Well now, ain't that _somethin._ Ordered one myself, along with a couple controller cards. Thanks for sharing, sir! EDIT: they canceled my order, dang it

Back in the 90s, the company I worked for used SoftICE to help with debugging our hardware under Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Soft Ice had an option to use a secondary Monochrome/MGA/Hercules card for the debugging output (stack trace, memory display, CPU registers, etc) while the software you were debugging continued to run on the VGA display. It was super useful!

Well I like the new sponsor!

I just got this card, a display miser, an ISA IO controller, and a project box from this site. Thanks for giving me a new way to feed my addiction lol

Not everyone can get away with whipping out The Wang 3 minutes in to a video and stay monetized. Bravo! :D My birthday 2020 comment!

They didn't mention that model of Wang has an absolutely horrendous keyboard xD .

Boss walks in. "Steve, you don't need to be wasting your time on that particular spreadsheet. Ned down the hall is already working on it. Told me he'd be done by noon!"

Still have our first XT clone with its original ISA Hercules monochrome card in the attic.. still remember using a tool called HGCIBM to enable CGA emulation for games :) Thanks for the nice throwback!!

Since everyone else is making Wang jokes... Q: what do you get when you cross a Bell telecommunications satellite with a word processor? A: a six-ton Wang that wants to reach out & touch someone.

You've captured the esccence of MGA and the 5151 monitor just perfectly. The choice of apps and games you've demonstrated really show off the "Eerie-green-glow" personality of this system. Great work! Thank you :)

I´ll bet they wonder why so many people order a serial/parallel port card now... ^^

just had a look on their website, they now list it as a monochrome graphics card, and now at $8.95 .. sneaky !!

Two things I like, information about old/obscure computers and this soothing voice. 😩👌

Enjoying the clicky keyboard sounds while playing Tetris. :-)

I didn't know that I made IBM compatibles back in the day! Out of curiosity though, I went searching on a few Taiwanese auction sites, and sure enough I found quite a few people selling bundles of these very generic looking ISA monochrome graphics cards, all with the same MGP port configuration. Couldn't find one with the exact same PCB layout though. I bet the graphics chip was a reverse engineered chip that the chip fabs in Hsinchu were churning out in the late 80s and early 90s.

*enters today's date* Computer: My god, l survived Y2K!

You are amazing! There are a few games, which I played on my dad's first computer when I was still in kindergarden. I thought I had sought out most of them... but Space War was one I had forgotten about until I just saw this video. It is an amazing feeling to be suddenly taken back like that. Thank you!

and people complain how a gtx 3090 is huge

Three times faster with the WANG! Great sponsor

Congrats! The Monochrome CRT monitor actually works :) I love the long afterglow on the phosphor layer. There is something incredibly beautiful about green and black terminal screens. The first Monochrome PC monitor i ever worked with was a Commodore IBM compatible DOS PC with a yellow and black monochrome screen.

Back when I was a teen I had one of those IBM Monochrome monitors. One day, I noticed a crackling noise when it was on. I opened it up and found that there was a tiny hole in the side of the flyback and it was arcing. Almost like the high voltage somehow broke down and burned through the plastic of the flyback. I thought about what to do and it occurred to me that I read somewhere that silicone has a high dielectric strength. It just so happened that there was some silicone bathroom caulk left over from some bathroom work my parents were doing..so I covered the damaged part of the flyback with the silicone caulk and let it cure. It stopped the crackling noise and the monitor continued to work for at least the next year or two till I got rid of it.

Yeah i remember having played several games as CGA versions back then. Like Magic Pool Billiard, Super Ski and Test Drive. Or the amazing Alley Cat. Still one of the cutest DOS games ever made. It's amazing how well even in Monochrome mode these games were playable and fun.

That Wang PC reminded me: wasn't there a video where at the end you showed off a Wang brand keyboard with the humourous phrase of "By the way, I'd like to show you my Wang." Do you remember which video that was?

