My New Computer

[microsoft windows]

I got a new computer the other day you all will go bonkers over. It came from a heap of junk sitting by the clothing donation bins at the local Price Chopper. This machine costed over $3000 when it was new 14 years ago..


Here it is...the Gateway2000 P5-200!

This behemouth is over 2 feet tall. It towers over just about any other tower computer. With the fastest Pentium processor out there running at 200Mhz and a whopping 64mb of RAM, an army of disk drives, and a video card nearly a foot long, this beast could easily outpower many other machines in 1996.


Here's a close-up of the Gateway2000.

Now, I didn't just get the computer. It came with the whole rig: a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.


Now, of course, whenever any Geekhacker gets a keyboard, it's right and proper to show a picture of its keyswitches.

This keyboard appears to use sliders on top of rubber domes with Cherry-compatible key caps with lasered captions. It's a good-feeling keyboard--definitely one of the better rubber domes out there.

[kishy]

There were 233 and I think also 266MHz P1s...nice try though

I find that sort of machine absolutely boring...anything 486 through P4 bugs me for some reason. Older = cooler, newer = useful, in between = annoying. Oh well.

[ch_123]

I find that sort of machine absolutely boring...anything 486 through P4 bugs me for some reason

IBM PS/2 Model 95? =P

I'd agree otherwise. x86 machines make me yawn.

Nice tape drive though. IDE?

[mp29k]

I think it is a pretty cool computer microWin, Used to have one kinda like it back then.

[kishy]

Here's an older one for you. The text says he found it in his garage.

Whoa...how does one just FIND a System/7 in their garage lol

Seems to me you'd need to put it there first...

IBM PS/2 Model 95? =P

I'd agree otherwise. x86 machines make me yawn.

Nice tape drive though. IDE?

PS/2s...they're kind of exempt from the usual rules of x86ism. Strange, mythical, dust-breathing beasts in a sense.

Now, newer than P4...I have a use for these. Laptop is newer than P4 as is my (primary) desktop. I'd lose my head if I were depending on anything of lesser performance for daily operations

Oh, wish me good luck, I bought a Seagate 7200.11 series hard drive.

[TexasFlood]

Whoa...how does one just FIND a System/7 in their garage lol

Seems to me you'd need to put it there first...

Well, maybe it just says he found it in -a- garage, might open up the possibilities, :-D

[microsoft windows]

There were 233 and I think also 266MHz P1s...nice try though

I find that sort of machine absolutely boring...anything 486 through P4 bugs me for some reason. Older = cooler, newer = useful, in between = annoying. Oh well.

Intrigued by your comment, I did some research and found that Pentiums actually went up to 300Mhz with the Tillamook core. However, those CPU's were introduced in 1997, after the Gateway2000 was made.

I felt similar to you about computers. Most stuff Pentium through Pentium 4 is pretty boring. But the old top-of-the-line computers like this are always funny, especially when you find one dumped in the parking lot of the local supermarket.

You forgot the most important find.  The Cow mousepad.

Show Image

Oh, no I didn't! Take a close look at the pictures and you'll spot one.

[TexasFlood]

Hah, I still have one of those gateway cow mousepads (cow paddies?) in use, thought I was the only one.  Way back in the day, Gateway made the AnyKey keyboard with neat programming features.  But I think they looked a bit different that what I see in your picture:

[ricercar]

self deleted for irrelevancy.

[itlnstln]

Those AnyKey 'boards were money.  My mom had one at work back in the day, and that thing was a hoss.  She kept it through several PCs after that one.

[microsoft windows]

My old Gateway2000 from 1993 had an Anykey, but I mistakenly threw it out a few years ago. It was a great keyboard.

[datamonger128]

I used to have a computer like that.  I gutted it and put a newer Pentium III based system in it.  Mine had a 166MHz Pentium (non-MMX) and 32MB RAM.  It also had a 1MB video card and an old SoundBlaster 16 ISA card.  The best thing about it though was the motherboard.  Does anyone remember cache-on-a-stick?

The case was a beast.  It was such a pain in the ass to open, or at least mine was.  I eventually found a used Gateway "Essential" case at a computer store and bought it for $10.

[ch_123]

TexasFlood, is that the SGI server toy in your avatar?

[kishy]

"COAST"

I've got one or two floating around. One is dead (somehow, yes, it's possible) and awaiting being turned into a keychain.

[ch_123]

I've seen a few of those on old Mac motherboards. Truly a throwback to days long gone...

[TexasFlood]

TexasFlood, is that the SGI server toy in your avatar?

Yes, ;-) , a unique, if somwhat silly, reminder for me of days gone by.  I thought you might recognize it if anyone would, given your avatar.  And you didn't disappoint.

