I wish these videos were three times as long... it hits all the right nostalgia points for me lol.

The solenoid is the case lock that stops the user from opening the case, this is set in the bios

"We have Norton Antivirus on here. I feel so safe!" 😆😆😆

Wow. This brought me back to when I was a kid (34 now)… my dad would take me to these computer shows at the local rec center. We would get some old Compaq systems so I could tinker around with them. I remember the Deskpro’s, Prolinea’s and more. I’m addicted to this channel.

15:30 I started a contract as a Linux sysadmin in KCMO and while I was out there I picked one of these Compaq's up... it wasn't a Deskpro but it had a similar form-factor with a Pentium 166Mhz in it and was such a workhorse one could easily mistake it as having a Pentium II. It truly was a sleeper system!

That little Compaq Deskpro was the first computer i learned how to disassemble and rebuild and also got me into liking to build and mess around with computers. When i was around 12 or 13 years old my dad's workplace was doing a cleanup in their building and they were throwing out computers and stuff. Some of them were smashed up but i found that Compaq and an HP Vectra VL400 that were still in good shape but were missing parts and needed maintenance because they were so dusty you couldn't even see the color of the motherboard anymore. Took them home,cleaned them up and put in new ram and hard drives from the smashed computers and they both worked. Spent a lot of time playing older games with them even though i already had a much better computer at home at the time

That presario brought back some memories... I played hours of Lemmings and Howie's Funhouse on that thing. The design is actually quite timeless

Right, knowing "The Compaq Story" we have to thank that swanky Computer Company pretty much! 😍 The "PC Industry" wouldn't have become "open for the people" as we know it because of "Big Blue" (IBM). I had been in contact with the early Desk Pro (386er 486er; MS DOS 3.x) during my IT Supporter / Customer Care job as a student. In my collection there is the SP 750 Workstation and 2 Fiber Channel Storage Work RaidArrays RA4100. Powerful and good Design Compaq stands for. Whe HP took over... this is another (sad) story.😢

I am always impressed how JBL speakers sound considering their size

Prebuilt towers from 1995 to early 2000's are my fave. I really dig the first one, but that hard drive isn't gonna fix itself---I'd clone it before it goes belly-up, which sounds like it could be any day now

Regarding the system with the solenoid - IIRC there were some models that had an internal case lock that was controlled by the bios.

I worked in Compaq service center in early 2000s, had so much fun with such Deskpro's, Presario's, Armada's and other fantastic machines. Miss the quality and serviceability of those. Thank you for all your videos about retro hardware, so many good memories they recover from the past of a service engineer. =) Cheers! And good luck in development of the channel.

A lot of old Compaq's had designs in the top layer of the PCBA for the motherboard. Happy Pride :)

All three of these were present in various proportions in my junior high school, but by the time I was in high school, the district had 'partnered' with Gateway.

I had a Presario 2240 back in the day and I have one now. One thing I have learned since getting the new one. The serials on the stickers on the side are regionally coded. My machine was from Italy because I couldn't find one here locally. I love the 2240 as it's a great little machine. I played a lot of firsts on mine back in the day, The board has ram built into the motherboard, either 16 or 32, I cannot remember. If I remember correctly the 2200 and the 2240 vary in some ways, and so after putting in the serial on the restore, you should see 2240 and not 2200. Having the proper model will help with the audio issues you are seeing. And yeah, the speakers are pretty impressive for the day.

This brought back so many childhood memories ❤

You absolutely need the restore cd for that first Compaq.

The S2 was the standard at my employer. Some of them was installed with Windows NT Workstation in 1997 and wasn't powered off until we relocated in 2007 and migrated to some IBM Thinkvision desktops for the 24/7 operation team.

Evidently the bicycle on the system board would've had some relation to the system's internal (to Compaq) code name during development.

My brother-in-law's first PC was very similar to the first computer in your video, the Compaq Preserio. It also had an AMD processor but it was a higher end model with an 8.4 GB hard drive, a DVD player, and 96 MB of memory - all premium features for 1998. When I helped him add a CD burner to the system, I discovered that the hard drive was gigantic in size, not just in capacity but in physical size, too big to be mounted in a standard bracket but on the side of the case in a weird sideways position. The CD burner was a beast to add for I had to pry off a thick metal tab to gain access to the second 5 1/2 inch bay for the burner, resulting in a nasty gash to myself and I bled like a stuck pig!

System 3 would make a pretty awesome late DOS rig imo. Very compatible S3 video chipset, 200MHz plenty of speed for the very later games, and pretty decently compatible audio chip.

