I remember as a kid feeling like an expert after using a Restore CD on my Packard Bell, I even somehow managed to borrow my aunts Windows 98 Restore CD at one point and get that running on my Windows 95 model (I remember terms such as 'tattoo'!), fast forward 20 or so years and I now work in IT building images to deploy across 4000+ devices, funny how life turned out :)

The reason for the encoder/decoder software was that back then sending binary file attachments by e-mail or usenet newsgroups was a complicated mess. You'd often have to encode the file from binary into text and paste into the e-mail/news post, or copy paste text from an e-mail/news post and decode it into a file again yourself. So nice of them to include that.

That is a very cool-looking computer for its day and time. Really wish that someone brought back that type of concept today.

I love that that computer had a mascot, I wish companies still did that today.

I love when computers have mascots that show up in the instruction manual and stuff, really neat looking packaging

From your keyboard a decade ago to installing the software today this must feel accomplishing

Hey there, I know others have mentioned their takes on Mindspring & Eudora but I'll put in my two cents. I'm a wee bit older and was a professional based in Chicago, then in Indianapolis back in the early 90's through the late 80's and traveled the country a lot for business. Mindspring was great for me because they had phone numbers you could connect to just about everywhere you could go in the U.S. for those that are too young, that was most often not the case with most other isp's. If you traveled a lot and didn't have an isp with access in lots of places (both cities and rural), you'd likely have to pay hundreds of dollars in long distance telephone calls in order to do what you needed to do. Also, most other isp's that were national, and had decent coverage had front ends you had to go though which really made it a pain to get things done. It took away a competent end user's ability to set up their own user experience their own way enabling the most freedom possible. Ministering allowed you to do this. Sure you could use the rich package they gave you if you wanted, but you also could simply set up a dial in only, and you'd be good to go. For me, the only other major players for widespread national access without a bunch of built in unavoidable front end isp garbage was AT&T or EarthLink. Bothe AT&T and EarthLink cost a lot more for the ips flat rate. Ministering was very cheap for what you got. Finally regarding isp's in general, not all connections isp's provided were the same. Some isp's only offered low baud connections in certain towns, with other towns have much higher baud connections. At least with AT&T, EarthLink or Mindspring you could count on pretty high baud rates throughout the country. Other national providers had some sub 2400 baud connections only, and if you were stuck with them, downloads or general web surfing for simple things could take half a day or more. So baud rate and access were very important. Regarding Eudora, it was one of the very best email clients out back in the day. It was very deep and full featured compared to most other email clients. I certainly used it whether I was with Mindspring or other isp's back in the day. Excellent video MJD otherwise. Thanks as always for your good work!

I used to have this system and I upgraded it from a Pentium 100mhz to AMD K5 133mhz, 8MB ram to 32mb, and removed the ISA network card and installed a ISA soundcard that I could do midi triggering (ESS audiodrive). I installed Windows 95B with USB support and I changed the default desktop to an alternate desktop shell called Litestep to make it LOOK like LINUX window manager Enlightenment Blue Steel Theme. I changed the boot screen to a custom one that featured Enlightenment and a Technos Pi synthesizer picture. The system was nice but sadly I sold it years ago.

Interesting, the Wayback Machine website has backup of the Monorail website dating back as far as 1997.

That networking package is pretty cool. I bet the encoder was to get warez from Usenet and IRC :) the early days of MP3 file sharing encoded them into text strings to be shared in private groups/rooms!

The monitor looks decent enough for its age….oh those trailers take me back to when I tried using early laptops though. Also hearing a younger person react to 90s ISP names is peak KZfaq.

I am a 13 year old who loves tech, and your channel has taught me so much! Great work!

Everytime I hear the word: "Monorail", it reminds me of that Simpson song: "Mono-d'oh!"

Congratulations for finding this owner's kit. And thanks to the donor, who helps making this Monorail video series more interesting!