[microsoft windows]

I used to have a computer like that.  I gutted it and put a newer Pentium III based system in it.  Mine had a 166MHz Pentium (non-MMX) and 32MB RAM.  It also had a 1MB video card and an old SoundBlaster 16 ISA card.  The best thing about it though was the motherboard.  Does anyone remember cache-on-a-stick?

The case was a beast.  It was such a pain in the ass to open, or at least mine was.  I eventually found a used Gateway "Essential" case at a computer store and bought it for $10.

My Gateway2000 has the Cache-on-a-stick too. I think this one was the best model available at the time, with 62MB of RAM and a 200Mhz non-MMX Pentium.

This computer's got one of those old 16-bit ISA Soundblasters too, but I can't find a driver for it. Do you have one?

I love its Intense 3D Voodoo video card though. I found a picture of one online.

A whopping 4 megabytes...that won't get you too far nowadays.

[ch_123]

Yes, ;-) , a unique, if somwhat silly, reminder for me of days gone by.  I thought you might recognize it if anyone would, given your avatar.  And you didn't disappoint.

There are people around here with far more elaborate SGI collections than I, the SGI thing is just a recent craze for me.

Speaking of finding stuff in skips, I saved one of these from destruction earlier -



It has Mac OS 9.1 at the moment. An intense debate rages over whether it should now get Debian, NetBSD or Darwin instead.

[microsoft windows]

They've got some of those at work. I plan to get my hands on some on Garbage Day.

[kishy]

[ch_123]

The thing has been out in the rain for a few days, and after drying off it booted fine. They're quite well built machines, if not terribly powerful by today's standards.

Such are the joys of college.

[kishy]

Well, the reality is MOST electronics will still work after having been rained on...assuming they're dried properly before being plugged in.

That's a neat find though. You could probably sell it for a considerable amount before it becomes TOO outdated (and it's not yet...doesn't have too much longer though).

[ch_123]

I donated it to one of the computer societies I'm involved with in college. It will be put to good use for the rest of its useful life.

[datamonger128]

I may be able to help you out, Windows.  I have an old Gateway G6-333c that used SB16.  PCI-based though.  Maybe the drivers will still work with the ISA version though?

*EDIT*
I just checked Creative's website.  They do have the old SoundBlaster 16 and even just regular SoundBlaster listed.  Since I don't know exactly what one you have, I just figured I'd give you a link to the site.  http://support.creative.com/Products/product_list.aspx?catID=1&CatName=Sound+Blaster#

You may also want to try this link.  http://www.pandpservices.com/drivers/soundblaster/  They only have the PCI driver for SB16, but it may just work.

[kishy]

SB16 should have drivers included with 98+...I'd expect.

If you want to upgrade to an AWE64, I'm selling a couple for $5 a pop...

[ricercar]

If you want to upgrade to an AWE64, I'm selling a couple for $5 a pop...

What a ripoff. I wouldn't pay more than $4.25 for one of those!

[kishy]

What a ripoff. I wouldn't pay more than $4.25 for one of those!

Geekhack member discount is $1. There.

[ricercar]

I'd jump on this one! What a bargain!

:rapture:

[kishy]

I'd jump on this one! What a bargain!

:rapture:

25% lower than your proposed discount...$4.00 for a guaranteed-not-DOA decent ISA sound card, I dunno, seems fair to me but then I'm the one standing to free up some space in the "cards for sale" bin.

[ricercar]

You're not taking me seriously are you? I admit I used a smiley only in the second post, but still....

:boink:

[microsoft windows]

I may be able to help you out, Windows.  I have an old Gateway G6-333c that used SB16.  PCI-based though.  Maybe the drivers will still work with the ISA version though?

*EDIT*
I just checked Creative's website.  They do have the old SoundBlaster 16 and even just regular SoundBlaster listed.  Since I don't know exactly what one you have, I just figured I'd give you a link to the site.  http://support.creative.com/Products/product_list.aspx?catID=1&CatName=Sound+Blaster#

You may also want to try this link.  http://www.pandpservices.com/drivers/soundblaster/  They only have the PCI driver for SB16, but it may just work.

I wasn't able to find a working driver. It turns out that the card is an old Ensoniq Soundscape Vivo 90. I tried other drivers, including the sound blaster ones, but they just don't seem to work. Oh well. Guess I'll just have to scrounge up an old sound card from someplace.

[D-EJ915]

Gateway was famous for their Ensoniq crap, the mobo on my file server (440BX) has that junk on it lol.  My Sony 440LX board had some nice yamaha sound with awesome MIDI which I could use with FF7 for amazing sound so it was a real downgrade.