I remember those systems from the time I did a internship at at PC refurbisher. The systems they sold the most were the Compaq EN / ENS systems (P3) at the time. Nice compact and sturdy systems and easy to work with for upgrading/replacing memory / HDD. At the end of my internship, it was slowly moving to the black/silver HP Compaq Evo systems (P4), both the SFF as the tower model. The funny thing about the tower systems, was that you could turn the external drive cage, so you could use the tower both standing as laying down. I never noticed the bike on the silkscreen though. I think the only times we had to replace PSU's were when we got a batch of systems from the US one time, while this company was in Europe. Ee didn't knew this batch came from the US beforehand, so we didn't expect or noticed that the PSU switch was set to 120V instead of 230V. Only found out when connecting the power and turning the system on. Which resulted in a bang and a power outage xD

I have the vaguest memory of a Compaq machine being our 1st home computer, around the earlier 90's. Gosh I'm getting old! 🤪. I was just playing with that hdmotion app last night, nice way to exercise / stress / listen to seeking noises 😊

Oh man, that first system really hit me right in the nostalgia.

I prefered LS 120 drives over Zip drives. The LS 120's could also read floppy disks ( at 2 times the speed of a floppy drive, so fasten your seatbelts ). So no more need for a floppy drive. They came in IDE and SCSI versions. Remember finding a lot of those Compaqs on the streets. In those times people just put them next to their garbagebags ( no underground garbage then ) so others could reuse them. With a lot of those I started practicing my modding skills.

WD-40 dissolves old paste and other glue well :)

You could have a resource conflict with the sound on the second Presario. I had a Prolinea with an ESS sound card (disclaimer: it was an addon card) that had the same exact sound issue. Changing the IRQ and I/O port address around got that machine to play sound as normal.

System #1 - a) When you talk about "figuring out the color code", have you considered taking the panel in to an auto body shop? Some shops can analyze the color and make you a can of custom-matched paint. Being steel panels, automotive paint is also a better match for the material than what you'll find at a hardware or home improvement store. b) You definitely weren't the first one inside the case. I could tell right away by the curl on the warranty seal. One of the annoying things about Compaq is that you didn't get replacement warranty seals even if you were a certified repair shop. Based on the missing screw(s) but it being an OEM drive, I'd hazard to guess that the original drive failed within warranty and was replaced. In the shop I worked at, we'd peel back the Compaq sticker as carefully as possible before disassembling, and try to stick it back on. That's where the curl comes from. (At least Packard Bell gave you a new warranty seal with a replacement part) c) the form factor is not unique. It's a standard called SFX, and you can still pretty easily get them as they're not uncommon in modern Mini-ITX builds. I recently bought a Raijintek P/S in this form factor for a modern build in a retro eMachines case. HP, Compaq, and eMachines all used this style at some point or another in the late 90's to mid 00's. System #3 - I hated that chassis back in the day, but I have a weird love for them now. Nostalgia is weird.

I had a errand to run, but I think it can wait until after this video. 😎

Another excellent video featuring the cutest and most adorable vintage tech guy!

I think a lot of the Compaq 3-1/2" floppy drives are simply a standard drive with the faceplate removed and the model-specific plastic button clipped onto the mechanism. I damaged the drive in my Presario 633 desktop fooling around with it and boy did I get in trouble with my parents. I had to pay for the replacement drive and the Compaq part was well over $80, but a standard drive was closer to $20. I tried to convince my dad to let me take the faceplate off the new drive to compare it to the old one, but there was no way he was letting me mess up another floppy drive. Instead, he used his scroll saw to cut out a rectangular hole where the floppy drive slot used to be in the PC's front panel. It was a practical, if inelegant solution and I still have that PC 25 years later, about 30 years since my parents bought it.

I like the first and last computers. The last one especially. The look of the last one appeals to me. I love the beeps and sounds of older computers and old windows systems. I love watching you dig into older computers. I remember those laptops. It will be interesting watching you get into them. It will almost be like watching you take a shell of a laptop and transform it into a working computer. Your videos make my Fridays! Your enthusiasm and humor make your videos a pleasure to watch!

my family's first new computer was one of those towers, back when i was about 15. got the whole package as a family christmas gift christmas of 99. a few years later i swapped a pentium 3 motherboard in it and painted the white parts of the case with black spraypaint. wish i still had it in original form (or at all frankly)

Hey, you have Adrian Black as a Patron! That's proper bragging rights for a channel half a year old. You're positively doing a great job.

