Why does this PC have insane levels of RF shielding???

as someone who has to work with FedEx as part of his job, i feel this in my soul

Man, someone in R&D must have had a breakup with someone in support before designing that!

If you ask FedEx about the damage - they always say 'insufficient packaging'. Unfortunately, in the vast majority of cases, FedEx is absolutely correct. You didn't say anything about how it was packaged, so I can't say for certain about your case. But people who rarely ship 25-30 Lb. computers are probably not going to be able to do it correctly. Packaging is an art, and they actually have engineers that design packaging and foam inserts, and cardboard inserts. Just a question: How was this unit shipped to you ? Was it in a single wall box with some styrofoam packing peanuts thrown in ?

Yay!!!! Novell network!

I LOVED Novell!

If I remember right the video card with video should be monochrome (statistically speaking). I saw a ton of those but few that had CGA and printer.

So that really isn't a stock standard clone. It has a fair amount of custom design and things like the power supply that were not clone parts either.

Also because it had serial and parallel on the motherboard that makes it not a stock standard clone but more of a custom designed motherboard.

I guess I was very lucky, my computer lab got Amiga 2000s in 1988, not XT-classs PCs.

You could straighten that piece of metal on a sharp table corner or block of wood with a hammer and some light taps. Also a bench vice would work perfect if you have one.

Thars one purdy beige box you've got there.

Wow, what a nice build, lovely shielding, massive toroids on the serial & parallel - I'm hooked, I want one.

It would be tempting to put all that in a newer case. Can that front panel be 3D printed?

For damage Like this I find epoxy is the only thing that holds. Once done I sand it with fine sandpaper, then in your case a retrobright and you cant see the repair (unless you really look for it), Maybe its a regional thing. Fedex has always been good to me, its UPS that is the problem. In truth I think the people they hire these days just dont care and it shows.

Can't believe the monster chokes on the serial ports.

Interesting!
I have a 16 plus too, though mine is configured a little differently. No daughter board/ riser, my parallel ports just have blanking plates.

The second bank of ram is also socketed on mine, and from recollection its running a different bios version.

Mine came with a NEC d5128 hdd, and a 360kb 5.25 floppy too.
It also had an ati small wonder video card, so perhaps the end-user was supposed to supply their own?
Front cover looks slightly different too, its just missing the grey 16 plus marking.

In the era of text based display cards, there was the concept of a light pen used as a "pre-mouse". Mainframe terminals also had them. You could touch it to the CRT screen to select choice options displayed on the screen. I would have thought you remembered the tare down of the unit. 🤣 Can you remember "debug g=c800:5 <enter>" from your Junior Computer Lab Technician years? 🧐

cache would be uncommon on an xt class machine
generally the 8088 cpu was clocked low enough that dram access speed wouldn't limit performance in any meaningful way

Man, FedEx IS THE WORST!!! Within the last year, they've destroyed a mint Tandy Enhanced keyboard, a near-mint Tandy DMP-133, damaged a Tandy CM-11 monitor, and destroyed the face plate of one of the huge, IBM PS/2 towers which are pretty rock solid. I'm probably forgetting something in there, too. They SUCK!

Why did you use that awful g glue?

Hammering on a hard flat surface is the best way to straighten metal parts.

nice fairly compact thing

delicate items like that need to be packed so they can survive a drop of 6ft or so .. partly the fault of the sender...

its usually better to 'melt weld' plastic like that using acetone or MEK(methyl ethyl ketone)

If you have a vice, should be easy enough to straighten that bent piece out. just clamp each side in the vice and reef on it.

Lightpen connectors were pretty normal on machines of that vintage (and newer, had I think a Samsung branded 286 at some point that also had a lightpen connector), never actually seen one being used though. Might just be outputting the sync signals from the video card to be used by some other device that actually talks to the lightpen.

Sucks with the damage. If I ever have reason to ship anything even remotely fragile, I am gonna wayyyyy overpack it!

Still, well wishes on this PC -- may it live again!

(And hmm, do I dare search eBay et al for an old Acer Acros 486 someday... Our first "real" computer when I was a kid, after a hand-me-down PC-XT my IBM-employed uncle gave us.)

