My 5 Favorite Computers
Published May 03, 2026 · 7:44 · 34,420 views
About This Video
Van's personal ranking of the five best digital machines, ranked by love, not specs. The Leica Q2 takes the crown after a mid-video re-ranking (resilient design demonstrated by pulling the battery mid-interval-shoot and having it recover flawlessly). The Atari 2600 with a 1983 cartridge mod by a nuclear submarine engineer earns #2. Game Boy Color hacked for live chiptune music is #4. iPod Nano 3rd gen, hard buttons, no camera, no speakers, is #3. The Franklin Language Master is the sentimental original #1.
The through-line: every computer Van loves has physical buttons, works without menus, and survives being interrupted. Every computer he hates requires configuring, breaks when you look at it wrong, and holds your work hostage. That's the test. The video ends where the flagship episode picks up: the switcher cart reveal.
Transcript
I've always loved the dream of computers, but I've always hated the reality of computers. You see, this is what I'm trying to get away from, Kevin. I'm trying to get away from all of this [__] hokey [__] that these [__] teching made that they thought would be so cute. And these are [__] weapons, man. Because computers are in a perpetual state of broken. And it's been that way since I started using computers in 1981. Apple computers still suck. They're still always broken and they have a terrible personality.
But I do have my five favorite computers of all time. And by computer, I mean digital machine. This microphone is a computer.
So the five best computers in love aological order. Least loved to most loved. We already know number one, the Franklin Language Master. So what's number two? Number five, my beloved Leica Q2. Designed for idiot artists, not technicians. Go to hell.
Digital analog German. Let me just show you something that I discovered yesterday. I find this incredible. You put it on interval shooting, which is like time lapse. It's set to take a photo every second. So, it's click click click. Okay, now watch this. This is mind-blowing. Okay, I'm going to take the SD card out. See if you can still hear it. Still taking photos, right? All right. Now, I'm going to take the base off. I love the way the battery comes out. It's still shooting. No, I'm just kidding. It doesn't. All right. Now, I'm going to put the battery back in. Put the SD card back in. Turn it back on. All right. Now, watch this. And it asks me to create a video out of the stills that I've shot. So, I hit yes. And then it takes whatever 10 seconds, 15 seconds. Boom. And now I push play.
It just picks up where we left off. It's in the middle of shooting. I take the SD card out. I take the battery out. I put it back in. It doesn't erase anything. There's no error or anything. It just is like, well, we stopped at shot 500. Let's make a movie out of that. It works. It saves the files even though I interrupted it in the middle of its work. It saves the photos and converts them to video even though I interrupted it in the middle of its work. That's how everything should work. That's how every digital thing should work. I should be able to tear the cords out of this iMac and it just works perfectly the next time I turn it on.
Number four. I was walking by White Street and I heard this strange music coming from the end of the block. So, I went and checked it out. There was this crowd of people at the end of the street in some kind of impromptu concert. But the amazing thing is that the guy's musical instrument was two GameBoys that he had hacked and hooked up to a speaker system. The Game Boy screens were filled with computer code. This is a guy playing a [__] Game Boy.
Number four, Game Boy Color. This is the ugly black and green one that I made for the video. It's just paper. Number three. Congratulations, Apple. You made the cut. iPod Nano generation 3. It's got the hard buttons, plays video, and color.
In my fascist dictatorship, there would be no iPhone. The iPhone would be a Blackberry. Okay, Blackberry is number seven because it's the best text, email, and phone thing, but it's not higher on the list because I hate text, phones, and emails. Also, in my fascist dictatorship, all of your portable entertainment would be on this little thing. No speakers to disturb other passengers, no stupid camera to selfie the world to death with. iPod Nano, third generation, best looking one, color screen, physical buttons. You can still get them for 100 bucks on eBay.
Number two, you know that number one is the Franklin Language Master. So, what is number two? Kim and Ben's Atari 2600 with a modified cartridge that Kim and Ben's dad made in 1983.
Upon further reflection, I'd like to change my ranking. The Leica Q2 is number one.
Number two, Kim and Ben's dad was an engineer at General Dynamics, or as we like to call it, electric boat. And he built nuclear submarines. And at work, I think, please government, don't throw him in jail if this is against the rules, cuz it probably is. But at work, he and his buddies engineered an Atari 2600 cartridge so that you could leave the cartridge in the console and switch the games by switching the specific chip. I think it was a chip.
You'd carefully take, I don't know, the Raiders of the Lost Ark chip out of the hacked cartridge and carefully stick it onto a styrofoam holder. Then you'd take the Pac-Man chip out of the styrofoam holder and very carefully stick it into the hacked cartridge hole aperture so that the teeth on the little chip lined up with the holes on the board inside the cartridge. Clamped it down with this homemade clamp that the nuclear submarine engineers made probably at the General Dynamics factory in Groton. Then you turned on the Atari and it worked. Man, I was 8. My mind was completely blown. 1983.
This is my first experience with an analog modification of the digital world, aka a hack. And I think with AI, I think I'm finally in the age of my digital modification of my analog world. I present to you. Presenting the switcher cart.
The switcher cart. This video is a piece of a long form episode that's either linked to in the description or coming out soon. Join a paid tier of the Patreon to get in touch with me or to avail yourself of this channel's alternative universe. You can click this. It'll take you right there.
Products & Tools Mentioned
- Leica Q2 essential (#1 after re-ranking) — interval shooting demo, resilient design, "digital analog German"
- Franklin Language Master essential (original #1, final #2) — vocabulary computer, AA batteries
- iPod Nano 3rd Gen positive (#3) — hard buttons, color screen, plays video, $100 on eBay
- Game Boy Color positive (#4) — hacked as musical instrument, chiptune street performance
- Atari 2600 legendary (#2) — Kim and Ben's dad's modified cartridge, swappable chips, 1983
- Blackberry positive (#7) — best for text/email/phone
- Apple negative — "still suck," "terrible personality"
- iMac frustration — should work like the Leica Q2 but doesn't
- iPhone negative — would be replaced by Blackberry in Van's dictatorship
People Referenced
Kim and Ben's dad, Kevin