Packard Bell Corner Computer: One of 1995's Strangest PCs

"The idea was sound; the execution was Packard Bell" perfectly sums this up, LOL.

oh man. this is triggering "fond" memories as a kid in middle/high school. going to some lady's house to fix her computer, and there's a Packard Bell in the back corner of some dank room-- desktop completely covered in icons and permanently burned in to the blurry 14" CRT, the color scheme is changed to dark cyan and pink with cat noises for all of the notification sounds, an expired version of McAfee antivirus and Norton both running, Internet Explorer with 20 toolbars... oh god...

Two things I love about LGR: his expressive first-person hand gestures, and when his voice goes into Mr. Burns mode.

I worked for Packard Bell in R&D in 1995. There where many stupid decisions made by marketing where they never consulted us first. Like the Pizza cabinet , and weird color palette snap on wavy trim pieces.

8:07 Ah, a lot of people talk about nostalgic disk sounds, but for me is the degaussing of a good 90s CRT that bring back the memories. That small feeling of fear at touching the monitor, the tiny shocking sensation of static electricity, and the degaussing sound that you can swear just gave hiccups to the fridge.

"The mouse is like fondling a potato chip." Sold.

Clint: removes the gray monitor circle stand Me: exe.exe has stopped working

Packard Bell: This is interesting, what was your thought process here? Systems Engineer: Cocaine's a helluva drug

It reminds me of that corner computer in the Black Mesa lobby. 'Get away from there, Freeman! I'm expecting a really important message!'

I very vividly recall the one and only time I was able to use one of these. It was 1996. I was a just about to be a freshman in high school and our neighbors paid me 250$ for the month of July to water their plants and feed the cat while they went on vacation. The husband had just installed The Day of the Tentacle before they left, and I spent the next few weeks playing that game while sitting in the corner of their kitchen... which is exactly where they decided to put it. Good times.

Ah the memories. I was selling Packard Bell computers around when this came out. What a weird and wonderful time for desktops.

This is a weird comment, but I just gotta commend LGR on his audio quality. Between almost all of the videos, the levels and volume are nearly uniform and impressively consistent. Only reason I noticed is because when I developed massive tinnitus a few years back, I needed to fill my sleeping environment with a lot of ambient sounds. These videos are perfect because, as everyone knows, Clint’s got a very smooth and calming voice. His videos are calming and entertaining, and, with no negativity meant whatsoever, have helped me fall asleep for the first few years of hellish ringing.

So you could accidentally reset the PC by pressing what you think is the eject button on the fake CD tray outlay on the left side? Cool.

6:54 - "Packard Bell: Clint grew up typing on us. He Still Does."

One thing I really love about Clint is how he's so enthusiastic about the sheer/raw cheesiness of '90s design choices, especially for user interfaces, because that's literally me. I mean, look at this Packard Bell Nav thing: it's like basing your user interface aesthetics on a visit you took to your grandparents' house. And that's EXACTLY what I love about it, plus the cluelessness of designers back in the day.

Holy crap, whatever that Spiderman Cartoon Maker program is based off of; I had one exactly like that as a kid without said Spiderman stuff. I cannot imagine how much time I spent making animations and stuff, you could record voice overs and everything. The immediate nostalgia when you started drawing with the Rainbow Pen and that bubbling sound effect was unreal. I was waiting for it to pop up in your video, glad it finally did in a sense.

"Computers used to come installed with bloat" Haha, glad those days are over! Now if you'll excuse me I have to go uninstall candy crush and Skype from my windows 10 install.

Billy Coore is such a genuinely amazing person. First connected with him in 2010 and realized I wasn't the only Packard Bell fanatic in the world. Great video, Clint!

I spent so many hours reorganising my virtual house in Packard Bell Explorer, only to then just go back to using Windows because it was better.

Back in the 90s when you turn on you PC to hear that startup, it always made me wonder "what new things will I discover today?" Anyone had that feeling before? Everything we take for granted today was brand new back then. God I missed those days.