Allow me to tell you about a dream that I have,
a recurring one as a retro computer collector.
Perhaps it's one that you've had, too,
if you're into this hobby.
Where, in your dream, you're just going around
looking for cool things in the area.
Maybe looking at thrift stores or what have you.
And you come across a forgotten corner,
or perhaps even a whole building full
of amazing rare old hardware.
Computers and software and games
and all sorts of things ready to be taken home
and be done with as you please for a good price.
And then you wake up.
And you're inevitably disappointed that it's not real.
Well, what if I told you that that place exists.
I've been there.
Let's get right to it.
I am so excited to show this place off on LGR.
This is the one and only Computer Reset!
[cassette tape clunking]
[laid-back jazz music plays]
[tape loudly stops]
And before be go too much further here,
I do want to provide a bit of context.
A little bit of backstory of how I discovered this place.
How I got in, how I got there.
There's a whole lot of things to go into here
before we actually get to the warehouse.
So if you do want to skip just
to the showing off of the place itself,
you can go to this time code right here in the video.
But I do encourage you to listen
to what I'm about to say because I'm about to say it.
And I think it's interesting.
It really all started last year.
And at this point last year, it was 2018.
So it was around September or something
and I got an email...
That was the mic.
It was going so well, too.
So yeah, I got an email from David Murray,
also known as The 8-bit Guy here on YouTube.
And he just sent me an email
letting me know about this place
over in Dallas, Texas called Computer Reset.
And he attached some pictures
and gave a brief description of it being
packed to the brim full of old computers
and tech and stuff.
And I'm like, yeah, cool.
Thanks for letting me know.
It's always nice to hear from David.
And cool to hear about places like this that exist.
And then a few months passed though.
I wasn't gonna go right then because I had stuff going on.
And once I posted my video on the IBM PC 5140 Convertible,
another person got in contact with me
that was also a YouTuber.
His name was Stephen.
And he does the channel Texas Nerd House on YouTube.
And he got in touch and said,
Hey, there's this place called Computer Reset.
Don't know if you've heard of it,
but they have a lot of stuff for your PC Convertible
that you just got and unboxed on your channel.
I'm like, Oh, cool.
Well, is there anything individually
that you're looking for?
Maybe something that's hard to find.
I'm like, pssh, okay.
There's a whole bunch of things for this
that I've never once seen show up for sale.
He emails me back like a day later
this photo and saying,
"Here you go."
It's just all there and they had way more
of this stuff, too at Computer Reset.
I'm like, hooo-okay.
This place is more legit than I thought.
But, at the time, I still couldn't make my way out there.
So I just said, Thank you.
Would you be willing to get that stuff
and send it my way?
I'll pay for it, and I'll pay for shipping, too.
So we did.
And it ended up being like a hundred bucks all together.
It was nothing considering the rarity of the stuff
and the value of it, if it were to go for sale.
So already I was really impressed.
But I was happy just to have some stuff for the Convertible
because I plan on doing that video at some point
and I'll get to show all these cool things.
Well, another month or something passes,
and then I hear from Rob who runs the channel
Obsolete Geek on YouTube.
So, yeah, another Texas YouTuber getting in touch
about Computer Reset.
He was like, "Have you heard of it?
"Here are some pictures."
And I'm like, Yes, I have heard of it from David
and Texas Nerd House and all these other people.
In fact, a few viewers from the Dallas area
got in touch to tell me about it, too.
But Rob mentioned the owner was in really bad shape,
and the place was deteriorating rapidly.
And maybe the place might be shutting down soon.
So perhaps you should think about going there.
I'm like, oh, yeah.
Wow, I would, except at the moment
I was injured myself
and had an ankle injury where I couldn't walk.
I hadn't been able to stand at all really, normally
for about a week.
And then a bit more time passed,
and then Stephen from Texas Nerd House got in touch again
and said, "Dude, the place is not only closing down soon,
"but it's closing this Saturday."
And this was Wednesday morning
when I got this email from him.
And I'm like, Oh, no.
Well, I don't know what to do
because I'm still kind of injured here.
I had recovered a bit more, but then he's just like
it sounds like they're not only going
to close the place down but it's gonna be bulldozed.
All the stuff inside of it, too.
All the rare computers and anything
that may happen to be in there just sold for scrap.
Aw, man.
I looked down at my ankle.
I look at the calendar.
I think about it.
I go get some coffee and wait around in the afternoon.
And by around 6:00 PM, I'm like,
You know what, screw it.
Let's see what kind of flights there are.
So I go online, look at the flights from here to Dallas.
And there's one available.
There's a couple of seats left.
So I'm like, Oh, okay.
So I get the ticket, pack a very quick bag.
And then haul it over to the airport.
And at this point, it was 6:45 when I had gotten the ticket
and I think it was in the air by 7:45.
So I just completely hauled it over to Dallas
when I heard that this place
is gonna be bulldozed in three days.
Three days?
Like, what in the world?
I knew this was once in a lifetime,
potentially, opportunity to see a kind of place like this.
One that I had only seen in my dreams.
And a few photos through email.
Sure, I was injured, but I just got an ankle brace
and said, Screw it.
Let's make this happen.
And so, yeah, I made it happen.
And I got to Dallas.
And by the time I got there, well, it was night time.