That power supply swivel is sweet. Most K6's had some form of slide factor to them, and I honestly miss it, you didn't have to fight with a non-removable drive cage.

I used an old Deskpro for a few years around 2008 as a home PBX; It was very reliable running Asterisk from a compact flash card.

Yeah! Old good Compaqs! The Deskpro EN is one of my favourtes!

That 2240 cleaned up really nice! What a neat little machine.

Compaq presario was the first PC my family got back in 2001. Ran windows XP, had 512 mbs of ram, Pentium III, 40 gb hdd. Used msn messenger a ton, downloaded tons of viruses on limewire Another great video thank u cutie keep it up

I used to collect Compaq computers, wish I still had the full collection. Had everything from a Compaq Deskpro XE 560 (P60), Prolinea Net/1, Prosignia 500, LTE5120, a load of Deskpro's 2000/EN/EP, Evos etc. I had several Presario's mostly Pentium 4 but my last was an Athlon 64. I have kept my Presario R3116 laptop and its still working to this day. I suspect that Compaq Deskpro SFF has had the lid swapped, interestingly in the UK I found most businesses went for the PIII option. I was also interested to see that the 2240 has an Intel i430VX chipset and the 5460 has an SiS, I remember SiS being the poorer option back then - I remember the medium - higher end AMD systems using VIA or ALI chipsets. Excellent videos Mike.

Oh man I love this channel! That 2240 is the very very close relative of my first PC in 1997 - a 4526 tower. I remember that CPU heatsink looking unbelievably huge to me back then, how things have changed! Original hard drive probably would have been a ridiculous 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot since Compaq were weirdly into those in that era.

I wish Compaq existed today. Memories.

The chime after a window is closed was set by the user. Its somewhere in windows sounds settings. Same area where you can change the startup and shutdown sounds.

I have the same type of Deskpro EN. One thing I like about it is the very capable built-in speaker that automatically switches on or off, depending if you have anything plugged into the audio jack. It did not work at first, but started right up once I scoured archived decades-old Compaq/HP forums for BIOS files and had those updated on my machine. After a (luckily) successful BIOS update from a floppy disk all was well. As for the lack of an AGP port, my solution was getting the best possible PCI GPU and slapping that in there. Ended up getting a used GeForce 8400 GS for 5 euros which is a complete overkill for the 933MHz Pentium III EB in there, but has thus turned it into a quite capable machine to mess around with.

0:49 this was my first windows computer. bought it from circuit city for $600. it made all kinds of noises.

I really like this video format. Quite enjoyable. Thanks and keep it up :)

Another great video. Thank you!

thank you once again for a intresting video i do love seeing these old coputers working again

This is good example of proprietary vs standard AT (Cases) at the time. Ibm changed to Micro channel and did the same thing. Sure you get the standard floppy, hard drive, memory, processor, zip drive, etc. But the case, motherboard, powers supply, sometimes front case connector to motherboard is all special. Talk about vendor lock in. What you did get though is big box stores and a cheaper price (sometimes.). I do admit going to a local computer shop that was not a nationwide change was a crap shoot. But, that is a story for a different time.

I've always liked Compaq systems, glad to some this week! Keep up the amazing work man!

Another most awesome video!

Great Video Mike! Thank you!

Great video.

Great video!

Really glad KZfaq recommended your channel the other day. Really enjoying your videos!

Great video

I had that exact compaq with the speakers. I remember as a last ditch effort to get more life out of it I threw a k6/2 500 in it. I could only get the jumpers to configure to 300 mhz but it was rock solid

I really enjoy your videos 😊

Congrats on the 6.66k subs!

