This 1996 PC Was Obsolete Before You Got It Home: AST Advantage 622

Unboxing and testing a minty AST Advantage 600 series! A lower-end Windows 95 desktop computer from the mid 90s that bundled lots of software and games with a 100MHz Intel Pentium CPU and a whopping… 8 megabytes of RAM. Whee. Let's get this one up and running for (maybe) the first time!

● LGR links:

● Archived images of the model 622 restoration media:

● ISO images of the Mayo Clinic/Bellybutton and Eco East Africa discs:

● All background music licensed from:

00:00 An intro and overview
02:28 AST Research history
05:26 Unboxing the PC!
12:41 The computer itself
14:27 Inside the case, battery check
17:42 A light cleaning
18:02 First power on!
20:49 Windows 95 setup
22:06 AST OEM software
25:10 Hover!
26:05 MIDI music test
26:58 More AST bundled software
28:56 Microphone test – it's awful
29:21 Fun & Learning...?
29:58 Data disc, AVI files
30:33 Eco: East Africa
32:06 Mayo Clinic
32:57 What is a Bellybutton?
34:20 Welp, lots of things don't work
35:30 Oregon Trail II
37:13 Raptor Call of the Shadows
39:08 Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition
42:04 WinQuake
44:17 Tomb Raider for DOS
46:14 Valuing the undervalued, outro

#LGR #Retro #Computer

[kFY]

You have to admit, with 90s computers you could spend HOURS just exploring preinstalled OEM software or other random stuff you had on some CD-ROM that was included with some magazine or you got

Nowadays you have all that on the web, but the experience that you could actually go through everything from A to Z and still feel that everything is so vast, was so magical. Good times.

[notinspectorgadget]

12:14
Yep. That's going in the "remember and then chuckle" section of the ol' brain. Thanks LGR!

[matthewfrancis]

This was my first computer. I got my from the PX(AAFES) in Seoul Korea in early 1997. Before that I was using an electronic typewriter. Definitely an upgrade.

[toms]

Win95 startup jingle hits as hard as the PS1. I'm just glad our first computer could run the games without a hiccup.

[wills.]

My very first PC was an AST Advantage! I got it in 1994. It had a 33Mhz processor! Made by Texas Instruments. Yes. The same people that make calculators. Hahaha. It had to buy a processor upgrade to even get it to play mp3's. And it still wouldn't run Starcraft without tons of lag. I got the processor up to 90Mhz with the upgrade. Ahhhh. The good old days. 🤣🤣

[bigmadmans]

man this thing is my childhood we use this thing right up until 2005 I think

[dormcat]

0:41 Those specs were very nice in 1994, below average in 1995, and really outdated in 1996.

[SandaBoxing]

I remember when an 80mb hard drive used to cost $900. I was so happy that years later it went down to $500 and I bought one.

[aztexadventure]

I worked at AST back in the day with David M. that was a dog computer it needed a bigger HDD and more Memory, 8MB EDO non-Parity 60ns 5v 72-Pin SIMM Memory Module it probably came populated with two 4MB sticks. Upgrade the Memory get a larger HDD and the sound card was basically sound blaster compatible. Biggest complaint on that computer was; hey I only have 300MB of disk space left on the HDD. First call to tech support was basically how do I turn off spot and what memory do I need to get. Brings back a lot of memories for sure. It was the cheap version of that computer less RAM and a small HDD to lower the price for the end user. We on the support lines kept shacking our heads on the the choice of a small HDD and not enough memory, but AST was not very good at listening to Tech support.

[videosuperhighway]

Whats insane is when that machine was selling A Cray 32cpu T90 provided 57 gigaflops and cost over 35 million dollars and weighed like 9 tons.

just the gaming videocards of today blow that system out of the water. Its amazing being able to run the same simulations in real time today that took batch processing time on a cray to then be displayed on an SGI workstation.

[littlesisterlover]

More than half the drive taken by pre-installed bloat? Truly ahead of its time.

[johnussss]

Shareware/freeware CD's from around then were fun and took age to explore also, I recently pulled one out from about 1998 and played this game that was abandonware that had this aardvark that you either trained or sent nuts, my kids loved it back in the day

[nfluqman]

My 1st pc was in the 14 Jan 1998 when I was 13 years old, Tatung Pentium MMX 166 MHZ, 16 MB Edo Ram, 2 GB HDD, S3 Virge Display Card, Yamaha Sound Card, 16x Cd Rom Drive 😁😁

[SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans]

I believe I remember buying a special purchase version of this box from Walmart which was packaged with an AST monitor for $1000, but exactly when and exactly what else it came with I am less clear. A few years later I gave it away....

[nomad]

Ahh yes, I remember the days of my Packard Bell 486 and played my fair share of Wolfenstein on it! On a much later computer I remember Quake would not run so I stuck with Heretic. One of my favorite applications was Norton Commander because I despised file management in DOS and Windows at the time.

[Ghost-kmoj]

That Compaq monitor with the built in microphone you have at 1:48 really brings back memories. Would you happen to have the Presario tower they came with? If you do, I'd really love to see you make a video about it.

[horsethif]

Incredible the whole thing runs with just 8MB of RAM.

[rodneyfranks]

funny, but that's what I use now is a AST keyboard. I have several Corsair keyboards . But I still like these keyboards better for daily use.

[Jarske]

I wish you would have chosen the In-Store Display! Wanted to see the Store Demo and when you chose home office, it didn't install it

[probilmusic]

i need one for my music studio, i wanna get that vintage sound from the 90s🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