LGR - HP Internet Advisor: Monstrous 486 Laptop

Woo Blinkenlights!!

Some day I'll start working out, just so I can carry these huge, HEAVY oldskool portable PCs around when travelling... and people will still look at me funny. :C I mean, it's still better than the Commodore SX-64, but.. yeah. It's wonderfully weird though! And yes, the sorta more laid-back video format is awesome.

Alyxx the Rat

... dayumm

Rob Caporetto

Heavy Duty Overkill. It's certainly not a conventional piece of kit, and like you highlight, there's a perverse joy in watching what was such an expensive machine running common games. A rather unique beast … especially with that mouse!

Growing up, my mate's Dad was an IT manager at a big hospital and he was big into branded IBM systems, he really loved IBM and talking about them to us, and we'd watch him at his Aptiva 2144, Winsock straight into the hospital network from home and monitor medical equipment in real time, which in 1996 seemed practically sci-fi to me. This looking era of IBM's will always remind me of that and the 2144 in particular was a gorgeous looking horizontal unit with it's big flap (heh) and cream/blue colour scheme. Top stuff! And dude, you don't have to explain yourself why you choose a new format of video or whatever, on behalf of everyone I can assure you we trust you and love everything you do. If you wanna gonna go ahead and vlog from the shitter while reading the back of a big box PC game out loud, i'm there! Literally sitting on the floor bathing in your knowledge.

floverSaeu09

This thing is a beast!!! :O

JennaKay

I worked at a campus network for a bit and we had something similar to this for DSL connections from "Fluke Networks". Except it was a handheld, because it came out several years after this thing. Fluke makes (made? I dunno) the best stuff, even their punch-downs feel better to use.

Haydon Beagley

One thing is for sure this laptop doesn't need any dongles. Ports for everyone and everything!

Desmo

Great vid. What an odd thing. Really some kind of test machine to diagnose all kinds of devices it seems, especially through serial ports.

DGDW (Derek G. Weber)

Hah! And I complain about carrying my less than five pound work issued less than 5 pound Dell Latitude when I have to ....

Lindsay Michelle

I have multiple reactions to this... for one, I love the beginning with the classic flying windows logos screensaver... that scene reminded me of when they would advertise those desktop computers on The Price is Right back in the day, haha. It's hard to imagine someone lugging around a laptop the weight of a toddler, even in the late 90s. And finally, that is the weirdest mouse I have ever seen in my life! Gives a lot of the Oddware mouses a run for their money, haha :D

That looks about as portable as one of those IBM PS/2s you've shown before. They both come with a handle too! :D

So luggable it even has a handle!

moosemaimer

I work for a telco that still contracts out DS1 circuits through local carriers (people still want 'em, for some reason!) and I can only imagine that most of that hardware is now built into some tiny little box that plugs into a USB port. I just get stuck consoling into the other end of the circuit and watching the numbers go up.

Anders Enger Jensen

You take me back to 1996 and the last year of junior college... man, we didn't have this particular machine, but one much like it. It was running some network system thingy that I didn't understand much of. The main machine was the same as one of the IBM server towers you got some time back running Windows NT 3.5 and we weren't allowed to touch it! It was only for the only IT teacher who was close to retirement age. A joy to watch! Keep 'em coming!

I've worked with one of those! When I was doing network diagnostics at my high school, in my freshman year (2012), they had us using these to test links between buildings. It was a fun time, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. But... I'm also a retro hardware freak, so there's that

this sounds like a precursor to the network testing equipment produced by JDSU/Viavi. I used to work there, these devices are really useful, and haven't gotten much smaller...