Borland took those text user interfaces to a new level with their IDEs for C / Pascal etc. Fond memories of college Pascal hackery!

Oh wow, that Block Out intro brought back a ton of memories! Played that on my dad's 286 when he wasn't home. :D

And now the price at Alltronics has doubled!

I remember when I was a kid I couldn't wait to get home so I could go to my room and play around with my Wang. I'd grab my joystick and it was like I was in another world.

Thank you for making this video. I've had my 5150 since 2012, and I've been looking for a reasonably priced clone Hercules card ever since then. I've got a 5151 monitor, so this is gonna add a lot of functionality as far as games are concerned because I'll no longer be confined to text mode. I was interested to see that your video has caused a bit of a run on these cards which is understandable. There's a pretty big demand for them, and I'm not sure Alltronics knew what they had and what they're actually worth. Alltronics has since updated the listing of the card which now accurately describes it, and as of me purchasing one about 15 minutes ago, they now only have 19 of them in stock. They have also raised the price to $8.95. Still a massive bargain!

This is a really cool video, I am a fan of old computers myself and I love to see how people still cherish these old miracles of technology. The way it is presented, relaxed and laid back, without the typical youtube hyperdrive mode, makes it very enjoyable to my taste.

Awesome for you to share that link! Great video!

I love the way it sounds when it boots up and the clickity clack of the keyboard. Brings back fond memories of playing King's Quest with my cousins on my uncle's OG IBM when we were little. They don't make 'em like that anymore.

I want a WANG PC

Dang the power pellets don’t remain active long in that Pac-Man clone. Love the phosphor delay in that monitor!

Those slow phosphors... It's funny how it was actually marketable as a feature back then - it reduced visible flicker and the resulting eye strain. But just imagine this level of ghosting today... Man the times have changed...

Those startup sounds....takes me back....

~sniff~ You've hit us right in the feels remembering the 'green-screen' monitor we'd found at 'Curby's' and used for our Commodore 128 back in the '90s. Had rigged a toggle switch it so it go from the High and Low-res feeds of the comm-ptar... Good times...

Thanks for making this vid. I ordered the same card from Alltronics via eBay for a 386 build a few months back (I think it was around $11 shipped). I didn't know why the PC was detecting the LPT port, but no serial. It wasn't until almost a couple of hours of troubleshooting that I actually looked at the port noticed it was not serial. I ended up sticking it in my parts bin and bought another combo card. At least now I now what that port is actually used for. Like yours, mine was advertised as a serial/parallel combo card and am sure it is still listed for sale on eBay.

Very nice clean design for an ISA monochrome card; great find VWestlife!

Thank you for answering a question I forgot I even had, what the inside-out power jacks were for! Also, I remember that scene from Tetris with the hockey players, when I first heard of Tetris in a magazine I saw that screen and thought the hockey players were part of the game and shooting blocks into the Tetris board like it was a Breakout clone.

12:45 - Those really early hard drives sound so nice. Brings back memories to hear the faint bleep-bleep. 90's hard drives are just annoyingly noisy.

this video is what I needed this morning!

Wow, does that bring back some memories! I used to have a system like that when I was still in high school! It was primarily my father's as he would use for work, but in the evening, he would let me play on it (where I also initially learned to write software, thus launching my career as a software engineer). I remember spending hours playing that Block Out game. Also Starflight worked really good with the old Herc cards, as well as Ultima III (I still have my copy of that game somewhere around here, complete with the cloth map that it came with). I forgot how friggan long that system would take to boot up. Oh yes, another piece of nostalgia - hearing those sounds that those old hard drives and floppy drives made when accessing data. I also do remember the "boss hide game" feature of many of those games, although it was not a feature I really needed, since I was still in high school and was playing most of those games at home.

Thank you for this. I just obtained around 20 IBM pcs and clones so this will definitely help!

my first well second asi had a trs color computer but the 8088 was my jam - no hd , 2x 5.25 w/ mono chrome . it was a freaking BEAST of a machine and talk about reliable . i dont miss those days but i love watching your videos so thanks !!

