The DIGITAL (DEC) Venturis FX 5133 Desktop PC from 1996!! 

What most people dont understand is that DEC never intended to sell lots of personal computers or even be competitive. This started with Rainbow and Professional (Pro325, Pro350, Pro380) platforms that I personally sourced from DEC. You see, DEC needed to simply have something to sell, because many contracts (Govt and Corp) were most easily won if the players could source everything from a single supplier and especially a single source of service. It's as simple as that. RIP DEC AND KEN OLSON.

The Blockbuster in my town used to have one of the same machines when I was a kid. I remember it only had a floppy drive - no CD-ROM and it was running DOS and whatever program BB used at the time.

Awesome! Loving the restoration vids👍🏼👍🏼

Around 2002 my brother picked a similar one from trash with a 166 MHz CPU. I gave it to a class mate because at the time we already had way faster machines at the time and this combination of SIS chipset and integrated S3 Trio graphics was old very quickly. But it was a nice machine, everything considered, he enjoyed it.

Fantastic. It is almost the machine I had for my first own PC (Pentium 133, S3 Trio 64+) 😊❤

36:43 I used to have that printer which this computer has installed on, EPSON C60 (probably nobody cares, but here we are). I did not even remember that model number, but when it showed up I instantly recalled. It was a model from 2000 or thereabouts, so a tad newer than the system.

I am currently Gaming on my External Sun SCSI 10K RPM Hard drive with my AMD3000+ and GF6600GT playing Half-Life Blueshift and Opposing Force on my 19" CRT Monitor with my IBM Model M keyboard. in my book this is real retro Gaming. I recently gave my Sun a good ol re-cap and it was needed as I got that nasty fishy smell when I took off the old caps even if you could not see anything under them. it was on good time to do this. I like my old computers

good we got to see it go

I used to fix the later P200 MMX based Venturis for a contract, it was used as a Till server/back office PC. I used a P133 with 32Mb RAM back in the Win 95 days, originally a Cyrix 6x86 but I had compatibility issues with my Gigabyte GA586HX board. I later moved to a Cyrix 6x86L PR200+ with a Chaintech 5TTM1.

Nice video! I have alot of memories of that DIGITAL computer back from the days. The Public Library here in Malmö third biggest city in Sweden did use them so peoplke could go on internet. And that was my first time on the internet. Remember they did run a locked down frontend called WinU to stop users access the OS and only stuff that was allowed like search the librarys database, Microsoft Office suite or the internet browser. I think they did run Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. I do have that WinU software in my old software archive on a harddrive. I have a other model that is older then that one called Venturis 575. I am on the look after Venturis FX 5133 here in Sweden. Not found any yet. Maybe have not looked deep enough.

this was great.. you really did a great job

Loved the Digital PII pizza box machine. But now the oldest machine I have is a dell P4 workstation, but I think that can go and I'll just hold onto the itx Q9400.

Nice video. You can open the cd drive tray with a clip like the old days.

I totally went into this video expecting it to be one of DEC's Alpha-based systems. For some reason, the fact that it wasn't made me keep watching.

My first VGA color monitor was from the company "Digital". I even remember what model it was and it's hard to find information about it on the Internet. It was a PCXCV-C3. A 14 inch monitor with a maximum resolution of 640x480.

Nice computer system and restoration. Keep up the good job. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands

I had a second hand 486 Digital DECstation of some kind in the 90s that I used all the way into the early 2000s as a secondary PC. Ran Windows 3.11 for workgroups for the 32 bit support and even remember running early versions of Mozilla on it. PSU let the smoke out at some point and it sadly ended up in a dumpster. Some of the DEC desktops were actually built under license by Tandy if I remember correctly.

Great job once again. Yeah, coin cells don't normally leak. Maybe bad factory or so. I caught button cells leaking inside of those electronic games from the 90s or from decoration items that use button cells. I'm not so a fan of bathing motherboards but I tried bathing 2 slot-1 motherboards. Water, soap, and long brush was what was needed. All the hard-reaching dust was washed away. A towel to dry the excess of water and I let the boards sitting next to those halogen heaters. My concern with bathing boards was that water usually starts a slight oxidation and it will starts to get worse. Some metals can't stand water. Also the green coating that boards have may have some micro cracks and water can start corrode traces. Some years later, I tested the boards and they still work fine.

Well saved!👍👍

Video and CGI programs used to come in three or four flavors back in the 90s - Windows, Mac, Amiga, and DEC Alpha.

Looks exactly like a used Compaq desktop I bought from my employer mid-2000s. They were selling off old machines to employees. I believe it was $40. They didn't even wipe the drive. Wild. Refurbished it and gave it to a family member as their first PC.

I used to do a lot of hardware work on DEC servers back in the early 90's. Never got to see any PC's. Kind of surprising they used a SiS chipset, as they were utter rubbish. The bargain basement of all chipsets.

Never knew digital made home computers, digital was mainly making terminals, huge servers and mainframes for data centers back in the 80's but not known by most people. Founded in 1957, bought by Compaq 1998, HP bought Compaq (and digital) 2001, and the brand digital was gone after that.

