I installed Win7 yesterday on an old HP Elitebook (Core2Duo). It's for a Hantek data logger and not connected to the net. The Hantek drivers keep crashing Win10. The install was quite the blast from the past! I chuckled all the way through it. It wouldn't take its key code (rumblings of the past) from the back of the machine but that's probably because of the OEM Win7 Pro distro I was using from my archives. Regardless, I enjoyed the walk down memory lane.....
Win7 install - so nostalgic....
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River Valley Computer
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Hate one-up-man-ship but we just finishing installing Windows XP on a perfect condition Dell Inspiron 7900 for a customer. He only wants to run one war simulation game from the early 90s. A whole 2 GB or RAM and an 80gb HDD. He never does anything but the game. No internet. Oh the good old life.
HCHTech
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We did one of these over the summer - haha. Some tank game from the 90s. Same thing -user wanted a dedicated machine to play this game. Amazing.
Sky-Knight
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I did a Windows 3.11 over DOS 6.22 in VirtualBox last year as an exercise. Followed by a Win95.
It's insane to me:
a.) How far we've come.
b.) How relatively easy it is to get these ancient systems online.
It's insane to me:
a.) How far we've come.
b.) How relatively easy it is to get these ancient systems online.
HCHTech
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Sky-Knight
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You sir.....need to get out more.
HA! You're not wrong but four kids, three chronic medical conditions, and a terminal lack of funds keeps me in my little dark room. Which is mostly fine with me, I'm better surrounded by my blinky lights than I am people most of the time!
I was tinkering with K8S, managed to build a container that ran DOS / Win3.11 It was fun!
Try running "IBM diagnostics" from an audio tape to an IBM PC 5150
Today, I'm setting up a Windows 98 gaming rig (for myself) and enjoying that trip...
Sky-Knight
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Try running "IBM diagnostics" from an audio tape to an IBM PC 5150
Today, I'm setting up a Windows 98 gaming rig (for myself) and enjoying that trip...
I think about doing that every few years or so... but then I remember I found GOG.
Most of the old games that I want to play on Win98 are there, really cheap, and generally the installer wraps things up in DOXBox or whatever for me to make it work. So I can get my nostalgia gaming on without mucking with a VM or old machine somewhere.
It's not quite the same... but it's a TON less work!
I tell you what, setting up Win95 / Win98 is a trip since those OS's started from bootable floppies...
So crazy how much easier things got when we could boot to optical disks, and then later USB sticks!
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timeshifter
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Maybe it would be fun to do it again, just for the flex. But for me it's a little PTSD. I was working with PCs back before Windows and remember setting autoexec.bat and config.sys from "prompt $p$g" and "files=20" and whatever. Then all the Windows installations sucking the life out of you as they took forever, even Windows 7 could be an ordeal. With Windows 10 and SSDs life is so much better.
frase
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I installed Dos 6.22 and Win98SE on a "new" vintage build the other day. Is very fun to do, one of my geek hobbies really.
I love playing the old games like Wolf3D, Doom, Quake etc on original hardware/software.
I have a P166 and a PII system.
I love playing the old games like Wolf3D, Doom, Quake etc on original hardware/software.
I have a P166 and a PII system.
Markverhyden
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Nothing like sys'ing a floppy to build a custom boot disk. Anyone remember the trick black hats used to use with autoexec.bat where they'd hide their launch command by sending all the way to the right. Many missed that since lines in that file were usually no more than a dozen or two of characters.
Sky-Knight
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MEMMAKER! So many... reboots...
Loved GOG, lot of good stuff there, and without DRM!
Really, VM for games is a no-go... DosBox being one exception.
"Work" it's part of the fun. I was installing an old game, I think "US Navy Fighters" or "JetFighter 3", and it keeps telling me "not enough free conventional memory". Tweaking these config.sys & autoexec.bat was a lot of fun!
Yeap, I've made a nice bootable CD from a Win98 boot floppy image and an actual Win98 CD
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I hated Windows 98 installations * when it was part of the job *.
But now, just for 1 rig, just for gaming, it's a blast from the past. It's really fun.
And "CF card to IDE" adapters bring SSD to these old rigs. Fast & silent.
Even my IBM PC 5150 use an XT-CF-Lite adapter, so it runs from an "SSD" too
And now, I've found an 3.5" floppy to USB adapter, made a really nice external floppy cable for it, so I can read USB sticks straight from DOS!
britechguy
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All I can say is, "Whatever floats your boat." You couldn't get me to do much of what's been mentioned here "for fun" for love nor money. I'm of the "shake that computing dust from your sandals" camp.
seashore
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Back in the day, I offered to upgrade my sister-in-law's Win3.1 to Win95, just because.
Took freaking hours swapping floppies.
Yeah, never did that again.
Took freaking hours swapping floppies.
Yeah, never did that again.
Same feelings here... but about Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, etc. except I will do it for money
