LGR - The Packard Bell Corner Computer

Ha! And it seems someone made an offer and bought it. How silly.

LGR

That monitor and speakers... I love it! It came with my PB Club 30 in 1997, but minus those small buttons

Woz Brown

Well, that explains this this eBay listing, lol showed up in my usual vintage computer and parts search! https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lgr-Corner-computer-packard-bell-Make-an-offer/184534702315?hash=item2af72018eb:g:zOIAAOSwZDdfruJG

EJ22

Perfectly prepared and great content as always LGR

Seth C

It's a strange design choice. putting a pc in a corner is not really great because you will look at the monitor at an angle. I got a office desk from my parents once, where you placed the monitor in the corner. Doesn't take long before your neck hurts.

Uncleawesome

Remote Doom was even better than I expected. Next AGDQ category right there.

MrFortyFive

If it was mine, that's definitely what I'd do! That and a hard disk upgrade.

LGR

This system deserves a SoundBlaster or a good clone equivalent. Wonder if a VooDoo 2 would be a good idea, I would assume the CPU would bottleneck it.

Annabella Williams

That's one of the later revisions of the Legend 125! Similar to the one I had as a kid, mine was a Legend 700 :)

LGR

Packard Bell concerned about thermals, ahh, the very idea cracks me up 😁 But yeah, an angled cord would've been nice. Though they'd have to do that with all the other cords too in order for it to be effective because those stick out even farther!

LGR

Oh neat, didn't know that there was another one from them in that vein! Kinda like MECC's Opening Night and American Girls Premiere being the same thing.

LGR

I've got one of those Aptivas, haha. The weird desktop part that goes underneath the monitor didn't hold up well over time in terms of the plasticky pop-up mechanism, but the idea is awesome.

LGR

It truly boggles the mind with what they were trying to pull off here but seemingly didn't put any real thought into it. Or, more likely that they did, but the bean counters and other cost-reducing things got in the way and it ended up a compromised vision of corner PC.

LGR

That's impressive they still work, as the speaker connections have all gone a bit crappy on the ones I've used! And yeah I've seen some teardowns of the keyboard, it looks nuts inside since it doesn't use a single membrane sheet and relies on those individual domes. It's earned a bit of a cult following as a result though, it's really not bad to type on for a dome board.

LGR

That's very close to what my first PC was -- a PB Legend 486 DX-2! Mine was a 33MHz though with a whopping 4MB of RAM. Lovely machine, I miss it.

LGR

Which model PB was it that you stacked on top of the corner computer in the beginning of the video? It looks a lot like the one I had as a kid.

Patrick ODonnell

I absolutely love that you did this PB video. I think most of us 90's kids had a PB, or something similar. I got mine at Sears after bugging my mom for over a year. What's the big deal, Mom? It's only $3,200 and you have a Sears card, right?! ;) Mine was a 486 DX-2/66.... A real powerhouse back in 93!

Patrick ODonnell

MEMORIES!!!! I didn't have the corner computer, but I got the normally-shaped model for Christmas in 95. 75Mhz Pentium, 8MB of RAM... They shipped me a recovery CD that was a dupe of their Packard Bell Navigator CD so I lost some of the drivers.. Had the same funky power button too. Ended up installing Windows 3.1 on it cuz I thought 95 sucked at first :P The speakers are actually still hooked up to my grandma's modern PC right now... They just sit horizontally behind her monitor and still work. That mouse was horrible and the keyboard was a bitch to take apart. The individual plastic domes went everywhere :P

Jason Wellband

Heh, yeah a lot of full screen programs really hate it.

LGR

Likewise. It really is just a basic system with a silly case, a missed opportunity!

LGR

Gross to look at, to touch, and also in the way it accrues grime. Those ridges love to collect waves of greasy hand stuff.

LGR

The moment you showed the middle bit was a piece which could be removed, it was kind of the Emperor's New Clothes moment on this machine. The idea of a machine optimised for corner setups is neat, but I think there needed to be a bunch of thought with this, and that ain't quite the case here at all. A shame the aesthetics triumphed over the functionality, but I guess that's 90's design at it's most 90's!

Rob Caporetto

I remember selling those when I were an apprentice at a Computer store in Copenhagen. Male customers didn't get the design and didn't want it, but their wife's did, so we knew we had to connect to the wife, to make a sale.

Because Why-Nerd

Ha! Yeah I'll have to add that real quick :P

LGR

the grey center part comes off.. Mind blown.!!.. Packard bell had all sorts of gimmicks didn't they. If I remember correctly at this time they also had a dual CD-Rom model of the corner pc that I thought was pretty nifty as a lad. My favorite mid 90s case design was the IBM APTIVA S which was a weird cross between a tower and a desktop. My least favorite were the blue greenish rounded ACERs. Interesting times.

Jacob Nelson

That Spider-Man Cartoon Maker looks identical to Magic Theatre, another Knowledge Adventure thing. Except, y'know, with Spider-Man stuff instead of generic kids' stuff.

Tim

What blows my mind is that they didn't ship this with a 90-degree power cable. That would have solved so many issues. However - maybe pushing this beast flush against a corner wouldn't be the best idea for thermals. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Doug McArthur

I kinda hoped to see you play Doom with that remote lol :D

Akselmo

What an interesting looking machine. Agree with you that it's baffling that they didn't recess the cable sockets in the back so it could actually fit in a corner! Still it's an interesting design and very much a product of the 90's!