So I just grabbed a hotel.
I got into my room.
Saw that it was an okay room.
And yeah, that's fine, whatever.
Time to plop into bed.
Grab some sleep.
And just see if I can get over there in the morning.
[breakfast]
Hi.
So here is he nature of this situation this morning.
Unpredictable!
It doesn't exactly have hours.
Yeah, it is just a guy.
Apparently he kind of lives there.
He just kind of opens the door
whenever he wakes up or something.
So that's interesting.
I'm also absolutely not sure
what I'm gonna do about getting any stuff home.
I mean, a U-Haul, that's an option.
It's not a cheap one.
There's also shipping stuff out.
We'll see what happens next.
Probably just grab an Uber and head on over there.
And that is precisely what I did.
Thankfully a pretty quick trip over from my hotel.
And turns out Computer Reset's actually
a little bit closer to Garland, Texas than Dallas.
It's northeast of the main city center by a good ways.
Well, yeah, a short trek for me.
And here was my first glance of Computer Reset.
An unassuming building in an unassuming part of town.
With a delightfully retro hand-made looking sign.
And another hand-made sign saying "closed."
But yeah, just looking in through the windows here,
you can get just a glimpse of the retro awesomeness
that awaits inside.
Computers and monitors and tech just stacked everywhere.
But it's closed, and
there was no one here to let anyone in.
Not only that, but I soon received word
that no one would be let in, maybe ever again.
So close but still so far!
So yeah, in retrospect,
here's where things got a little silly.
[cork]
Now I went down there under the guise
of there being someone there to let people in.
And well, apparently, there was at one point.
But somewhere in the process, things got a bit misconstrued.
Well, all these people were emailing me about this place,
the internet was starting to catch on that it existed.
And there were a few reasons for that.
I mean, really, you just can't keep a secret
about this kind of computer warehouse
a secret for very long.
And, especially when people start posting pictures
and videos and stuff.
And in particular there was one video,
really a livestream that went up by YouTuber TX Dj.
His name is Justin,
he's a cool guy, he's got a cool channel
with a bunch of cool tech.
And apparently he had some cool permission
to film there and post it online.
And then, well you could kind of guess what happened.
People started showing up to the place at random.
And the video was spreading.
Then it was on Facebook and Reddit and Twitter
and all sorts of places.
And the family of Richard, the guy that ran
Computer Reset for so many years
and was in such bad health now,
they saw all this.
And then they saw all these people
just like showing up out front there.
And they're just like, "no."
Especially since the guy that was there letting everyone in
kind of maybe wasn't supposed to be doing that.
Things just got really weird.
And I had no idea any of this was going on when I got there.
And then when I did get there that first morning,
there were a bunch of people already waiting outside.
Some were LGR fans,
some were just people that wanted to get in
and see the cool place.
And when word starts spreading like this,
you can't really shut it down.
But they shut it down.
At this point, what am I gonna do?
I'm already there in Dallas, Texas,
so I just start hanging out with folks.
I mean, Stephen was there.
He had his vehicle,
and there were a bunch of other people that watched my show.
Or we just all had similar interests.
So we just started wandering
nerdy computery places around Dallas.
And I didn't record everywhere we went,
but the first location was
the Goodwill Computer Works of Dallas.
[rapidly-playing LGR Thrifts theme]
Nope, nope, no, no, this is not a Thrifts!
This is just a place I went.
And honestly, as much as I've wanted to visit one of these,
it was pretty disappointing I've gotta say.
Mostly it was just the standard selection of Dells
and refurbished stuff from the late 2000s
that Goodwill does at almost every location.
They just happen to have more of it.
They did have a selection of other computery
and game technology related things.
It is, at least, a store dedicated to that.
Which is more than a lot of Goodwills.
You know, beyond a very small selection of games
and controllers and computer peripherals
that were almost interesting,
there really wasn't anything to see here.
Most amusing thing was this Sega Genesis MLB Baseball cart
with a very classy label.
Otherwise, it's just bins full of stuff
electronically that nobody wants.
Like I said, I had a lot of fun hanging out
with all the folks that were along for the ride here.
We went to a Micro Center.
I'd never been to one of those before.
Along with a Fry's Electronics,
which confused the crap out of me
with its odd decor.
I guess these are all themed stores.
We just don't have anything like this around me.
I also went to Dallas Makerspace.
The place was absolutely awesome.
I wish I'd gotten footage anywhere here,
but I wasn't really planning on making a video.
Eventually, a bunch of us ended up back at Stephen's house.
Him and his wife Stacy are very cool people.
And very inviting.
And they do indeed have a Texas nerd house
filled with all sorts of nerdy things
like this Russian Electronika DVK-3
PDP-11 compatible clone personal computer type system.
And yes, that is running the original Tetris
that was made for the Electronika 60.
Alexey Pajitnov's original vision, or whatever man.
This is so cool to play this
on something that is appropriate
and compatible with the original hardware.
And, man, it's a lot tougher
than subsequent versions, in my experience anyway.
This was just a challenging game.
And you know what?
I was in the Dallas/Fort Worth area
so I decided to stop by and visit some folks
that I know around there.
Including 8-Bit Guy, David.
And checked out the area that he films and everything.
We didn't film anything together,
although I did record this little quick snippet
of moving around his crap.
