THE AST ADVANTAGE! ADVENTURE 575
There is an old adage, popular in the fast moving, blink and you miss it, computer industry of the 1990s "A computer is obsolete before you even open the box"....
While this was certainly true during that time frame (arguably less so today with the demise of Moores Law and computing running into limitations regarding the physical distance between transistors in a processor package and the ability to cool something consuming so much electricity in so little a space) this PC is something else all together. With a build date of 1996 on at least some of its original factory components (though the model was sold as early as 1995 from what I can find online) this computer was arguably obsolete before it was even assembled.
Specifications:
* Processor: AMD Am5x86-75 133MHz (really a 486, more on that later)
* Graphics: CirrusLogic GD-5440 1MB (expandable to 2MB) PCI integrated
* Sound: ESS AudioDrive 1868f integrated
* Memory: 8MB (1 30-pin FPM SIMM)
* Storage: 600MB IDE Hard Drive
* Optical Drive: 8x Toshiba XM-1602B
* AST Vision4i SVGA Monitor (using factory DB-15 to DB-9 cable)
I picked this up locally for $50 from a man who was cleaning out his recently passed aunts house. I will say it was remarkably complete including the original keyboard, mouse, speakers, restore floppy diskette and associated CD, all the bundled hardware, and an assortment of vintage computing accessories. I even have the manuals and warranty booklets for the computer and monitor. Basically everything that would have come in the original box. Generally speaking a great find at a great price in the modern retro computing scene where people try to peddle garbage for 3 digit amounts.
Of course, like any 30 plus year old computer, it took some work to get it going. The Dallas RTC chip in it had surrendered the fight at some point in the I'm guessing over 20 years since this computer was last regularly used so I had to take out the trusty dremel and some wire and add a new CR-2032 battery onto the Dallas RTC as like many PCs featuring Dallas's infamous real time clock chip this machine won't save its BIOs settings or do much of anything at all without a functioning RTC. Once that was done I quickly discovered the original OEM Windows 95 install was clogged with DOS program files making this already painfully slow computer even slower. So I reinstalled Windows 95B OSR2 fresh, and off to the races we went. Slowly.
I mentioned earlier this has a (in my opinion) very deceptively named AMD 5x86 processor. The 5x86 moniker is generally associated with true Pentium Class computers that have high floating point performance and a much more modern pipeline than the older 486 class machines were possessed of. This processor, make no mistake, is a 486. A very fast 486 (faster than a PCI based DX2-66 machine I used to own) but still a 486. It struggles to match the standard computing performance of the original launch model Pentium 66s and is slower than a Pentium 75, all while still being on an older 486 socket and in this machines case without any PCI expansion slots (though the onboard graphics is on a PCI bus). This means the unfortunate buyer of this PC would have found themselves with a processor roughly equivalent in performance to a cutting edge processor from 1994 (2 years being a LONG time in the fast paced 1990s computing world), and no upgrade path to a more modern true 5x86 processor. Combined with the anemic 8MB of RAM this PC is truly unpleasant to use in Windows 95 even on a clean install, this machine is truly more suited to pure DOS or Windows 3.1 and while I can't find any data on how much AST was selling this machine for in 1996, unless it was EXTREMELY discounted I can't imagine it was a good deal. This machine would have been entirely useless within a year or two of purchase, with some programs from 1996 already listing higher min system requirements than what this machine was equipped with out of the box. The 600MB hard drive while not as deficient as the RAM, is still quite small in an era where mid-range and even some budget machines were shipping with 1GB and 1.2GB hard drives and high performance machines might have as much as 2GB.
The onboard CirrusLogic SVGA chipset is generally well regarded as an MS-DOS/Win9x chipset (especially when upgraded to 2MB of VRAM) due to its high compatibility but its choked by the ancient, slow processor its paired with in this machine. The ESS 1868 AudioDrive is also another well respected chip, providing excellent DOS audio compatibility and good FM playback quality (always a crap shoot on soundblaster Compatibles). That is unfortunately where the bundled hardware stops being noteworthy. The bundled AST Vision 4i, in addition to using a non-standard cable (though it does get points for being a fully detachable cable) is relatively mediocre with knob-based adjustment, and poor contrast and brightness control despite this example seeming to be relatively lightly used. The bundled mouse is a standard 2 button mouse with no scroll wheel, and the bundled keyboard is a membrane type keyboard that notably does not have a Windows key hinting to this machines pre-Win95 nature. The bundled speakers are merely adequate, being neither good nor bad.
Overall, I think this is an early example of the kind of manufactured eWaste we would see really take hold in the late 1990s as the bottom end of computing breached the $999 barrier. The performance is abysmal, the longevity is non-existent, and the marketing deceptive relying on the average computer buyer not understanding what it is they are buying exactly. As I've stated already, I can't imagine the owner was very pleased with this purchase.