Little tip for broken plastic like that, super glue and baking soda. Just a thin application of the super glue and a sprinkling of the baking soda and it will build up and fill in gaps amazingly well.

15 years to find it and 15 years to put it back together :-)

You can make Fed Ex pay for that damage. All you need is the photos of the listing as proof. Because it should have been insured.

I did a similar thing a few years ago, we used Classic Macs, but it was the opposite of your experience since it was reasonably priced already and he was local so was able to deliver it personally and we tested it in the lobby. Also he somehow managed to not drop it off his roof before bringing it over, yikes FedX. 😬🤕

Ways to glue the plastic back:
Loctite plastic glue
Super glue and baking soda
JB Weld (original 2 part, nothing else) if all else fails

Use a clamp with all of them so it applies pressure and creates a strong bond. And for all them, using a low grit sandpaper to roughen up the surface on the edges helps them bond better.

The balding spot alert scared the crap out of me while I was dosing off watching this lol.

90s and early 2000s laptops were also stupidly long and complex to take apart like this desktop is. Modern machines are infinitely easier.

Shipping is definitely a concern these days with delicate parts. People generally just dont care. And I dont blame time or job restrictions. It is just lack of care! I have had some pretty delicate machine tools get thrown around and break as well as other bigger machines.
That pc looks to be in great shape though despite the drop. Seems like they were built to hold up an entire house lol. If you really want to get the light beige color back, a white wall tire cleaner or heavy purple degreaser that has lye in it. It should get some of the oxidation off. Obviously do a test spot first though and stay away from labels lol. Great video and thank you for saving these machines!

Actually I'd spray-paint the front panel. I've had good luck with Krylon one-step paint&primer on plastic front panels - it actually looks quite good! I also think it would be the best way to hide the damage, especially if you're able to fill/flatten more first.

That sucks they broke your computer. I'm expecting my new phone Monday. Cross my fingers and toes.

That's not a bald spot; it's a heat-sink!

Рукожеп, ужас, испортил пластик! Руки оторвать.....

I love content on PCs from this era. Subbed.

Great to see this. It's really odd, but I remember seeing one of these in primary school in like 2000, admittedly I went to a public school in a small "city" that most the world would class as a a country town.

Also seeing you struggle with repairing that damage really has me considering starting my own business fixing that kind of stuff.

I am remarkably lucky that I've experienced a lot of careers, from mechanic, demolition, IT etc. So have random knowledge that could help fix that stuff, like for that plastic repair if you cannot get the crack to turn almost invisible you actively want to remove material from the crack, then you can use a plastic welder to add some strength to any repair. Glue is useful too.

To hide any loss of material you can carefully remove some plastic from unnoticed areas, then make a mould of a good undamaged surface. Use that to "injection mould" some of the replacement plastic into the damage. If you have a donor part it helps a lot. That way you can preserve the surface finish. If your lucky you can even get the dye to match.

That said its not a cheap procedure. And when I've done it it's usually on very expensive and rare cars. Where the owner cannot replace the part, wants original and will pay whatever it takes.

Reminds me of He Man!! 😂😂😂

I didn't see any crystals on that Beltron video card, so that means it has to be CGA right?

Those ABS panels can be nearly perfectly repaired using acetone. Just wet the broken edges with a swipe of a brush and hold them together. The acetone will dissolve the surfaces briefly and then evaporate, leaving a near perfect and invisible weld. You can also create a slurry using either an unneeded part or a piece of donor material to fill small gaps.

If you can get it up and running let me know! I have a 16EX1 which I think is a variant of the 16 plus, it has the 3.5 inch floppy like you mentioned but has the serial and printer port built into the mother board instead of the separate board like yours. Mine does not like booting to DOS when its loading from the HD but runs ok from the floppy.

FedEx will also hit your car and run

Do you want to guarantee that your package reaches it's destination in a minimum of five pieces? Ship with Federal Express!

This computer was probably designed with the idea of exceeding Class B emission limits.

This thing is so hostile to user maintenance I feel like Jony Ive worked on it.