Epson Apex 100: A Budget Turbo XT PC from 1989 

Agreed. He nailed the formula a long time ago and has consistently produced good content while steadily upping the level of quality. Not many channels can say that.

It's still a great channel, but it has changed to an extent. He's reviewing noticeably fewer games than he did a few years ago.

Hear hear!

@@Outmind01 A lot less games :( I miss the angry one liners as if you could hear his internal monologue. Our boys just all grown up now, as have we all.

I'd say he changed but not much. He seemed to be more energetic in his videos starting in 2014 or so.

He's got a lot of those

@@aarongreenfield9038 I just loved the grumpy face lol.

We need an episode of just Clint’s face reflected in different monitors.

That moment was gold.

I really liked it, super cool feature. This is the kind of stuff that really makes me happy.

Peripherals are all USB or Bluetooth, (so not much to consider.)

@@Jeff-jr4xw ouch, that looks like it hurts.

Apple do it all the time, or did when they used cables.

@@morningvideo Not sure.

Totally true. They packed a good software too. I bought an Epson System back then (Latin America countries) they put the "Palabras" word processor and some good software inspired by MS Office (but signed and developed by Epson). Year 1989. Also an Epson Manager, Hilmer Castillo, had a TV program -and he explained step by step how to use that suite (Broadcasted by Venezolana de Television canal 8 or Televisora Nacional canal 5) for free.

but does it play Apex?

Hardware and software boxes were always great to smell. Nothing like'm.

What a cool fiance!

Joe Kennedy so you were poor?

@@entertainment7twenty Well, by the time I got this machine in about 1991, I wasn't gainfully employed at the ripe old age of 11. So, I suppose I was!

It's pretty IMO.

525Lines Model 30 or 25 ?

k S Must of had rich parents.

@@johnfrancisdoe1563 It was a 30286. That was the model number, from which I inferred it was a 286!

@@user2144 Nope. Just really wanted a PC.

@@KS-xo3oh I was out of college when I bought it.

late stage capitalism, when you have businesses creating a class system for their products!!

It's pretty much a fact known everywhere. I can name several phone makers, at least. It's kinda disgusting.

@RockabillyFox Doesn't mean it's not gonna fail, either!

You know those massive shopping malls in the middle of nowhere that have stores selling their clothing at 2/3rd the price then a story in the city? Same thing going on. People with more money buy the same stuff but pay extra for the convenience of shopping in the city while everyone else drives an hour out to the middle of nowhere for s cheaper price.

*EA wants to know your location so it can train with the master*

Eee, hello. Original Switch dock is total rubbish. Miniature PCB enclosed in cheap, hard plastic. Not elegant, not nice, and made so you HAVE to scratch your screen using it. Unbelievable, comparing it to Switch tablet overall quality. This dock feels like some add-on, added free of charge, not part of the system.

Felton Chan Is that in the English language? No idea what you just said 🤔 Hit reset and start again 😉

Felton Chan Aha. Understood now 😉 I am a male. But, yes, I can see what you are saying.

You're one of those guys who likes feet, aren't you...?

Women's panties and feet are for pussies. Real men sniff vintage... computer hardware!

That's right. The old electronics have that smell. It's probably toxic but I love it. If you ever find some old boxed electronics, give it a sniff. It's like Christmas morning.

@@Lorkin32 LOL

@@Lorkin32 Feet? No. Old cardboard and paper? Definitely.

The '80s version of hitting Ctrl+Alt+Up Arrow to flip the screen upside down.

​@@stevethepocket I went into our local library a few months ago and the lady on the desk asked if I knew much about computers as her screen was upside-down. Someone at the library was obviously having a laugh at her expense.

Varactor tuning: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varicap These were nice for often being able to tune to certain unscrambled CATV channels (at least the 14-22 "midband", 120-174MHz) despite predating "cable-ready" receivers by many years. My first kitchen TV was a mechanically-broken Beta VCR with this type of tuning, paired with an Amdek composite monitor originally used with a C64.

crbielert YO DUDE I used to go to a math tutor and they had those exact monitors! If you ever find out what they are please leave a reply!!!!

peendaccarry cool y'all...

I clearly remember when heatsinks and fans became a thing. There were exceptions in every generation, but for the PC you can largely spot the shift in the 486. From the low end 486 systems that have NO CPU cooling, to the mid-range ones with a heatsink to the high end ones with a heatsink and fan. Possibly the only generation of PC CPU where that applies, since older ones generally all had no cooling, and pentium onwards always had a heatsink+fan combo. (though they got steadily bigger. The cooler from a high end 486 looks like an amusing joke compared to even a modern stock cooler...)

As a side note, researching the power draw of 486 CPU's, it becomes apparent that the point at which you start needing a CPU cooler is when the CPU starts to draw about 4 watts. Yeah. 4. Low end 486 processors use less than 4 watts. Can you imagine it? A modern laptop processor generally isn't even designed to run on that kind of power. XD There's CPU's for mobile phones with higher power draw than that...

