Philip Adams
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Sydney, Australia
Philip Joseph Adams (born: April 21, 1994) is the host, director, and preparer of operating systems and software for the OSFirstTimer YouTube channel. He is also the creator of the time-travel indie hacking game Histacom and the make-your-own OS game ShiftOS.
He lived with his parents Diana and Ben Adams and his younger sister Jasmine in an apartment in Manly, Sydney until January 21st, 2018, where they moved into a house in Hobart, Tasmania.
Philip has edited for a fitness company located in Sydney. Some elements he includes in the videos for the company are included in OSFirstTimer videos as well. One example would be the lower thirds, which are the introduction slides with descriptive text, appearing mainly on the bottom of videos/documentaries.
In December 2020, Oscar Liang (MightyEagle73), content creator and veteran patron of OSFirstTimer's now-closed Patreon page, drove to Melbourne and took the Spirit of Tasmania down to Tasmania from Melbourne. He went with his dad and met up with Philip on 11th of December 2020. He helped Philip record and edit the 2020 Gaming Through The Ages Episode on OSFirstTimer, which was published four months later. He then returned to Philip's house on the 14th of December 2020 and they had their final talk before Oscar went back to Sydney.
As his main computer, Phil currently uses an Mwave custom-built PC, which the specs are listed of in OSFirstTimer's About section. A Samsung Galaxy S10+ phone, with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage space, was used as his phone and camera, until he replaced it with a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 in December 2021. His previous computer, an Alienware Area 51 from 2014, was replaced by his current one due to failing hardware, and the PC before that, a Lenovo ThinkStation was used but replaced with the Alienware PC due to increasing slowdown as well as increasing hardware incompatibility with newer software. He also used to own a Microsoft Surface Pro 3, but he sold it in 2019, due to his phone being capable enough to replace a portable computer for him.
In May 2025, Philip worked for a business in Tasmania as a video editor, website builder, graphic designer, physical & online store manager, virtual assistant and many other roles.
Early life[edit | edit source]
As a child, Philip loved playing the educational game Math Blaster: Episode 1 - In Search of Spot in math class. After asking his mum, he got his own computer at the age of 7 so he could play Math Blaster at home. Windows XP had just been released in Australia, and so the computer came pre-installed with XP.
Diana and Philip tried getting Math Blaster at the shop, but couldn't find it. Philip, upset, bought some other educational games. After playing the games, he quickly got bored. As Philip did not have the Internet at the time, he decided to explore other parts of XP, like the screensavers, games and help articles. He was amazed at the seemingly unlimited potential of his computer, even without the internet.
Sometime in the period from 2002-2004 (likely 2002), Philip visited Vanuatu via a cruise ship, as the only country apart from Australia he had visited in his life. (Later on, his family visited New Zealand and South Korea which were uploaded on the OSFT historic vlogs channel.)
Philip spent years exploring Windows XP, until sometime in 2007 when he got the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD). His computer soon stopped working, so he had to get a new one. He bought the computer the day Windows Vista was released in Australia, so the new computer came pre-installed with Vista.
On May 12, 2008, Philip started a project named Massive Archive, in which he tries to vlog almost anything every day, including his thoughts, activities and family-related things. He started uploading some of these vlogs in early 2015, but before that, he did not have the intention of making it public. In February 2019, he even decided to do a series named OSFT Archive on the channel OSFT Historic VLogs. It is a summary/commentary series of the vlogs contained in the archive, where Philip compares his past and present self and points out other differences and bad/unprofessional things. The series' episodes represent each month since the beginning of the archive (e.g.: Episode 1 - May 2008, Episode 2 - June 2008, etc.).
RSI Diagnosis[edit | edit source]
He learned about RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) at school, and a little while later, he got it. For a while, he stayed away from the computer as it hurt his fingers and wrote a couple of books until he read an online article about TMS, a possible cure for RSI. He then made Let's Plays on a new YouTube channel called AstralPhaser. He was originally going to call this channel RSIGamer, but that would remind him of RSI. On this channel, he played games such as Minecraft.