Love your videos Mike❤

These were common. I am trying to remember if the 486 slimline was a Compaq. I remember when I installed a low profile card for the network card and I had to install a new IDE cable to install a CD ROM drive into the only expansion bay. The ISA expansion solt was on a low profile 90 degree board. I kind of miss those low profile cases. The worst one I saw had only a 3 1/2 drive and a space inside for the hard drive It was only about 2 inches high , maybe a little less. And about 12 inches by 14 inches There was no fan except in the power supply, which was really small. The heat destroyed everything inside. I remember the company that bought them had very limited space This was way before flat screens and mini keyboards and wireless keyboards. They had the big bulky 5 inch monochrome screens and a big mini keyboard with standard size keys. It was a very strange style. The keyboards had an AT style din plug. They were running DOS a DOS based customer software Those were the days. I was shocked to see how much the old DOS 386 and 486 laptops are selling for. I needed one to program old Motorola and Kenwood 80s 2-way radios I spent 100 dollars for a 486 laptop with no hard drive, no CD drive and no power supply. I had to buy a hard drive, a CD drive and a power adapter. 150 dollars for a 486 laptop. Just to get a serial 9 pin port. I do not understand why and no one who programs Motorola or Kenwood radios can figure out why it is that DOSBOX does not work, and the USB to 9-pin serial adapter does not work with the Motorola or Kenwood radios using DOS software. You would think that you could make the settings be whatever they needed to be in order to get the timing and the protocol correct to read and write a simple serial connection on a two-way radio, but whatever the problem is no one has figured out how to make it work I would love to see what it is that that old built-in 9-pin serial uart ship is sending that the USB to 9-pin serial adapter doesn't send or what the timing difference is But I've tried everything including a pcmcia uart adapter, and nothing works except for a true 9-pin serial hardware Port on the board in the bios along with actual booted DOS It is CRAZY I'm in the process of selling my old two-way radios so I have four more to go and that will be the end of my needing a DOS laptop ever again, hopefully. But I resurrected and IBM Thinkpad r51 and I had to get the docking port which I had to get from Europe because for whatever reason they don't have them here And IBM was really awesome in that they had all of these different connectors built into the board and in the bios but you needed the docking station because the 150 or 160 pin connector on the bottom has all of the physical connections and the docking port has the connectors to connect to the devices like the cereal and parallel and everything else But I managed to get the 32 bit Windows 7 installed and the ThinkPad is only a 32-bit machine And the 44 pin IDE two and a half inch Drive, I actually found refurbished drives and I had not seen those in a long time but in between finding those I found a CF adapter and I found an M2 adapter and I actually got an M.2 stick with a forty-four pin end and that works really well and I am shocked how fast the machine is for being so old. I am debating selling because I don't know if I will ever need one again but it is heavy and bulky with that docking station and it is a great machine to have if you need something like what I'm using it for but otherwise I can't imagine what someone would use it for and I don't know why especially the 386 machines are selling for such a high amount of money When it comes to needing a 9-pin serial Port there are Pentium machines and I even think there are dual Pentium machines that have a 9-pin Serial Port that you can boot from USB and get a true DOS Environment. So, why the 386 and 486 are so expensive, I don't understand You can buy a new laptop for what you have to spend on an old 386 to get it up and running. And that is if you can get the parts.

Been looking all your videos. Something oddly satisfying enjoying these older systems coming to life. Keep it going dude. I’m a fan. :)

oh wow! I'm only 2 minutes in, this is gonna be awesome!! Fridays are the best now!

Great videos Mike, I used to do the exact same thing back in the late 90's and early 2000's!! You've got a new subscriber in me. I was always very meticulous about cleaning out these older PC's, even before the first boot attempt!

this is one of the mike tech episodes ever released.

Great video I had the Compaq desktop computer, they were a handy machine to be honest.

I would assume the repeating first part of any wave sound is an IRQ issue... I loved Compaq back in the day, have a few deskpro and LTE 386 and a 286 and wish I kept more from back then!

My very first computer was the Compaq 386S back in 1997 / 1998. DOS 6.2 with Windows 3.1, all installed via 3.5 floppy disk!

cool stuff someone should get you protective gloves for this 🤣 also the notch on the back of the last Compaq wasn't just for locking it shut but also to lock it down to a desk.

I have a twenty pin adapter for that small Compaq power supply. Compaq was the only puters I ran onto that used it.

Great video. Would love to see a packard bell one with 3 or 4 systems

I remeber made maintenance in friend computer back then. Those compaqs are a nightmare to dissamble, and hurts every skin in my arm.

Sitting in a parking lot for 2hrs now waiting for a seller to show up. Good thing someone is here to keep me company EDIT: 4hrs still no show... EDIT nr 2: Finally got a hold of the seller after 6hrs of waiting and 10hrs of driving I got myself a NoS complete IBM Aptiva 2140 system. For $250..

Always happy when a new video comed out! Edit: Any updates with the TRS-80s?

That 2240 was the first pc I ever owned on my own. Can confirm those built-in speakers were incredible for the time. Mine had a "pentium with MMX technology." It played lots of games really well. FF7 pc. Quake 2 and doom. Tomb raider. Diablo 2 😊

I had a dell dimension of some type from around 2002, the first computer my family got that me and my father didn't piece together from scraps... It had a switch that wouldn't allow it to boot if the side panel was off as well.

