Returning to Win98 or maybe 95 on old machine/ mobile broadband andW98

poachedeggs wrote in

oups.com:

I have a 1999 Fujitsu with 512 mb upper limit for RAM and a
1.3 ghz CPU. I have spent time and money stretching it
with a bigger hard drive, more USB ports, a graphics card
and doubling the RAM from 256 mb, and also by trying many
Linux distros (including XFCE versions), along with XP, W2K
and even Vista Home Basic.

Until about 15 months ago I did everything on a 1997 166MHz P1
with 64MB (later upgraded to 96MB) RAM. I could do everything
except watch movies and convert music at reasonable speeds (it
took 3-4 hours for a 5 minute wav file to become another
format).

It ran 95B and had a 33.6 modem.

Its performance isn't
atrocious, but it does of course draw windows and work with
the internet not so fluidly as my Vista-cum-Windows 7
laptop and my netbook.

Yes, "fluidility" is what's important, especially when writing a
book. JK.

I'm thinking of reverting the
purpose of the machine back to why I bought it secondhand,
just to write a novel on, and I use the Wordpad derivative
Jarte after a year of trying OpenOffice.

Sounds good to me. Jarte has a spell checker - but there are
hundreds of other options and several system-wide spell
checkers. You might want to try to find a copy of AmiPro, it was
considered the best WP in the 3.1. days, but IMHO all you need
(I use them) is NoteTabLight (http://www.notetab.com), free, can
run an (AFAIK) infinite (enough, anyway) amount of document tabs
at once, has some absolutely astonishing features (check them
out on the site), and Spell Checker for Edit Boxes (free,
http://www.quinion.com/mqa/spell.htm) - I could NOT live without
it.

I do NOT believe in 80MB-200MB-800GB "Office suites" used by
people who don't know how to set tabs.

Or you can spend $20 on the mid-version of NoteTab, with a spell
checker included.

I stupidly gave a Windows 98SE CD away with a laptop I sold
but might buy another off eBay, though I do have a Windows
95 somewhere. I didn't see any 98 isos on 'certain sites'
but would feel more comfortable with my own CD anyway
unless anyone has any recommendations.

Torrents and file-sharing sites. And Usenet warez groups of
course.

Would I _notice_ a performance improvement if running an OS
from the era the machine was built, or would it still be
glitchy in the same way?

It would run 98SE like a dream. See my first paragraph.

I have seen Windows 98 in action
fairly recently, but that was on a 200mhz and a 500mhz
machine with 80mb and 128mb RAM, so I've ignored my
impression.

Again, see my first paragraph. It's how you set up your machine.
My boot-up time was 35 seconds and everything I did I did faster
than my friends running XP etc.

I have a 240 gb hard drive, with a 20gb one sitting in a
drawer. Apparently the 240gb will be of no use to 98 or 95,

Incorrect. Google.

but is that simply a case of setting up a partition smaller
than 80gb or whatever to get it to use Windows 95 or 98, or
is it going to have to be that the 240gb hd sits in the
drawer for now?

My other, not immediately viable option is to buy a new
motherboard, CPU and RAM and put all this in the Fujitsu's
case with its psu etc, but I'm a bit wary of how that might
turn out, envisioning explosions, flames and so on...

No, but it would simply be a waste of money. You should just
make sure your old machine is CLEAN of dust and rat**** -
PERHAPS change the power supply depending on how much actual USE
it has had, but I assure you more good books were written with a
pen, typewriter, or an XT than with anything made after 2000.

I saw an Anne Rice TV interview in the early 2000's and she was
using a DOS wp, and I'd really like to know what Thomas Pynchon
uses.

For
now, and in this post, it's the 95/98 question I'm
interested in.

95B would work just fine like it did for me - so would 98SE
except I would HIGHLY recommend 98SE Lite. Look up
www.litepc.net. It /might/ even run faster tan 95B - or the
same, anyway.

Lastly, has anyone here successfully set up a mobile
broadband dongle with Windows 98, maybe as a dial-up
connection, or is the lack of 98 drivers a permanent
scuppering of this? I'm not super-bothered, as it'd be
healthy to prevent myself getting online with this machine.

I'd be difficult, and in ANY case I would personally STRONGLY
suggest forgetting the internet exists if you really want to
write a book. Just get yourself a few nice software
dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedia (TEXT please!), some other
references, etc.

