Greetings and welcome to an LGR thing! And today we’re headed back to the ‘90s with this boxy beast right here: the Monorail PC, an all-in-one desktop computer that first hit the market in November of 1996.

Despite its bulky metal case making it look like a piece of industrial equipment, the Monorail was a low-cost desktop PC intended for first-time computer users. And for a short period in time, they were then new hotness, with Monorail being the 14th leading manufacturer of desktop PCs, growing at a rate of 50% per quarter, and looking to become a $2 billion company by 2003.

Unfortunately for them that didn’t happen, but this machine is still a notable footnote in personal computer history. The first reason is its unprecedented design, packing a Pentium compatible motherboard, desktop-sized CD-ROM, floppy drive, and hard drive, and a color LCD monitor all into one unit.

The second thing setting it apart was pricing, with the original Model 7245 first going on sale in 1996 for just $999. At the time, that was a magic number for a PC with a monitor included. So the Monorail was not only one of the cheapest complete systems around, but it was perhaps the first all-in-one desktop with a built-in LCD, predating computers like the Compaq Presario 3020 by nearly a full year.

And obviously, before Apple’s iMac G5 by a good eight years, that didn’t arrive until 2004. Of course, the Monorail is a way chonkier little guy by comparison, but the underlying idea is the same: adjustable LCD screen up front, optical drive bay on the side, I/O section with all your ports around back.

Even its "sealed case" maintenance philosophy is very Apple-esque, with Monorail intending it to only be upgraded by the manufacturer, voiding the warranty if you opened the case yourself. Something many tech reviewers back then did not appreciate, despite Monorail's efforts to make upgrades as painless as possible.

You see, Monorail Computer Corporation was dead-set on forging a new path in the personal computer business. The company was founded in 1995 by Doug Johns, formerly the senior vice president of Compaq’s PC division, basing Monorail in the city of Marietta, Georgia just outside Atlanta.

At the time, 30 million American households had never owned a computer, and Johns saw things like pricing, distribution, and maintenance as barriers to entry. So he invested $2 million into Monorail in 1995, with several talented folks helping co-found the company, each coming from the likes of Compaq, IBM, and Oracle.

Pricing was one of the biggest initial hurdles, since the main goal was to sell a sub-$1000 computer. Reducing overhead costs was key, and this was accomplished by outsourcing practically everything. Monorail designed their PCs in-house and received orders by telephone, but all manufacturing, logistics, repairs, and financials were handled by outside partners.

An original equipment manufacturer took care of building the machines, at first being Phelps Technologies out of Kansas City, Missouri. Federal Express would handle all the shipping and handling of the machines once they were built and packaged by the OEM. CompUSA was Monorail's sole retail partner, initially, so they took care of regional advertising and kept limited inventory in stock.

And Suntrust Banks handled company finances, acting as Monorail’s accounts receivable department. Even the machines themselves were designed around the idea of using third-party options. FedEx told Monorail that the ideal dimensions for a package weighing between 15 and 25 pounds was 19" x 19" x 9.5" inches. Too small to fit both a monitor and a PC, which is why Monorail decided to use a dualscan laptop LCD panel integrated into the case.

The rest of the components were on the lower end as well, with a 75 megahertz Pentium-class AMD CPU, 16 megabytes of RAM, a 1 gigabyte hard drive, 4x CD-ROM, and a 33.6 Kbps FAX/modem. Nothing mind-blowing, but Monorail was keen to push its planned upgrade path, offering faster processors and up to 80 megs of RAM at prices they claimed were comparable to doing it yourself.

