Computerland - and the Computer That Tried to Save It 

Computerland is a really fascinating rags-to-riches-to-rags story. All kinds of intrigue, chicanery and pioneering spirit. One could not possibly cover it all in a short RU-vid video. For more info, I highly recommend checking out two books. The first is *Once Upon a Time in Computerland* by Jonathan Littman. Out of print, but available for borrowing at archive.org, this is a deeply engrossing book that reads like a murder mystery novel. You'll learn all about Bill Millard, IMS/IMSAI, Computerland and all that went with it. Littman talks about Millard's fascination with Est, a made-in-California quasi religion, his ability to outfox his enemies, and the crippling lawsuit that mortally wounded Computerland just as it was hitting its stride. It details much of the decision making, the battle with Computerland's principal creditor, the tug of war between Millard and one time protege John Martin Musumeci, and everything in between. A truly great read. The second book is *The Fifteen Percent: Overcoming Hardships and Achieving Lasting Success* , by Millard's lawyer, Terry Giles. A great read about an impressive lawyer, with a few pages dedicated to his encounter and eventual friendship with Millard, and his efforts to salvage Computerland and extricate his client from a messy and expensive lawsuit. Giles' account offers a rebuttal to the idea that Millard was a greedy tax evader who hid from authorities for 20 years before he was tracked down in the Caymans. He provides some fascinating insights on Millard himself, as well as some other very interesting clients he's worked with.

I quite enjoy finding a new channel that I like, keep it up.

Those old IBM monitors used very slow phosphors because they were intended for reading and writing text. I forget whether the refresh rate is 50 or 60 Hz, but the slow phosphors made it completely flicker-free. Combined with the higher resolution text characters, this made MDA the preferred option for business use.

0:13 ... I know that’s two separate machines, but for a moment I thought you’d created that rare beast, the “PC Sr.”

Part of me wants to say "RETROBRITE IT!" but the other part of me absolutely adores the fact the colour of the case and the frontage are _completely_ different.

I took a class in Novell Netware around 1994 at the local community college. I can't begin to tell you how it works now but the irony of the situation is I currently teach Windows server at the same community college. Windows no longer supports IPX as of Windows 7. Sadly, the instructor I took the class with in 1994 became a friend of 20+ years and died of Covid in January 2021. I also teach some Linux classes and Windows is slowly becoming more Linux-like. I had one of the early XT clones around 1986 or so. It cost $300 and had no hard drive which was a $360 upgrade for a controller card with a Seagate ST225 20 MB hard drive. I later went for that and spent quite a while with Dos 3.6 I believe.

This is an amazing video. High production quality, thoroughly researched, and not least of all entertaining! Well done!

I've literally been waiting for a Dr Claw reference forever, thank you

This is the first video I’ve seen of yours and it certainly won’t be the last. I really like how you told such a fascinating tale whilst also showing us the computer. When I watch videos about technology in the 70s and 80s I can’t help but think how far ahead the general public were in America than we were in the U.K. My first computer was a Windows 2 with both a 3.5” floppy drive and a 5.25” with a dot matrix printer I bought around 1989. Of course I did the sensible thing and bought 2 boxes of 5.25” disks. PCs only really took off in the U.K. with Windows 95.

I was a service tech at Computerland in Ft. Wayne Indiana in the late 80s. I remember working on those. Seems so long ago.

Your channel reminds me of Defunctland, and I mean that comment as very high praise. Thank you for the work you’re doing.

Hands down one of the best retrotech-channels on this platform imho

This channel has such high production values. There is so much crap on youtube, and then you find a resource like this. Just awesome.

This is some very interesting stuff! Why don’t you have any more followers?! Keep up the great work. I’m hoping you’ll soon get the subscribers you deserve. 💪

Dr Claw was cranky!

great story telling, appreciate the breaks with your humor as well

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I went to work at the Portland Oregon ComputerLand around 1984. It was still a franchised store, run by a group of very religious people, not that that is bad, but they used to pray for divine guidance on purchasing products. They hired a retired military officer to run the day-to-day business, I left after about 18 months because of his management style, . I then went to work at the NYNEX business center (for those not familiar NYNEX was the New York-New England Exchange a "baby Bell" formed after the Bell system breakup. NYNEX purchased the IBM Business centers, when IBM decided to get out of the retail business.) ComputerLand bought the NyNEX business centers right around when VanStar came into being. I remember meeting Bill Tauscher at a retreat.

Unfortunately due to my age my first computer was a Packard Bell with a Celeron processor. As a kid born in 84 I always was amazed of commodore and IMSI computers being sold at small computer shops. My computer was one of those package deals from Walmart that included a monitor and printer, lol..