And remember, a book fits on a floppy.

Fancy formatting and kerning and stuff like that is for LATER.

NB:
I have all the programs not easily found which I mentioned (like
AmiPro) and even "Marcel" - a real "writers's word processor"
named after someone you might have read... or not... (I read it
twice... Well, the 1st volume about 7 times, but then I really
went at it and even the 200 pages of the Guermantes' dinner
conversation did not scare me away!)

So if you need anything I can post it if you want.


--
There are only two classifications of disk drives: Broken drives
and those that will break later.
- Chuck Armstrong

poachedeggs wrote in

oups.com:

I have a 1999 Fujitsu with 512 mb upper limit for RAM and a
1.3 ghz CPU. I have spent time and money stretching it
with a bigger hard drive, more USB ports, a graphics card
and doubling the RAM from 256 mb, and also by trying many
Linux distros (including XFCE versions), along with XP, W2K
and even Vista Home Basic.

Until about 15 months ago I did everything on a 1997 166MHz P1
with 64MB (later upgraded to 96MB) RAM. I could do everything
except watch movies and convert music at reasonable speeds (it
took 3-4 hours for a 5 minute wav file to become another
format).

It ran 95B and had a 33.6 modem.

Its performance isn't
atrocious, but it does of course draw windows and work with
the internet not so fluidly as my Vista-cum-Windows 7
laptop and my netbook.

Yes, "fluidility" is what's important, especially when writing a
book. JK.

I'm thinking of reverting the
purpose of the machine back to why I bought it secondhand,
just to write a novel on, and I use the Wordpad derivative
Jarte after a year of trying OpenOffice.

Sounds good to me. Jarte has a spell checker - but there are
hundreds of other options and several system-wide spell
checkers. You might want to try to find a copy of AmiPro, it was
considered the best WP in the 3.1. days, but IMHO all you need
(I use them) is NoteTabLight (http://www.notetab.com), free, can
run an (AFAIK) infinite (enough, anyway) amount of document tabs
at once, has some absolutely astonishing features (check them
out on the site), and Spell Checker for Edit Boxes (free,
http://www.quinion.com/mqa/spell.htm) - I could NOT live without
it.

I do NOT believe in 80MB-200MB-800GB "Office suites" used by
people who don't know how to set tabs.

Or you can spend $20 on the mid-version of NoteTab, with a spell
checker included.

I stupidly gave a Windows 98SE CD away with a laptop I sold
but might buy another off eBay, though I do have a Windows
95 somewhere. I didn't see any 98 isos on 'certain sites'
but would feel more comfortable with my own CD anyway
unless anyone has any recommendations.

Torrents and file-sharing sites. And Usenet warez groups of
course.

Would I _notice_ a performance improvement if running an OS
from the era the machine was built, or would it still be
glitchy in the same way?

It would run 98SE like a dream. See my first paragraph.

I have seen Windows 98 in action
fairly recently, but that was on a 200mhz and a 500mhz
machine with 80mb and 128mb RAM, so I've ignored my
impression.

Again, see my first paragraph. It's how you set up your machine.
My boot-up time was 35 seconds and everything I did I did faster
than my friends running XP etc.

I have a 240 gb hard drive, with a 20gb one sitting in a
drawer. Apparently the 240gb will be of no use to 98 or 95,

Incorrect. Google.

but is that simply a case of setting up a partition smaller
than 80gb or whatever to get it to use Windows 95 or 98, or
is it going to have to be that the 240gb hd sits in the
drawer for now?

My other, not immediately viable option is to buy a new
motherboard, CPU and RAM and put all this in the Fujitsu's
case with its psu etc, but I'm a bit wary of how that might
turn out, envisioning explosions, flames and so on...

No, but it would simply be a waste of money. You should just
make sure your old machine is CLEAN of dust and rat**** -
PERHAPS change the power supply depending on how much actual USE
it has had, but I assure you more good books were written with a
pen, typewriter, or an XT than with anything made after 2000.

I saw an Anne Rice TV interview in the early 2000's and she was
using a DOS wp, and I'd really like to know what Thomas Pynchon
uses.

For
now, and in this post, it's the 95/98 question I'm
interested in.

95B would work just fine like it did for me - so would 98SE
except I would HIGHLY recommend 98SE Lite. Look up
www.litepc.net. It /might/ even run faster tan 95B - or the
same, anyway.