They recommended holding onto the shipping box for this, so you could simply drop off your Monorail with FedEx, they’d deliver it to the original manufacturer for upgrades, and then send it back in a few days.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enGreetings and welcome to an LGR thing!And today we’re headed back to the ‘90swith this boxy beast right here: the MonorailPC, an all-in-one desktop computer that firsthit the market in November of 1996.Despite its bulky metal case making it looklike a piece of industrial equipment, theMonorail was a low-cost desktop PC intendedfor first-time computer users.And for a short period in time they were thenew hotness, with Monorail being the 14thleading manufacturer of desktop PCs, growingat a rate of 50% per quarter, and lookingto become a $2 billion company by 2003.Unfortunately for them that didn’t happen,but this machine is still a notable footnotein personal computer history.The first reason is its unprecedented design,packing a Pentium compatible motherboard,desktop-sized CD-ROM, floppy drive, and hard drive,and a color LCD monitor all into one unit.The second thing setting it apart was pricing,with the original Model 7245 first going onsale in 1996 for just $999.At the time, that was a magic number for aPC with a monitor included.So the Monorail was not only one of the cheapestcomplete systems around, but it was perhapsthe first all-in-one desktop with a built-inLCD, predating computerslike the Compaq Presario 3020 by nearly a full year.And obviously, before Apple’s iMac G5 bya good eight years, that didn’t arrive until 2004.Of course the Monorail is a way chonkier lilguy by comparison,but the underlying idea is the same.Adjustable LCD screen up front, optical drive bay on the side,I/O section with all your ports around back.Even its “sealed case” maintenance philosophy is very Apple-esque,with Monorail intending it to only be upgraded by the manufacturer,voiding the warranty if you opened the case yourself.Something many tech reviewers back then didnot appreciate, despite Monorail's effortsto make upgrades as painless as possible.You see, Monorail Computer Corporationwas dead-set on forging a new path in the personal computer business.The company was founded in 1995 by Doug Johns,formerly the senior vice president of Compaq’sPC division, basing Monorail in the city ofMarietta, Georgia just outside Atlanta.At the time, 30 million American householdshad never owned a computer, and Johns sawthings like pricing, distribution, and maintenanceas barriers to entry.So he invested $2 million into Monorail in1995, with several talented folks helpingco-found the company, each coming from thelikes of Compaq, IBM, and Oracle.Pricing was one of the biggest initial hurdles,since the main goal was to sell a sub-$1000 computer.Reducing overhead costs was key, and thiswas accomplishedby outsourcing practically everything.Monorail designed their PCs in-house and receivedorders by telephone, but all manufacturing,logistics, repairs, and financials were handledby outside partners.An original equipment manufacturer took careof building the machines, at first beingPhelps Technologies out of Kansas City, Missouri.Federal Express would handle all the shippingand handling of the machines once they werebuilt and packaged by the OEM.CompUSA was Monorail’s sole retail partner,initially, so they took care of regional advertisingand kept limited inventory in stock.And Suntrust Banks handled company finances,acting as Monorail’s accounts receivable department.Even the machines themselves were designedaround the idea of using third party options.FedEx told Monorail that the ideal dimensions for a packageweighing between 15 and 25 pounds was 19”x19”x9.5” inches.Too small to fit both a monitor and a PC,which is why Monorail decided to use a dualscan laptop LCD panel integrated into thecase.The rest of the components were on the lower end as well,with a 75 megahertz Pentium-class AMD CPU, 16 megabytes of RAM,a 1 gigabyte hard drive, 4x CD-ROM,and a 33.6 Kbps FAX/modem.Nothing mind-blowing, but Monorail was keento push its planned upgrade path, offeringfaster processors and up to 80 megs of RAMat prices they claimed were comparable to doing it yourself.They recommended holding onto the shippingbox for this, so you could simply drop offyour Monorail with FedEx, they’d deliverit to the original manufacturer for upgrades,and then send it back in a few days.As for the name “Monorail,” you mightbe wondering: what kinda name is Monorail anyway?- ”Monorail!