to recreate diskettes from images.
You can just make your own set of backup disks
for a lot of the things that it uses.
All right, Preloaded Applications. We got CompuServe.
IBM Online Housecall, mmm. NetFinity.
Good ol' Transit for parallel and serial transfer stuff.
PointCast. I'm assuming infrared, maybe?
Netscape & IBM's Global Network.
A lot of online things and different connectivity,
but that is to be expected
considering the intended use case of this.
["Chord" notification plays] Hmm.
"Complete ThinkPad customization will restart the system."
I don't wanna do that yet.
Let's see what's in the...
Yeah, Presentation here.
"Welcome to the IBM ThinkPad Presentation.
It highlights the most important features."
It starts a video,
"And will run continuously until a key is pressed."
Okay. Well, I'm excited by the prospect of videos.
[smokin' guitar lick plays]
Oh! - IBM.
ThinkPad.
[upbeat, extremely '90s music]
[Clint laughs]
Portability.
[jet engines roar]
Versatility.
- This is wonderful. - Quality.
[Clint laughs]
Innovation.
ThinkPad. A better place to think.
- [Clint] Uh-huh.
Man, the '90s-ness of it. Good grief.
So yeah, those speakers sound pretty good, considering.
- [Narrator] Convenience.
- [Clint] Yeah, they're never particularly great speakers
on this series of ThinkPads,
but they at least don't sound blown-out and crunchy
like a lot of 'em I've heard,
'cause over they years they just deteriorate, go bad.
These sound pretty good.
- [Narrator] Now! ThinkPad.
A better place to think.
- All right. - The IBM ThinkPad.
It's small enough to fit in your briefcase;
affordable enough to suit your budget.
The ThinkPad. For home, for work, for travel.
It gives you the performance and quality you demand,
at an attractive price you'll appreciate.
- [Clint] Affordable, huh?
- [Narrator] Say hello to the notebook computer
that's got it all.
Cool screen.
Hot sound.
[intense guitar chord blasts] [Clint laughs]
Unique keyboard.
And all at an incredibly affordable price.
- [Clint] Notice they never said the price.
'Cause it's like four grand. [laughs]
At least for this one.
You could get one, obviously, less than that,
but this is supposed to be sort of a midrange entry for IBM.
But amongst its competitors from other companies,
it was still more expensive than those.
However, you paid for that ThinkPad quality,
so whatcha gonna do, right?
Oh yeah, look at all these. All the bloat.
I mean included programs that are totally useful.
All right, yeah. Look at all the things on here.
Oh, man. These are all the disks right here.
These'll be like image files.
Yeah, look at that.
So you can use that utility
to just write your own recovery disks.
Very, very handy stuff.
All right. System Properties.
IBM logo nicely displayed there.
COM2 is disabled.
And you got that class Crystal Plug-n-Play Audio System.
Let's see what we got for resources. Interesting.
220, 5, 1, 0 for the IRQ and DMA.
See if we can put that sound to the test really quick.
Wait a second.
I have not opened Canyon.
I was seriously about to do that. [laughs]
It's already in the recently opened documents list.
I guess that was like...
What's this other thing? Just readme for Windows.
And Canyon, those were the two things
that were previously opened,
I guess by IBM at the factory?
'Cause yeah, I haven't actually opened anything on here yet.
[lively midi music] [laughs] Awesome.
[high notes warbling]
Yeah, it's that weird Crystal chip.
[mellow midi music]
Certain sounds always sound a little off.
They're just kinda like dikka-dikka-dikka-dikka-dikka
when they should be a smooth pad or synthy sound.
Anyway. I guess...
Well, maybe we'll just open this.
Then we'll boot back into Windows and get some "Doom" going.
["Tada" notification plays]
Hmm. I don't know what it's doing.
It restarted the computer
to do the customization program, but...
Oh, here we go. Here we go.
[Windows 95 startup music]
Eh...
What did this do?
Okay.
So it's added mouse trails, it's made the cursor bigger,
it gave us a custom background,
so I guess when they meant customization,
they meant like, "Here's the IBM stuff,"
instead of just that factory-clean look.
I mean, that's kinda cool,
but that's not exactly what I was expecting.
I was expecting to choose what it would customize.
This is just like, "Here's what we recommend," I guess,
from IBM.
All right, put that back, at least.
I mean, I dig the background, but...
[laughs] So anyway. Okay.
Well, let's go ahead and get some "Doom" installed.
I'm just going to assume the sound is set up in DOS mode.
Let's see.
["Tada" notification plays]
We could've just installed it in Windows 95, but hey.
Why not do it in more pure DOS, if we can?
All right, so it does.
CS4232 stuff going there with the settings we saw earlier.
Ooh, this is special.
Putting a disk in there for the first time.
Ooh.
Excellent.
By the way, I've already backed up
all the contents of the hard disk,
just really quick earlier.
Wanted to make sure that I had all of that copied off there
before we started modifying stuff.
