Epic! 8-bitguy uses 1 weird trick to detroy rare prototypes!

[Enig]

I don't remember this. que?

It's toward the end of one of his thrift store hoarding videos from years ago, it was the combo of that, getting a valuable XLR studio mic he was nevet going to use and discovering the guy has storage units full of all the shit he gets and never uses that made me stop watching. If you want people that actually know their shit there's guys like 8-Bit, Adrian or Usagi, LGR is just some pasty Sims reviewer that lucked out on old PC videos.

 

[seri0us]

He lost me when he hoarded an entire TRS-80 with visible DRAM probs without ever fixing it because his limpwrist ass can't do anything but wood veneer, jerk off to goth girls, Dook 3D, hoard object and lie, who the fuck would even pay him to do any of that

A few years ago I remember him and a bunch of his fans crying about some of the "rare IBM prototypes" (that David didn't destroy) getting stolen from the Computer Reset hoard. Theft obviously isn't cool, but hopefully somebody at least got to actually play with it.

 

[Enig]

A few years ago I remember him and a bunch of his fans crying about some of the "rare IBM prototypes" (that David didn't destroy) getting stolen from the Computer Reset hoard. Theft obviously isn't cool, but hopefully somebody at least got to actually play with it.

What those soymouths don't mention is those "rare" prototypes were just weird permutation variants of existing PS/2 units made for retail, if they wanted another thing to jerk off on and play Dick Suckem they could just get an existing 1988/89 PS/2 tower since it's the same thing without an integrated monitor.

 

[Kalsarikännit]

He lost me when he hoarded an entire TRS-80 with visible DRAM probs without ever fixing it because his limpwrist ass can't do anything but wood veneer, jerk off to goth girls, Dook 3D, hoard object and lie, who the fuck would even pay him to do any of that

LGR is the epitome (and possible origin) of the “look wacky retro tech! *plays doom and shoves it in a closet after*” style retro YouTuber I’ve begun to really dislike.

I suppose it’s in the name, though.

 

[Pee Cola]

My point was that most of those drop in replacements themselves use obsolete ICs that are now getting scarce. It's just kicking the can along.

Could be overkill for the job, but an RP2040 seems like an ideal starting point for a new Dallas RTC replacement. I can't see those going out of production any time soon.

8-Bit Guy 9 Millimeter Guy restoring another arcade.

Can't wait to see how he fucks this one up, creating an unscheduled Adrian Black crossover in the process.

 

[Van Darkholme]

Yea I was surprised by that too. I assumed he had to have some other full-time job. There's no way he survives entirely off of his sho--checks Patreon. .. who the fuck is paying for this shit?!

View attachment 6147416

...and people still send him shit for free

What those soymouths don't mention is those "rare" prototypes were just weird permutation variants of existing PS/2 units made for retail, if they wanted another thing to jerk off on and play Dick Suckem they could just get an existing 1988/89 PS/2 tower since it's the same thing without an integrated monitor.

The most interesting thing LGR got out of it was Ken Williams' old PC Jr., and even that was pretty underwhelming.

 

[Kalsarikännit]

I have no clue why this is a trend with retro tech channels right now.

 

[Don Yagon]

View attachment 6151436
I have no clue why this is a trend with retro tech channels right now.

View attachment 6151437

I'd say the interesting part is Windows CE, not the netbook itself. You're very unlikely to touch it unless either your work involves setting up embedded systems or you were tech illiterate enough to get duped into buying one of these thingies (sure there's WinMobile but it diverged a lot both in terms of interface and application support). Either way, proper netbooks like eeePC were good for their time (at least in price to portability ratio) and I'd love to see their formfactor to come back since all there's left are ultrabooks with shit thermals and zero I/O and an occassional gaming UMPC from the likes of GPD.

 

[残念。]

A part of me dies inside every time I see 8 bit guy touch arcade hardware. I remember seeing a video of his brother I think doing a video on an Atari liberator. Monitor (electrohome G07) worked just fine. Replaced the caps and then claimed it made a huge difference in color depth. That's not how that works retard. Way to play up a result for the camera.

Bad caps on G07 s cause shit like lower half collapse, expansion of the top and loss of sync at the top. Color depth? Not so much.

 

[Lone Wandering Courier]

The latest RMC video features an old troon.

 

[Van Darkholme]

"Holly" is in a lot of his videos. Nobody with a working brain would confuse the broad shouldered, hamhanded man who's also good with electronics for a real woman.

Speaking of LGR, his latest video shows off his hoard

Spoiler

 

[Mikoyan]

It's toward the end of one of his thrift store hoarding videos from years ago, it was the combo of that, getting a valuable XLR studio mic he was nevet going to use and discovering the guy has storage units full of all the shit he gets and never uses that made me stop watching. If you want people that actually know their shit there's guys like 8-Bit, Adrian or Usagi, LGR is just some pasty Sims reviewer that lucked out on old PC videos.

Even then all those guys get way more shit than they ever could use and the surplus gets doled out through youtuber backchannels for Good Shit.