Philip's YouTube Channels[edit | edit source]
OSFirstTimer (Main YouTube Channel)[edit | edit source]
Philip eventually became bored with the games he played on AstralPhaser, since he wanted to play new ones (which he couldn't do, due to not finishing the games he'd started). By this point, TMS had cured his RSI, and he became interested in Windows 8 development. When it came out, he didn't like it and watched other people's reaction to see if they hated it. Once of the videos he saw was Chris Pirillo's "How Real People Will Use Windows 8" video, he then got inspired for his mum to try it, which started the OSFirstTimer channel. The channel's main aim was to find the best and worst operating systems (initially the worst operating system was Windows 8 but that changed when Diana tried out MS-DOS). Now, they do it for fun, as his mum (Diana) had a 2013 Alienware 14 laptop with Windows 8 to replace her old Toshiba one with Windows XP. The Alienware laptop also got replaced later with the Lenovo Yoga 910 in August 2017. But after some time, her Yoga 910 broke down, so she decided to switch to a Dell XPS laptop.
They used what they called the shaky cam method, until the Windows 95 video, where they started to use a screen recorder to show the operating system and a green screen to show Diana and Ben. On May 17, 2014, Philip started to make Dad Tries Out videos. OSFirstTimer also does tutorials, unboxings, and used to do Q&A videos as well. Philip even published the video OSFirstTimer - House Tour! to the channel, which is a tour of their old apartment. Due to Philip being busy with his work at a Tasmanian business, OSFirstTimer last uploaded on July 2nd, 2025.
AstralPhaser[edit | edit source]
AstralPhaser is a gaming YouTube channel that's home to Philip's Gaming Through the Ages series, where he plays games dating from 1975 to the present day, exploring 44 years of gaming console history. It is also home to the AstralPhaser Weekly Chat where members of the AstralPhaser Central Discord server meet, discuss and ask questions. These videos are unedited as of episode #11. The Weekly Chat has been discontinued since August 2017; episode #22 is the last episode, and the last video related to the server is called Experiment - Are The AstralPhaser Central Mods Abusive/Ban Happy?. AstralPhaser's original purpose was to upload Lets Plays of Philip playing various games to help him progress in overcoming RSI, and recording proved helpful in keeping his mind on something else other than RSI (hence the name change from RSIGamer to AstralPhaser). An Oculus Rift game playthrough series was uploaded before the Gaming Through the Ages series. AstralPhaser last uploaded on December 15, 2017.
I2padams[edit | edit source]
I2Padams was one of Philip's first YouTube channels. This channel is a replacement for his first (now deleted) 12padams channel and contains videos about Histacom, videos on The Phase, and also features some videos of an OS series he did, called Up To Date. Other videos include Minecraft being played by his then two-year-old sister Jasmine, a video of her eating a yucky lunch, and Codelink running on an iPad 2 with Splashtop. Due to Phil using a new account, I2padams last uploaded on August 20, 2012.
TerrifiedMum[edit | edit source]
A month after creating OSFirstTimer in 2012, Philip started the TerrifiedMum YouTube channel where he gets Diana to play scary games as decided by Phil or requested by the viewers. As of November 2018, the channel is inactive. The channel started with a brief playthrough of the original Slenderman game, then went on to other titles, including Oculus Rift games. The content later expanded to include a reaction video series named Diana Watches. TerrifiedMum last uploaded on August 14, 2017.
Arch Linux Adventures[edit | edit source]
Philip made a channel in early 2014 called Arch Linux Adventures, where he started in a terminal in Arch Linux and eventually evolved it by downloading the LXDE desktop environment, Compiz, and many more compatible programs. It was originally meant to have around 512 episodes, but it only had 15, (ep. 0-14) as it was hard enough to focus on his OSFirstTimer channel, and Philip wanted to work on ShiftOS more. Arch Linux Adventures last uploaded on March 1, 2014.
ShiftOS[edit | edit source]
Philip worked on ShiftOS, a game where you start with just a terminal and evolve it into a fully-functional graphical interface (like Arch Linux). However, he has stepped down from its development. From that point on, two new people were admins and developing ShiftOS, but later quit doing that (for currently unknown reasons), making the project officially inactive. ShiftOS also has its own YouTube channel. ShiftOS last uploaded on October 12, 2014.
