The shots with me are slightly out of focus. I would have normally reshot that but my throat was killing me when recording this and I didn't have enough time to redo that and re-edit the entire video to match the new takes.
Could you add the modded ATI driver to the Archive.org page you made? It'd be invaluable for people that come across these models and want to get games running properly
Ahh man I loved this overview, great work! Vaio machines of this era are still just the coolest thing to me, and this one in particular is gorgeous in both design and completeness. That gray and lilac has aged gracefully. Coincidentally I've had two Vaio retrospectives in the works for a while now, so it's neat to see the similarities here to those machines -- and all the differences! Especially compared to the Japanese Vaio desktops of 1999, it's fascinating how they tailored their systems for each country. Like I can't imagine a US market Vaio ever got a built-in karaoke mode or MiniDisc authoring tools for instance, heh.
Thanks! The way Sony came in to the PC market, looked around, and said "I have a better idea" really made them stand out and seems so far ahead of its time now looking back! The more research I did on this system the more I realized I got pretty lucky because the grey plastic has yellowed pretty badly on some of them. So I'm glad I got to show this one that still matches the original colors. It would have been really cool to see MiniDisc here in the US like that, it's a shame it didn't take off. I'm looking forward to see your looks at the the computers you have, they made some fascinating stuff over there for sure!
I enjoy my PCV-120 I found a a thrift store. took the whole thing apart and clean it up, and restore it to factory install. the programs on it are strange and interesting. such as the VR menu thing. but what got my attention was the preinstall of wipeout for 3d rage on it. it took me weeks to track down a copy. But once I did it sure didn't run good haha. but I didn't care it was fun seeing it play rare version of wipeout. I eventually install the voodoo 2 card, which works great inconjunction with the 3d rage that's on the motherboard. I kept Windows 95 on it, since it seem like it was running great with it anyways. I thought it was more run to see it booting up 95 then just a other copy of 98. I sure love to see that Sony monitor from this video on it, it would be prefect for it.
For design one of the best PC compatible early range if you can find the is the Olivetti Italian ones. (you might have covered them). At one time I had some plastic cased compatibles I cannot remember the brand, which were interesting, I sold them on as they had strange expansion slots for my needs at the time. Buildings ones own machines the sheer aggro of supposed working AGP and other graphics cars which either had wrong logic, software, interrupt clashes or short circuits on board frustrated me, then as fast as you learned one way of doing things, the bios changed, the software OS or applications way of working changed or the hardware leapt forward and no longer fitted in the case one had. Even buying in Dells for a company upgrade supposedly the same model had varations on them and certain timer applications that ran on our older PCs would not run on the Dell systems (think we were up to Pentium 3 or something by then). And dont get me started on networking and administrator privelidges . ( I had a couple of 68000? systems - a Jarrogate and an Apricot network, both would fall over, just after I had part understood Unix on a DEC Vax/PDP systems.
Damm, the fact that an apple made operating system could have ended up OFFICIALLY running on a non apple made device is crazy, honestly kind of dissapointed sony declined, I wonder if we'd still be seeing sony made macs today to go along side all the apple made macs
This was actually my 'dream' PC back in that time but as stated, $3000 was the going rate. The AMD 450 K6-2 I ended up with was $1200 after I added a mid tier graphics card of the day, 3DFX Voodoo 2.
@@SmellsLikeEMinoractually there .. is @LGR up there too :-) at 14:05 how many of you want that in a "Tech Tangents 2" channel .... Shelby explains the modification to the INF file he made.. :-)
@@gbangyt-codmobile7037 I upgraded from my IBM CRT to a 23" FHD IPS Acer (the IBM was nice, but finally switching to 16:9 was such a relief) and yeah still works fine, I even overclocked it to 70Hz lol. Used it for about 6 years till fall 2019 then upgraded to a 240Hz 25" TN Alienware. Still got the Acer for backup and/or to use with my laptop, its not like I can get any decent amount of money for it so I kept it.