There you go, fixed it.
And big thanks to Justin and his local area connections.
He let me tag along to this exceptional private arcade
owned by a guy, Dr. Vance, who just,
I mean, holy crap, it was an absolute
pop culture geeky paradise.
It's like 5000 square feet.
It's absolutely amazing, the selection of stuff here.
And yes, that was a Polybius machine that you saw there.
In fact, if you go on Wikipedia, the Polybius machine
that you'll see pictured, that was his.
I mean, he made it.
It runs the rogue synapse version and everything,
like, it's, yeah.
Just an exceptional place, so thank you to everyone involved
for letting me hang out over the next few days there
in the Dallas/Fort Worth area
while I was waiting and hoping
for any word on Computer Reset.
[soft jazz segue]
And then, finally, after all the craziness and uncertainty,
and honestly, a lot of fun over the past several days,
we finally got word that Computer Reset
was opening back up, kind of.
A lot of the public hype was scaled back.
And that streamed video was taken down.
Justin talked to the family,
and really did a fantastic job
of just making sure everyone was on the same page.
And organizing a small group of people,
including me, thankfully, to get into Computer Reset
and go and explore.
Really have unprecedented access for an afternoon.
And so, let's finally dive in to Computer Reset!
[door squeaking]
[low rumble of outside traffic]
[door lock locks lockingly]
Welcome, everyone, to Computer Reset.
As you may surmise, from the state of things,
this has not been an open-to-the-public
kind of business in many years.
Although back in the day,
it was a used computer store, repair shop.
They did software and hardware and wholesale,
and who knows what else.
Just all kinds of computer-related things.
Now there is a warehouse as well.
But I'm just gonna show the front section
of the store here first.
Because, honestly, there's still a lot
of fascinating stuff to see even just up here.
Though, for the most part, this is somewhat newer
than what you'll find out in the warehouse.
A lot of stuff from the 90s, early 2000s.
But it is still like stepping into a kind of time capsule
for an old computer repair shop.
Like this area in the corner
that appears to have been kind of a software store
at one point.
Filled with shelves of new old stock applications
and software and games.
Screen saver packs, word processing and office packs.
I mean, just a ton stuff,
most of it still sealed right here.
As you'll be seeing,
there are lots of loosely organized piles of things.
Maybe not organized but just kind of jumbled together
by type in a way.
Lots of rooms have kind of a specific theme going on.
Like this laptop room in the back here.
I mean, it's more than just laptops,
but that's mostly what it is, is what I mean.
Just tons of portables
from most every company you an imagine.
Lots from Toshiba, but largely from Compaq,
as you might imagine being in Texas.
And just because they were popular as balls.
And I found this whiteboard particularly poignant, aw man.
And then, yeah, this room behind that,
we ended up calling it the drive room
being that it is mostly filled with drives of all kinds.
Floppy drives, optical drives, hard drives.
All kinds of storage, really.
Mostly of the internal variety.
And we've just begun to see this place.
Oh, my goodness.
So many hallways and weird little rooms to check out.
Not gonna show absolutely everything,
but I've gotta show you certain places like this here.
As far as we could tell,
this hallway was filled with repair orders
that were just never picked up.
Stacks of desktops, keyboards and monitors
that were, apparently, fixed but the customer
just never came and got them.
Or they were parted out and left for who knows what.
And then all just kind of stacked here.
And, yeah, tons of stuff from the 90s
in this hallway.
Little box of new old stock
IBM game control adapters over here, too.
I mean, yeah, it's just a free for all.
You never know what you'll find any room.
And on the other side of that hallway
is this room here.
It's kind of the main repair area, lab kind of set up.
Just mountains of partially completed projects
and displays and drives and cords
and screws and mounting things
and just a little bit of everything.
You can tell there was a ton of work
that happened in this room back in the day.
I was also particularly interested by these stacks
of disk drive holders filled with tons of drivers
and software and who knows what,
all for restoring specific machines.
And then back here is sort of the main parts room.
At least for the front part of the store here.
And, again, you could tell this was
very meticulously organized at one point,
but has long since fallen into dishevelment.
Of course, this has been picked through
by a lot of people over who knows what amount
of time in the past when people
were just being let in at random.
But yeah, there's still a ton that is here
and is somewhat stuck together by type.
This is definitely the room to come to
if you're looking for expansion cards,
add on cards, upgrades and things like that.
A lot of it new old stock.
This is where a lot of that PC Convertible stuff
that I ended up receiving came from.
It's all stuck here.
This whole shelf is just Convertible stuff.
And yeah, just a whole lot more in the back here.
I spent a long time exploring this room.
Later on, looking for hard to find sound cards,
video cards and add ons.
That's the majority of the downstairs front part
of the store, but if you go upstairs here,
past this delightful looking IBM all in one,
you'll get to the second floor of the front of the building.
Again, we haven't even gone to the warehouse.
You can see a few of the guys down there
as Justin and Rob and a few other dudes.
This was the group of us that got let in that day.
Yeah, upstairs were a selection of interesting rooms.
Like this one here,
everybody kind of referred to as the museum.
Which, at one point,
were items Richard really wanted to hold on to.
But yeah, there's a lot of interesting
different kind of stuff up here.
A lot of A/V equipment.
Rack mount and server stuff.