Heat sinks started to appear with the higher end 386 processors IIRC, and prominantly featured on the 486 line up until the 66-75Mhz DX. Starting with the 100Mhz 486 and the early Pentiums, fans started to make their way on top of the heat sink.

This was the first computer we got after our Commodore 64 died, needless to say, I was pretty let down and didn't understand how this was somehow better, lol.

Yeah, it's very rare I've ever seen anything remotely like this unless you scour the internet thoroughly. I believe there's a website that still has a small amount of new old stock Atari 8 bit computer accessories. But... The site is american. Which, you know. Would figure. Except that the stock they've got is from a Warehouse in the Netherlands that they purchased as a bulk lot at some point a decade or two ago. And the contents of that warehouse were in turn technically intended for Italy. So... Yeah. Us Europeans haven't got that stuff because the Americans come in and steal it from us. ;p

Damn those yanks! :p

I wanted an Amiga, but this exact Epson model in the video was my first computer instead. I suffered through 4 years of high school with it.

I had a 500+ in the mid 90's when I was 15. I paid my dad 25 quid to order an extra 1mb of ram. (Totalling 2MB.) It was second hand of course, with a box of random floppies :) great fun exploring all the games and working out how to play them.

Intel tried to be exclusive with the 386, which caused some lawsuits with AMD. Plus, Intel wasn't as cheaply available. Also, even OS/2 (1987?) didn't take off very quickly, and there were RAM shortages. DOS extenders weren't quite common yet, and everything was overall too expensive. So the industry was somewhat slow to advance. (Wolfenstein 3D was 286/VGA in 1992. BioMenace was 286/EGA in 1993. Windows 3.0 was 1990 and MS-DOS v5 was 1991, both right before the IBM / MS breakup.) Not trying to sound smart, I know very little overall. I was too young to even have a PC back then. But everything has advanced much more rapidly since the late '90s.

It's already 12 AM here in Indonesia, what time is it where you live ? Hehe

Go in late m8

seems like a fine way to spend your break!

My time zone here is mountain time

Yeah really when the Commodore 128D with built in disk drive, and separate keyboard around 89/90 according to an old Toys R' US ad was $399.96 USD before tax. www.battlegrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/fullad-20.png and an Amiga A500 from the sears Christmas catalog was right at $600 USD before tax www.pinterest.com/pin/369365606917245466/visual-search/ Plus both of these could work with a normal TV via RF if need with full NTSC color. Edit: by this time you could also go into computer shopper magazine, and parts pick your own PC for much cheaper, or if you where lucky to live in a big city they sometimes had computer swap meets/flea markets, etc.. where you could also get PC part cheaper, as Computer Chronicles back in the day did a story on it in 1992, and I remember there use to be one that came to my area twice a year with grey market PC parts, and other electronic goodies like car stereos, amps, etc... here is the video. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-J5_doCwi608.html

My dad claims he bought his Amiga for $1000 in 1986, but who knows how accurate that is. Almost definitely doesn't include the monitor though.

@@stevethepocket If it was an original Amiga 1000 model, then that's honestly about right, because it was released in July of 85, and the successor the A500 was a more consumer friendly cost reduced model, and at one point over in the UK with price wars with the Atari ST line they had it after conversion rates of $300 - $400 USD with a bunch of packed in software for the A500, and the Amiga 1000 I can't recall ever getting that treatment.

It's not 8-bit. The 8088 functions identically to the 8086, both are 16-bit cpus. But the cheaper and slower 8088 had an 8-bit external data bus and was compatible with 8-bit peripherals. It still had a 20-bit (1 MB) address space and (eight-ish) 16-bit general purpose registers.

G. Confa Not a fan off those garstly lcd lights! I agree..

He could review toast and I'm still onboard :)

@Deenie Beenie Well sometimes, when they weren't using the exploding PSU's! 😉

I don't think it'd work :)

@@thedungeondelver probably not. When I was 12 I had a 486 and I remember it took forever just to load that thing on that. But I have seen even Commodore versions of Doom. 8-bit guy had a bit on it

Doom requires extended memory. I needed to upgrade my 386sx from 4 to 8mb back in the days to run doom. Then low resolution mode and shrinking the view a couple of notches was playable. Then next year I upgraded to 486Dx2 66MHz and that was fast!

@@jilmarit I believe my first one was a 486x 66... I remember my first Pentium and being able to play Duke Nukem 3D without it being horribly degraded on resolution

Joshua Sharrock - my first computer was Turbo XT with 8MHz 8088... that was enough at the time... as with any generation 😃

Fit Fogey Exactly! I was hoping Clint would say something about it when he turned it upright..

Looks like they left a gap in the little chase for the wire. Idt it would kink at all actually

I was thinking the same.