There's a guy who just found a TRS-80 Model 100 with an interesting underslung bubble memory unit. I remember hearing about those in the day but they're not common. Comments were immediately "Oh so cool this thing you have send it to Adrian Black right now". Like guy has solid systematic troubleshooting skills but I can practically script the video now. "So this thing in the can from Intel, uh, maybe that's the bubble memory? Maybe you can let me know in comments."

"Holly" is in a lot of his videos. Nobody with a working brain would confuse the broad shouldered, hamhanded man who's also good with electronics for a real woman.

Maybe the funnest thing in the RMC videos is seeing the little snippets of how annoyed the former followers are with "Holly" being front and center so often and the related name change of the channel. At least the ones that mods haven't zapped.

Also Usagi did a little podcasty thing where they discussed the interesting topic of the rolling nature of 'vintage computing'. He said he cuts off his collecting at about 1984 because he finds that an interesting era but also so that he doesn't see anything in his 'vintage collection' that he remembers too well so he doesn't feel ancient. Which is... amusing, but hey why not.

 

[残念。]

While I've been thinking about arcade junk, a good recommendation is "classic arcade repairs" on YouTube. He does good troubleshooting on old pcbs which are essentially just computers.

 

[Kalsarikännit]

"Holly" is in a lot of his videos. Nobody with a working brain would confuse the broad shouldered, hamhanded man who's also good with electronics for a real woman.

Speaking of LGR, his latest video shows off his hoard

Spoiler

View attachment 6154380

All that stuff, going completely unused. Sitting. Wasting away.

for what purpose?

 

[Van Darkholme]

Would hate to be the one who has to clean that shit out after he dies. How many CRT monitors does one need?

 

[Miller]

All that stuff, going completely unused. Sitting. Wasting away.

for what purpose?

Just like his countless generic tower PCs from the early 2000. What's the point? If some of these devices are worth keeping for "history", just open a museum.
Tech Tangents had a video recently about emulating these old systems in a VM and it's the same experience.

 

[Fcret]

If you're getting a Jameco order rolling why not just add the caps on? I struggle with people shoveling caps into a bag for huge markup being a positive.

In other news the 'it's obsolescence all the way down' thing I predicted some pages back is biting in an amusing way. Necroware, the nice-seeming fella who does a lot of repairs on various PC boards, made a module to huge acclaim some years back to replace the notorious unrebuildable Dallas clock/SRAM chips used in zillions of PCs. It's a cute little IC replacement board that takes a lithium button cell on top and is a drop in replacement. Nice! All the PC repair youtubers were using this thing and pushing it as the solution. But wait, I thought, who the hell actually makes the chip it uses anymore? Turns out noone. So you're buying pulls from China or cut up reels from people who bought them from the distributors hoarding them. Still available but, uh, far less than it was.

So they figured out that all you have to do is heat up those big Dallas bricks and inside is a crystal, a packaged IC and the little tiny battery you can just snip out and replace with a 2032 holder. Supports my point that a lot of 'replacement parts' for unobtainable stuff are shuffling deck chairs and people need more net-new designs.

The underlying problem is that most of this stuff was not intended to last as long as it has even before the suits begin trying to cuck you out of it. PCBs themselves begin to degrade after 50 or so years so even with the most optimal scenario, I wouldn't expect any of these machines to still be running 100 years from now without thoroughly being Theseus'd.

The other problem is that a lot of this stuff was only ever cheap because of economies of scale. Once those supply chains are shuttered, re-opening them is monstrously expensive. Hence why you see FPGAs rather than bespoke silicon for most of these projects.

View attachment 6151436
I have no clue why this is a trend with retro tech channels right now.

View attachment 6151437

They're all in the same Discords and Mastodon instances. Why do you think the troonery is so contagious? It's possibly even the same netbook being mailed between them so they can all grift.

All that stuff, going completely unused. Sitting. Wasting away.

for what purpose?

As opposed to what? The entire reason these machines are 'retro' in the first place is because they've aged to the point where they can fulfill no useful purpose. They exist merely as trophies and demonstrations now.

 

[Kalsarikännit]

As opposed to what?

Doing something fun with them.

 

[Rock hard as a Flintstone]

PCBs themselves begin to degrade after 50 or so years

I'm with you on accumulating too much of this stuff, but the fiberglass PCBs you see in old computers aren't something I've ever seen degrade without the help of leaking capacitors, batteries or caveman strength. Brown phenolic PCBs definitely do but I can't think of a computer off the top of my head that used one of those as a mainboard.

 

[AmpleApricots]

overkill

completely overkill but at the same time probably most practical at this amount of demand. Weird world ain't it.

leaking capacitors, batteries

I've repaired quite a few of those. Usually boards of this vintage are double sided and if not double sided, have at most middle layers with a plane for both +5V and ground. You basically just need patience. At least the double-sided PCBs will last forever; if they will still be pretty is the other question. Because it's so easy nowadays to manufacture and design professional PCBs, if it's anything remotely interesting some autist will redo it. You can pretty much buy/have manufactured remakes of all Amiga PCBs, for example.

I have quite a few leftover charges of both ECS and AGA chipsets, never soldered/used from a repair shop. I was a few times almost seduced to buy something like this. There is something about the idea of a proper, non-emulated Amiga in one of these tiny itx cases that just really tickles me. Then again, I really don't need it. In any way.