[itlnstln]

Yamaha was money.  When the SoundBlaster AWE32 came out, however, it was game over.
 
Did anyone know anybody that had an Adlib card?  Nobody I knew ever had an Adlib.

[kishy]

You're not taking me seriously are you? I admit I used a smiley only in the second post, but still....

:boink:

Heh, half yes and half no.

I seriously will give a geekhack member discount for purchases on my website, but with the vast majority of items being $5 there isn't much I can do before I'm losing money.

I wasn't able to find a working driver. It turns out that the card is an old Ensoniq Soundscape Vivo 90. I tried other drivers, including the sound blaster ones, but they just don't seem to work. Oh well. Guess I'll just have to scrounge up an old sound card from someplace.

Gateway was famous for their Ensoniq crap, the mobo on my file server (440BX) has that junk on it lol.  My Sony 440LX board had some nice yamaha sound with awesome MIDI which I could use with FF7 for amazing sound so it was a real downgrade.

I have a PCI Ensoniq card that's essentially a Creative card (Sound Blaster PCI 128). Same drivers work, IIRC. I thought most Ensoniq products were Creative "OEMs" but apparently not...

[D-EJ915]

I think you are right about them being OEM versions, but they were still crap (the soundblaster was crap too) lol

[ricercar]

I have an Ensoniq sound card that doesn't take normal sb drivers. Finally found a two-floppy driver installer on Driverhaven. Frigging zip file REQUIRED two floppies to unzip, so I had to install a floppy drive to install the soundcard. It was such a pain.

And I absolutely HAD to get it running, because people were running virtual machines on my hardware, and if ESX Server found no soundcard on the server hardware, customers couldn't run sound on their VMs. what a crock of crap...

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

I think I have a Sound Blaster that you can have MS Windows.  If not I can always grab one from my uncle, he has an infinite number of those things it seems, in both PCI and ISA.

[microsoft windows]

After relentless searching, installations, an prayer,  I got the sound card to work. Hooray!

[datamonger128]

I wasn't able to find a working driver. It turns out that the card is an old Ensoniq Soundscape Vivo 90. I tried other drivers, including the sound blaster ones, but they just don't seem to work. Oh well. Guess I'll just have to scrounge up an old sound card from someplace.

If you can pay shipping, I have an old PCI SoundBlaster 128 you can have just for the cost of shipping.

[datamonger128]

Oh, well I guess I didn't see that when I put up my earlier post.  So congrats on getting it to work.  Where did you find the drivers that worked if I might ask?

[kishy]

Somewhat related but mostly not...

It hit me like a brick to the face when someone on another site suggested "why not SCSI?" in my attempt to find a new hard drive + controller card for my PS/2 Model 30 286. All this time I've had a perfectly good SCSI card, cable, and drive...

So now I've got a 10MHz 286 with a 1GB hard drive, 2.6MB of RAM, MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1...retrogaming? Yes!



(More photos are attached if you feel so inclined)

Sorry for the hijack MW but figured you may get a kick out of this anyway.

[D-EJ915]

lol a wireless mouse on a 286, nice

[kishy]

lol a wireless mouse on a 286, nice

Oh yeah forgot about that lol.

Got that mouse NIB for about 3 dollars. Works surprisingly well.

Would have had the original PS/2 mouse in the photo but the cord gets in the way.

[microsoft windows]

I bet the toasters in my After Dark screensaver wouldn't go too fast on that 286.

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

Good old After Dark, all my old computers are too fast for it. Even my Compaq, which runs at 120Mhz, is too fast to run the toasers properly.

[itlnstln]

Haha, DOOM - you vintage guys.

That's not DOOM, youngun, it's Wolfenstein 3D.  Even more vintage.

[microsoft windows]

Sure there were. Ever heard of Simcity? Railroad Tycoon?

[itlnstln]

Oregon Trail, Where in the x is Carmen Sandiego?, Thexder, Leisure Suit Larry, Space Quest, King's Quest, Police Quest, Zork...

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

Ever hear of Pong? It might not be a PC game but it's old as the hills.



They do have a PC version though.

[ch_123]

Good old After Dark, all my old computers are too fast for it. Even my Compaq, which runs at 120Mhz, is too fast to run the toasers properly.

DOSbox is your friend.

[ricercar]

Duuuuuuuude. Flying toasters. You so rock.

Games Before Doom
Seven Cities of Gold
Bard's Tale
Wizardry

[megarat]

DOSbox!  Nice, this is the first I'd heard of this.  I've been trying to come up with a reasonable way to get Carmageddon working again (without keeping around a dedicated Win95 or Mac OS 8 box), and this might just be the ticket.