OSFT Historic VLogs[edit | edit source]
In late 2014, Phil created a YouTube channel called OSFT Historic VLogs, where he publishes old and new, non-OSFirstTimer related videos such as videos from his childhood and parts of his daily life in more recent years of his life. The channel also contains videos including a 58-minute long video of Ben and Diana marrying on October 3, 1992, and a vlog video of them moving from Sydney to Tasmania in late January 2018, which is almost two hours long.
More about OSFT Historic VLogs
YouTube Millionaire[edit | edit source]
In late 2016, Philip created the YouTube Millionaire YouTube channel, posing the question whether it is possible to make a million dollars on YouTube in the next ten years with a series of different channels. The channel was originally kept secret but is now public.
TiaB KcilC[edit | edit source]
Around January 2017, Philip created the TiaB KcilC channel in secret (now public).
TiaB KcilC, reversed for Click Bait, is part of the YouTube Millionaire experiment. The channel is to see if videos with clickbait titles can assist to draw in more viewers and contribute to the YouTube Millionaire experiment. All videos on the channel have thumbnails designed to attract views.
Channel Description:
This is a channel you ought to click on... What is it? Who knows! Just click on it already!!!
How To Quickly[edit | edit source]
In late 2016, Philip created the How To Quickly YouTube channel which uploads quick computer-related tutorials on how to do certain tasks in the timeframe of 2 minutes or under. Examples are How To Quickly: Bulk Delete Emails From A Sender in Gmail and How To Quickly: View Older Versions Of Websites
How To Quickly's motto is:
...because two minutes is too long
What The Heck Just Happened[edit | edit source]
In late 2016, Philip created the What The Heck Just Happened YouTube channel which showcases various magic tricks. A video showing Phil doing a trick is published and it is soon followed by a video explaining how the trick works. However, viewers must reenact the trick themselves in a video and link it to Phil's video, before the trick is revealed on his channel. If a trick video reaches 100,000 views and still hasn't been solved, then Phil will release hints and snippets of attempted submissions to help viewers figure out exactly what happened in the trick. Also, Dianna made an appearance on what the heck just happened
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Let's Explore[edit | edit source]
In late 2016 Philip created the original Let's Explore YouTube channel which later evolved into the Let's Explore Community Hub.
Let's Explore involved Phil recording himself walking to various destinations in his local area allowing the viewers to decide what direction to go with YouTube poll cards, to explore new locations (initially starting with Phil's local beach, back when he lived in Sydney).
Philip made 13 episodes of Let's Explore in his area but due to the distance required to reach episode starting points Phil ended his personal Let's Explore videos and transferred the channel to someone else, however, it wasn't the end of Let's Explore as the channel had become quite popular and others began making their own Let's Explore Channels, which is when the Let's Explore Community Hub came around.
A dedicated Discord server was created under the same name to allow for other Let's Explorers to meet and discuss.
More about Let's Explore on the Let's Explore Wiki and this wiki.
Channel List[edit | edit source]
As of July 23, 2024, Philip has 12 channels:
- OSFirstTimer (inactive)
- OSFT Historic VLogs (inactive)
- AstralPhaser (discontinued)
- TerrifiedMum (discontinued)
- Temporary replacement was the Diana Games Through Time series on OSFirstTimer.
- YouTube Millionaire (discontinued)
- What The Heck Just Happened (discontinued)
- How To Quickly (discontinued)
- Let's Explore (discontinued)
- ShiftOS (discontinued)
- I2padams (discontinued)
- Arch Linux Adventures (discontinued)
- TiaB KcilC (discontinued)
Other channels he partially manages are Char Char Gaming (primarily owned by his sister Jasmine) and Diana's personal channel.
On the former channel, he made thumbnails and wrote descriptions for the videos she made. He was also featured in several videos of the Minecraft Let's Play series on that channel. Jasmine's channel has become inactive, as the last video published on the channel was on March 16th, 2019.
Diana's channel mostly consists of vlog-type videos, but also contains a prank video where she and her children prank her husband Ben, and used to also have a commercial-like skit video for the vitamin tablets by Berocca, which, albeit having been quite popular within the OSFirstTimer fanbase, is now no longer on the channel. The activity of the channel is unknown.
Trivia[edit | edit source]
- After over eight years of making content, he has managed to get over 100K subscribers.
- Char Char Gaming is the first channel he created that doesn't have him as the (main) host.
- Instead, Jasmine is the main host, due to the channel having been created for her.