That green phosphor is just gorgeous. I had an amber monochrome monitor when I was growing up, but the green ones always looked more vibrant for me. That said, I think I'd prefer an amber phosphor for prolonged use.

I noticed SPINRITE.EXE in one of the directories. I would love to see one of your fantastic videos on that legendary program. I loved the little things in that program like the ASCII animation sequences used as a sort of progress bar.

I whould love it if you did a video of your old computer collection. ( it whould have to be multiple videos probably. ) because you probably have so much that we have not seen and since many of your computer videos are rather old,the collection has proboly changed a lot.

@VWestflie my father obtained a full Wang system for my college days. I held back the laughter as I opted for my C64 instead. Geez I feel old thanx. Love your channel and your incredibly intelligent but fun posts. :)

Thank you for this video Kevin, it's encouraged me to fire up my 486DX Value Point!.

Yeah that Spacewars game looks AMAZING on the monochrome monitor given the high-resolution and long persistence!

I really enjoyed the part where you talked about how the showdow on the monitor looks like a moon. That was really cool and nice to hear.

A lot of dejavu or nostalgia or something watching this.. I definitely remember the 'do you want to use a joystick' prompt but none of the games you tried lol... AWESOME VIDEO :)

Very interesting. My copy of Nyet doesn't have a boss key, it just says "Game paused, press Esc to continue". Now I need to find that version :P

Always have been a fan, great video once agian!

Thanks so much for demonstrating Blockout and the Spectrum Holobyte version of Tetris. These were games we had on the family AT back in the day and I immediately recognized them. I remember Blockout out vividly and being rather bad at it but could not remember the name. I also played a Risk or risk like game and Yahtzee. I played them in color though because we actually had a VGA card and IBM color monitor, it made Eye of the Beholder look great. Thanks again.

I could already HEAR it start and boot up in my mind before you hit that switch! Oh man, good memories :-) I used to have these machines. Slept next to them even. I miss the sound of MFM drives...

i had two Wangs. What i loved about them was they dual booted either to the winchester disk or to a boot rom that contained a business suite. I think it was called apricot, or some fruit name like that. What i did not care about them was their massive weight. if i ever get another one i would see how far i could push it with newer stuff like an sd to ide drive. C-pokeman brought memories. When the dude was eating dots, after a while it started to sound like "This is the life this is the life."

Nice 5151. I got mine from someone whose Boss still uses an XT PC in 2016 and it was broken and I was supposed to fix it but couldn't. (I'm pretty certain the LOPT is bad and for whatever reason I couldn't find a replacement anywhere). I also fixed quite a few Vectrices (Plural of Vectrex?). One arrived in pieces with the CRT in shards so I stole a CRT from another Vectrex, fixed the electronix, put the CRT back and then married the Vectrex' electronics with said IBM 5151 and called it Wrectrex. You can see it on KZfaq. The long sustain phosphor makes for some awesome effects. Also, Blockout was my first video game and I still love it! EDIT forgot to mention I gave the guy some noname replacement MDA monitor for his Boss and was allowed to keep the Wrectrex as some kind of payment for fixing the seven other Vectrices.

G'day, VWestlife! I really enjoyed the video! (seeing a 'new' 8-bit ISA monochrome graphics card for vintage PCs) Thank you! Cheers! 😊💻✌🏻❤️

I have several Parallel/Serial port cards. 2 ISA and 1 PCI. Remember the Soundblaster joystick/MIDI cable? I have several of those too. I love old PC collectibles. Back in 1994, the Law Firm I did support for in NYC, used Wang computers for Networking just before they switched to all IBM. Yes we did use Manchester for supplies.. They went out of business in 2004.

Love the sponsor's ad - as "retro" as the parts you're reviewing.

That sponsor ad was GREAT!

I wish I had a vintage Wang. I’d bring it out frequently and bang out some work now and then for fun.

That Manchester ad is going to be the new Rick Roll!