[itlnstln]

DOSbox!

The friend of abandonware fiends worldwide.  I used to comb abandonware sites and play emulators like none other in college.  I never used DOSbox, though, because back then, we really didn't need it.  Some games needed a little extra speed anyway.

[microsoft windows]

You don't really need DOSBox when you've got a whole fleet of junky old computers...

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

Speaking of junky computers, I just hooked my old Windows 95 machine up to ethernet.  The first think I did was go on the geekhack forums.  But I forgot about IE 3...



My phone's web browser is better than this.

[ch_123]

That's a definite improvement over IE2... That thing crashes if you try to load Google...

[ricercar]

Win 95 runs up to IE 5.5. If you need a copy, PM

[microsoft windows]

You can download a copy of Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2 on OldApps.com.

[TexasFlood]

Speaking of junky computers, I just hooked my old Windows 95 machine up to ethernet.

Wow.  I probably still have a copy of Windows 95 around here somewhere.  I know I have a copy of Windows for Workgroups 3.11, and OS/2 Warp!  Although I don't think any copies of Windows 98 or Windows ME would have survived, :-D

You can download a copy of Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2 on OldApps.com.

Thanks for that, cool site.  FYI, watch out for my penguin, ;-)

[ch_123]

I have copies of all legacy versions of Windows if people want or need them.

[TexasFlood]

I have copies of all legacy versions of Windows if people want or need them.

If you have any copies of Windows Millennium, I highly recommend you burn them immediately before you get any on you.  ;-)

[ch_123]

I ran ME on my PC back when it came out, got if for free from my Dad's workplace. I remember the lack of DOS mode, and yes, it did crash a good bit more than 98. I would have been around 10 years old at the time, so I'm sure the novelty value outweighed these 'petty' usability issues.

Fortunately, I also got XP when it first came out a few months later, so it was a short and obscure chapter of my computer-using days.

[TexasFlood]

I ran ME on my PC back when it came out, got if for free from my Dad's workplace. I remember the lack of DOS mode, and yes, it did crash a good bit more than 98. I would have been around 10 years old at the time, so I'm sure the novelty value outweighed these 'petty' usability issues.

Fortunately, I also got XP when it first came out a few months later, so it was a short and obscure chapter of my computer-using days.

I liked XP.  Vista not so much.  Windows 7 I think I will like but don't have it yet, soon hopefully.  Windows 7 and VMWare Workstation 7 sound like a good pair for the new PC.

[kishy]

Windows 7 is an excellent piece of software. Under the hood, to be fair, Vista had it right too...but the dramatic user experience departure from XP killed it for most people (myself included).

7 has managed to take the user experience of Vista and make it welcoming, functional and largely intuitive (something that very few pieces of software do successfully).

Millennium...oh boy.

They really should have finished Neptune. It was slated to be the "2000 Home Edition" that would have prevented ME ever existing...but they pulled the plug. I've run Neptune for a fair while on a few different machines and I simply can't see why they canceled it...from my perspective it looked more than half ready for release and was so promising. It's like a merger between 2000 and XP in some ways (mainly interface tricks).

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

I've run Neptune for a fair while on a few different machines and I simply can't see why they canceled it...

What is this Neptune? it sounds interesting, like a combination of Win2k and XP? that sounds like something for me.

[kishy]

What is this Neptune? it sounds interesting, like a combination of Win2k and XP? that sounds like something for me.

One day while browsing for [closed source operating system made by a large company that sues people often] on a [decentralized method of sharing files] search engine, I stumbled upon it.

You can read the essentials here.

Essentially it was a NT-based home-oriented operating system in development at a time that would make it "2000 Home Edition" if released. They canceled it because they were idiots.

Edit: to be clear, I say they were idiots because they could have gone a couple extra years floating on 2k Pro/Home had it been released...then done XP at a later time. XP was a great product though, and the work done on 2k/Neptune does show.

[TexasFlood]

One day while browsing for [closed source operating system made by a large company that sues people often] on a [decentralized method of sharing files] search engine, I stumbled upon it.

You can read the essentials here.

Essentially it was a NT-based home-oriented operating system in development at a time that would make it "2000 Home Edition" if released. They canceled it because they were idiots.

Edit: to be clear, I say they were idiots because they could have gone a couple extra years floating on 2k Pro/Home had it been released...then done XP at a later time. XP was a great product though, and the work done on 2k/Neptune does show.