Great video about computerland. I remember the stores, and always wondered what happened to them.

Great research and presentation!

this is such a well made video and EVERYTHING IVE EVER WANTED FROM RU-vid ABOUT OLDER COMPUTERS. thank you tech gods

man I love your videos. cant stop watching.

Those Dr. Claw impressions tho.... 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

I grew up in Hayward, Ca and lived walking distance from Computerland Main Service center. As a Teenager, I would go dumpster diving at the Computerlands Service center and pull out nearly complete IBM type systems. I was able to mix and match parts and get systems up and running. When Computerland closed down, they tossed out Tons of Apple service inventory parts...

Great video, well made and presented, with just the right sprinkle of humour. Subscribed! P.s. I loved the rumba gag.

2:25 Fifty-somethings will recognize the IMSAI as used by Matthew Broderick's character in the 1983 classic "WarGames" , hacking into NORAD. The producers of the film intentionally chose a computer that was already obsolete looking at the time.

Great video and really interesting story. This was my family's first computer. I have vague memories of playing the educational game Sticky Bear on it as a toddler. It's hard to find information about so I appreciate this video and learning just what an odd beast it was.

Came via The Retro Computing Roundtable podcast! Subbed!

Computerland could have morphed into something akin to Best Buy. Failure was never inevitable. As for the machine, it is very old yet worked without any restoration. That is very rare for a computer of that vintage.

I must be a dinosaur because I bought my latest PC from a dedicated computer store. Not your usual computer store. This one specialised (maybe it still does, it has been some years) in selling refurbished business computers. I got myself a good quality Lenovo with an Core 2 CPU, 8 GB of RAM, DVD drive, and a SATA SSD. It is still going strong, running Fedora Linux.

I buy all my computers from Micro Center, a dedicated computer store that is still thriving.

That voice sounded exactly like Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget.

I remember one of those sat in the corner of our I.T room at school in about 1997, never saw it working but by then we were using old Acorns..... it wasn't a rich school

Your presentations are always interesting -- especially the little cartoons inside.

It's kind of funny - during this time period, I was working in Silicon Valley, at a few software companies, and for a couple years selling clone hardware as well as supporting a major BIOS company. All my friends and roommates worked in tech, too. I don't think I ever once bought a full computer system, and never from a retailer like ComputerLand... it was all piece-parts, acquired from here and there, sometimes "hand-me-downs" as friends upgraded their own systems. Of course, we watched industry trends and events, and used to mock the corporate drama that took place among the various retailers as the clones took over market share - usually while ignoring or taking far more seriously the drama that encompassed our own companies. I guess what is closest to you is more important, but we all probably discounted a lot of the danger signs and indicators that presaged the Dot-Com Bust around the turn of the century.

17:54 I have never thought i would ever hear anybody say "Unfortunately [...] I'll have to use my IBM model F". :D

The computer being on a card model is absolutely horrible. My first job in IT was working for a big 6 accounting firm which owned like a thousand Compaq 386-25M computers. They overpaid for them, like 5 grand on the hopes that the upgrade path would make the high price worth it. When I started there in 1995 or so, it was right around the time they were figuring out what the new desktop standard would be in the firm. By the time RAM was upgraded, a new hard disk was installed and the 486 card was purchased, it was more expensive than just buying either a 486 or even a pentium PC. The 486 cards were a fortune. I don't remember the exact details, but I think they were in the neighborhood of 2 grand.

Just wondering how effective it would of been to update BC 88 CPU board. Since most software was hardware dependent. Excellent video on the early history of computers.

self distruct button. CURSE YOU PERRY THE PLATYPUS

Your stuff is way to underrated

love it inspector gadget refrence.

386 upgrade card? Why not put a newer cpu upgrade card in? Making and designing your own Home Brew one would fit the theme... You could completely mix it up and put a Pi4 running TwisterOS Box86 and DOSBOX... so you have a vintage i386 PC packing a modern ARM processor, emulating the old OS but also being compatible with the I/O of the modern world.

I have a Zenith data systems 286 that has the same back plane architecture the cards have two 8 bit slots so the cards have a 16 bit buss between the cards. 8 bit card will still work with it though there used to be a lot of these that could be bought for next to nothing I payed 10 dollars apiece for mine.

I enjoyed this video, but it would be nice had you said something about Computerland in Canada. It appears that the chain folded here in the mid-1980s. I have been unable to determine if it had a presence outside of Ontario and Quebec. I grew up in Halifax, and I was completely unaware of this chain.