In fact, there was a server still up
and running here in the back corner.
Really not sure what it was doing.
The website was long since gone.
This area here actually almost looked
like a recording studio.
It was an interesting set up.
And yeah, going through to the other side here.
And you'll se a lot more A/V stuff.
For all kind of formats.
I mean, just a ton of things.
Mostly film and tape related.
Boxes and boxes of media and VHS and Beta
and film reels and who knows what.
A highly water-damaged copy of Ultimate Doom, and yeah.
And of course, just a smattering of personal computers,
mostly from the 90s.
Everything is really just kind of stuck
wherever it would fit.
Though, again, you find groups of things every so often
like this back corner here full of Trinitrons
and broadcast television and security monitors.
Oh, yeah, good stuff.
And kind of behind here was another room
filled with a lot of stuff from the 80s
and even late 70s.
A whole ton of terminals, especially.
I wish I had got more footage of this room.
I thought that I did but I guess I didn't.
We'll be revisiting some of this later.
I'm just doing a quick overview here.
I like this other back room
that was filled with a whole bunch
of fascinating stuff, honestly.
Really is one of those free for all rooms
just filled with absolutely everything.
Mostly desktop computer related from the 90s
but also into the 80s.
And some terminals and word processors as well.
Even a couple of cash registers.
And stacks of brand new keyboards.
Boxes of floppy disks.
And, hey, even on top of here,
I found an eMachines eOne accessories set.
I did not have the mouse for mine,
so yeah, I'm gonna pick that up really quick.
But, yeah man, I was drawn to a lot of stuff in this room.
I don't know, it's just a lot of things
from the era that I'm interested in.
Bunch of Acers and Compaqs,
and whatever these cat machines are.
There's a lot of stuff in here.
Scootin' on through to one of the other back rooms.
And yeah man, just more and more and more stuff.
The more I look through this footage,
the more I realize I didn't see a lot of it
when I was there in person.
Oh, my goodness.
It's absolutely dense with stuff.
And, unfortunately not every room is well lit.
Or lit at all.
Highly recommend bringing a flashlight.
But yeah, all these upstairs rooms
are just an absolute free for all.
Like, there really doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason
to any of this.
Again, I don't doubt there was at one point,
but as it is now, you could find
just about anything in any room.
Often half a dozen or more of the exact same item
just piled all together.
That's all I'm gonna show right now
of the front area of Computer Reset.
Now let's go back downstairs
and head through this back door
and into the warehouse.
Oh, yes.
This is 38,000 square feet of computer goodness.
And trash, but a lot of computers.
Really just a phenomenal amount of technology
stacked on top of each other
with who knows what stacked in between it.
And despite this area being not the most protected
from all the elements,
and of course, extremely hot.
There's no air conditioning in this entire building,
but especially not out here.
Yeah, this is just a maze of insanity.
A technological paradise.
This is the kind of thing that I was dreaming of
in all my dreams for who knows how many years now.
You just walk into a place like this
and you don't know where to start.
Every single inch of this place
is packed with something interesting.
Whether it be a keyboard or a monitor
or a desktop or some weird little sealed
piece of software or documentation
or an electronic tidbit or an add on.
Like, who knows, man?
I have found things in here
that I have never even heard of, of course,
but also things that I have heard of,
and assumed that were extremely rare
because they've never once shown up
on eBay or anywhere like that that I've looked.
And yet, all of a sudden there were like
a hundred of them on a pallet.
And this is, again, I'm just down here on the floor.
This is eye level that we're looking at.
Once you start digging deep or vertically
or even underneath stuff
you will start uncovering things.
Peeling back the layers, the years, the decades.
And finding stuff that is just unthinkable.
The fact that it's been sitting here
just untouched forever.
I mean, these stacks of things that you're seeing,
these are often pallets.
And there's like four pallets deep underneath
each of these shelves.
And the shelves go up three levels.
And then again, in between those pallets
there's often stuff, too.
Not to mention just the piles of things
that are haphazardly scattered all over the place.
So even though this has been picked through
for months now.
In a way, it looks like it hasn't been touched.
I mean, there's a ton of the things
that were on the surface that were really interesting.
People have snapped those up long ago.
But the things that are still here
are positively mind blowing.
Even if it's not the most sought after
or valuable thing, there's just do much of it
in one spot that it is...
I don't know, man.
I get speechless even just watching this.
When you're there, it is absolutely insane.
It's really hard to get the scale of this.
It's really hard to get how cramped it really is, too.
Because I was using a wide-angle lens
on my phone camera here.
I wish I had brought better equipment,
but like I said earlier,
I came down here in such a rush
that I didn't bring any of my bigger camera equipment.
Honestly, I thought it would be too bulky
and I didn't yet have a gimbal.
This was before E3.
So yeah, sorry about some of the shaky, ridiculous footage
here that hopefully isn't making anyone sick.
But it's just so amazing.
I do my best, man, because it's an absolute hazard
walking through here in many more ways than one.
I saw many of these piles fall over.
Nobody got hurt, thankfully.
But yeah, you gotta be careful.
Use common sense.
Preferably bring a mask, absolutely bring some gloves
and some things to wash yourself off with
because a lot of this is just covered in gunk
and rat pee and turds and all sorts of nastiness.