Lastly, has anyone here successfully set up a mobile
broadband dongle with Windows 98, maybe as a dial-up
connection, or is the lack of 98 drivers a permanent
scuppering of this? I'm not super-bothered, as it'd be
healthy to prevent myself getting online with this machine.

I'd be difficult, and in ANY case I would personally STRONGLY
suggest forgetting the internet exists if you really want to
write a book. Just get yourself a few nice software
dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedia (TEXT please!), some other
references, etc.

And remember, a book fits on a floppy.

Fancy formatting and kerning and stuff like that is for LATER.

NB:
I have all the programs not easily found which I mentioned (like
AmiPro) and even "Marcel" - a real "writers's word processor"
named after someone you might have read... or not... (I read it
twice... Well, the 1st volume about 7 times, but then I really
went at it and even the 200 pages of the Guermantes' dinner
conversation did not scare me away!)

So if you need anything I can post it if you want.


--
There are only two classifications of disk drives: Broken drives
and those that will break later.
- Chuck Armstrong

On 12/04/2009 12:15 AM, 98 Guy wrote:
MEB wrote:

The 200MHZ. would have been extremely slow for 98SE, though 98FE
MIGHT have been acceptable

What is your evidence or what do you base your claim on that SE has a
different (more demanding) performance curve compared to FE?

If you were actually interested, which we all know your not,,, you
could check on the gamers sites or for some of their old performance
diagnostics, if you can still find them...

Then again, you COULD do your own tests, but you won't of course...

Other than that, FE had a few glitches which caused a few more crashes,
and SE had a bit better memory management with slightly more memory usage...

--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm
Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking
http://peoplescounsel.org
The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government
___---

On 12/04/2009 12:15 AM, 98 Guy wrote:
MEB wrote:

The 200MHZ. would have been extremely slow for 98SE, though 98FE
MIGHT have been acceptable

What is your evidence or what do you base your claim on that SE has a
different (more demanding) performance curve compared to FE?

If you were actually interested, which we all know your not,,, you
could check on the gamers sites or for some of their old performance
diagnostics, if you can still find them...

Then again, you COULD do your own tests, but you won't of course...

Other than that, FE had a few glitches which caused a few more crashes,
and SE had a bit better memory management with slightly more memory usage...

--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm
Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking
http://peoplescounsel.org
The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government
___---

poachedeggs wrote:
I have a 1999 Fujitsu with 512 mb upper limit for RAM and a 1.3 ghz
CPU. I have spent time and money stretching it with a bigger hard
drive, more USB ports, a graphics card and doubling the RAM from 256
mb, and also by trying many Linux distros (including XFCE versions),
along with XP, W2K and even Vista Home Basic. Its performance isn't
atrocious, but it does of course draw windows and work with the
internet not so fluidly as my Vista-cum-Windows 7 laptop and my
netbook. I'm thinking of reverting the purpose of the machine back to
why I bought it secondhand, just to write a novel on, and I use the
Wordpad derivative Jarte after a year of trying OpenOffice.

I stupidly gave a Windows 98SE CD away with a laptop I sold but might
buy another off eBay, though I do have a Windows 95 somewhere. I
didn't see any 98 isos on 'certain sites' but would feel more
comfortable with my own CD anyway unless anyone has any
recommendations.

Would I _notice_ a performance improvement if running an OS from the
era the machine was built, or would it still be glitchy in the same
way? I have seen Windows 98 in action fairly recently, but that was
on a 200mhz and a 500mhz machine with 80mb and 128mb RAM, so I've
ignored my impression.

I have a 240 gb hard drive, with a 20gb one sitting in a drawer.
Apparently the 240gb will be of no use to 98 or 95, but is that simply
a case of setting up a partition smaller than 80gb or whatever to get
it to use Windows 95 or 98, or is it going to have to be that the
240gb hd sits in the drawer for now?



First off. that machine will run XP or Win2k just fine so I would not
bother with win98.

At any rate, it will run win98 .