I've order a lot of stuff from "All Electronics" in Van Nuys, CA, but never from Alltronics in Santa Clara but they seem to have similar offerings. Thanks for letting your audience know about them! I had (and may still have) a monchrome ISA graphics card from my very first IBM clone that looks very similar to this one, I'll look for it, and see if there is a brand logo. My old monochrome monitor was amber, not green. And the "click" of your keyboard is awesome! POKE-MAN lol!

Block Out looks amazing! Very aesthetically pleasing

3:24 I trust Wang to get my computing done 2 to 3x faster! Because getting the job done is what matters.

The slow luminophore is so gorgeous! Also the spring clunk of the keys...

I bought some motherboards from these guys, they were selling mystery untested vintage motherboards for $20 each. I got a Socket 4 motherboard with VLB slots(!!!) and a Compaq Slot 1 motherboard.

2:35 the background music is LOVELY!

That old HD sound...sometimes I miss it....

I find it relaxing watching him play Tetris/Nyek (15:53), and hearing those keys click.

Oh wow, that afterglow is amazing :)

ah, early PC speaker sound effects can be such the trip!!!D still love those old school green phosphors too, so unmatchably classic!!!!!)

The monitor power plug can be used to power any monitor, it's just a pass-through that's switched to the power button of the PC - I have a cable that goes from that to a normal AC plug for PCs/monitors so I could even chain PCs, lol. Usually I put a VGA monitor on it, though, on a Pentium-era box. Also, wish I knew you needed an MGA card, I could have sent you one.

you can press the boss key all you want. the boss already heard by your keyboard clicks that you were playing a game from the other side of the office :P

That Hauppauge advert sounded like something from price is right. Very retro. All you neded at end was "and that's your showcase on the priccce has riighgghhttt. " lol. I never heard of the website til now. Neat isa card

the rhythm game osu! has a boss key, it's the insert key. and instead of emulating something, it just puts osu in the system tray I think it's pretty nice having the boss key, even playing a game from 2007 to now

6:03 "The IBM 5151 monochrome monig…" Sorry, I could not resist.

I remember playing Space War a lot, but it isn't something I've thought about in forever. I have many more memories of the Star Control series.

Didn't know there were such amazing games for monochrome graphics, Blockout especially.

I used to have one of those Wang PC’s. It had a 10Mb RLL hard disk, ran MS-DOS 2.1 and Lotus 1-2-3

Jeez that brings me back. My first PC as a 10 year old was an 8088 with a 40mb MFM hard drive. The sound of that thing winding up and waiting a good 10 minutes for post. Good times.

Those original ISA cards were something The original ones had the irq and addresses set, no dip switches or jumpers Then the cards had jumpers to set the addresses and irqs. Then the software controlled settings Some cards had programs that were specific for the card that would set the addresses and irqs and they would stay set at those settings no matter if you remove the card Other cards had the ability to be detected by the BIOS and set through the bios I used to need the hardware defined isa serial cards or on motherboard serial ports to program Motorola and RCI and other two-way radios that had DOS RSS that needed the serial ports that were hardware defined. I also remember many times that I was not able to use software because it only could be set for irq 3 or 4, serial ports and it could not see port 3 or 4 Limitations that were in a lot of the software back in the day And you would think they would learn not to put those limitations in software but in server 2000 which the internet had been around for a solid 10 years when this software came out and they still set the highest IP addresses that you could create policies for at 199.199.199.199 Back then the highest IP addresses I believe were maxed out around 150 I remember internal switches had 168 through 174 addresses And retail routers had 192 addresses There was nothing above 192 and the bulk of the internet infrastructure made up of the phone company equipment and the tech companies were all down below 10 I think I remember one of the government servers had a 12 address and another had a 14 As the cable companies started doing internet they were in the 20s I don't remember how the 10 internal IP assignment came about I'm guessing it was in the early days and the colleges and governments used that assignment for all of their internal networks I remember one of the early programs that was like PC anywhere that allowed remote access and control over servers when I first used it to access the servers I was working on there was a scan feature that would scan whatever range you told it to scan and report back any servers it found and I remember finding another server that I had not known existed that was on our Network and I still don't know what that was to this day One of the other really cool software programs that I had back in the day somehow would basically listen to the internet connection and I don't know if it was specifically just the node that I was connected to which had about 500 computers hooked to it or if it was the entire network which would have had 150,000 computers hooked to it. But it would display the packets going across the network over the internet and I could see the addresses and the headers and the packets data It was really something to see I remember the software cost $20,000 and that was 1990s It was a diagnostic software package that was designed for finding problems in the network I remember the packaging had a bunch of documents that specifically said using the software on any network that was not yours or that you were not authorized to use it on was a crime Even back then they had pretty strict laws But back then you could take an unregistered modem and connect it to a cable network and be able to see all the data going across the network Nowadays the modems don't allow that

