Win 3.0 Question

TimothyC · Post by **TimothyC** » 2006-12-28 07:51pm

That right, I need help with Win 3. I was wondering if there were any places I could get a Legit copy for no/low cost? The reason is that I have a laptop that crawls under 95, and I can't get even DSL to run on it.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2006-12-28 07:57pm

Ebay? Maybe? Alternately, try getting slackware. It's linux designed to run on floppies so it might work.

TimothyC · Post by **TimothyC** » 2006-12-28 08:29pm

General Zod wrote:[Slackware]'s linux designed to run on floppies so it might work.

I'd rather not try Linux. I had a few bad experiences with it.

Destructionator XIII wrote: It might be easier to buy an old 8 or 16 meg RAM upgrade for it than find a copy of Windows 3.

It's an AMD K-6 Powered Machine, I'm not sure if I can even get ram for it.

On another note, could I just use the 3.1 upgrade disks (which for some reason I do still have) to do a full install?

Seggybop · Post by **Seggybop** » 2006-12-28 08:36pm

If you originally had it, which I assume you would if you have 3.1 upgrade disks, it ought to be legal to download it from piratebay or somesuch.

It's been such a long time since I used 3.0. Did it even run 640x480?
I do remember 3.1 being a substantial improvement.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-12-28 09:32pm

Are we talking a clean install of Win95, or something which has been lurching along for the past several years? A K6 processor should be able to handle Windows 95 just fine.

TimothyC · Post by **TimothyC** » 2006-12-28 10:04pm

Uraniun235 wrote:Are we talking a clean install of Win95, or something which has been lurching along for the past several years? A K6 processor should be able to handle Windows 95 just fine.

The 95 instal disks are lost in the mists of time. The last time it was updated was probably around 98.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-12-28 10:16pm

oh jesus that's your problem right there

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-12-28 10:48pm

If you have enough RAM you might want to consider trying NT or W2K. My high school ran Windows 2000 on a bunch of 300MHz P3 machines.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-12-29 12:25am

Trying to surf the Internet on Windows 3.1 would be an exercise in masochism at best, and most likely futility.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2006-12-29 12:41am

I'd rather not try Linux. I had a few bad experiences with it.

Why is it that there are so many people who had one bad experience with Linux (presumably they were unable to install it or inadvertantly nuked the important data on their HD or damaged their hardware) and who now refuse to try it again, in spite of the passage of time? Since October, when I first installed Linux on one of my computers, I've successfully installed five different flavors of Linux, and PC-BSD, on my network. Am I seriously the only lifelong Windows user in the world who is 1337 enough to do this?

If you are able to loose your Linux hang-up, there is a distro called DeLi which, from what I've read, is optimized for use on ancient 486-era hardware. I'm considering installing it on my 1997 133mhz Pentium 1 Compaq, which has a badly rotted copy of Windows 95 on it (not sure if it has a malware infestation, but the last time I booted up the computer about two years ago, it was agonizingly slow).

Of course, if you have a laptop that can't even run Windows 95 properly, I wouldn't even hope to use it as an internet box. I'd keep it, but I would use it as a toy for retro gaming and nostalgia trips into the early 1990s.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2006-12-29 01:10am

A K-6 should still be able to run Win98, shouldn't it? Maybe your windows 95 installation is rotted? How much RAM do you have? According to Wiki, a K6 should be equivalent to a Pentium I or II

You'd have to seriously trim Linux down to run it under a Pentium I class computer- Firefox alone would eat up all your RAM, so Opera or Dillo would be recommended. I was running Firefox on Linux from Scratch (which was severely cut down to only a bare window manager) on 48 megs of RAM back when it was called Phoenix, and it was awful. You probably wouldn't be able to run GNOME or KDE, so it wouldn't be too user friendly either if you hate the command line.

Frankly, I'd just get a cheapo used laptop from someone for my mobile browsing/email/etc needs- my T22 cost 250, runs decently, albeit a little sluggish (usually due to Firefox consuming all the RAM- I detest Opera).

-----
Apparently DeLi looks like it's pre-cut down and all, so that solves the pain of cutting your Linux down yourself. Might be worth a try. Dillo doesn't have javascript or CSS rendering which even IE4 supports, so I consider it inadequate as a browser, but depends on your needs. Although if IE4 doesn't run on 3.1, that's moot anyway...

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-12-29 01:24am

Pu-239 wrote:Maybe your windows 95 installation is rotted?

MariusRoi wrote:The last time it was updated was probably around 98.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2006-12-29 05:20am

MariusRoi wrote:That right, I need help with Win 3. I was wondering if there were any places I could get a Legit copy for no/low cost? The reason is that I have a laptop that crawls under 95, and I can't get even DSL to run on it.

What kind of memory does it take?
I have two 64 meg PC133 SODIMM's that you can have for the $4 or so it'd cost me to ship them to you Priority Mail.*
I also have a 128 meg PC2100 DDR SODIMM that you can have for shipping as well if it'd help.

*This assumes you live in the US, of course. If not, shipping and duty would probably cost more than the modules are worth.

R. U. Serious · Post by **R. U. Serious** » 2006-12-29 08:09am

MariusRoi wrote:That right, I need help with Win 3. I was wondering if there were any places I could get a Legit copy for no/low cost? The reason is that I have a laptop that crawls under 95, and I can't get even DSL to run on it.