It's not a clean place,
but if you're into this kind of thing,
it is still a paradise.
And the further back you go and the deeper you get,
the older and more obscure things become.
Like in the back here,
you start running into some really serious hardware.
Big, rack-mounted networking mainframe type stuff.
And who knows what else, man.
Ended up finding some things from late 60s
to definitely mid 70s.
Again, though, just so much of it is piled up
and really deeply hidden that it's gonna take
a lot to get to it.
But you're absolutely rewarded for persistence
and getting your hands dirty, and your whole body dirty.
Man, you're gonna get absolutely nasty
going through this whole place.
I know I did.
Not to mention sweatin' mah balls off.
I went through 10 bottles of water.
And I still needed more than that, man.
Do not get dehydrated.
But yeah, I could wander through this warehouse all day.
I mean, I pretty much did.
There was stuff in here that I,
you know, you wouldn't even think you'd ever find.
Apparently what happened was at one point
they were purchasing all sorts of pallets
of businesses that had gone out of business,
computer businesses or stuff that didn't sell.
Or things that were no longer in use.
I found pallets full of computers from UPS
and several banks and various institutions.
A lot of them still with hard drives in them,
so you know, you never know what you'll find
on some of these things.
And, of course, there was an absolute ton of stuff
from IBM in here.
A bunch of it being new old stock.
And then a bunch of these things.
It is labeled as one thing
or the box has one thing but it's not that inside.
You really have to dig deep and dig into stuff,
open things up to see what it actually is.
Like Justin here climbing mount printer, as we called it.
Going into these boxes and opening them up
to find brand new old stock PCjrs still in the box.
Yeah, there was a ton of PCjr stuff in here.
Apparently they kind of bet on that back in the day.
And, well, that did not pan out
seeing it was one of IBM's biggest failures.
But, you know, if you're into PCjr stuff,
there's a ton of it here.
And just in general, IBM stuff from the 80s,
of an unbelievable variety.
Many of these boxes are full of unsold stock
of software applications, and even some games.
As I discovered once I climbed up to the top
of one of these shelving units here.
And, oh yeah, great view.
Look at all that IBM blue out all over the place.
Oh, my goodness.
And again, this is hardly getting the scale of things
because I'm 25, 30 feet up or something.
And it just keeps going.
This place is insane and filled with a ton of printers.
But, you know, a lot of other things, too.
Found several boxes of new old stock software
for retailers like Best Buy and such.
Unsold games like Gunmetal here.
And some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stuff.
The more you look, the more you find.
And yeah, it extends outside as well.
Though, of course, baking out here in the Texas heat
and weather, for the most part,
this is not gonna be worth anything at all.
It's just baked to death out here
for who knows how long.
Yeah, man, even just out here.
If all this stuff were in one spot anywhere else,
it would be absolutely shocking.
But you get here and then you see everything
that's actually inside and everywhere
and it's just like, oh well.
you know, you can just safely ignore all this.
Who cares?
But, yeah, there's just an unimaginable amount
of technology even just hanging around outside
in the open air here.
Along with a ton of signage and boxes
and other things that, I don't even know.
But yeah, let's waltz on back inside here
even though I think it's hotter inside
than it is outside.
But yeah, Rob was actually filming with his camcorder
at the same time I was going around recording with my phone.
And he got some footage of me just looking around in awe.
Taking everything in.
Being absolutely amazed and seriously not knowing where
to look but just looking at everything.
In fact, we were all together for a good part of this
before we all split up,
like the footage you were seeing earlier.
And just kind of taking the tour and going through
and checking out every room briefly.
Talking about the things they had gotten in the past.
And what you might be able to find
in certain rooms today.
Like, I was curious about all these VIS2000 boxes here.
There were no VIS2000 machines,
but each of them were full of new old stock stuff.
Found boxes and boxes of RAM boards
and expansions and micro channel architecture things.
They have an absolute ton of IBM PS/2 related stuff
in this entire facility.
Again, though, I was super enamored
by the portables and laptop room here.
I could've easily picked up 20 of these things
and taken them home just to tinker with for years.
Love old laptops.
Oh yeah, that one room earlier I wish I had gotten
more footage, that I swear I recorded.
And I don't know what happened to the footage,
but yeah, it's got a lot of terminals and what not.
This is one of the most densely packed rooms,
but it ended up having some of the most fascinating
finds of the entire trip.
We'll come back to that.
Oh, and that other room
where I found the eMachines accessories.
Check it out.
There was also a Hot Wheels computer or two lying around.
Somebody else picked that up.
Yeah, you could seriously find everything in here.
There was a brand new old stock IBM PS/1
just hanging out over there.
I thought maybe it was full of something else,
but no, PS/1.
And back on out into the warehouse there.
And this row in particular was one of my favorites.
Just seeing how full it was of new old stock IBM software.
And really programs of all kinds
that were IBM PC compatible, mostly from the 80s.
For instance, these stacks of IBM TopView that...
And I actually ordered a copy off eBay
just like the week prior,
and here there were tons of them.
I was also shocked at the sheer mountains
of new old stock IBM disk drives.
Of all capacities, too.
Everything from the original IBM 5150 drives
up through the PCjr and the PS/2 era.
Even found stacks of newspapers and magazines
from back in the day like this Compute issue
from 1984.
-"1984!"