That computer introduction program is so awesome, I love it.

Mindspring acquired, er, merged with Earthlink, then got subsumed into Earthlink (possibly because Mindspring's support sucked, and it didn't fly as primary branding). The Mindspring branding was then used for VOIP, then dropped entirely. Earthlink of course still exists.

Google tells me that "Run-time error '380'" is from Visual Basic, error 380 is "Invalid Property Value", which is... pretty vague. Presumably it's trying to set up something, like laying out the main window, and it's trying to set a value to something that isn't accepted. My point-in-the-dark guess is that there's a config file missing or empty or something, that's supposed to control some aspect of how this window looks, so it's setting stuff up with invalid nonsense as a result. Like, maybe it loads the list of applications to show in the UI from a config file, and if the config is missing it tries to show the UI with zero applications in it, and that breaks. Or something, idk.

MJD you gotta let us know if you ever do get the mouse for this system. I’d love to know if you are able to complete the whole collection

I like how they use a mall as an analogy for the internet. Ironic when you realize that the internet basically killed off malls.

When I was a kid, MindSpring and then EarthLink was our first ISP until we finally got cable internet “for school”. I can remember it taking hours to download a game patch or mod and it taking hours even longer if someone picked up the phone and tried to make a call.

The custom Monorail software (bot the installer and their launcher) looks like it is using Borland's custom controls. Microsoft didn't introduce standard progress bars until Windows 95 so they must have thought the slider was a good enough alternative.

Well, sir, there's nothing on earth like a genuine, bonafide, electrified Windows 95 PC!

I’m not gonna lie this has been the most interesting video I have watched in my life! Thank you MJD! Also make sure to keep that kit could come in handy 😀

Eudora mail was huge back then, my dad used that along with Netscape at the workplace.

Eudora was the mail client we used in school back in the day, so that brings back memories. I also remember many mindspring web sites, one of many alternatives to geocities back then. Great nostalgia!

this guy deserves more subscribers

Dang how rare is that. I have never even seen one. Freakin cool. I bet LGR is drooling over this right now.

The Home station program functions like the Launcher program on early versions of MacOS its just a Shortcut panel

hey man you're really awesome for uploading this to archive.

As someone who lived in Marietta most of my life. I remember seeing these around growing up.

I'm just astounded that someone can make a video about restoring a computer entertaining.

Moe sounds a lot like Tom Kenny as he voiced Heffer in Rocko's Modern Life.

glad to see more of this topic

"This was a complete success" - rare words for an mjd video, haha

Many programs bring back memories of the frustrating but exciting days of the net.

Thanks Mo for this video! :)

DUUUUUUUDE MINDSPRING!!!!! My teenage years brought back to life!

I've been a power user of Forté Agent back when Usenet was popular - a nice reminder of those times 🙂 The company and software are actually still around.

Amazing, Monorail predicted new becoming a form of entertainment in the future, which is now.

MindSpring was an ISP based in Atlanta and was actually a major player at one point before merging with EarthLink. My parents had MindSpring as our first ISP.

when you opened the ping program i got a notification on discord wth

New MJD video has made my Tuesday for sure.

Pretty sure that phone cord info sheet was a hand photo copied last minute addition, hence the sloppy angle.

NEW MJD video. Made my Tuesday

Things I learned from this video: New things are added to the internet every day! New things are added to the internet every day! New things are added to the internet every day! New things are added to the internet every day!

12:25 - 12:45 I love this part of kicking the HD into SSD mode while adding some cool music to the mix also 6 days ago was the founding of company 26 years ago if Wikipedia is to believed 😅

Windows 3.1 SDK widgets don't include a progress bar. Not specifically anyway. The slider is a good way of back-porting 95 widgets to 3.1, that's actually really clever.

The perfect video to make my day!

Surprised you got your hands on that so quickly.

So rad that you found the recovery disk. Really makes this machine extra cool to check out!

nicely done

Michael MJD videos are always such a treat to watch!

