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Greetings and Welcome to an LGR Computer Thing!

We're taking a look back at a fantastically well-preserved machine: the Vendex HeadStart. In particular, we're focusing on the Turbo 888-XT model from 1987, a device that was praised by Popular Mechanics.

[Insert image of Vendex HeadStart or Turbo 888-XT]

The Vendex HeadStart is an LGR computer thing that has been preserved for years, offering a glimpse into the world of retro computing. The Turbo 888-XT model from 1987 is one such device that showcases the evolution of technology during that era.

Popularity and Praise

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The Turbo 888-XT model was recognized by Popular Mechanics as a notable example of computer hardware. This recognition highlights the impact and influence of this machine on the world of computing, even decades after its release.

Let's take a closer look at this remarkable device and explore what makes it so special.

[Insert image or video of Turbo 888-XT]

Would you like me to add anything else?

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enGreetings and welcome to an LGR computer thing!Once again we’re taking a look back at afantastically well-preserved machine:the Vendex HeadStart.In particular the Turbo 888-XT model from1987, one that Popular Mechanics called\"the true everyman’s PC, delivering a lot ofcomputing clout for a rock-bottom price.”And that price in ‘87 was $1295 for this8MHz system, complete with color graphicsand a 14-inch RGB monitor.With a $995 version available with monochromegraphics and matching display.Rock-bottom pricing indeed at the time, fallingin line with the competition performance wise,while also bundling plenty of software andfeatures that made the HeadStart attractiveto first time buyers.Vendex even offered a $50 on-site setup service,a fresh idea for home users, who were otherwiseexpected to set things up themselves.And being that this was the time of the turbos,the so-called Super Clones, each company wasdoing their darndest to stand out from thecrowd.Zenith, Epson, Vendex and more were all vyingfor market share, taking direct aim at IBM’slower-end PS/2 offerings like the Model 30,which cost $2400 with a color display.And while most PC companies were based inthe US or Japan, Vendex hailed from the Netherlands,making it one of the few Dutch computers wegot in North America back then.In theory anyway.If you’ve watched enough LGR you may behaving flashbacks to the Epson Apex I’vecovered previously that looks an awful lotlike the Vendex HeadStart.And sure, many PC clones look alike from adistance, which...yeah they’re clones, that’s how it goes.But the ties go deeper than that, take themonitors for example.Despite Epson hailing from Japan and Vendexbeing Dutch, they each used the same exact monitor,a generic OEM design sourced fromKorea.Yeah, something I neglected to mention beforeis that a good number of these clones weremade in Korea, many of them being built bySamsung.Not just the monitors either.It’s the cases, motherboards, power supplies,peripherals, expansion cards and more.Effectively, they worked with OEMs like Samsungto build PCs to their specifications using their logos.And while each PC had small features thatset them apart,underneath they all shared a common Korean ancestor.Which I think is fascinating, it’s somethingI actually picked up on while visiting theComputer Reset warehouse recently and hadan “ah ha” moment while perusing their wares.This Imtec 1010T stood out not only becauseit was sitting all by its lonesome, but becausethe design was strikingly similar to the HeadStarton my desk back home.Which looked a lot like the Epson Apex, whichlooks like the Packard Bell PB500, which lookslike the Samsung SPC-3000V, which – oh crapare they all the same machine?Yeah, kind of!Certain vendors hid this fact a little morethan others though,marketing it as their own design.And it kind of was in some cases.Emphasis on “cases.”Samsung designed and sold their own computers,but they were also happy to modify the caseand sell the innards to companies worldwide.Resulting in an explosion of Turbo XT clonesin the late 80s where everyone was racingto the bottom against themselves.The biggest things separating one system fromthe next was bundled software and support,and of course, marketing.And that’s where Vendex had a notable foothold.Or, chokehold perhaps, with them scoring anendorsement deal with Chris Pallies.The late pro wrestling legend better knownas King Kong Bundy.The 468-pound (212 kg) Bundy was huge at thetime, in more ways than one, with the so-called“walking condominium” facing off againstHulk Hogan in the now-famous steel cage matchthat was the main event of WrestleMania 2in 1986.And yeah, King Kong Bundy was all over themarketing for the Vendex HeadStart.Magazines, newspapers, TV commercials, in-storedisplays.Each one riffing on the idea that the HeadStartwas so easy to use that even King Kong Bundycould learn the machine in minutes.And its software and documentation even makesyou smarter!I guess!