It's even as new as 1991, according to the date codes on the memory chips.

I was actually just looking at picking up a Hercules card for my original spec XT. As I need a few other parts and cables, think I’ll give this one a try. At that price, not much to lose. Thanks!

When the title screen from the Spectrum Holobyte version of Tetris started loading, I heard the title music from v1.0 (Mac version) in my head. The photos used were mostly the same between the IBM/Mac versions, but in a different order. (Level 9 was the Cosmonaut Space Station and at 7.888 MHz, those pieces were FAST!) Parking hard drive heads... That takes me back!

Was that a "long" WANG I saw in the sponsor spot? Oddly enough, I work for the IT service company that that is what is left of Wang's service division. I used to have a few co-workers that worked directly for Wang labs but they have all since moved on or retired. I do have 1 co-worker that was around for the WANG days (although he didn't work for the Wang division as they called it and thus he didn't service any legacy Wang products). I am sad at the state of the business and how a good name in the industry can go down hill and be lost to time.

22:55 funny how in this intro scene there is a high pitch tone which tries to "emulate" the sound of this reflection effect.. I can still hear those frequencies in my right ear, but it's completely "dead" in the other.

This is good. Looking at your retro tech purchases in front of your retro gear made me think that if this video wasn't shot in 16:9 ratio, with high resolution and clear audio it would be hard to tell what year this was made. Modern high definition is what you want for showing such detail but I would definitely be entertained if you went through the trouble of acquiring video recording equipment from the late 80s and finding a way to get the resulting footage on KZfaq. (As long as we don't miss out on any detail.)

I love these videos, dos is fun and brings a lot of memories

Finally a graphics card I can afford!

22:22 - "Sooo, Peter. I see you're working on a spreadsheet there - that's great… Uh, but it looks like you misspelled 'New York' - why don'tcha go ahead and fix that right now?"

Alltronics must have bought out Radio Shack's supplies of parts. Yay! Thanks. Now i know where to get all that hobby and repair stuff.

That shutdown sound makes me happy

The TV Tuner in my PC is a Hauppauge.

I remember that exact same version of "NYET" was installed in my first computer, which was an '83ish IBM PC XT 'Industrial' with an IBM CGA monitor and IBM model F keyboard, which I bought from a co-worker back in '96. That image you have on that monochrome monitor in text mode is exactly how it looked on the color graphics monitor in CGA mode, except the pieces were in color.... otherwise, it's exactly the same. I loved to play that little game. :-) The full size 10 meg hard drive in my XT also sounded exactly like that one in yours. What make/model HD is in that one? It's been so long I don't remember the make/model of mine, but I do remember that the make name started with "Micro..." , anyway, same exact cool little whooshing/beeping sorta "wheeping" sound like that one in your PC...lol! :-D I had a total blast with the XT back in those days. Thanks for sharing, VWestlife

That new sponsor! 😂 but this video brought me some good memories, this computer was my first interaction with a computer at the age of around 10

"POKE-MAN" -- Way before Pokemon was even a concept!

I love your sponsor. They are a good company!