Or like these pallets where you just peel back
a bit of plastic and you'll see
that it is a complete army of computers.
All the same type of computer.
It was a bunch of these Zenith Data Systems laptops.
Maybe none of them work.
Maybe all the screens are messed up like this one,
or who knows what.
Really, you just gotta dig through here
and see what you can find.
And, man, I had a lot of fun hanging out
with you guys there even though I was sweating to no end.
That was not gonna stop me.
But, yeah, back up in that upstairs room
that was so densely packed with things,
Rob found this.
It was a box labeled Sierra Online, 1990.
Apparently Robert Fischer sent in one of their IBM PCjrs.
Like a development station, maybe?
Who knows!
Computer Reset had it and they had a repair order.
So I'm taking that home.
Back on into the warehouse.
And the more that I looked the more I found.
So many clone computers and Compaqs and HPs and things that,
I would take any one of these.
I would be so excited to find even one of these
in so many other circumstances.
But when you get here, it's like it all blends together.
And you're like, of course that's here.
Of course there's a hundred of them.
Even things like Compaq Deskpros,
you know, like the first Compaq desktops.
I mean, just tons of them.
And a bit later on in the day,
I was joined by Alex.
He was one of the guys I was hanging out with
on the first day I was here.
Then just started getting on ladders and diving into things.
He pulled down this box here.
He was like, "what is Hercules?"
I'm like, "oh my goodness, really?"
It was filled with Hercules cards
and all sorts of pretty obscure video hardware from the 80s.
He also got some more overview footage from the top here
of that ladder he was on.
So, thank you very much, Alex.
Again, the view is spectacular
and almost unbelievable.
Yeah, I don't even know how long we were here.
Maybe eight, nine hours.
We were definitely there until it was
starting to approach dusk.
Those overhead hanging lights don't do much,
especially for some of these back rows here
just filled with things.
Especially underneath the shelves and everything.
So yeah, it's just a good idea
to really bring a head-mounted light.
I had one of those.
Turned out I needed a more powerful one
so just stuck to the handheld,
but yeah, dude.
Way too much to explore.
Honestly feel like I didn't see half of it.
Sorry if the footage looks completely scattered.
I mean, my mind was just racing this entire trip.
I didn't know what to look at.
Oh, man, what an exciting thing, though.
Again, I'm glad Alex joined because he just started
opening up everything, man.
He was like, "These doors slide open, right?"
I'm like, "I don't know, let's try 'em."
Check it out.
All of these loading bay, garage door things
opened up as well.
They were seriously disgusting,
bringing down a bunch of nasty dirt and grime on everyone,
but it not only brought in way more light,
but it revealed so many more goodies hanging out.
I mean, who knows when the last time
some of this stuff was seen.
Some of these IBMs and Macs.
Tandys and interesting clone machines.
And one offs and weird late 70s, early 80s stuff.
And not to mention keyboards, holy crap.
I haven't mentioned the keyboards yet.
There were hundreds and hundreds
of IBM Model Ms and Fs and everything
in this whole building.
Justin even found this box of unused,
like new old stock 3M Scotch 701 tape.
Reel to reels used for mainframes and whatnot.
This is so cool.
- [Justin] That's different than what I thought
was gonna be in there. - [Clint, Alex] Auughhwooo!
- This stuff is amazing.
Tandy TRS-80s.
I mean, yeah, the deeper you look, the more you find.
The only thing I didn't run across personally
were Amigas and Commodore stuff.
A lot of that had been taken already.
But in subsequent days,
I heard from other people that they found
a lot of Commodore stuff.
Even found these boxes and boxes of ICs
of who knows what kind.
Different controller chips and all sorts of things.
Yeah, at this point, it was getting pretty late in the day
and everyone was dead tired and completely gross.
So we decided to close up shop, so to speak.
The place is already technically closed,
but you know what I mean.
And yeah, this is the pile of things
that I decided to take home.
And actually, I didn't take a whole lot.
I was mostly just here to have the experience,
but there were a few items that seemed really useful
to LGR in the future.
And really the only question left was
how to get them home.
Yeah, I got a one-way ticket here.
I just took everything back to the hotel.
And loaded it up in my little front room area.
And went to bed.
Woke up the next morning and got an Uber
to the closest shipping place that was open,
which just happened to be FedEx.
That works.
I just wanted to make sure
that they packed up everything as nicely
and protective-ly as possible.
Especially that PCjr.
Who knows what's on there?
And yeah, that was it.
Went back to the hotel, grabbed my luggage.
Hopped back into my ride sharing thing
and off to the Dallas airport.
And yeah, man, all the stuff was on route
with the shipping company.
I was on the plane myself
and well on my way back home
and I really, immediately started thinking
about what in the world I was gonna do for this video.
Obviously I've got a ton of footage.
And yet at the same time, I still feel like
I didn't show enough of it.
Whatever, man.
It was a whirlwind of a trip.
And a couple days later, my packages showed up.
So you know what?
Let's unbox 'em, see what I got!
Okay, been lookin' forward to this!
So very first one here was just shipped in the box
that it was originally packaged in from the factory.
Only briefly kind of opened it up
when I was there,
but yeah, check it out.
Documentation here.
And as far as I know, there we go, yeah.