-\"Y'know, the fully IBM compatible HeadStart computer made a genius outta me in only 23 minutes!\"-“Thanks HeadStart, for releasing my hithertounsuspected intellectual prowess.”-\"The power, performance, and sophistication of the HeadStart computer...\"\"...can make a genius out of you, too!\"-“HeadStart by Vendex.\"\"Built to be compatible with you!”1980s marketing, there’snothing quite like it.And it was successful too, Vendex sold gargantuannumbers of HeadStart machines.Numbers that snagged the attention of oneVince McMahon,controversial head of what was then the WWF.Allegedly the Vendex deal was never clearedwith him,causing a feud between McMahon and Pallies over revenue sharing.Bundy argued that he was an independent contractorand shouldn’t have to pay crap,McMahon saidnope, you’re endorsing productsas a WWF wrestler so pay up.The rift was intense enough that Pallies quitand went into semi-retirement for half a decade,blaming it on the Vendex fallout.-I was working for a computer company whichbasically killed my career in the WWE.When I got the deal I was told it was a littleDutch company called Vendex.Well it was a “little Dutch company” thatdoes $6 billion in sales.So I do the commercial.All of a sudden, got full page ads in USAToday, full page ads in Time,Newsweek, Sports Illustrated.A full page ad!I had hoped Vince wouldn't find out aboutit.Needless to say he found out about it bigtime.And ever since that day – and I've beentold this and never revealed this, I meanpeople at the office, 'that was the kiss ofdeath to your career there'.But y’know what, I say to hell with VinceMcMahon.”The HeadStart brand managed to come out ontop though, selling oodles of PCs primarilythrough US and Canadian retailers on intothe nineties.Though Vendex themselves were struggling withdebt incurred by multiple acquisitions anda Dutch economic slowdown, eventually takingan offer by the Philips Corporation in 1991to purchase the HeadStart brand.Vendex continued doing their thing in retail,owning significant stakes in chains like Barnes& Noble and Dillard’s, and managing over1,600 retail outlets worldwide.And HeadStart ended up falling under Philips’Magnavox brand for a couple of years, withthe line slowly being phased out by 1993,with any remaining 286 and 386 inventory hittingbargain bins and clearance shelves beforelargely being forgotten to time.Except here on LGR!HeadStart PCs were the entry point for thousandsof first time computer users back in the day,and despite its middle of the road status,I think it’s worth taking a look back atwhere it all started.And it’s thanks to LGR viewer Dallin, whosent this one in nearly complete in box.It belonged to the brother of someone he knewthat passed away,and it was slated for a sad demise at the local dump.So let’s take a look at this lovely exampleinside and out, test some games and software,and see if it releases our hitherto unsuspectedintellectual prowess like King Kong Bundy.So!The HeadStart is a pretty typical turbo XTclone, meaning it runs the same software asan IBM PC XT just with a faster CPU.As is typical for machines of its ilk,theHeadStart doesn’t have a hard drive or any permanent storage.Everything relies on floppy disks, from savingfiles to booting software.Which at the core here is a custom MS-DOSshell known as the Vendex Operating Environment!We’ll return to that shortly.But yeah, the machine came equipped with twin5.25” 360K floppy drives, though my particularunit only had one on arrival.The previous owner had removed one of thefloppies and installeda half-height RLL hard drive, an ST-238R from Seagate.Sadly, and expectedly, this 33 megabyte beastwas on its last legs, only briefly spinningup for a few seconds before it crapped itselfand died.So I swapped it out for an XT-IDE CompactFlashsolution instead, and sourced another 360Kfloppy drive with a matching aesthetic.Or, as close as I could get anyway, the LEDsare a different color.The important thing is that it looks morelike how it did when it left the factory,and yeah. I quite like how it looks!It’s the same basic layout as most Samsungvariants, with two drive bays right of center,a power switch and LED in the top right, anda keyboard connector in a bottom corner.But Vendex went with a more rounded powerbutton that’s quite satisfying to use.And these horizontal lines cut into the frontplastic, instead of the vertical ones foundon Samsung and Epson branded models.I really am a sucker for lines along the x-axisman, I can’t help it.It’s those Ferrari side strake vibes,reallyadds to the whole “turbo” theme going on.Unfortunately it doesn’t have the handyfront switches that Epson did for changingsettings, you’ve