Unfortunately I didn't do it before the IBM thing
did its customization deal in Windows, but anyway.
Hmm. Enjoy some floppy disk and hard disk noises.
[floppy drive clicking and buzzing]
[hard drive chittering]
Nice. Let's get the Sound Blaster stuff selected.
Oh yeah.
[ominous music]
There we go. Running great, as you would expect.
[zombies growl] [gunfire roars]
[energetic E1M1 music]
Okay.
[gunshots pop] [zombie groaning]
I know you're over here. Where are ya?
Jerk.
[jerk moans]
[zombies screaming and groaning]
[cacophony of carnage roaring]
There we go.
[gunfire popping]
And you will notice the black border around this.
This is not a 640x480 screen.
It's 800x600 native.
By default you get these black borders
around anything that is over 640x480.
Or in this case, 320x200.
I believe there is a way to force it to stretch,
but I've been sitting here racking my brain
and can't, for the life of me,
remember what the key combo is.
Future LGR here. Quick update on that.
Yeah, it's Function+F8.
And that will do the stretching for the display
on the 380 series, among others.
It's not terribly great-looking interpolation,
but in movement it's pretty okay.
At least in something like this.
Now, if I were to go over into, you know,
games with crispier 2D graphics,
it looks truly terrible, as does text.
But anyway, Function+F8, that's what it is,
for your information and also for mine,
'cause I always forget that.
All right, so that is "Doom."
The inaugural [laughs] "Doom" kickoff.
A wonderful way to begin this delightful ThinkPad's life.
But yeah, I suppose that's pretty much it, really,
just in terms of, "Hey, here's a ThinkPad."
It works. It's beautiful.
It's brand new, effectively.
Let's actually see if the other battery is charging.
Hey. We've got power.
It says 80% remaining.
Who knows what kind of longevity you'll actually have,
but that's awesome.
So the included battery pack for the system itself
is working and charging up.
That is a rare sight indeed.
I have never actually seen one of those that works.
Welp.
Maybe I spoke too soon. [laughs]
I plugged the power back in and it freaked out.
Anyway, I was gonna say,
never actually see one of those
originally batteries that worked
that hadn't been rebuilt or anything like that.
But, you know, I guess the fact
that it had never actually been used
gave it a better chance, I don't know.
I'm kinda surprised by that,
that it holds a charge as well as it is.
All right, and a couple other things I've gotta try out.
And of course, this being the show that it is,
we've gotta check out "Duke 3D: Atomic Edition."
Let's try the CD-ROM.
Mmm. That's a fresh-lookin' tray.
Yeah, that's right. We're not running any cracks here.
We've got the original CD running from the CD-ROM,
because we gotta use it.
It's a new CD-ROM! That's special.
[DUKE]
And we just gotta get running in 640x480 mode.
Which this machine is more than capable of doing
with its awesome CPU and stuff.
[explosions roar] [Grabbag theme plays]
[music chugging]
Little bit of slowdown as it loads from the hard disk,
but so it goes.
There we go.
- [Duke] Come get some!
Those alien bastards are gonna pay for shooting up my ride.
[troopers scream]
- [Clint] Yeah.
Runs quite good on that Pentium 166.
- [Duke] Who wants some?
- [Clint] Obviously not gonna be making any use of MMX,
but it doesn't matter.
Duke Nukem.
One thing I did notice, though,
is it definitely seems to support
Sound Blaster original just fine,
or like a Sound Blaster clone.
It didn't want to work at all
with the Sound Blaster 16 selected in the options
and Sound Blaster Pro 2 also didn't work,
but anything lower than that did.
So, you know, that's just down to the Crystal sound chip.
[gunfire blaring]
- [Duke] Who wants some?
- [Clint] There we go.
Anyway, looks good, sounds good, runs good.
It's Duke Nukem. Got no complaints.
And yeah, nothing special about the graphics chip at all.
In fact, I think it's only like a 1.125-meg video RAM thing.
It's not a 3D accelerator,
but I do want to try a 3D game, "Pod."
Seeing as it is a system from 1997,
we may as well try a game from 1997.
One of my absolute favorites.
Now, I have this installed already
with the largest installation,
so we have the max amount of data on the hard drive.
And it is the MMX-enhanced mode of the game.
So there's no 3D acceleration.
It's not even doing Direct3D.
This is just gonna be in software,
but running with the MMX technology going on.
[haunting music]
- [Narrator] It'll be over soon.
Everything will be gone and this place will be forgotten.
- [Clint] Not by me, it won't. So this is "Pod."
This is always my go-to test for a system from 1997 to '99,
and no earlier, no later,
because this game is so tricky to run,
even on original hardware like this.
And yeah, it's not going to run great, as you can see.
It's just skipping around and everything, and oh, man.
You can't change the graphical options
because we're not running any kind of acceleration.
So let's just get into a race real quick.
- [Announcer] [audio stuttering] Fi-four!
Three!
Two!
One!
[audio stuttering] Go!