Forget it. Windows 3.0 didn't even have any networking features. Windows 3.1 had NetBEUI/IPX for microsoft filesharing, and that's that. Though you you could get TCP/IP as an additional addon. That should tell you about how much sense it would make to use that nowadays... And good luck getting any PPPoE drivers for it.

Try damnsmalllinux: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

It's a live-cd system designed for very low-end, low-memory systems. It's only a 50MB download so, you have nothing to loose. I was able to run Firefox on a Pentium 90 with 24 (or 48, I can't remeber) MB RAM. It took a long time, but it worked. For most day to day browsing I used dillo, which is a very fast (and feature limited) modern browser. PPPoE/DSL is easy to use, and you have all the regular programs, like text-editing, brwosing, email, pdf-viwer etc. on a quick and slick desktop-gui. It's the best you can do on old systems.

TimothyC · Post by **TimothyC** » 2006-12-29 10:20am

Uraniun235 wrote:oh jesus that's your problem right there

Yeah It was my grandmother's and as of 6 months ago, she hadn't updated her copy of XP from SP1. And I'm steeling that smily

Darth Wong wrote:Trying to surf the Internet on Windows 3.1 would be an exercise in masochism at best, and most likely futility.

True I am a glutton for punishment, but I've surfed the Net in DOS before (via Arachne).

Glocksman wrote:What kind of memory does it take?
I have two 64 meg PC133 SODIMM's that you can have for the $4 or so it'd cost me to ship them to you Priority Mail.*
I also have a 128 meg PC2100 DDR SODIMM that you can have for shipping as well if it'd help.

*This assumes you live in the US, of course. If not, shipping and duty would probably cost more than the modules are worth.

I'm actually just the next state over from you, and I do apricate the offer, but even that memory is to fast for the system.

RThurmont wrote:Why is it that there are so many people who had one bad experience with Linux (presumably they were unable to install it or inadvertantly nuked the important data on their HD or damaged their hardware) and who now refuse to try it again, in spite of the passage of time?

I don't know why I refuse to, even though I use a lot of other Open Source software

If you are able to loose your Linux hang-up, there is a distro called DeLi which, from what I've read, is optimized for use on ancient 486-era hardware. I'm considering installing it on my 1997 133mhz Pentium 1 Compaq, which has a badly rotted copy of Windows 95 on it (not sure if it has a malware infestation, but the last time I booted up the computer about two years ago, it was agonizingly slow).

I'll look into DeLi (and maybe even DSL again) when I get the chance.

Thank you all for you assistance with my rather odd request. On a side note my dad recomended me making a set of Master Floppies off of the 386 I have that still runs 3.1

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2006-12-30 03:07am

An 80386 running 3.1....yummy. Reminds me of my beloved first computer: a 33 mhz 80386, 4 mb RAM, Windows 3.1, and an 5.25" "A Drive" and 3.5" "B Drive." I love that computer. I want to see if I can find a new motherboard for it so that I can bring it back to life... 3.0 and 3.1, while not suitable for what you're trying to do, would still be a lot of fun for recreational purposes.

I'm not sure how easy/hard to use DeLi Linux would be in terms of installation, as I haven't tried it yet, although I intend to. I'm tempted to create a mockup of the ancient Pentium box I'm thinking about installing it on using VMWare, and testing it out that way, and if you'd like I can try to remember to PM you to inform you as to how it went.

If you really don't know why you're prejudiced against Linux, btw, I'd say that now is a good time to warm up to it, as it really is getting massively fun.

Lisa · Post by **Lisa** » 2006-12-30 12:41pm

another small linux you can try is puppy linux. as for that machine i'd nuke it and put more ram in it, it should take pc 100 or 133 ram no problem the only question is what the upper limit of your ram size I would also put 98 on it instead of 95 if you're planning on using windows.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-12-30 01:39pm

Lisa wrote:another small linux you can try is puppy linux. as for that machine i'd nuke it and put more ram in it, it should take pc 100 or 133 ram no problem the only question is what the upper limit of your ram size I would also put 98 on it instead of 95 if you're planning on using windows.

I wouldn't. 95 is much leaner and faster than 98 on such an older system.

Lisa · Post by **Lisa** » 2007-01-01 03:32pm

Uraniun235 wrote:
Lisa wrote:another small linux you can try is puppy linux. as for that machine i'd nuke it and put more ram in it, it should take pc 100 or 133 ram no problem the only question is what the upper limit of your ram size I would also put 98 on it instead of 95 if you're planning on using windows.
I wouldn't. 95 is much leaner and faster than 98 on such an older system.

alot of things like drivers are available for 98 that aren't available for 95 even if no usb is being used in the equasion.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2007-01-01 06:04pm

98 versus 95 is moot when the system in question can't even run 95 properly...

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-01-01 06:18pm

A K6 processor is more than adequate to run Windows 95. To be fair, depending on the clockspeed and RAM it might be capable of Win98 too.

TimothyC · Post by **TimothyC** » 2007-01-01 09:06pm

Thank you all for your help, but the screen died this afternoon. The machine is now in totally broken down, and I'll post a picture of it later. Thank you all for your help, and Glocksman the system used a 32 Mb stick of EDO DRAM. It has to be a DIMM (there was only one), but I couldn't find the clockspeed.

Also I'm sworry for throwing everyone off, but it seems at somepoint it had been upgraded to 98FE, and that *might* have been the problem (it must have hadd 95OSR2 to start with because it has a USB Port, but I could never remember it working).

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