I just got back into CRTs, I can't believe how gob smackingly incredible they look, and they are so unbelievably responsive, no lag whatsoever, my 144Hz G-Sync LCD looks so washed out and feels so laggy compared to the Sony G520 21" CRT, the blacks are incredible and the colours are so inky, I want to play everything I've played on LCD again on the Sony CRT to experience it properly. And then there are retro games, they look so crisp and beautiful, scanlines @ 240p are just so satisfying. I can't seem to pull myself away from it when I'm using it, it's so fun to use lol.
I specifically bought two dell monitors from the 2000's. There's something about the rendering of colors and movement that can't be replicated by LCD's. I have a 144hz monitor but for some reason is just not as smooth as the ole 85hz 1280x1024. The 144 is faster but not smoother to my eyes Also my middle school was rocking CRT's until 2010 which is kinda insane. I remember my teacher's still having them but once I hit hs in 2011 it was LCD's
I definitely agree about the look of this PC. It's odd seeing it boot Windows 98, as it looks like a newer generation of computer. In fact, it seems like it was THE computer to usher in that new era, breaking away from the beige boxes for good. A really fascinating transitional system! Also, imagine having the reworking skills to swap out those VRAM chips... 🤔
He mentioned in another comment, it'd probably make more sense to make a DVI adapter for that monitor and use a different video card. (What kind of connector is that, btw?)
@@AaronOfMpls Kinda reminds me of a VESA DFP connector, sort of the ancestor to DVI-D, but larger. Almost even looks like the D-Terminal connector that Japan uses on video equipment. Mmmh so if the Vaio croaks out... I guess the Monitor becomes a paperweight huh? A bit unfortunate.
I still have our family Sony PC from 2001. Man that thing is in rough shape! That light blue color is now a disgusting brown color and I threw the keyboard away because it's so far gone and ugly. The two CD drives don't work anymore and it's slow as hell! I can't believe we actually used that computer for anything back in the day ahahaha
At 10:10 I don't think that JS function gets an unending call stack. setTimeout() will put the next setBG() call on the event loop. i.e. It's not a recursive call.
10:10 TL;DR: No, there is no "self referencing function" in the code, it is not creating "an unending call stack," the resource consumption has little to do with that tightly written script shown, and much more to do with the fact you're running a full browser (HTML engine and JS interpreter), on a 200MHz PII with at most 256MB of ram, in the background just to provide a desktop. Longer explanation: The script is using "setTimeout" which means it's not real recursion, which means each function call is leaving the call stack before another (not nested) function is being added to the call stack, therefore insuring the stack is not growing. If it were true recursion each function call would be "nested" (placed inside the instance of the calling function, creating a memory dependance relationship), and the routine would eventually crash once it hit the limit of the JS interpreter's allocated stack memory. Most modern JS implementations have a function depth limit of about 10,000 references, likely the interpreter running this script is far less than that as JS interpreters have been HUGELY improved over the last twenty years, once you have reached that limit, the code will crash. The real resource utilization of the script would boil down to how efficiently "setTimeout" is implemented (hopefully it isn't using polling, but rather the JS event loop, which I imagine it is) within the JS interpreter itself, but it really shouldn't eat much or any CPU time if implemented correctly, and memory utilization of this script should be minimal as well. So the comment about this being a resource hog because it uses a "self referencing function" is just not accurate (no self referencing functions here). ...and the bit about it "creating an unending call stack" isn't even possible with JS (at least not without crashing once the stack limit is reached, which would in fact end the recursion at that point). Honestly, the most expensive thing about this, is the overhead of having a full browser implementation (HTML engine and JS interpreter) running in the background on a computer with only a 200MHz PII and 32MB - 256MB of memory. That is not much power to work with, modern computers have device controllers packing more punch than that.
Your experience with the drivers is, to me, the one flaw VAIO had throughout its history in Sony's portfolio: every single model had a proprietary quirk with their drivers. I don't know if nowadays the JIP VAIO devices come with standard stuff, but back in the day, even for the newest Windows 7 Sony VAIO laptops, you had to scour through Sony's website to get the appropriate driver because, even if the part matched, you couldn't get a standard driver to install.
Making a DVI adapter for that monitor shouldn't be too huge of a project, supposing it's just DVI with a few extra pins for the audio and USB, if I can find an accurate pinout diagram and a female connector for that proprietary connector I could whip something up in an evening.
