Author Topic: My New Computer (Read 16341 times)

ricercar · « **Reply #50 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 11:36:10 »

Duuuuuuuude. Flying toasters. You so rock.

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

megarat · « **Reply #51 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 13:32:47 »

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 · « **Reply #52 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 13:41:08 »

Quote from: megarat;160452

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 · « **Reply #53 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 14:44:06 »

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

Computer-Lab in Basement · « **Reply #54 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 14:51:26 »

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 · « **Reply #55 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 15:02:29 »

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

ricercar · « **Reply #56 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 16:43:45 »

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

microsoft windows · « **Reply #57 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 17:00:05 »

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

TexasFlood · « **Reply #58 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 17:19:51 »

Quote from: Computer-Lab in Basement;160481

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

Quote from: microsoft windows;160520

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 · « **Reply #59 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 17:21:17 »

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

TexasFlood · « **Reply #60 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 17:23:29 »

Quote from: ch_123;160528

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 · « **Reply #61 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 17:28:20 »

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 · « **Reply #62 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 17:32:42 »

Quote from: ch_123;160532

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 · « **Reply #63 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 17:47:08 »

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 · « **Reply #64 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 20:32:05 »

Quote from: kishy;160540

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 · « **Reply #65 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 20:45:28 »

Quote from: Computer-Lab in Basement;160575

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 · « **Reply #66 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 21:37:33 »

Quote from: kishy;160578

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 · « **Reply #67 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 22:01:25 »

Quote from: TexasFlood;160583

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 · « **Reply #68 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 22:18:10 »

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 · « **Reply #69 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 23:06:05 »

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 · « **Reply #70 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 23:35:11 »

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

TexasFlood · « **Reply #71 on:** Wed, 24 February 2010, 23:37:39 »

Hell I remember running Mosaic.

megarat · « **Reply #72 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 00:24:49 »

This thread reminded me of this classic old graphic:

megarat · « **Reply #73 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 00:30:58 »

Quote from: TexasFlood;160606

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 · « **Reply #74 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 00:59:12 »

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 · « **Reply #75 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 02:27:18 »

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 · « **Reply #76 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 14:57:02 »

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 · « **Reply #77 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 15:24:11 »

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

D-EJ915 · « **Reply #78 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 15:26:43 »

/me wonders if ms windows is for real

ch_123 · « **Reply #79 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 15:30:33 »

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 · « **Reply #80 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 15:38:25 »

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 · « **Reply #81 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 15:43:35 »

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 · « **Reply #82 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 15:52:06 »

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 · « **Reply #83 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 15:59:24 »

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 · « **Reply #84 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 16:06:41 »

Quote from: itlnstln;160698

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 · « **Reply #85 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 16:09:57 »

Quote from: Computer-Lab in Basement;160689

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 · « **Reply #86 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 16:12:45 »

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 · « **Reply #87 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 16:15:18 »

Quote from: ch_123;160706

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 · « **Reply #88 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 16:23:49 »

Quote from: ch_123;160709

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 · « **Reply #89 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 17:19:53 »

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 · « **Reply #90 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 19:41:55 »

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

bigpook · « **Reply #91 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 19:43:30 »

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

ricercar · « **Reply #92 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 20:29:29 »

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

kishy · « **Reply #93 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 20:33:50 »

Quote from: ricercar;160770

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 · « **Reply #94 on:** Thu, 25 February 2010, 23:27:15 »

Quote from: kishy;160771

...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 · « **Reply #95 on:** Fri, 26 February 2010, 02:46:13 »

Yeah I had good times with Dos 7.1.

ch_123 · « **Reply #96 on:** Fri, 26 February 2010, 17:24:50 »

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 · « **Reply #97 on:** Fri, 26 February 2010, 17:26:25 »

Quote from: ch_123;161014

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 · « **Reply #98 on:** Fri, 26 February 2010, 17:34:45 »

Quote from: ch_123;161014

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 · « **Reply #99 on:** Fri, 26 February 2010, 17:56:00 »

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.

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Author Topic: My New Computer (Read 16341 times)