Aw man, it actually comes with the cable and everything
so you got the edge connector here.
And the little front panel to go on there.
Yeah, if you remember when I did my IBM PS/2 Model 30,
I was looking for the proper hard drive.
It is a new old stock Type 33, 30 meg drive.
If I don't use it in that computer, PS/2,
I'll definitely use it in another one,
but I think this is exactly what I was looking for.
Okay, got a box full of randomness here.
Ah, yes, I thought this was
an interesting thing to come across.
This is Lemmings for the Mac,
but this is the Junior Edition.
'12 challenging levels.'
There was a whole box of these brand new.
Lemmings demo disks.
Junior Edition, yeah, I'd never hear of Junior Edition.
So, neat.
Let's see, right here we've got a Sound Blaster card.
This is a CT2940 Sound Blaster 16.
A later one, 1995.
This was a new old stock, a little bit dirty,
but yeah, it was a new old stock topping...
Topping? I dunno
The top cover, the back part
that actually goes on the PC Convertible.
The one I got was little bit scuffed, scratched.
But this one, other than being dirty, was brand new.
Oh, yeah.
Got some lovely video cards here.
This right here is that Hercules card
that you saw that I found in the box.
Found it interesting because of this
full-length extra bit of PCB here is not cut off,
but it still is made to fit into a full-length 8-bit ISA bus.
And here's a Hercules card that's a little bit older.
1988 one and it is a full length,
but you know, it actually takes up the entire card.
Ah, that's awesome.
And then this is one I'd never had before.
Never come across one.
This is a Video 7 board.
It got a little bit beat up
when it was crammed in that box there,
but yeah, I don't know.
Hopefully it still works because I'm curious.
Never used one, but I remember seeing it
in a bunch of DOS set up programs and manuals
and stuff back in the day, like 1988 or '89.
Yeah, this is the accessories here,
the ones that I needed for the eMachines eOne computer
that I've already covered.
But yeah, there's the original mouse.
And here is the crazy looking power cord.
And then here is the cable,
the PS/2 pass through for the keyboard.
Dude, this is so cool to have.
And, I mean, the fact that this computer
was pulled from the market.
And they had multiples of these there.
That's just insane.
Oh, also got one of these.
This is extremely useful.
As a PCjr user, this converts PCjr output
just to standard CGA.
So you can use any CGA or EGA monitor with it.
Any nine-pin compatible TTL.
Don't actually know what's in here.
Huh, this is just a power cord.
I don't know where this came from.
Okay, another box of random goodies here.
I believe this one is mostly gonna be software.
So I found a whole box filled with brand new
unsold copies of McAfee VirusScan.
I don't know.
This is a slight later version,
but I've always kind of wanted this box.
It's VirusScan, whatever, I wanted it.
Something here for early IBM computers.
This is Zyll, a text adventure game.
I'd never heard of it,
and there was an entire pallet of them, new old stock.
So there you go.
Ah, yes.
This one should be useful.
It's nothing too crazy, but IDE controller
with one parallel and two serial ports.
And just a Boca Research thing, new old stock.
So I don't know.
I've used these in a lot of 486s and such.
Here we go, this was a fun one to have.
So Microsoft Windows for Workgroups.
Includes Windows 3.1.
Did not have this at all.
In fact, I think I mentioned wanting a copy
in my Windows 3.1 video that I did
for the upgrade to the wood grain 486.
Yeah, hopefully you're starting to see the pattern here.
I was really trying to get stuff
that would be very useful for LGR things
I've already done or wanna revisit
or wanna do in the future.
Here we go.
IBM OS/2, just OS/2.
Standard edition, 1.0, 1987.
Brand new, oh my goodness.
How cool is that?
Dude I wanted to cover that for a long time.
Here we go.
Here's a copy of just Windows 3.1, sealed, brand new.
I wish I had this when I did my video.
But anyway, cool to have another copy
that is all in the box.
Another Windows 3.
Well, not really.
This is Windows NT Workstation version 3.5,
but it's you know from that era.
Something else I've always wanted to cover,
mess around with.
Never have been able to.
Never come across a copy before.
Again, new old stock.
Same with this right here.
Here's OS/2, version 2.0, still sealed.
So got the couple of main versions of OS/2 now
that I really wanted.
Let's see, we got some Microsoft.
This of MS-DOS version 4.01.
I've always been curious about this
because it was kind of a failed thing.
And I've actually never used DOS 4.
Everybody just says to skip it.
And I'm like, I don't know.
I wanna try it for myself.
See if it's really bad.
And, yeah.
These are still sealed, like everything else in this box,
IBM things here.
So you have the original PC guide to operations.
So this will go with my IBM 5150.
And here's a guide to operations for my XT.
So now I finally have an operations guide
for my PC XT and AT.
And I have been lucky enough to get them all sealed.
So I'm gonna be opening all this, but you know.
That's just what I do.
Because I make videos and I gotta show stuff.
Okay, getting to the two larger ones now.
[miscellaneous box noises]
Right here is the Compaq battery for this Compaq...
I got the power cord there, but yeah.
Check this thing out.
Got the original Compaq bag.
And inside here is a rather lovely looking
Compaq SLT/286.
So, yeah.
All things considered,
it looked to be in pretty darn good shape.
And the screen looked OK.
I haven't tried it powered on yet or anything.