So Sony has another model that you should look for You will absolutely be floored if you can find one Sony made a computer that has a micro computer with a CD drive bolted below the display and what’s really odd as you don’t see a lot of these machines but if you could find one it is the wildest machine you’ll ever see because it literally looks like the PC is floating under the screen
No not like a Mac it’s literally a monitor and the computer is mounted underneath it it literally looks like a floating CD drive it doesn’t even look like a computer but these are getting really hard to find because they are literally hardware locked two windows XP
@@johnDingoFoxVelocity so it's like those mini computers where they use the vasa mount on a monitor to attach themselves? Interesting they got a full sized cd player in there.
Congrats on the teleprompter it is a huge upgrade! Is that a Samsung's Nexus 10 under the mirror? I still have mine in its original box, love that tablet!
Great video. I also did one on a Sony Vaio X505, the slimmest notebook in 2004. Which might also have been a prime candidate for macOS. These old Sony devices are quite beautiful in my opinion and very well build. Sad what happened to them.
The mid to late 90s VAIOs were the Coolest computers on the market IMO...I wanted one so bad. VAIO also stood for Analog sine wave VA, and I 0 for Digital.
The preinstalled audio drivers likely were WDM, while the ones you installed were VxD. WDM drivers lack DOS compatibility but were regarded as more future proof so vendors installed them. Microsoft might also have forced the vendors to use them, but I'm not sure about this. Either way, these often beta WDM drivers also caused many issues in WinME PCs that were fixable by installing the VxD drivers.
Vios were always so cool, both laptops and desktops. Sadly I never came across one. I used to watch DVDs and DVD rips on my p3 450 Coppermine with 196mb ram and some mix of HDDs I managed to scavange. Getting a PC capable of DVD playback was a milestone for me. In my teenage years I had to make do with parts I found in machines people would throw out. Used a p1 200mhz for a long time but it wasnt up to the challange. If memory serves DVDs needed a p2 333mhz at the minimum without the mpeg2 card.
Woah... so not only could this have potentially run MacOS officially, but even in 1999, it had. Mac OS 10.14 Mojave's "dynamic wallpaper" feature. (Something we wouldn't really see until 2018.
I have this pc its the PCV-L620 model it still has the original stickers on the front sadly it dosent have its original mouse or stand still have original box, keyboard and monitor.
thank you for the amazing review ,,❤ i have about the same model mine is " PCV-L640 " i am still searching for a working video driver for the " Rage 128 Pro 4XL. and audio driver for " Aureal 8810 PCI . i searched everywhere but still nothing work , ! i am not sure what cause the drivers to not working , maybe this slimtop need special optimized drivers for sony vaio ? or maybe i need chipset drivers too ? i need help please if anyone have any information to make video and sound working great on this nice slimtop ,
Wow! Videos like this really give you perspective on exactly what has taken place with consumer tech in the past 20 years. Active Desktop background changing based on time of day? 15+ years ahead of its time -- think f.lux on PCs or Night Mode on smartphones! The design of the PC case does remind me of Sony's hi-fi A/V equipment of the same period. Hotkeys at the top of the keyboard? My 20-yr-old keyboard doesn't have those, but it reminds me I really should program those Windows global hotkeys: Ctrl + Alt + I for Internet (Firefox), Ctrl + Alt + M for Mail (open new tab & go to Gmail?), Ctrl + Alt + S to sleep, etc.
The inclusion of -FireWire- i-LINK and the nature of the proprietary display connector (look up HDI-45 and ADC) just add more to the Apple comparisons. But for my money the computer I was reminded of visuals-wise was the Sharp X68000, not any Mac (although it's still far from a perfect comparison).
I have a complete version of this except its a japaneese l530bp I think it's almost the same. Came in the box with all the accessories but no restore cds so I'm having trouble getting the sound card to detect. I Uninstalled the aureal drivers completely and now the device shows up as a pci audio device but the drivers won't install. On the search for one of these with the cds.