So if I understand correctly, Neptune was to Windows 2000 as XP Home was to XP?  If so then I always run XP Pro, and there was a Windows 2000 Pro which I ran before XP so maybe there was no Windows 2000 OS gap for me, :smile:

[kishy]

So if I understand correctly, Neptune was to Windows 2000 as XP Home was to XP?  If so then I always run XP Pro, and there was a Windows 2000 Pro which I ran before XP so maybe there was no Windows 2000 OS gap for me, :smile:

I wasn't suggesting there was a gap...I'm suggesting there should have been.

2000 was released in early 2000. XP was released in late 2001. Less than 2 years between major OS releases?

2000 and XP Pro were never intended for home use. Doesn't stop me using them, but if we look at how MS targeted them, 2000 was for business users, "2000 Home" was for home users...but they scrapped it and put together ME quickly, basically taking 98 and screwing it up (but adding important features which actually work in later versions).

If Neptune had been released, released any time from 2000 to 2002, XP overall could/would have been delayed. Business/industry doesn't want to upgrade every year or two, they want a solid product to run for 5-10 years before phasing out...as a result MS could have gone until maybe 2004 without another major release and been fine (probably further, but it would make them look lazy), assuming "2000 Home Edition" was a sufficient product.

I'm not suggesting development speed should have been reduced for the sake of reducing development speed...I say it should have been reduced, sure, but for the reason of having stronger, more complete releases.

[TexasFlood]

I always thought XP was basically 2000 updated with the graphics aspects that home users want.  To me this is a good thing, building on a known stable base (not ME) to fit the market demands.

But I'm reading about Neptune here, seeing what I can learn.

[ricercar]

XP networking is significantly improved from 2000, but I'd have to tell you to Google to discover exactly what.

Vista vs 7?

• Vista is WAY more cranky than Win7 on 1GB of RAM or fewer, while Win7 is tolerable on a gig. For me it's been a no-brainer to use 7 on 1GB.
• Vista is tolerable on 2GB. Win7 Flies on 2GB. On my machines with 2GB, I'll run 7 (at least for 6 more days, when all my licenses expire).
• Vista is fine on 3-4GB. I've never been tempted to leave Vista on my 3GB laptop.

Because I have a corporate XP license, I'll probably downgrade all my Windows 7 machines to XP. According to ZoneAlarm, Corporate XP never phones home, no matter how hardware changes.

Blah blah Linux Blah blah one machine.

[D-EJ915]

NT4 came with IE2 lol, looks totally different than IE3 which they used the style of until 6

[TexasFlood]

Hell I remember running Mosaic.

[megarat]

This thread reminded me of this classic old graphic:

[megarat]

Hell I remember running Mosaic.

Indeed.  Similarly, I remember back when Yahoo! used to be able to provide a list of all the new sites that came online -- for the entire web -- and the list was only about thirty per week.

[ricercar]

Oh yea? Well, I remember running a SLIP converter through my shell dialup to get a TCP/IP connection for my Netscape.

We'd otherwise run something on Mac System 7 (called MacWindows?) that would put each shell instance into a different window, so we could play more than one MUD at a time.

I had a Macintosh SE/30 and a brickish Thinkpad 385, which probably weighed more. NT4 with 80 whole megs of RAM on a TWO GIG hard drive. We were developong a web app for IE4 AND Netscape 4. And they were different, and they were different on the Mac VS windows too. We'd have to run seven different browsers before the UI was golden for each dialogue box.

Damn, those were the days.

[datamonger128]

Well, while we are on the subject of various versions of Windows, I think Microsoft released Windows 2000 at the time they did because of delays and also because of the fact that the most current NT-based version was from 1996.  Also, if anyone remembers correctly, wasn't Windows 2000 to be released originally as Windows NT 5.0?

As for Windows ME, I had nothing but trouble with ME.  It was unstable, crashed multiple times per day, and just generally sucked.  A friend of mine, however, got himself a nice Sony Vaio in early 2001 and that came with ME.  He never had a single problem with it.  All of his problems were with 98 whereas I had no problems with 98 at all.  So really, I think that if a computer came with ME from the factory, then it wasn't all that problematic.  But then again, I've only known a handfull of people who used ME, so I can't really say much on that.

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

I have used ME before, and it's not the best, but its a hell of alot better than Windows 98.  For me, Windows 98 would crash at least 5 times daily and 98SE sucks with wireless networking.  ME ran pretty well on my dad's old Dell Dimension 4100, that is until it became infected with viruses, and even then it would still chug along.  I have nothing against ME, except for the fact that Win2k, XP, and 7 are all alot more stable and can handle alot more modern software.

[microsoft windows]

Windows XP is basically Windows 2000, except it takes longer to shut down, crashes, and the Tack Manager doesn't work reliably.

