Resurrecting a Legacy X86 PC..

[Captain Jack]

Yeah, fdisk scared the carp out of me as it was destructive whereas GParted (or Partition Magic back in the day!) retained your data. Though it was still scary on live disks...

 

[Vipersan]

Stage 2 is almost complete..
Hope this is jogging a few memories..
lol

 

[Vipersan]

Jobs a good un..

 

[Vipersan]

The story so far ..
Lol

 

[Vipersan]

..I spose I could try ME ,2000,NT ..and Vista ..
But is there any point ?
did these OS have anything really advantageous ?
but I guess they are 'retro' ...

 

[Channel Hopper]

So ..having been gifted a full set of floppies for Windoze 3.00 (cheers Neil)
..I had to travel a bit further down the rabbit hole ..
Found an old 6gb IDE to play with ..but stupidly forgot that 3.00 can only use FAT ...
is that FAT16 ..?
I doubt it's even that.
Point being the drive/partition size cannot exceed 2gb ...and requires DOS to format and install.
Managed to find MSDOS 6.2 ..and now have a full 4 disk floppy set (pause for jokes).
And made 3 partitions on the Hard Drive ..and am currently fomatting using the MSDOS diskettes..
I've forgotten soooo much over the years..
lol
But slowly the grey matter is accommodating the Legacy stuff..

I did offer you some small drives a few days back.

 

[Lazarus]

I did offer you some small drives a few days back.

Just as far as the Post Office would be fine.

 

[2cvbloke]

..I spose I could try ME ,2000,NT ..and Vista ..
But is there any point ?

NT (3.5& 4.0) is different to use compared to 3.x & 95, so is fun to play with, ME is great if you want to see how fast a computer can crash, 2000, that's just NT with a new skin, and vista can just go in the bin where it belongs...

 

[Vipersan]

NT (3.5& 4.0) is different to use compared to 3.x & 95, so is fun to play with, ME is great if you want to see how fast a computer can crash, 2000, that's just NT with a new skin, and vista can just go in the bin where it belongs...

So really only one more variant worth bothering with ..
but NT or NT with a new skin..
Which would you choose ?

 

[Vipersan]

Hmm ..
might have problems anyway ..as I dont have a key for NT in any form ..
The only keys left on my list are for a couple of Windows Server variants..

 

[Vipersan]

useful ..
Windows ISOs Collection
2000 with SP4 it is then..
;)

 

[Vipersan]

Found a nice 40gb IBM Deskstar going begging ..
partitioned into 2x 20gbs
Formatted C: partition ...and begun installation..
Never used NT/2000 so this will be all new to me ..
Does support NTFS so thats a plus..

 

[Vipersan]

Getting a suitable Win2000 friendly version of forceware for the graphics card was tricky ...
still not able to get sound as yet (need embedded chipset drivers)

 

[Captain Jack]

I used Windows 2000 as a desktop OS during my university years - loved it, a competent and stable OS.

Unlike the sheer horror that is Windows 2012 - urgh

 

[Lazarus]

We used Babbage Pre-War Edition.

 

[Vipersan]

So ..
Now I have a multi-OS legacy machine ..
I needed to Christen it with a Legacy game or two ..
What better than the classic Leasure (Leisure) Suit Larry ..
Managed to pick em all up on fleabay for around a tenner ...including one I have NEVER played..
..should arrive next week ..
but in the meantime ..
here is Stephen Merchant playing LSL-Reloaded on youtube ..
Very Funny ...and Very Adult ..

multi part so let it run on ..

 

[2cvbloke]

Well that's half my day lost already watching LSL...

 

[Vipersan]

Well that's half my day lost already watching LSL...

LSL ...
A bit of a hero of mine back in the day..
I knew I'd one day grow up to be him ..
;)
Glad you're enjoying it buddy ..
..and of course ..Stephen Merchant is no stranger to PC games ..
He was the voice of the computerised assistant Wheatley that ran on rails in a fabulous but somewhat cult game called Portal 2..

Portal IS/WAS imo the ultimate platform game..
I wish I'd dreamt it up ..

 

[Vipersan]

Finally after several days I got windows 98SE to 'see' the servers ..
All I wanted to do really was to be able to get files in and out of this isolated OS ..
..and now I can..
sort of ...
To achieve this I used another bit of legacy hardware supplied by Topper..
An old ISA 3com card ..
After much trying with the more recent pci card fpr which I have no installation discs ...
I simply gave up ..
too modern for 98 and 95 ...so enter the legacy ISA 10/100 NIC ..which IS supported by the 98SE install ..
Sadly not by 95 ..so as yet this OS is still isolated.
I realise the 98SE PC is not 'secure' but the network is ...
All other PCs are passworded..so the worse that could happen is that the legacy PC when running 98 gets hacked ..
lol
WoW this has transported me back some years ...and makes me realise what we now take forgranted.
Installation was seriously hard back then ..and required some effort on your part.

 

[Vipersan]

So ..win98SE now has usb support ..
granted it's an early version ..but the generic usb port drivers do work ..and I can now see a pen drive..
not so isolated any longer..and beats the hell out of burning to CDRW to get stuff into the OS.
;)