LGR - The 1997 $5,399 Laptop: Gateway Solo 2200

Did you try the TV port on the side? As a kid I used to mess with a bunch of VGA to TV adapters in the hopes of someday getting a monitor as big as a television :)

SNDTST

Well Clint, thanks to you I've bought a Gateway 9300 off eBay. At the time it was the only Gateway Solo on the UK site. £23 plus £5 postage. I've no real info on the specs... pretty sure it's a 15" screen, a Pentium 3 and it has a multitude of I/O inc. FireWire, USB1.1, composite in and out... Can't wait for it to arrive and install Need For Speed III!

Stuart Marshall

Also the Dell Latitude CP has almost all the same features as this Gateway 2000 laptop, such as the modular bays and the docking feature. Even as someone who personally didn't get into laptops until the mid-2000's, it's still a joy to look at.

I wasn't aware of the MMX processors, and as soon as you started telling about it, I realized my Dell Latitude CP laptop has one clocked at 233MHz. It's pretty sweet for DOS gaming. I'll get a video of it playing Duke 3D up in a while.

I'm so disgusted by Youtube's "whatever" behavior to this. I'm happy to support you and your videos, and this one was truly interesting! I wish the best for your future of the channel and your videos.

SammyToesis

I know what you mean! Most of my Win9x machines don't even run it, the game is just shockingly hard to get working 100%.

LGR

I think the thing I'm most jealous of is that you have a PC that runs POD with no problems :o I have the original CD but I can't even get the GOG version to run. Someday...

Peter Metzger

Really sorry to hear about the ad system. It's really been a problem with the YT community, and I'm glad we the fans can support you this way too.

Ah wow.. I remember fixing older models of Gateway solos back in the late 90s/early 2000's when I used to do tech support... cool stuff.. amazing how pricey that model was back then! o_O

Evan B

Those are really cool looking machines I think, despite the lackluster screen!

LGR

Very little! They pretty much all have dead batteries and don't come with an AC adapter, so I just had to grab a generic $10 unit to power it on. And then I added a hard drive since the one I got didn't come with one, and that was $7. However, the 2100 I picked up came with absolutely everything, including a carry case, tons of extra software and peripherals, power adapter, and more for $30 total.

LGR

Watching this motivated me to pull out my vintage 1992 Gateway Nomad 325SXL. It still runs! Proving your point about the lightning fast pace of obsolesces: it rocks an 80MB HD, 4MB of RAM, and a 1.4MB Floppy. The passive LCD grayscale VGA was okay for text, but bad for games. But I still felt like a king--especially considering I bought it with money I saved throughout high school.

Retro Viator

Hunh... If these things are so cheap on eBay I may want to snap one up at some point to replace my seriously aging and barely working P120 Toshiba laptop. How much fixing-up did you need to do and how much did you have to spend on extra bits for the laptops you showed here?

Kris Asick

Youtube really needs to get it's act together. Seriously, saying that your videos aren't family friendly really shows they have no idea about their own platform.

Bryndal Dwyre

What trips me up if I stop and think about it is the phone I am using to type this comment can run circles around any PC or laptop from back then. Who would have ever thought that would happen?

Matt Cain

Thanks a lot :)

LGR

It is much appreciated!

LGR

Hadn't noticed I passed that either! Must've happened in the past couple days. Thanks :)

LGR

I hope I can get to that point someday myself! But at this point it's still very much a requirement to make a living where I'm at these days. Always looking to the future to try and plan ahead though in the worst case scenario

LGR

👍

LGR

Thanks a lot :)

LGR

Thank you!

LGR

Yeah, I really dig this era of chunky laptop

LGR

Nice!

LGR

Yeah, times are weird indeed. But we'll make it work :)

LGR

Really hoping you don't have to deal with it! I've seen plenty of channels with way more innocuous videos getting flagged the past 24 hours, it seems random

LGR

Nice! Was it a pretty good price by then?

LGR

Many thanks!

LGR

As with all these early video releases, it's not public so not everything has been added yet :)

LGR

Is it me, or are the thumbnails for your other videos missing at the end?

Gary Leigh

80 megs of RAM? *jaw drops*

Gary Leigh

I'll totally support everything you do until the end man. *queue Fry shut up and take my money gif*

Justin Dotson

I ordered that same laptop in 1998. Gateway offered credit and my 19 year old self jumped on the oppertunity. It came with a global modem pcmcia card.

Matt Standish

I did not realize until just now that this has been a problem for you. I have so far not had any issues with it.

The 8-Bit Guy

Wow, amazing laptop! Kinda puts the modern monster I'm eyeballing into perspective! And that demonetization crap is just pathetic on Youtube's part. Your content has been less controversial then Boogie2988, and he's considered one of the nicest "tough talkers" on the site!

Got myself a "new" digital friend too, a Lifebook B142, as can be seen in this little tweet over here: <a href="https://twitter.com/bastetfurry/status/898528822471131136" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/bastetfurry/status/898528822471131136</a> (Would post the picture directly, but Patreons board can not into image uploads, sadly...)

BastetFurry

Cool looking laptop, So chunky!

always glad to support you. i still dont understand why you are not family friendly even though your content is for everyone :/. keep up the great work!

TempleTurkey

Ugh, YouTube. Upped my pledge a bit! Looking forward to more computing, more places.

Taras Young

As my main source of non interactive visual entertainment it's only fair to contribute!

Youtube is apparently prejudiced against old computer hardware. :V Seriously though, I saw your post yesterday and I was all like "wut". Out of all the channels I watch, yours is one of the most clean cut. No drama, No BS, just giving detailed information on old hardware, old games, and thrifting for old hardware and games (the circle is complete). Bah, at least me (and the other patrons) decided to say F'U to Youtube's ad schemes and just support your directly. Also, taking a look, holy crap, never knew you knew you made it past $5k. Congrats. :D

The Enforcer

I hope that, at some point, your income from Patreon and other (non-restricting) sources will be enough for you. Ad companies are incredibly sensitive to anything because they are always in the middle of the chain: they're not producing anything that people want to see, and in the end they're not in control of how and how often their 'displays' are shown. I've noticed firsthand, at a company that I worked at, how utterly debilitating the reliance on 'media agencies' and 'ad salesmen' can be. YouTube seems to be pandering to this group of hot air salespeople ("Not suitable for all advertisers". Yes, we must protect these poor, poor companies.) All this is, of course, their choice. but I do hope that you can do well without YouTube.

It's all about the Pentiums, baby.

That wood grain instead of black bars around standard definition media. I approve.

Garoninja

Sucks about YouTube, but please hang in there Clint. I upped my pledge to $5 yesterday because by golly you've earned it.

David S. Grop

Thank you! Kim is awesome too, was happy to appear in the Duke Nukem Forever episode <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfV4rI_gR1g" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfV4rI_gR1g</a>

LGR

After Kim justice said you were a very cool person I had to become a patreon.

Iain Roberts