Still has an overlay for WordPerfect on there.
But this thing is crazy.
Look at all this.
What a neat machine.
As much as I love the early 90s laptops they had,
this is definitely more my jam these days.
Really hope this survived.
Yeah, looks pretty good to me.
Of course, I don't really know
what was wrong with this in the first place.
I mean, I know what was listed,
but I don't know if it was repaired.
Obviously, Sierra never picked it up.
But check it out.
It is the Sierra PCjr.
Potentially some sort of development hardware?
I don't know.
These I've never come across before.
I mean, I've seen them in photos.
Most certainly never had on in person.
It's a Legacy hard disk unit.
Which, I mean, hopefully it'll be okay.
Yeah, Legacy Technologies, Lincoln, Nebraska.
And yeah, everything was just kind of stuck in here.
Even the hard disk isn't even really
mounted fully.
But yeah, there's like a whole bunch
of add on cards of some kind.
I guess like hard disk controllers and whatnot.
But our disk itself, that's a Tandon TM-262.
I'll put the capacity up on screen here,
but I'm guessing 20 megs.
And yeah, it's got this thing going off to the side here.
It's like, maybe there was an actual sidecar
that this went into at one point.
But as it is now, it looks a little hairy.
[hairy computer laughter]
I just, I don't know!
I don't know what we're gonna find
when we turn this thing on.
So, I'll save that for another video.
Because I really, I gotta go over this and see what's...
Pffpblt!
I don't know!
I have no experience with this hard disk unit.
Well that's it for what I picked up
on this trip to Computer Reset anyway.
I could've easily taken a U-Haul's worth of stuff
that I wanted.
But I just wanted to get some things
that I could really use.
And have the space to store stuff right now.
I don't have a lot of storage space left.
So, anyway, thank you very much
to the family for working things out with Justin.
And, of course, to Justin
for working things out with them
and making sure everybody was on the same page
after all the misunderstandings and everything.
I think it's really in a cool spot now.
That this place is opened up so that people
can come in there and save some of this stuff.
And it's not gonna just end up in a landfill
or crushed for scrap or anything like that.
So that makes me really happy
as somebody who cares about some of these things
being preserved and making sure it's in the hands
of folks that can use it.
Now, speaking of which, how can you get into Computer Reset?
That is one of the big questions here.
Well, you can!
Although there's a lot of asterisks
after that statement at the moment.
And maybe even more so in the future.
If any of this changes,
I'll leave an update in the video description below.
And make a pinned comment and stuff.
But as it is right now.
The way this works is that there's a private Facebook group,
Computer Reset Warehouse Liquidation.
Unfortunately it's Facebook.
I'm not a big fan of the service.
But anyway, this is a way to get everybody
on the same page.
And make sure there's an understanding
in terms of when it's open.
How it's open.
You know, what the deal is in terms of buying things.
And there's some really good photos and guides
and conversation on there to make sure
that you know what you're getting in to
going into this place.
But yeah, at the moment, they're just opening it up
on certain weekends, certain times of day.
And there are schedules and everything
on the group there.
And you can get in touch with Justin and everybody
rather directly that way.
A few other things he mentioned
that I could mention.
We're selling to collectors
and donating to verified museums.
So, if you're like me and you wanna go in there
and get some stuff and take home.
Then they will ask you to pay for it.
And there is a PayPal.
You can get the money to the family directly that way.
But if you're a verified museum, then, yeah sure.
You can just go there
and get some cool pieces for the museum.
Scrappers won't be able to afford our prices,
but collectors will find the prices very fair.
And that's absolutely true.
And, of course, if too many people show up
they will limit how many people
can be in the building at the same time.
It's just like basic common sense stuff.
Wanna make sure things don't get out of hand.
And people start getting in there
and causing fights over certain objects that they want,
they're probably gonna kick you out.
But just be reasonable.
And make sure that you talk to the right people
on that group and figure out what's going on.
That's the best way to go about it right now.
But if there are any other updates,
like I said, I'll update below this video.
But that's pretty much it.
It's an amazing place.
And it's a weird place.
And it's a weird situation.
And I don't really know how this is gonna go over
with the community, putting this out there publicly.
It's one big reason I've sat on all this footage
for two months now.
You know, I went there last May.
And I've just had other things going on in the meantime.
But also just wanting to make sure that this sat
and everything was sorted out
so that I can at least tell you
how you can get in there.
So yeah, if you do go in there,
or if you've already been to Computer Reset,
leave some comments below.
What you found and what your experience was like.
Whether or not you'd recommend it to people.
I mean, because there's a lot of stuff,
like I said, that's already been taken
that's really cool.
It's on the surface, but the deeper you go,
I swear, there's really awesome things
that are still being found all the time.
Just looking through that Facebook group,
you can see a lot of the images.
And people are digging out things that are exceptional.
Rare, weird items that...
Man, it's an amazing place.
And this whole experience has been incredible.
So, again, much appreciation to everybody involved.
For working things out with me
and helping make this video happen.
And I hope that you enjoyed watching it.
[energetic synth music]
Yeah, this was quite a different kind of video than normal,
but I loved going here and seeing all this
and showing it to you.
So I hope you enjoyed.
And, as always, there are new videos here every week.
So stick around if you like.
And thank you for watching!