Have I ever mentioned that I love your He-Man/MOTU figures (I open all mine but respect if you want to keep yours in package) I've even been buying the Origins characters for my 5 YO nephew, he even asked me for Snake Mountain for xmas last year so I got it for him as soon as it was released :D

I was so excited to see Win95 pop up after POST. True fact; I never do a reinstall unless the o/s is corrupted. I want all of the programs previous users installed, because it's part of the computer's history. I do delete any personal files, though. And wow, a leaking coin cell battery---yikes! I've never seen that before. This was a fun video, thanks

That is cool. But I want to see it running Basilisk II

I have a Digital Venturis GL 6200 with Pentium Pro 180 MHz. I have expanded and modernized the device a bit. 128 MB RAM, LAN, USB 2.0, 120 GB SSD, SB AWE64, RIVA TNT2 PCI, newer ENERMAX power supply. Personally, I prefer it quiet; the old circular saw hard drives give me tinnitus. 😂 It runs well with Win2k Pro, DOS and 16bit Parts are not recommend on this CPU and slow.

This memory showed up in my head about these type of systems. It seemed like any name brand system was $$$ against a generic built clone. So I remember asking around why these companies bothered with this. Some place along the line I was told it was more for the existing customers who already had say a DEC environment. As time went on you can see who survived and who died again the whole consumer market. Though, I have not checked in years. But, is dell still #1 in the U.S.A? and they was not one of the larger older companies who started out making mainframes or mini computers.

link to Freeroms on the desktop.. Hmm, now what could this system have been used for i wonder.. :D

I think Digital sold exclusively through more business-centered channels at the time. My high school had one lab of Digital PCs... trying to remember if they were DOS/Netware or Win95, maybe they got upgraded at some point. I actually had one of these (or at least a Digital system in the same case), but a 200MMX model, that I got in 2002 to run FreeBSD and use as a router. The main thing I remember: 1) it was a huge mess getting the BIOS updated. I think I had to go sequentially through 6-8 updates, all on floppy naturally. Wouldn't let you skip any of the in-between versions. 2) the upgraded BIOS improved RAM support. I had random RAM lying around that wouldn't work with the original BIOS but did with the last one. But I feel like that RAM would have been SDRAM... and yours doesn't look like SDRAM?

Why didn't you press F1 to bypass the warning message about the battery being low ?

Honestly i wouldn't retrobrite the case front. White plastic paint would work just fine. They should have done it from factory anyway.

35:50 and it’s now running because of you :) better go catch it! win95 flys!

A leaking *COIN* cell? Surprised the battery brand wasn't VARTA, their Ni-Cad rechargables were notorious! Great to see the ol' spinning rust holding up strong 😁

Nice! Would this have been a more expensive computer to buy considering that its a DIGITAL system or a more general system that one would have bought in a general computer store?

39:17 lol, wonder what came out! I think I gave you a CD ROM drive hopefully that one still works :-)

Some more technical things - do these old harddrives support s.m.a.r.t and if, what are the (usage) hours?

Who else seen the face in the old thermal paste when the heatsink was removed ??

Great✌

This Desktop need a big cleaning especially the front side. 😅 This dark yellow to be honest really bad 😊

ventus? is that the company name? curious

Keep driving like you did in Hover and you'll get your license suspended 🤣

This was a very interesting video about the sad ending of Digital Equipment Corporation bought by Compaq. I mean, DEC was the creator of the famous PDP11, the VAX, the great operating system VMS and the incredible Alpha processor. They were on par with IBM! But they were not known for cheap desktop PCs. I first came into contact with DEC machines during my studies (DECstation 5000) and I loved them. I owned a computer with a DEC Alpha 21066 in the late nineties. In the last few years I have acquired a few VAXstation 3100 and 4000 running under VMS.

Sorry to be a smart arse, but the vinegar isn't neutralising the battery acid. An acid doesn't neutralise an acid, that's what the IPA would do because it's base. But i love these retro videos so i can forgive! lol

neat!

Yes lol

Decent sound card that Aztech from memory with onboard wavetable and a 1mb rom I think.

Since i subbed i enjoyed theretrorecall

Nice! My Win98/DOS machine of choice is a DEC Venturis/Multimedia 5120 also from 1996. As the name implies it has a 120 MHz Pentium processor, and over the years it has received many upgrades. When I originally got it in 2003 it already had its RAM expanded from 16 to 32 MB, and I think one of the onboard ROM chips had been upgraded as well. In the past year or two I've kept working on it, most recently by expanding the RAM further to 48 MB of EDO (instead of the slower FPM), installing an ATI Rage II+ 3D card and replacing the old failing CD-ROM drive. In a twist of irony, the replacement CD-ROM drive is Compaq-branded. :P

I have Venturis 575/FR-920WW-CC and it uses SiS5502/SiS5503 chipset. The case itself is very different, more compact, better looking front panel.

I had an Aztech sound card in my old Pentium 120MHz with 16MB of EDO RAM back then. Also had an S3 Virge 2D VGA card and a Voodoo accelerator. The Aztech card was quite good at Adlib and Sound Blaster Pro compatibility.

Not all desktops were proprietary OEMs. I have a couple that are custom builds, one of them being P3 450 in an Enlight case. The other is a smaller 486 build.

Another excellent video, thanks! :)

Interesting design, I never saw a system where the power went to the riser board, then was fed to the M/B from there. I also thought it was going to ATX, not AT looking at the connector, but the all to familiar "It's now safe to off your computer" message had me standing corrected.

All 6 of my old computers run actual hard disk drives. I personally like the sound of spinning hard drives

Those memory chips be thiccc! (from the perspective of someone who only really got into pc hardware 'round 2010.)

I bought a Digital laptop for the floppy drive some time ago. I ended up not parting it out since it was a rare unit. I actually had just one coin cell leak. It was also a Sanyo cell. It was still bubbling when I pulled it.

Awesome PC Resto video so far!😊

a custom built AMD k5 pr 133 was my windows 95 pc

X86 dec system? Oh yeah, definitely e waste