Andrew Siddall

Still repairing my Pack-Mate 28 Plus (got so many DOA boards that never worked after doing a lot of treatments) and hoping for the board I ordered on eBay works. It's my Ultimate Sound Card machine and my two cards I've used in the Packard Bell are all in my 386DX/486DLC machine for the time being until I get the Packard Bell fixed.

The on screen volume control was always an excellent way to crash your games quickly!

Cyclone

I am slightly disappointed it didn't have a strangely shaped motherboard

Garoninja

I remember my old boss had one of these on his desk. It wasn't in the corner... it just sat in the middle (without the ribbed monitor adapter) :) SO retro. That mouse was gross, too. :)

James Taylor

Encarta 97 is top-notch. Mind Maze and all those full-motion video clips.

LGR

Haha, yes. With a bit of Aztek thrown in. Or, Aztech in this case perhaps.

LGR

Hope it was worth the wait! I know it was for me.

LGR

That certainly makes it good enough for me as well, heh. Do you remember the machine's annoying proprietary drive rails? This one's missing them unfortunately, really makes upgrading floppy and optical drives a massive pain.

LGR

Aw yeah, 3D Dinosaur Adventure and Body Adventure. Classics.

LGR

You never saw it comiiinnnng

LGR

Thanks again for the assistance, Billy! It's been a blast to mess around with.

LGR

Heck yeah, it's a prime example of the beginning of that transitionary period. Post-MPC but pre-HTPC.

LGR

I love those kinda programs. Last one I covered was American Girls Premiere, hoping to get to Movie Maker eventually!

LGR

It looks cool now! I miss when programs used such blatant real world metaphors in their visual design.

LGR

Forever in debt to your priceless advice right there.

LGR

Wow, didn't expect a former owner of one to show up already! Neat. Now I'm curious how many others will show up once this goes live.

LGR

Haha, it was one of the very first notes I took down for the script. "--Talk yourself into a corner about something."

LGR

Oh, that "talked myself into a corner" goof is both good and also caused me pain, absolutely fantastic.

Valora Inverse

I think that hard drive would drive me nuts after 15 minutes with the noise it makes. Seeing the Spider Man cartoon program makes want to see what's your take on 3d Movie Maker

Hernando Heilbron

Man I think what's so cool about this era is how PCs were starting to be thought of as entertainment centers. Multimedia was this new thing and it was very cool and futuristic to think of using your computer for playing music and, gasp, watching video! This corner PC really capitalizes on that concept and epitomizes the era. And of course adding a Voodoo was the right thing to do.

Nathan (PixelPipes)

Oh man Audiostation... That takes me back. I thought it was so cool back then.

Jason Dupree

This computer comes in a heart-shaped box? Hey, wait. I got a new complaint...

Steve Lovelace

Was so excited to see this! A few clarifications. To make this computer even more strange, it's actually a Canadian model! It really doesn't make it any different from a U.S. model, except for the "CAN" sticker on the back. Also, in regards to the Windows 3.1 apps in the Start Menu, Packard Bell used the exact program group layout on their 3.1 and 95 machines. Even though this computer came pre-installed with Windows 95, Packard Bell didn't get around to updating a few things on their end. Anyway, I just loved everything about this video, not just because this was literally my computer, but the way you gave your thoughts on it. And yes, I played a TON of Spiderman Cartoon Maker as a kid on my childhood Packard Bell so seeing that brought back some memories. Anyway, so glad you enjoyed spending time with it. It's one of the greatest computers I've ever owned, next to my childhood Packard Bell.

Billy Coore

24:44 - congrats you turned passport.mid into Persona 5 music

Curus Keel

Oh I had two Packard Bell PCs growing up as my first two PCs (not counting my Tandy TRS-80). We had a Windows 3.1 version where the monitor sat on top of the case. Then we also had a Windows 95 tower. I remember ours came with red and blue 3D glasses and had a Save the Dinosaurs game and Medical game. Also that Spiderman Cartoon Maker was the BEST growing up! I was just glad that I could play Tie Fighter on my Packard Bell PCs back in the day. Oh the fond memories....

fatproduce

The Fiat Multipla of computing history 😶

Max Grobecker

I definitely remember these. I had to service quite a few of them at my job in the computer store between 1999 and 2005. Granted, they were already used and several years old by that point. But I always wondered what the attraction was to the "corner" design being it wasn't really advantageous in anyway other than it was eye-catching. And maybe from a marketing standpoint, that's all that mattered? But yeah, it was certainly a capable Duke 3D machine, and that's good enough for me!

The 8-Bit Guy

To add to your GOG example in terms of a modern "virtual bookshelf,"; launchbox comes to mind, with box art and all. This video reminds me of the good old Packard bell I had with a 200mhz and 32mb of ram (later updated to 64). We got it in late 97 with win 95 and the Kidz zone software suite like the older Packard bell video and Encarta 97!

Mark Balcerak

Holy cow. I had been wanting to see this thing in action since I saw the "strangest computers" video. This falls under the category of "computers I really would have wanted when I was younger because they look cool, without realizing that they're horrible in practicality."

TroyTakesPhotos

0:19 a REAL thing that sold for REAL money when it was REALeased in the fall of 1995

bee !!

Oh man, that was the first "pc" we got when I was a kid. 75 MHz Pentium, 8 MB of RAM (my current desktop has four times as much L3 cache!), 1.2 GB hard drive, the silly remote, FM tuner card... That thing lived a long life, and turned into my project PC when we got a new one for the family. It had a lot of weird issues but still mostly worked for a good long time. I don't remember what was the ultimate fate of it, but I eventually sourced an Overdrive and some more RAM for it second-hand (probably from old computers at my high school). Good memories!

Elbrar