This is amazing

"Hello Everybody" ah never gets old

How would one go about archiving an ISO? I have a Compaq Presario and I am very paranoid that my restore disk might be ummm degrading it is after all the second one. I've ripped ISO off before but I've also had weird issues with Games and other discs that refuse to duplicate properly to the virtual domain. I Usually use ImgBurn.

I was hoping to see the CD-ROM drive eject tool that LGR demonstrated with his Monorail computer! It's a taskbar icon that opens and closes the CD-ROM drive tray automatically without the need to physically press on the eject button

That was quick! Being only a few days after your video on the Monorail and the mention that you bought a Restore Disc. Its a good thing that you and LGR archive software discs, especially the more rare recovery media for specific computers.

I have one of the old Monorail desktop towers, the 366mhz Celeron model. It was a no thrills PC, with not much "bloat ware" which is something I liked. Runs Win98. I put in a SD to IDE drive. Need to replace the power supply due to power surge a awhile back. (Let's hope it still works) Bought at a Best Buy in Huntsville, Alabama in 1999

My sister just said you sounded like Kevin Flynn from Tron. Yeah, we got another you sound like comment, but at least this one is definitely positive and even makes some sense.

Completely forgot about the monorail until this popped up on youtube recommendations

LView PRO!!! WHAT! Havent seen that in forever dude..

It's possible that this Owner's Kit did originally come with Monorail computers in the first place.

The one answer I was looking for you didn't mention...where did you find the restore disk at?!

just uploaded today, cool vid!

i could have sworn clint from lgr had the compleat package with the restore disk.

Windows 3.1 also had title centered and it looks kinda like Windows 11 in low color mode and the options are all grouped in that left side menu

Question: Is your archive served on a 64k ISDN connection??

its crazy to think that the irc program would probably still work if you somehow connected this thing to the internet. there are multiple IRC networks out there such as Libera Chat.

Michael your channel and videos make me happy! 😊

I called the Mindspring phone number as seen in the booklet in the vid, and a recording said “Hi! Welcome to EarthLink. To set up a new Internet connection…” I haven’t done any research as of yet, but it looks like they may have just been re-branded. Edit: Yep, looks like on Wikipedia the two companies merged in February of 2000.

Hooray!

Would be fascinating if you talk about Microsoft Encarta!

New vidio I love when you make videos like this Michal so I have something to look forward to after school.

Moe is awesome. :)

Could you emulate this to 86box if you know how to emulate old machines like this?

Eudora was the e-mail program I used back in 1994-2000.

That was very quick!

sooo cool

What bios is that at 9:54? Never seen that type of bios before!

6:10 Mindspring has merged with EarthLink

18:54 half-life reference... yep

i just love how in unity, all progress bars are kinda sliders

I just had the best 29 minutes of my day

Is your archive page MJD also or it’s under a different name??

could you extract bios rom dump?

It's a great day at MindSpring!

Surprised you haven’t heard of the Eudora email client. It’s a classic. Along with Pegasus from the same era.

NEW THINGS ARE ADDED TO THE INTERNET EVERY DAY

I was thinking of getting this computer to try out the internet for the first time

Mindspring is still around! They were acquired/merged by Earthlink!

Hey, Micheal! I have an old teach yourself windows 3.1 book that is in excellent condition and an Excel 5 The Philippines Edition book from 1992

I think LGR's pants dropped when this was made.

Nice

the tutorial video was moving to a new section, and i was multitasking and not watching the screen, and all of a sudden usher’s “yeah” started playing and for a second i thought it was the monorail tutorial. turns out it was just an ad for ross.

10:43 is that OS/2?

it looks like they took left over laptop stuff and put it in an all in one pc for the time. Like last generations stuff that was left over at the time.

micheal, where is compaq pc restoration part two??

I remember those burning fast loads

at 21:10 is all the information true?

The followup!