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Vobis HighScreen Sky

My second Computer ever.

Probably my only Full-ATX machine I had...
(Until I've built my own machine.)

Oh my word, that's my Vobis!!!

Just kidding. My vobis wasn't that overboard with those case stickers, nor was it's ECO button green.

You wanna see my Vobis? I have photos shown below.

Backstory of my Vobis Highscreen

With my father taking away our Compaq Presario, we decided to have get new computer in our home.... sorry.. Apartment.... and then eventually a full sized house.
It was the early 2000s so my dad replaced our Compaq with The Vobis Highscreen Sky PC.

Oh how Cute. See that photo of me playing "THINKING THINGS COLLECTION 1"? That's me when I was just a cute little toddler. Back then, when we first got this machine, It's just that computer with an Acer CRT monitor and a pair of 
Vtech Laser branded Speakers and a Dark Teal PS/2 mouse...

I loved that machine since I had that for the longest time. I pretty much hogged that machine but I'm sure my dad used most often than I did. 

And yes, I really mean we had that thing longer than you can realize. It has survived 3 moves from house to house but the third move would signal a tragic end for this machine which I'll discuss in the What happened section.

What were my specs?

In terms of specs, it was total balls!!! (Pardon my euphemisms).

I think this was an AMD Machine but It could have been an Intel machine. I don't know how many MHZ it was but since it was early 2000s, I think it almost made it to the GHZ range.

For Graphics, it was a sorry state of affairs... I think it was this machine that ran INCOMING like garbage when compared to my Compaq Presario.
But if it was integrated graphics, then it couldn't be Intel graphics. It may have been an ATI chipset. Probably an early version of ATI's Radeon Graphics built into the motherboard..

The machine was not a good performer for any 3D games such as Incoming so we mostly used it for 2D Applications.

I don't know the hard drive or ram configuration so don't ask.

Sound still was integrated. But we did have a pair of Vtech Laser Speakers.

We did have 2 Floppy Drives, both 3.5", but as you can see in some of these photos, we removed one of them.
My guess was that one of the drives conflicted or an extra 3.5" floppy drive was redundant.
Why is there tape? We lost the cover.

And yes, We had a CD Drive from Creative Labs. It was 24x Speed.


Like the previous section said, we originally had an Acer Monitor with my Vobis but then my dad brought in this fantastic looking 21" monitor from KDS and HOLY CRAP WAS THAT THING MASSIVE!

Well, massive for 3 to 7 year old me back in the day.

But I really loved that big ass KDS Monitor. It's a shame we didn't reuse that monitor for my later Windows XP PC.

But seriously, that monitor was massive even for a CRT computer monitor of the time.
Try comparing this beast of a monitor to today's Ultrawide style monitors of today.

What did I use the Vobis for?

I was just a young whippersnapper back in the day but even then, the majority of the best PC games at the time were
M-Rated affairs that did not sit well with my parents.

Sure they let me play Incoming, which was a T-Rated game, but there was no way in hell my mother or my father was going to let me play titles such as Unreal Tournament. (We didn't have an Unreal Tournament CD at the time).

Not that it would matter anyway. The Vobis was from the late 90's and it's choice of processor and integrated graphics chipset probably wasn't a good fit for 3D Games such as Incoming, Unreal Tournament... or any 3D Software.

So most of the games I played on this Vobis Highscreen were edutainment titles such as Thinking Things, Reader Rabbit, The mid 90's The Magic School Bus, Sesame Street, whatever was appropriate for pre-school children. 

It's also where my dad introduced me to console emulation on this machine.
Though he only exposed me to playing NES games on this computer.
I think the emulator in question was Nesticle. 

What happened to my Vobis?

By the time, we moved to Myrtle Street in 2004, I had no computer in the house.

Then my parents separated. We had to move to Francis Street.

Around early 2005, we brought the Vobis Highscreen back from retirement and I had another blast with it.

But then, by 2006, everything went to hell with that Vobis. We started hearing prolonged post-beeps and frequently being prompt to boot into Safe Mode.

My diagnosis for our poor Vobis?: EVENTUAL HARD DRIVE FAILURE.

Oh man was I upset about this.

But I guess it was it's time. By 2005, using such an old computer running Windows 98 was a bit long in the tooth, especially in an era where many people were running Windows XP.

I've also heard horror stories of this thing called the Capacitor Plague of the early 2000s but trust me, I don't think My Vobis Highscreen was affected by this otherwise, I wouldn't post or go into safemode.

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