Assuming enough address lines are wired to the GPU, upgrading the VRAM would be interesting I think. It can even be done without hot air if you feel brave enough :) . The chips themselves seem to be regular 1MB 16bit wide 7ns SDRAM. So having 8MB would imply the memory bus is 128 bit wide. Considering how many OEMs shipped crippled Rage 128s with only 64 bit wide memory this is pretty nice. Harvesting a good (as in faster chips than the bare minimum) 32MB dual rank PC100 SODIMM could be an easy way to get some chips. As for the monitor, have you taken it apart to see what panel does it use? If it's a vaguely standard* 20 pin LVDS interface I wonder if a newer run-of-the-mill display could be used as a donor to improve it. Even if the panel itself won't be anything fancy at least it will not be scratched. * then again It's a Sony™, so it will be as proprietary as it gets. And lastly, on such a modern feeling machine I feel like 2000 or even XP would be better matching OS. And truly lastly, is there something more period-correct than editing the official ATI Rage drivers in order to make them work on whatever OEM flavour card you had on your hands? There were so many different PCI IDs than I eventually didn't even bother searching for the "correct" drivers and jumped straight to notepad.
Nine Inch Nails The Slip! I have that album dvd combo. Also didn't this all in one come with stylus and a touch screen? or at least another model of it?
Did the 8-bit computers such as the MSX really compete with IBM PCs in the US? I would think those were completely different markets, even if only due to pricing.
Not surprised that Steve Jobs liked VAIO, let's not forget that the modern chiclet keyboard started on a VAIO laptop way before Apple did the same and officially popularized the concept.
Im guessing this old slimtop PC was very cool those days...and way ahead if its time!...the PC itself reminds me of these optiplex SFF(small form factor) desktops
I worked at Office Max in the mid / late 90's and always thought if I were to ever buy a pre-built it would be one of the Vaio's. The looks and colors were just so different from your standard case.
Late reply, but I worked for your coemption (you know who, not the depot one but the "basics" one in the UK in the second half of 2002, filling in before emigrating to the US. I still remember the Pentium 4 Vaio with the 17" widescreen LCD monitor. It was a thing of beauty and the specs were on the face of of it superb. Oh but that SiS motherboard, iy you knew your hardware in those days, this was to say the least, not the choice you would have made if building a machine at any budget. I think I favoured MSI at the time, a time when there were so many choices, but all my experience of SiS based machines through previous IT work soured me against them. They still exist, but concentrate on the SoC market apparently.
Do you know if it can handle more RAM and a faster PIII? Imagine it using a really optimized linux distro... It would be fast enough even for some modern tasks...
Rebuild this into a fully modernized stealth high performance gaming PC, maybe a matte semi-transparent side-panel with internal RGBs that bleed through, RGBs in the back of a curved 4k monitor to match the day cycle background. Keep all the late 90's aesthetics, with a touch of subtle RGB and an extreme hardware makeover.
Those onboard Rage chips with bugger all VRAM were used everywhere, they gave a lot of things a bad name haha, especially when they were still being used years later, and especially especially with names like '128 Pro' which led consumers to believe they had 128MB VRAM and were higher end than they actually were
Ah, yes, as usual, Sony shoving a proprietary port/medium/format whenever it gets the chance. Don't get me wrong, I like Sony, especially their phones and headsets, but proprietary stuff sucks in general. This PC sure is a looker considering it's from the past century. I would try to put WinXP on it, just for gits and shiggles.
I wish I had one of these. In fact, any Japanese, Korean brands introduced their products that are rich with attraction and style long before US brands like IBM, Microsoft, Apple, and Compaq did. For example the Apple iMac G3 has taken some samples of gimmick of Sony VAIO desktops back in mid and late 90s
Hi, i have a question, where i can buy windows 98, xp and ms dos sticker for my computer's? I'm from Romania and i don't know where i need to go for these stuff to buy.
So cool so futuristic look... why in 90's PCs have so nice design??? Now all black cases with flat keyboard... I hate led in keyboard. Only what I will be add to this Sony is full size 104 keyboard (with num lock part) Turok DH :D my first game on 1 pc in 1998 - Voodoo Rush rules !!!
My first laptop was a Sony Vaio with a bunch of expansion cards. One was a subwoofer. Too bad the machine couldn't run Runescape for me at the time. It'd bsod so we returned it. Got scammed out of $100 to reformat it. Then I learned about computers and made sure that'll never happen again.