Oh yeah Computerland

I think I never even saw a Computerland in person, let alone going into one, but then again in 1981 I got a ZX-81 followed by a Coleco Adam and a CoCo2, none of which pointed me to Computerland.

Since it's just an ISA backplane, why not already upgrade to an Core2Duo? :D There ARE some ISA compatible cards....

17:31 - Looks like an Arcnet network card, worked great with Novell networks (I used to work on similar system with DR-Net networking under Concurrent DOS).

The Roomba and Trebuchet jokes, tho xD

Very interesting history of ComputerLand. Nice old-school bitmap world map you used to show the franchise locations...where is it from?

Liked if at LEAST for your Dr. Claw voice. XD

I'm not a fan of collecting X86 computers either. In fact my collecting activities are limited to members of the Atari family of computers. I got into computers after the homebrew era and the Atari launched me into a programming career in lab automation systems (multi-bus and intel embedded controllers). Although I had years of using X86 systems up to present day, it was the PC in a Keyboard era that I remember most fondly. I'd happily expand my collection into other 8-bit and 16-bit systems from Apple, TI, and Commodore, but I have to worry about lack of room, money, and the threat of sleeping in the dog house. I'm really enjoying your series on home brew computers. My only exposure was an SDK-85 I had to build as a trainer for work. Unfortunately it was company property so I couldn't keep it.

I have an 8088 that uses Control-Alt-Plus and Control-Alt-Minus (using plus and minus on the number pad) to enable and disable Turbo, respectively. Does that work on this PC?

The red button is the reset. The BC88 uses an DOS application to switch speeds. The clock is also non-standard so you have to use one application to read the internal clock and then the standard dos date application to set the clock for dos. - I see you figured it out as you started using the system....

I have an AST 386 that has its turbo mode on a keyboard shortcut, ctrl-alt-up/down iirc. It's built into the bios, no additional software required for it to work. Maybe this machine does it like that too if there is no physical switch? Very interesting video!

19:05 okay, when you hit 100K subs you have to bring back Dr Claw. 😂

honestly I think a backplane type system could be good today, especially with small form factor builds since those usually put the graphics card on a riser anyway

looks like a interesting computer.

My geometry teacher has a BC88 that came with the class, and we got it to power on and connect to an old cga monitor. It shows up a command line so im getting a keyboard for it now. I need to know though, do you know of any place I can find a manual? I can't seem to find any online

I'm curious. The ComputerLand store shown near the very end. Where was that store? it reminds me of the store I worked in from 1981-1985.

No mention of Millard's daughter being given control of CL, nor their relationship with Werner Erhard of est. (Think "Semi-Tough").

Back in the day when computers were a novelty, computer stores were a social hangout for the burgeoning geek and hacker cult. As well as training and hand-holding which most customers needed. Computer clubs were also a thing back then and would often adjourn to the local store. But as computers proliferated and became a familiar fixture at work, the thrill was gone and consumers began shopping on price which dealt a major blow to the high overhead retailers. You could order a custom configured machine by mail with quality components for far less than Computerland or the others could sell. A lot of small builders came and went.

When I was a kid i owned a Tandy 1000 tx that had the talking parrot dos program.

Hmm? Normally the Turbo button slows the computer down to the original PC speed for compatibility, rather than the other way around. Counter-intuitive, but true for most machines of that era.

Hercules graphics standard was a monochrome, hi resolution graphics standard compatible with the IBM monochrome monitor that was optimized for text using IBM’s special monochrome monitor (not a composite monitor). It required special drivers built into the software; as I recall Borland’s turbo Pascal had that capability. BASIC was not compatible

Um, it looks like they just ripped the Frog Design Asthetics of the Mac II. Beige with the exact same grilled lines. This design would carry on to the IIfx, the the IIci, the Mac SE, SE30, etc, so it was not like it was obscure.

Lol, the self destruct button voice reminded me of the villain (I think his name was Dr. MADD and he had a cat) from the inspector gadget cartoon from the 80s/90s..

What, no Novel server to log your BC88 into..... As for upgrade cards, I'd be more interested in the Z80 etc. cards. After PC & clones became comodities, about the only avenu left was Apple.

On those older games, the higher the number the *slower* they go. You're configuring a delay with that number. Obviously, 5 is going to be way too fast, and 30,000 is going to be way too slow. Try a number like 100, 500, or 1000, and dial it in from there.