[D-EJ915]

/me wonders if ms windows is for real

[ch_123]

Well, it's accurate up until the point where they came out with SP2.

The main reason why Vista was so **** was that they spent so much effort fixing XP that they didn't have enough time to work on it's successor. Win2K should have had a much longer shelf life than it really did.

[itlnstln]

Vista was bad because of third-parties not getting (quality) drivers out in a timely manner.  I have run into a few problems with 7, but it has been much better than Vista at launch.

[ch_123]

There was that too, paricularly nVidia made a complete and utter balls of things that would have bankrupted any other company if they had done the same... But Vista was rushed out too early, even moreso than other Windows versions.

[itlnstln]

UAC was annoying in Vista, to be sure, and one of the first things I did after an install was turn it off. In 7, I have not had to turn it off at all on any of my three installs. It is very unobtrusive. In either case, I haven't had any problems with the OS itself. As a matter of fact, Windows 7 is the best OS I have ever used.

[D-EJ915]

Speaking of nVidia their newest driver for my 6800/win7 is loads better than the first one which I got all sorts of whack windows having missing parts, etc. it was kind of funny aside from being sad.

[ch_123]

UAC was annoying in Vista, to be sure, and one of the first things I did after an install was turn it off. In 7, I have not had to turn it off at all on any of my three installs. It is very unobtrusive. In either case, I haven't had any problems with the OS itself. As a matter of fact, Windows 7 is the best OS I have ever used.

Despite the flak it got, UAC, was Vista's best feature. Finally MS implemented something that most good OSes had since the 1970s or before...

I remember reading an interview with a chief MS programmer where he discussed the whole thinking behind UAC. The problem with the obtrusiveness was really to do moreso with the amount of badly written software that was out at the time. He said something to the effect that they had to do a pretty lightweight implementation in Vista, and that it would get stricter in subsequent releases as the quality of third party software picked up. Further proof that 2/3 of the problem with Windows is other people's software.

Things could be worse, they could have ripped off the *nix way of doing business, and you'd have to enter a password instead of clicking ok.

[TexasFlood]

I have used ME before, and it's not the best, but its a hell of alot better than Windows 98.  For me, Windows 98 would crash at least 5 times daily and 98SE sucks with wireless networking.  ME ran pretty well on my dad's old Dell Dimension 4100, that is until it became infected with viruses, and even then it would still chug along.  I have nothing against ME, except for the fact that Win2k, XP, and 7 are all alot more stable and can handle alot more modern software.

We used to call Windows 98 the "cat crasher" because it was so touchy that it would crash if the cat walked across the monitor, :wink:  I won't attack ME any more than I already have, just have memories of the problems experienced by those who had it being difficult to diagnose & resolve.

In my book, the good "home" versions of windows were 3.11, 95, XP and hopefully 7.  I suppose Windows NT 3.51 workstation, Windows NT 4.0 workstation and Windows 2000 Pro should be on that list as well but generally weren't considered home OSs due to lack of support for games and such.  A lot of good Windows versions has to do with service pack level but I don't remember details of the old versions any more.  Like Vista seemed OK after SP2, SP1 nuked the Vista Business on my son's laptop when trying to install.

[ch_123]

Windows 95 good? Not sure which Windows 95 you were using!

Of course, alot of what you described is due to the traditional NT/DOS divide between home and business version of Windows.

[itlnstln]

He said something to the effect that they had to do a pretty lightweight implementation in Vista, and that it would get stricter in subsequent releases as the quality of third party software picked up. Further proof that 2/3 of the problem with Windows is other people's software.

Excellent point.  That's one reason that I don't really like installing third-party software.  It's not that I'm an MS fanboy, or anything, but there are some (even high-profile) companies that are putting out crapware.

[TexasFlood]

Windows 95 good? Not sure which Windows 95 you were using!

Of course, alot of what you described is due to the traditional NT/DOS divide between home and business version of Windows.

Good as a home OS, and yes a lot of what folks want to run at home was on the DOS side of the divide back then.  95 is nothing I would ever, or ever did, run in a production environment but thought it was a good home OS.  And I seem to have left off OS/2 which was also a good OS that wasn't usually considered a home OS.  My neighbor back in Austin ran it and it worked great for his needs, wonderfully stable.

[bigpook]

I remember win95 sucking pretty bad. It looked pretty coming off of 3.11 but wouldn't stay up for more then a day for me without needing a reboot. For the longest time I thought it was the hardware until I installed linux on it and made it a file server for the house. That box stayed up over a year before I decommissioned it.