I see you've got a Klingon language pack on that second Compaq. 🤣

I keep forgetting to comment! I love the 2240 with it’s weird built in speakers, I love compaq for its different ideas. You should do a mini 3dfx build for system 2, and that thing (I think) on the back of it is most likely for a medical device, like a ultrasound machine. I want a Creative Modemblaster! Love your videos!

I got 2 of the last system in 2003 new old stock, both were actually shipped with Pentium 233MHz MMX, Not AMD Plus 32 Mb RAM. I still have one of them somewhere around. I think my original Restore disk was Win98/SE. I did a few upgrades back then, like, BIOS, 64 Mb RAM, 20 gig Hdd, Lite-on DVD/CD burner, 8Mb PCI Video card, and TV Card. And yes, the speakers sounded really good back the as I can remember.

Been ages since I messed with something like this. Spent many hours on these old things.

That Power Supplies Form Factor looks like a standard SFX type. You can get them relatively easy, though they are a bit more than standard ATX.

YES! Compaq’s are my jam. I’ve given up trying to figure out why. I is what I is

The bike on the motherboard is a Cannondale Jekyll. It was well known for that front fork with a single leg.

The second one could’ve been a front desk computer at a private practice and the solenoid was there for scanning cards or a signing tablet.

I had a Compaq 5410 nearly identical in appearance to the 5460 in the video, from PeoplePC in 2000. Wish I still had it.

I have the earlier Compaq Deskpro upgraded to Pentium 233MMX, and with a Voodoo2 3D gfx card!(i do have another Voodoo2 if i wanted to fit to run in SLI!!) Plus i have a Compaq Prolinea 4/33S upgraded to a 486DX2/66!!

21:54 PROPER paste job!

When I think of Compaq, I always think about their early "suitcase" computers. Basically like an old-timey suitcase, you'd lay it on its side with the handle away from you, and the bottom would come off and had a keyboard inside it. Inside the case there was a little 5" monochrome monitor, with one or two floppy drives beside it. I always assumed this was the "Compact" computer, and the basis for their name.

I'd still track down some IDE flash modules to run on those in the future for the sake of long-term reliability.

The solenoid is a lid locker for the second compaq machine in the video I had a PC like it and it's controlled by the bios to lock and unlock the cover on the PC...sadly the one I had blown its PSU and wouldn't start back up Though it also had windows XP and a internal speaker for audio but used older style RAM

12:35 - I think some of the infamy from ZIP drive reliability comes from the portable drives. They seem generally reliable in my experience as well. I have heard that one potential common source of failure is the power brick on portable drives delivering fatal voltages. Couple this with the likelihood of the clacking heads trashing the disks and this is where rumors start. At university, every computer lab had Dell machines with ZIP drives and ZIP was the preferred file transfer format for assignments. I don't recall ever losing any data on ZIP disks throughout my school term, even when I worked for the campus IT department.

I remember looking at one of those Compaq 2240 styled PC. It was rough shape compared to that. One thing that irked me with Compaq. The model number changed if it had a faster CPU or extra memory. I've restored some with another model numbers restore disc. As long as the chipset is the same. All the drivers should match up. Funny you mentioned the Lucent modem. I worked for them for a short time around 1999-2001 time frame.

Great video, again. A system that I would like to find again it's the Epson ActionTower series (i486 - I have had the AT5000), it seems they disappeared from the internet as it's so difficult to source fo one. Cheers, M

I love old Compaq's and I have a bunch of them, but that Presario 2200 series never crossed my hands... I need One! Best regards from Portugal

I had a compact desk pro and a gateway essential

Had the first one back in the day, dunno the model number tho as there were different models that had the same chassis. Played a lot of Edutainment games on that thing back in the day such as some Disney, Dr. Seuss, Living Books, Freddi Fish, etc. And no joke, we had the EXACT SAME wallpaper LOL! I miss it tbh!

S1, I had hard drives that sounded like that back in the 90s

The Creative Modem Blaster was my first really good modem. It was only a 14.4 but my gosh did it work well. Maybe being good at sound processing was also useful for modem sound.

I still have one of those deskpro SFFs, along with its older P2 brother, had both a good 15 years. Yours is missing the motherboard mounting tray. they top out at a 1ghz coppermine and 512mb SD, PSU really struggles to deal with a second hdd and I didnt even dare try a pci gpu. Definitely a pretty cool little system for its time.

The Solo-1 does have an onboard OPL-2 clone, and it's actually a very good one: ESFM. The chip is wired in through the PCI bus but it in general is really compatible and may well also be linked via the PC-PCI (aka SBLINK) pins on the chipset. If so, you're talking ISA level compatibility.