\"- “Monorail. Monorail. Monorail.”Well, like almost everything else at the company,the name was outsourced.Another company called Name Lab was taskedwith the job, and the mandate was to comeup with a friendly name that avoided overused computer company wordslike “Cyber” and “Tek.”Apparently “Monorail” fit the bill, despiteit not really having much in the way of meaning.It did at least lead to the company mascot,Monorail Mo, the Monorail system conductor.Yeah we’ll get to you later, Mo.Anyway, despite their lofty ambitions andpositive press,Monorail had a bit of a rough go of it at first.Their OEM, Phelps, went bankrupt so they hadto move manufacturing to Mitac and SCI Systems,certain retail partners were marking up theprice above $1000, critics weren’t happywith the stingy warranty and upgrades, andcompetitors were slashing prices to get theirown PCs under a grand.By 1998 Monorail decided to move away fromall-in-ones and start focusing on boring whitebox towers aimed at business users, with machineslike the NPC 5000 and 7000 serieshitting shelves late that year.You know what else hit shelves in late ‘98?eMachines, with their sub-$500 PCs using almostthe exact same specs as those from Monorail,but at prices hundreds of dollars less.The race to the bottom was finally bottomingout and Monorail wasn’t fully prepared.Pulling out of the PC market in the year 2000and rebranding as Monorail E-Solutions, brieflybecoming a business decision-making companybefore fizzling out in 2002.But that was then and this is now, and we’vegot ourselves this lovely boxed example ofa Monorail Model 133.This was introduced in early ‘97 at a priceof $1,299, with upgrades to the CPU, harddrive, video RAM, and CD-ROM drive over theoriginal Monorail.The manual and the mouse were long gone bythe time I got this, but it does have theoriginal keyboard as well as this quick setup posterthat kinda reminds me of a board game somehow.And there’s our friend Mo again, guidingus through the process of plugging thingsin, a quaint reminder of how fresh the PCexperience still was to many folks in 1996.But yeah, there’s really nothing to it:just plug in the keyboard, a mouse, and apower cable and you’re good to go.Time to power on the Monorail!Right, so this runs the venerable Windows95,complete with a custom Monorail boot screen. A nice touch indeed.Takes a while to load with that old hard drive,so let’s take the opportunity to admirethat die-cut steel case.Yeah for being a budget machine, this thingis surprisingly sturdy.It’s metal all the way around, weighingin at just over 17 pounds or around 8 kilograms.And yes, it does feature expansion possibilities,there’s a proper 16-bit ISA slot right there above the floppy drive.As mentioned earlier, this was not intendedto be user-serviceable.Though you can open it up somewhat by removinga handful of T15 Torx screws around back.This provides access to the monitor, drives,and expansion slot, but you’re only gonnaget so far without really tearing things down further.And regrettably, that slot is in a reallycramped space up against the CPU and its fan,so there aren’t many cards that’ll fitwithout blocking the exhaust.From what I gather, Monorail only offereda network interface card for this slot, andit was a very specific model since almostnothing else fit.Once Windows finishes loading, a couple of programs start up.One is this control panel for showing systeminformation and display options.This is where you control the LCD brightness settings,which is either bright or dim.Just either/or, nothing in between.Contrast is an entirely separate thing, controlledusing these two rubber buttons below the power and volume.There’s also a system tray icon that runson startup letting you open and close theCD tray by clicking it.Yep, that’s...that’s all that does.Seems Monorail included this after users complainedthe CD-ROM’s eject buttonwas cumbersome to reach by hand.Which, it is, so good call.Oh and before I disabled it,the Monorail Home Station program also used to start up with Windows.Keeping in line with the idea this might besomeone’s first PC, it’s a collectionof shortcuts to commonly-used programs, settings,tutorials, games, and website links.And hey look, there’s Monorail Mo again,let’s hear what he has to say!- “Monorail Central Station! It’s where every Monorail user starts off.”- “Approaching Internet Central.”- “Now I know you’ve heard about the Internet.”- “Information Superhighway” The ‘Net? Cyberspace?”- “Call it what you will, it’s on thetip of everyone’s tongue these days.”- “Right now over 63 million people are linked by computer”- “to the Internet! To access the Internet, all it takes is your Monorail,”- “a standard phone line and an accountwith an Internet Service Provider.”So yeah, Monorail Mo walks you through signing up toMindspring dial-up and Monorail’s warranty and registration, and that’s about it.There are other web-focused tutorials includedthough, minus Mister Mo and instead it’ssome generic narrator dude. It’s pretty great.- “Make sure nobody has picked up the phonerecently,”- “as this can cause the modem connectionto hang up.”