I think windows 2000 was when they started getting their act together. NT was ok, but didn't have hardware detection which made it tedious.
I have a Vista laptop at work which seems to work, but I find it to be slow. And its running on a 2G dual core with 3G of ram.
Haven't tried win7 yet. Can't seem to swallow the cost of admission for personal use. And not to sure what it would give me over what I already have with ubuntu.

[microsoft windows]

Windows 95 is a very good operating system. It'e never crashed on me. 98, on the other hand, is a different story.

[bigpook]

I vaguely remember win98 being a little bit better, but still, it was a POS OS.

[ricercar]

95-98-ME aren't OSs. They're complex shells (with an API) for DOS 6.x.

[kishy]

95-98-ME aren't OSs. They're complex shells (with an API) for DOS 6.x.

...and 7.x, and 8.x.

[Mr.6502]

...and 7.x, and 8.x.

Ahh MS DOS 7.1.  That was handy to have around.  My old laptop is still set up with 3 partitions for Windows 95 OSR2 (light, fast, unstable, but better USB support than Windows 98), Windows 2000 for any complex or time consuming tasks, and standalone MS DOS 7.1 with 3.11, 95 and 98 shells to run in it.  

At some point I was going through these figuring out the fastest way to get it from off to a good word processor since it has no functioning batteries and I would take it with me from class to class in college.  Those shells, stripped down to the basics put a decent front end on 7.1 and required very few resources.  But IIRC the fastest option ended up being to boot DOS, launch Fusion PC and load up Mac OS 8.  I did that until i wrote my own note-taking oriented word processor for DOS.

OSes seemed more fun back then.  All that crap fits on the 2 gig HDD of my P200 laptop.  Good times.

[HaaTa]

Yeah I had good times with Dos 7.1.

[ch_123]

Today the garbage day was taken to extremes of awesomeness with the discovery of a cabinet of SGI Itanium racks.



Despite the people who were dumping it telling me that they were useless by themselves, the good people at Nekochan have told me otherwise and I intend on getting it running soon.

[kishy]

Today the garbage day was taken to extremes of awesomeness with the discovery of a cabinet of SGI Itanium racks.

Show Image

Despite the people who were dumping it telling me that they were useless by themselves, the good people at Nekochan have told me otherwise and I intend on getting it running soon.

I insist that you post scans of last month's electricity bill and then the bill for the next whole month you have it running.

[TexasFlood]

Today the garbage day was taken to extremes of awesomeness with the discovery of a cabinet of SGI Itanium racks.

Despite the people who were dumping it telling me that they were useless by themselves, the good people at Nekochan have told me otherwise and I intend on getting it running soon.

Not sure, never touched one myself.  Be a fun toy if you can get it fired up, my guess would be it's going to need 200-240 VAC.

[ch_123]

We have 240V over here... The rack had an impressive Industrial blue plug which went into a power unit. It in turn fed kettle leads to all the racks. A single rack can be powered off a wall socket though.

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

Well I have Microsoft Neptune running on one of my computers now, and I like it, but I don't think it is very practical for everyday use.  It actually worked with all the display and sound drivers out of the box, and it seems somewhat stable.  However, I realized that you cannot runany programs off of USB flash devices, it will say that they are invalid Win32 programs.  If this OS continues to work, I have no reason to get rid of it.  It even let me install my USB wireless N card that is suppose to require Win2k SP4 minimum to run, but it works!  Thanks to kishy for the info.

[kishy]

Well I have Microsoft Neptune running on one of my computers now, and I like it, but I don't think it is very practical for everyday use.  It actually worked with all the display and sound drivers out of the box, and it seems somewhat stable.  However, I realized that you cannot runany programs off of USB flash devices, it will say that they are invalid Win32 programs.  If this OS continues to work, I have no reason to get rid of it.  It even let me install my USB wireless N card that is suppose to require Win2k SP4 minimum to run, but it works!  Thanks to kishy for the info.

Plenty welcome. As you can see it was pretty much a mix of 2000 Pro at heart, a little NT4 left over still, with home user-friendly features being mixed in. Imagine if they'd finished it...it would have been one of the products we looked back on as being good, the same way most people view XP presently.

[TexasFlood]

We have 240V over here... The rack had an impressive Industrial blue plug which went into a power unit. It in turn fed kettle leads to all the racks. A single rack can be powered off a wall socket though.

There are a lot of different plug types.  I often have to ask a facilities guy or look it up in a cheat sheet.  In general I know receptacles above the raised floor but most often not under which is probably the variety your device has.

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

A screenshot of Neptune:

[kishy]

As I understand it they were looking at a slightly different GUI, similar to how XP's Luna was "different but the same". It's almost an untouched 2000 interface on the builds of Neptune that are out there.