- [Clint] Yeah...
It's trying its best. It really is.
[energetic music]
But this particular processor
and this really crappy, crappy 2D graphics chip in there,
ah, just not enough.
You would need either a better graphics chip,
obviously that'd be very helpful, or...
A decently quicker CPU.
A 233-megahertz Pentium MMX or Pentium II, AMD K6,
or your equivalent Cyrix chip,
those are pretty much ideal for this game.
However, you go much faster than that
and the game doesn't work.
You go much slower than this and, well,
it's gonna be complete anus
in terms of the performance, so...
Yeah.
But hey. I mean, it's playable, I suppose.
Just not very great at all.
And honestly, that's what I expected from this
when in software mode on this processor
and all the other things that are in there.
16 megs of RAM, you know.
32 would be a little bit better, just marginally.
It just really the loading and some of that chopping
and skip-and skip-and skip-and skippiness.
Okay, and for one final thing here
before we wrap up this video,
I'm gonna bring out my own 380-series, or one of them.
My favorite one that I own, anyway.
This is the 380XD I restored on LGR some years back.
Yeah!
So as you can see, externally they are,
of course, very similar-looking.
It's the internals that are the most different.
[startup music overlapping]
Mm.
A crazy delay effect, kind of a stereo thing going on.
That's an interesting sound in person.
Anyway, yeah. Externally they do look very similar.
Of course, they're in the same 380 series
of ThinkPads from IBM in 1997.
It's just this one
is about 10 times better condition than mine.
I mean, this one's still pretty nice. I cleaned it up well.
But yeah, it doesn't have the Pentium sticker.
I wish it did. I love that sticker.
And it has a bunch of things that are sort of mixed around,
just in different positions, compared to the ED.
So the microphone and the speakers
are in different spots on mine here.
The volume knob is on the left side
instead of the right side, so they're touching over there.
Mm.
And then a bunch of other things
are just sort of shifted around
and slightly tweaked and upgraded.
The monitor panels,
I think they're slightly different panels.
Like this one's a little warmer and it just, I don't know,
it looks slightly different to me.
But they are still the same specs, still 800x600 TFTs.
Oh. 3D Maze. [laughs]
I'll just let the screen saver go for a sec then.
But yeah, the biggest difference is the internals,
where the 380XD on the right,
that has a Pentium 233 megahertz MMX processor
and 32 megs of RAM by default instead of 16.
And it also supports more RAM, faster RAM,
it's got a USB port,
you can more easily replace the hard disk,
it comes with a bigger hard disk.
There's just all sorts of lovely little additions
that just made it a better thing in late 1997, early 1998.
And for that reason,
I just think it's really cool to see them side by side.
And yeah.
Let's test "Pod" once again with both of them,
because we can.
We're gonna be running the exact same executables here,
same version, same everything, the MMX mode.
Obviously this one's loading much faster.
It's just faster all around.
Okay, and we'll just get the same car,
same track, same settings as we had earlier
and get 'em side by side.
See what we got goin' on. - [Right Announcer] Five!
Four!
Three!
Two!
One!
- [Left Announcer] Three! Two! - [Right Announcer] Go!
- [Clint] Yeah, so.
Obviously the 380XD is just so much better,
even though they came out the same year.
It's kind of ridiculous.
Okay. Whoa!
I am so not paying attention
to the right screens at the right time.
This is bizarre.
My brain cannot brain right now.
Despite being such similar computers,
the performance difference is crazy.
And again, running the exact same mode.
Same executable. Same MMX instructions.
Same full hard disk installation,
version of the game, everything. Nnaugh!
Oh, how did I throw my car off the side of both of 'em?
I did, though. [laughs]
So what was the point of this?
Uh, I don't know. I just thought it was kinda fun.
And I like "Pod," and I like playing it on any computer
from '97-'98 with a Pentium MMX or equivalent.
It's just good times. My idea of a fun afternoon.
Well, I guess that is it for this video, for real this time.
This has been a real delight and an honor
to mess around with this new old stock 380ED.
Thanks once again to Mr. Hrushka for getting in touch,
letting me know that he'd come across this
and offering to let me unbox it for all of y'all to see.
I think it's always great when something this awesome
gets to be experienced by thousands of people
instead of just one or two in person.
These things deserve to be shared and preserved.
Yeah, so just a great opportunity to do that.
And, you know, just being able
to get a little bit more familiar
and get a little more experience
with one of my favorite series of computers is just a blast.
I don't know if that's come across in this video,
but I have been having so much fun messing around with this
and I'm gonna continue to have some fun with it
throughout the rest of the time that I've got with it,
before I send it back here in a day or two.
It's just an experience that I am thankful to have had
and to have been able to document and share with you.
So if you enjoyed,
do check out some of my other videos on various things.
I've covered plenty of ThinkPads and all sorts of IBM stuff
on LGR over the years.
I have new videos each week on various topics,
so stick around for more if you'd like.
And as always, thank you for watching.