- “If the modem seems to be in order andno one has picked”- “up the phone, exit Internet Explorerand start it up again.”For whatever reason, you can rewind the playback here,but like, in the way that you’d play a record in reverse.Not entirely sure what the point of that is,but it amuses me so I approve.Anyway, as for how the Monorail PC is to actually use?Well, it’s not ideal.The biggest issue is that awful 10-inch passivematrix display, with its washed-out colors,tiny viewing angles, and smeary motion.Evidently Monorail offered a TFT active matrix later on,but this original display is dreadful even for ‘96.Granted, it’s perfectly fine for productivityand games that require little in the way of movement.You’re not gonna have a problem with wordprocessing, for example,or looking up articles within Microsoft Encarta or whatever.And uh by “whatever” I mean adult entertainment!Yeah it seems the previous owner figured outthe seedier side of cyberspace pretty quickly,there’s seriously like half a gig of late90s dial-up wank bank.Anyway so uh, point beingthat this display isn’t very good,and even something like Solitairecan be irritating to playwith it being so easy to misplace the mouse cursor in a waft of blurry pixels.Yeah, you can enable mouse trails to alleviate this,that’s what it’s there for after all.But eh, cheap passive matrix displays, onepiece of ‘90s tech I won’t be yearningto use again anytime soon.At least the keyboard it comes with is half-decent, being manufactured by NMB Technologies.It’s not a mechanical board or anything,but it does feature NMB sliders over rubberdomes, making it feel quite similar to theDell Quietkey keyboards.One can certainly do worse.However, you can certainly do better in almost every single way when itcomes to mid-to-late 90s gaming.Again that display is total balls, and whileyou can hook up an external monitor to alleviatethat, it’s hard to justify going to thetrouble when the horsepower simply isn’t there.Even though mine is the upgraded 133 megahertzmodel, with RAM upgrades taking system memoryup to 48 megs, it’s still in a rather un-sweetspot in overall performance.First-person shooters from 1996 are sluggish,with Duke Nukem 3D being playable but choppy,close to what I get on a PC running a hundred megahertz 486 Overdrive.Quake is another step down from that in termsof playability, as expected.The Monorail only has an integrated Chips& Technologies SVGA graphics chipset, withthe Model 133 here boastingone whole megabyte of VRAM.So it's really no surprise to get frame ratesin the low twenties.Something like Hot Wheels Stunt Track Driver is playable too, something I was curious aboutsince it relies on full screenfull motion video.And it does run rather sluggishly as well,dulling down the game's pacing with everystunt happening in slow motion.And 1997 games like Pod here are truly unplayable,with chops, skips, and jumps all over the place.This game was really made for Pentium MMXCPUs and at least two megs of video memory,which the Monorail doesn’t have and it shows.Really about the best kinda game to play on this would be higher-res adventure games,like Pajama Sam here.You’re still gonna lose the mouse cursoron occasion because of the LCD, but at leastyou can keep up with what’s going on.And real-time strategy games like Age of Empires,those tend to work pretty well too and themovement is slow-paced enough on default speedsettings.This kinda 2D fare really is about as faras you’d wanna take the Monorail in termsof Windows 95 games.There’s also the DOS side of things to consider,which is actually not half bad with its CrystalSound chipset offering Sound Blaster compatibility.It’s an imitation of the real thing of course,notable in games likeCommander Keen Goodbye Galaxy, but overall it’s entirely passable.And the speakers do an okay job too, they’re actually louder and less garbled than I expected.Heh, again, not that you’d wanna play aside-scroller very long with all the ghostinggoing on, and some additional issues withresolutions lower than 640x480.There’s this black line running throughthe middle of the screen, along with non-integerscaling, plus this wonky wave effect on topof that.Not at all pleasant, but I think I’ve mademy point.That being, the Monorail PC is a downrightcompelling device, both to research and togo back and use, despite its cost-optimizedinferiority.Parts of it are astonishingly well-made, whileothers are serious letdowns, and in the endI wouldn’t recommend trying to track onedown except as a retro curiosity.You may have noticed the RMA markings all over the box I showed earlier, and yeah,from what I’ve read on old user’s forums itseems these wereconstantly breaking in one way or another.I got lucky and found this one fully working,something I’m grateful for because I’vebeen wanting to share the Monorail experienceon LGR for a long time now.And with that, I hope you’ve enjoyed thisexcursion with the Monorail.Please exit through the doors in a calm andorderly fashion.If you had experiences with Monorail computers do leave a comment down below,I’d love to hear about it.Or perhaps check out some more LGR, I post new videos every weekso there’s a lot to choose from.As always, thank you for watching!\n"