Since the machine is going to have limited use...
I'd just use the 20 gig drive and save your larger drive for something else


snip

poachedeggs wrote:
I have a 1999 Fujitsu with 512 mb upper limit for RAM and a 1.3 ghz
CPU. I have spent time and money stretching it with a bigger hard
drive, more USB ports, a graphics card and doubling the RAM from 256
mb, and also by trying many Linux distros (including XFCE versions),
along with XP, W2K and even Vista Home Basic. Its performance isn't
atrocious, but it does of course draw windows and work with the
internet not so fluidly as my Vista-cum-Windows 7 laptop and my
netbook. I'm thinking of reverting the purpose of the machine back to
why I bought it secondhand, just to write a novel on, and I use the
Wordpad derivative Jarte after a year of trying OpenOffice.

I stupidly gave a Windows 98SE CD away with a laptop I sold but might
buy another off eBay, though I do have a Windows 95 somewhere. I
didn't see any 98 isos on 'certain sites' but would feel more
comfortable with my own CD anyway unless anyone has any
recommendations.

Would I _notice_ a performance improvement if running an OS from the
era the machine was built, or would it still be glitchy in the same
way? I have seen Windows 98 in action fairly recently, but that was
on a 200mhz and a 500mhz machine with 80mb and 128mb RAM, so I've
ignored my impression.

I have a 240 gb hard drive, with a 20gb one sitting in a drawer.
Apparently the 240gb will be of no use to 98 or 95, but is that simply
a case of setting up a partition smaller than 80gb or whatever to get
it to use Windows 95 or 98, or is it going to have to be that the
240gb hd sits in the drawer for now?



First off. that machine will run XP or Win2k just fine so I would not
bother with win98.

At any rate, it will run win98 .

Since the machine is going to have limited use...
I'd just use the 20 gig drive and save your larger drive for something else


snip

poachedeggs wrote:

I have a 240 gb hard drive, with a 20gb one sitting in a drawer.
Apparently the 240gb will be of no use to 98 or 95, but is that simply
a case of setting up a partition smaller than 80gb or whatever to get
it to use Windows 95 or 98, or is it going to have to be that the
240gb hd sits in the drawer for now?

Easy solution...

1. Buy an IDE card for about $10. It will give you two more hard drive
channels and - AFAIK - all such cards support LBA which means your 240 GB
drive will work just fine on it.

2. Put the 20 GB drive with SE on the main mobo channel

3. Put the 240 GB drive - partioned or not - on the main card channel and
use it for whatever including a second OS.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

poachedeggs wrote:

I have a 240 gb hard drive, with a 20gb one sitting in a drawer.
Apparently the 240gb will be of no use to 98 or 95, but is that simply
a case of setting up a partition smaller than 80gb or whatever to get
it to use Windows 95 or 98, or is it going to have to be that the
240gb hd sits in the drawer for now?

Easy solution...

1. Buy an IDE card for about $10. It will give you two more hard drive
channels and - AFAIK - all such cards support LBA which means your 240 GB
drive will work just fine on it.

2. Put the 20 GB drive with SE on the main mobo channel

3. Put the 240 GB drive - partioned or not - on the main card channel and
use it for whatever including a second OS.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

MEB wrote:

What is your evidence or what do you base your claim on that SE
has a different (more demanding) performance curve compared to
FE?

If you were actually interested, which we all know your not,,,
you could check on the gamers sites or for some of their old
performance diagnostics, if you can still find them...

If you were actually a source of real information, and if you had
confidence in the accuracy of your information, then you would support
your claims by posting that information, instead of simply making the
vaccuous claim that such information once existed in some vauge places.

(and I don't play games with my PC, unlike you apparently do, so I
wouldn't know any particular game sites. I actually have a $dayjob -
perhaps you don't.)

Then again, you COULD do your own tests, but you won't of
course...

Then again, since you made the claim that 98-SE runs slower than FE, you
could post the results of your own tests that supports such a claim.

MEB wrote:

What is your evidence or what do you base your claim on that SE
has a different (more demanding) performance curve compared to
FE?

If you were actually interested, which we all know your not,,,
you could check on the gamers sites or for some of their old
performance diagnostics, if you can still find them...

If you were actually a source of real information, and if you had
confidence in the accuracy of your information, then you would support
your claims by posting that information, instead of simply making the
vaccuous claim that such information once existed in some vauge places.

(and I don't play games with my PC, unlike you apparently do, so I
wouldn't know any particular game sites. I actually have a $dayjob -
perhaps you don't.)

Then again, you COULD do your own tests, but you won't of
course...

Then again, since you made the claim that 98-SE runs slower than FE, you
could post the results of your own tests that supports such a claim.