The Computer That Didn't Save Computerland | Computerland BC286

20:45 Lizards don't wear shoes. Pass it on.

It's a nice flash back to look at the 'upgraded' version of Computerland XT.. I was lucky my parents (mom mostly she was a payroll clerk for Burlington Coat Factory at the home office in Burlington, NJ) anyway, she needed a PC she could use at home for whatever reason, I never ever remember seeing her use it, but they bought a Goldstar XT complete setup, CGA monitor, XT IBM Clone, 2 5 1/4 drives NO HDD though, yuck, it did have 640k ram so that was nice. I upgraded it the best I could for a 10 year old, was lucky and got a cheap Trident VGA card (super I think) and a 2400 baud modem to add to it.. I'm pretty sure it was 87 when they got that thing, I know we upgraded it very shortly thereafter, with the Vga monitor and graphics, maybe 2 years into having it.. man we had that PC until I built a 386 a few years later, finally had a hard drive, a whopping 100mb IDE drive though, I was the man back than! haha memories. Thanks for this one..

You're welcome! ;-) Definitely an interesting machine. As for the CRT fault, I've never seen anything like that before. Very odd! It moved around a bit when the video mode changed too.

This is a gem of a machine for $75. What a find.

6:37 How could this combo go wrong made me LOL.

15:50 the original IBM PC AT was 6mhz, I think later revisions stepped it up to 8. Maybe Computerland assumed some software would be coded specifically for that original clock.

The BC88 video wasn't bad. It's part of the TTT universe.

I watch this and find myself torn between wanting to forget and wanting to remember.

The monitor has a damaged shadow mask. No fixing that. You could replace the tube if you can find one compatible with it. See Adrian's Digital Basement about this. Otherwise, time for another CRT.

whoa bricks can store stuff indeed!

The fix for the 287 overheat is to just outright go and replace it with an 80287XL, which is basically a 387 in the same package and 100% will function the same with the addition of being way faster than the 287 it's replacing... and CMOS to boot! I don't recall but I think the 287s of that time were NMIOS and ran pretty hot, but this was the same with the 286 itself. stick an adhesive heatsink to the top of the 286's metal cover there.

If the 287 is getting too hot, then It’s probably the wrong clock speed.

Just opened the video and I am almost entirely certain that the hard disk drive in this machine is a Miniscribe MS-III, probably a 3425. It could be a Tandon TM-252, though. 3:02 Ion trap or centering magnets have come misaligned 4:19 Miniscribe MS-III 6:00 A company I buy most of my hard drives from, DreamHardware, rebuilds power supplies. Might be worth sending this one off? 8:40 missed a seek, needs oil in stepper shaft. If you ever need help with one of those drives, get in touch. I collect and repair vintage hard disks, I have a community of other collectors, and I have a large number of spare drives. 10:26 3438! The RLL certified version, very nice. 12:46 Miniscribes have an exercise mode built into their firmware, it makes the drives do butterfly seeks repeatedly.

Ha! Very entertaining video. That was really cool you were able to get that Miniscribe back up and going... I've got to acquire an old hard drive with a stepper motor in it one of these days, in me ever-growing collection LOL. Thanks for sharing!

I used to work at ComputerLand from 85-87. Thanks for the memories

That EGA card has the dual composite to comply with the EGA standard. Nothing officially ever used the ports.

Personally, I would install Coherent “Unix” for 286 or OS/2 Warp but that’s just me

Love your historical videos. So great

Great video, I do love a nice chunky beige monitor stand.

Just found the channel, really dig how informative it is, giving a bit of history while walking through the actual tech too. Another video I liked was the account fraud miniscribe had, very amusing