gotta use software or openthe case for that.So let’s go ahead and do the latter!There are five screws holding the machinetogether,two on each side and a smaller one around back.The top half and front panel then slide off,revealing the chassis and internals.There’s a 5.25” drive cage, 135-watt Samsungpower supply, and a compact motherboard whichis more accurately described as an ISA backplane.It boasts seven 8-bit expansion slots, oneless than a full-sized XT.Though there are only 5 slots free from thefactory and one is partially blocked by adual game port bracket, so there’s reallyonly 4 available.Thankfully the floppy controller is integratedinto the backplane, so you don’t have toworry about that taking up space.Along with two 25-pin ports for serial andparallel, again saving you an expansion slot.And the real time clock battery is also on-board,or at least it would’ve been had it notbeen removed before I got it.It was one of those Nickel-Cadmium barrelbatteries anyway, so good riddance.As for the CPU, that’s found on this firstexpansion card, which has an 8088-2 runningat 4.77 or 8MHz, depending on whether or notturbo’s engaged.And the 8087 math coprocessor would go belowthat, should you choose to install one.This board is also where the Phoenix BIOSand peripheral interface chips are located.And on the end we find 256 kilobytes of RAM,half the system’s total in its base configuration.The other half is found on this funky thing,a graphics/memory/IO boardbuilt for Vendex by Infinity Technology.It contains either 256 or 512K RAM, with thelatter being a $99 upgradetaking the total up to 768K.And it shares additional memory between thesystem and a small RAM disk.Along with a 16K print buffer, with its ownbuffer/spooler circuitry so there’s no needfor memory on the printer itself.As for the graphics portion, you get a chipsetwith support for MDA/Hercules and CGA videomodes, switchable using this switchy switcharound back.And lastly on the IO board is a header forconnecting CRT light pens, along with a portfor a Microsoft Bus mouse, neither of whichcame with the PC.What did come with it is the monitor, a 14-inchTTL color displaythat is once again a rebadged Samsung.It’s also really more of a 13-inch monitor,but y’know.Manufacturers fudged the numbers with internalpicture tube size versus actual viewing area,but I digress.This is one solid little display, with sharplegible charactersacross all text and graphics modes I’ve tested.And seeing as it’s the same display thatcame with my Epson Apex that’s no surprise.It even has the same mono mode switch aroundback, emulating a green phosphor monochromedisplay while still running CGA underneath.And nope, it doesn’t support PlantronicsColorplus mode, like some similar clones.I also find this pretty amusing, check outthe power plug on the PC.Typically you got something like this to plugin your monitor but not here.Here you’ve just got a straight up 115Vwall jack instead.The keyboard was also a nice surprise, inthe sense that it doesn’t totally suck.It uses a 5-pin DIN plug and a modified ModelF AT-style layout, with a big L-shaped Enterkey, backslash above that, with status LEDsshowing through the related keycaps.And the build feels creaky and flimsy, witha lightweight plastic construction all-around,and hollow flip-down feet underneath.However, this is a board from Hi-Tek, andthe keyswitches?Yeah, they’re white linear Series 725 switchesover metal contacts with return springs.They’re commonly known as space invaderswitches, and while this isn’t my favoritevariant of them, they’re rather enjoyableto use.Finally, there’s this bunch of softwareand manuals bundled with the HeadStart, oneof the machine’s key selling points.The documentation is substantial, with fivedifferent paperback books and pamphlets packedinto cardboard shelf sleeves.In total you get nearly a thousand pages coveringevery square inch of the system and its software,from DOS commands to expansion cards, documentcreation to dip switches.You even get pinouts for every port and headeron the HeadStart and each of its expansioncards, and plenty of configuration and troubleshootinginformation on top of that.Excellent.As well as a substantial set of instructionsfor learning and using GWBasic, complete withplentiful programming examples.Yeah, this is awesome stuff, and absolutelynot the kindathing you see anymore with new computers.It also came with a nifty grabbag of softwaregoodies across six colorful floppies, so let’sgo through them in order of disk number.Starting with disk one, storing the VendexOperating Environment alongside a bootableMS-DOS 3.2 installation.As mentioned earlier, this is simply a shellrunning on top of DOS.Not quite as involved as Tandy DeskMate oras useful as Norton Commander, it’s moreof a shortcut menu than anything else.It’s based on a version of ‘HOT’ fromExecutive Systems, the