[TexasFlood]

A screenshot of Neptune:

Looks a lot like the 2000 or XP classic start menu.   see a Neptune Build 5111 ISO out there, is that what you loaded?

[kishy]

Looks a lot like the 2000 or XP classic start menu.   see a Neptune Build 5111 ISO out there, is that what you loaded?

Build 5111 is the only one that can still be found so it's gotta be what he has. It was released to testers and nobody was allowed to distribute it, but hey, it's a MS product...

There were rumours of another build floating around, basically stolen from MS by in-house staff I think, and a long time ago I saw the torrent was listed on search engines but had no seeds. It's disappeared since then.

IIRC it was an earlier build, but I get this weird feeling it was in the 7-thousands. Don't recall exactly.

[ch_123]

There are a lot of different plug types.  I often have to ask a facilities guy or look it up in a cheat sheet.  In general I know receptacles above the raised floor but most often not under which is probably the variety your device has.

One of these -



Bare in mind that this was for a cabinet of 8 racks, each with redundant 500W PSUs.

Given that I intend on setting up at most two, regular kettle leads will be sufficient.

[TexasFlood]

Build 5111 is the only one that can still be found so it's gotta be what he has. It was released to testers and nobody was allowed to distribute it, but hey, it's a MS product...

I was once in a meeting with the Micro$oft dude who ran their web site, forget his name.  He was talking about pirated copies of XP and how they were tracking them.  He wasn't amused to find out I'd run XP like a year before release, no sense of humor.  Since it was released I have 3 legit licenses.  Didn't say I bought them, got them all free, but they're all legit.  Wonder if I can spin up Neptune under WMWare workstation 7?  Probably.  Dang I gotta get that new system built.

[TexasFlood]

One of these -

Show Image

Bare in mind that this was for a cabinet of 8 racks, each with redundant 500W PSUs.

Given that I intend on setting up at most two, regular kettle leads will be sufficient.

Just watch the amps, or you might blow a breaker/fuse.

[ch_123]

Well, at least I wont be running them in my house, or indeed anywhere were I have to pay for electricity!

[quadibloc]

What is this Neptune? it sounds interesting, like a combination of Win2k and XP? that sounds like something for me.

Seeing your image, I was inspired to Google, and found it was a beta version of a predecessor of XP that Microsoft worked on back before they gave up and came out with Windows ME.

Remember, though, don't connect it to the Internet - unlike licensed versions of 2000 and XP, you can't get patches for the Sasser and Blaster worms for it, and it would be vulnerable to them, being based on Windows 2000.

[Specter_57]

..
Those three-pronged blue power plugs...we used to run welding machines off of plugs like that....


........
Spec57

[kishy]

Seeing your image, I was inspired to Google, and found it was a beta version of a predecessor of XP that Microsoft worked on back before they gave up and came out with Windows ME.

Remember, though, don't connect it to the Internet - unlike licensed versions of 2000 and XP, you can't get patches for the Sasser and Blaster worms for it, and it would be vulnerable to them, being based on Windows 2000.

While that's solid advice that I'll second, it's probably worth noting that he isn't likely to USE a computer running Neptune...likely just tinkering with it. It's never a good idea to rely on pre-release software for day-to-day anythingness.

[datamonger128]

While that's solid advice that I'll second, it's probably worth noting that he isn't likely to USE a computer running Neptune...likely just tinkering with it. It's never a good idea to rely on pre-release software for day-to-day anythingness.

But yet on a regular basis, I'm sure some of us hear of people having problems with their computers running Windows 7.  How many of us have gotten "My computer keeps rebooting every two hours"?

[kishy]

But yet on a regular basis, I'm sure some of us hear of people having problems with their computers running Windows 7.  How many of us have gotten "My computer keeps rebooting every two hours"?

First suspect for (anything) is malware and the like. Rule that out, then we actually look at what the symptom is.

First suspect for spontaneous reboots is hardware (or perhaps a poorly written driver, but signed drivers w/WHQL cert are supposed to be mandatory now).

RAM, HDD, PSU, mobo itself, RAID controller if present, in some cases video card...spontaneous reboot issues are a can of worms and best troubleshooted by replacing each part until the problem goes away.

[ch_123]

First suspect - you're running a beta/RC copy of Windows 7 that has expired.

Incidentally, progress goes well with the Itanium rack. I'm just having a bit of a hurdle finding a Linux that works with it properly.

[ch_123]

Lesson of the day - If you want to inflict gratuitous amounts of pain on yourself, get an Itanium rack with all sorts of proprietary chipsets, and try and install CentOS on it.

I really should stick to keyboards in future =P