I would have tried cntrl-alt-+ and cntl-alt-- that is how most turbos switched from the keyboard. cp04 /? or cp04 low

There is a computer bus, and nothing will keep you from making your own 386 processor card for it. The recipes for building your own computer are widely spread, just pick one and adapt it to the ComputerLand-bus. Often great ideas are not understood or go under in a heavy fight about who is entitled to what and that kind of stuff. More people had the idea of making a futureproof computer cabinet with universal peripheral cards in it. When something new is invented, all connections, the keyboard and the monitor are already waiting for it. The idea is great, but it never worked. Any great idea has many fathers and all fathers want the most of it. That is why all great ideas suck!

16:25 The last time I updated JUST the CPU in a PC....Was my IBM ps2 33mhz and I upgraded it to the DX66 =P

"superior service" LOL ! The service couldn't have been much worse. They had no idea how to run a retail.

How can a bc88 possibly have a MB of RAM? The 8088/8086 only have 20 address lines. That's 1MB. However, 384k of that is reserved for other things and really isn't accessible by any normal DOS software. The CGA bios and ram sit in the C segment, so at best you can get 128k above the 640k before you don't have contiguous RAM giving you 768k.

Please.. Is there any way to get a copy of this DOS disk or at least a copy of CP84.COM file? I couldn't 'SWAP!' the CPU speed of my BC88 for years because of this missing floppy disk & CP84 file. Need help.. Thank U.

By the time i was able to shop at ComputerLand... me and my friends pretty much thought it was a 90% apple store... we were pc people and never shopped there.

You could just stick all that into a amiga 2000 lol

Look for a iEi Integration Corp. wsb-h810-r10, that should work as your long awaited CPU upgrade-card add an Intel Pentium G3420T and a 2x8 GB DDR3-L RAM Kit and a mSATA SSD. If you are not afraid to cut some slots of your ISA bus board you could even add some PCI slots or even with out cutting you can have some internal PCI slots. But as the mainboard brings dual Gigabit ethernet, USB3, VGA (1080P), SATA question is what PCI Card would you add 3dfx Voodoo? The Soundblaster AWE32 or Gravis Ultrasound are ISA and do not need PCI. Would not it be a funny idea to upgrade a BC88 like this?

Microcenter is a brick and mortar computer store.

Where is the cat?😅 I scored an NCR PC3390 about 10 years ago... pretty rare and it has basically almost everything on a single board on a two height 16-bit isa riser. Ram is 512kb onboard. It's impossible to find the small 1mb expansion board for it.

I miss my Tandy 1000

I dunno, it seems like kind of a cynical rip-off to me. Industrial PC's with a backplane had been out well before this machine. Zenith even had desktop machines with a similar arrangement that they sold scads of to Government agencies in the US starting in 1984. From where I sit, it seems like they decided to try and use inexpensive industrial parts mated to an otherwise generic whitebox case to make a machine that they could sell as "infinitely upgradeable." Also, by 1988, an 8088 was quite long in the tooth.

A processor on a card fits the original idea of a PC in my opinion.

Is there a program to save and load time from BC88 RTC(HD146818P)? My BC88 always reset date to 1980-01-01 every time I reboot. Unfortunately I don't have the original ComputerLand DOS 2.11 disks.

I get the feeling this computer would have been more interesting if they had chosen a non x86 CPU card

ALR was another company that tried the "just upgrade the CPU" route. As you note, when you upgrade the CPU, you generally want to upgrade other things as well - like the bus speed. (And memory, and disk drive, and...) Without that, the upgraded computer will never perform as well as a new one.

MS DOS is still the best operating system 😊

Don't forget, the IMSAI 8080 makes a big appearance in the movie War Games! My honest guess is that this computer isn't an in house design, so much as a licensed copy of an industrial machine, which is where these backplane x86 machines are most often seen. Kind of stupid how they went down though. The legal battle was 110% no question a cash grab at someone who made a bit of money, and they were taken out on a legal technicality that didn't make much sense. As always, California legislation is a total joke and ruins something good for everybody. What else is new? Nobody won at the end of this, and that's a real shame, because it means absolutely none of this was even slightly necessary.

Computerland was unsavable because it just wasn't a viable way of making money. Launching their own branded PCs was never going to help. Who wants computerland to sell their computer in competition with the computerland computer? Certainly not Compaq or IBM or other big name computer maker. Software sales is probably what kept them afloat as long as it was floating.

sub seek went?

Again, the repetitive background music just gets on my nerves, and I have to bail at 6:47. Too bad, sounded like an interesting story

how would you know what's it like in heaven, you law animal

zzzzzz

Never heard of it. RatShax was the only place I saw a computer as a kid, other than the junky Apples at school.