makers of XTree, andprovides a menuing system letting you performcommon tasks with hotkeyed applets.Including a file searcher, text editor, calendar,scheduler, a calculator, a display-blankingscreensaver, and shortcuts for adjusting printersand system settings.Like changing the system speed between 4.77and 8Mhz, yeah this is done via software insteadof a turbo switch.It also has shortcuts for file and disk management,basic copy/paste/move stufflike you’d normally do via command line.And of course there’s the much-hyped “Learnto Use Your PC” bit,we’ll jump back to that in a sec.Next on disk two is an MS-DOS supplementalfloppy, containing stuff that didn’t fiton disk one.Leaving the HOT environment drops you intothis custom DOS prompt, with fancy colorsand additional features and hotkeys.It’s a welcome change from the usual grayon black of regular MS-DOS,and I dig the additional info being displayed.Like showing free memory, date and time, andon-disk help menus for assistance with DOScommands, both common and obscure.Next up on disk three is ATI Skill Builder,the “Learn to Use Your PC” thing fromearlier, which is a training program helpingnewbies learn how to use their HeadStart.Apparently this won its developer, AmericanTraining International,multiple awards back in the day, and hey.I’d give it an award based on those textmode illustrations alone,how charming is that?Onto disks four and five then: Executive Writerand Filer.Each are pretty familiar ifyou’ve used word processorsor card filing databases from the 80s.This duo of software alone cost nearly 300bucks when it launched in 1985, so it’sa pretty solid inclusion here, especiallyfor those without an existing library of software.Finally there’s disk six: MyCalc from TheSoftware Toolworks.Previously known as ZenCalc, it’s your mandatoryspreadsheet program for balancing budgets,tabulating taxes, and keeping all manner ofbooks in digital form.That’s enough of work junk though, how ‘boutsome games?!Well, the HeadStart’s a turbo XT clone afterall, with CGA display,640K or less RAM, and no sound card.So y’know, maybe temper your expectations.Or embrace the limitations of the mid-80sDOS experience,with 4-color graphics and shrill PC speaker noise.Yeah there’s a well-amplified 8 Ohm speakerin the bottom of the case, so if you’reinto loud reverberant bloops and beeps, thenyou’re in the right place.And if four colors is simply too much, there’salways that mono switch on the monitor thatcranks things down a notch so it’s all green,all the time.Particularly practical with text applicationsfor its potential eye strain reduction versus bright gray or white.Though of course it works with graphics too,keeping the ‘G’ in RGBand dropping red and blue entirely.This is also separate from the mono switchon the video adapter itself, which changesCGA output over to Hercules.Provided you have a TTLmonochrome display that is,you won’t get anything but out-of-sync nonsense otherwise.CGA or Hercules though, it’s still an 8088variant under the hood,so gaming is rather limited even at top speed.Vendex made claims of it being 70% fasterthan an IBM PC XT though,so let’s check it out with TopBench.The Epson Apex got a score of 7, and thatwas clocked at 10MHz.So it’s unsurprising to find that the 8MHzHeadStart here gets a 6.Around 64% faster than an XT, that ain’tbad.Certainly a welcome boost in situations wherethe standard PC XT speed leaves you waiting,literally, for things to play out in frontof you.Not enough for full speed in LHX, but enoughto get the CGA version of Commander Keen 4going at a somewhat playable pace.For better or worse, it really is the mostmiddling of middle-of-the-road systems of its type.Not as slow as a stock XT, and not as fastas certain other turbo XTs either.The HeadStart computer provides just that:a head start in computing.But it was never going to win many races.Instead it’s content in the middle lane,humming along doing its medium-effort tasksin the midst of the pack.And that’s about it for the Vendex HeadStartTurbo 888-XT!For a lower budget PC from 1987, I think it’seasy to see what made it so appealing, withor without any pro wrestler endorsements.It was right smack dab in the middle of themarket, entirely by design.Yet at the same time it included enough inthe way of useful features, documentation,and software to ease new users into the excitingnew world of computing.It’s not at the top of my list for favoriteturbo clones or anything, but still.I’m happy this one came across my path some35 years later, and that I was able to sharethe King Kong Bundy-approved experience hereon LGR.And hey if you had a Vendex machine or relatedclones back in the day, please leave a commentsharing your story, I love reading that stuff!Or if you’d like to see more LGR check outmy past work or stick around for new videoscurrently being made.And as always, thank you for watching!\n"