Author Topic: Old computers?  (Read 54320 times)
themaritimegirl
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Re: Old computers? « Reply #15 on: July 09, 2014, 11:38:09 AM » Author: themaritimegirl
They made a good call; I forgot about that. Yeah, go ahead and do that. I assume the parameters you posted you read right on the drive itself. If the BIOS has automatic detection, you can do that, too. Just because I'm curious, what kind of drive is it?
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Re: Old computers? « Reply #16 on: July 09, 2014, 12:29:14 PM » Author: TheUniversalDave1
I haven't actually seen the drive yet, or even been inside the computer. A member of VK told me what I should most likely type in. I won't have access to the computer again until this afternoon.

  VideoKarma Discussion
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Re: Old computers? « Reply #17 on: July 09, 2014, 12:45:53 PM » Author: themaritimegirl
It's best just to look at the drive itself. It will have the parameters printed right on the label.
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Re: Old computers? « Reply #18 on: July 09, 2014, 08:36:25 PM » Author: TheUniversalDave1
Trent, I would love to give you the hard drive out if my computer, but it happens to be absent at this time. This has got to be the emptiest computer I have ever seen.  
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Re: Old computers? « Reply #19 on: July 09, 2014, 09:32:34 PM » Author: themaritimegirl
Absent? As in it turns out the computer never had a hard drive? Or do you not yet physically possess it, and someone else took it out? Anyway, I'll only take it if from your video it sounds like it's good. Otherwise, you can keep it, and I'll sell you one of mine. Or even if it is good, you can, if you wish, decide to keep it and install Windows 95 or whatever on it yourself.

Nice to see a Cyrix processor. Cyrix was a big name in processors up to the mid 1990s. They regularly turned out units that were cheaper and faster than the competing Intel and AMD units of the time.
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Re: Old computers? « Reply #20 on: July 09, 2014, 10:15:51 PM » Author: TheUniversalDave1
I opened the computer, and there was no hard drive there.  ??? I will never get the hard drive, so there is no point in a video unless you want to hear current flowing through a bunch of transistors. That being said, I would love to buy a hard drive with Windows 95 off of you.  

My goal for this computer is to be able to post on Lighting Gallery and such with it. What is required to connect this to wireless Internet? (Wi-Fi) 
« Last Edit: July 09, 2014, 10:19:27 PM by TheUniversalDave1 » Logged
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Re: Old computers? « Reply #21 on: July 09, 2014, 11:37:28 PM » Author: themaritimegirl
Weird. I wonder what you heard clunking away, then? Maybe the floppy drive doing a self test?

I just looked at the picture again - does this not have a CD-ROM drive? You're gonna need one if you want to get Windows 95 on it. If you have 15 floppy disks on hand, you could install Windows 3.1 instead. I don't see an IDE cable, either - you'll need one to connect the hard drive and CD-ROM drive. I might have an IDE cable and a CD-ROM drive I could send you, too. I'd have to check.

This computer will never connect to the Internet wirelessly. It has only ISA slots, which were used until the mid 1990s, so no ISA wireless cards exist. It isn't hard to find 10 Mbit ethernet cards that will work, though.

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Re: Old computers? « Reply #22 on: July 09, 2014, 11:48:23 PM » Author: TheUniversalDave1
I have no floppy disks, no CD-ROMs, no software to speak of, very limited knowledge of computers, and a very cheap and cheesy computer.  I'm beginning to think I should pitch the computer. It's just one thing after another. What's the point in keeping it if I can't even use it?

I figured out what the clunking was. The heat sink fell off the processor, and when I turned it on, the fan was hitting against something.

When I read it back, the above comment sounds extremely asinine. Sorry about that. Maybe it's just because I'm frustrated about Streetlight98's industrial shoplight.
« Last Edit: July 09, 2014, 11:55:41 PM by TheUniversalDave1 » Logged
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Re: Old computers? « Reply #23 on: July 10, 2014, 01:41:35 AM » Author: arcblue
Interesting thread. I love old computers. I kept a lot of them around for quite some time, but got rid of all now except my Macintosh Quadra 700 and its cartridge-style external 2x CD ROM drive. I love that thing. I put a bigger hard drive in, and it still works fine, but I don't use it much.

I still use my Mac G4 "wind tunnel" often (noisiest fan ever, plus two noisy old IDE hard drives); it runs dual OS9 and OSX and it's connected to my ancient Imagewriter LQ 27-pin dot matrix 4-colour wide-carriage printer, and my original UDB Mac extended keyboard & mouse from about 1990. I kinda wish I didn't get rid of my 1985 128K Mac, but I still have its original 3.5" single-sided disks - "Mac Write" & "Mac Paint" & such. They still read fine on my Quadra!

I still have some 5.4"s and even an 8" disk, just can't do anything with them now. Both my Mac & PC have external 3.5" drives, plus my PC has a VHS deck, a cassette tape deck and 8-track deck attached to it for transferring old media (there was no room to put the record player, but it is easily hooked up).
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Re: Old computers? « Reply #24 on: July 10, 2014, 04:02:19 PM » Author: themaritimegirl
No worries Dave. Older computers do require more time and knowledge to get up and running. If you do want to sell the computer, you could get a pretty penny for it on eBay; possibly as much as $150. If you do want to attempt to get it running, I can arrange to send you a hard drive with Windows 95, a CD-ROM drive, and an IDE cable (I'm thinking maybe $15 and shipping), but I can't guarantee that I'd be able to provide you with a lot of help. I personally haven't toyed with older computers in a couple of years. You might be able to find some guides online.
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Re: Old computers? « Reply #25 on: July 25, 2014, 02:39:51 AM » Author: icefoglights

My second oldest is a Compaq Presario all-in-one running Windows 3.1 of which I forgot the specs of.  Maybe 64MB RAM and some Intel CPU, I forget.  This was being thrown out at a yard sale so they let me take it home for free.  :D


My first PC was a Compaq Presario all-in-one.  CDS-524.  Got it in the summer of 1995.  Mine had a 66MHz AMD 486DX-2 CPU.  Originally had 8MB of RAM (4MB on board and a 4MB SIMM), but I later added an 8MB SIMM for a total of 16MB.  Came with DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1 on a 512MB hard drive.  I later swapped that out for a massive 1.6GB hard drive so I could run Windows 95 and Office 95.  Internet was through a 14.4Kbps modem.  Disc drives were a 3.5" floppy and a 2x CD-ROM.  Graphics were an on-board VLB graphics chip (don't remember which one) with 512KB of memory, and ESS AudioDrive for sound.  2 free ISA slots.  Interesting little computer that served me well, but unfortunately it went the way of the thrift shop years ago.

I have several oldish computers in storage, but most are fairly unremarkable.  I think the most interesting ones are a generic PC with a 486 PCI motherboard and an 83MHz Pentium Overdrive processor.  The other is a MediaGX computer running Windows 98.  The MediaGX was an interesting concept where the memory controller, graphics processor and sound were all integrated into the CPU, a concept that I would later see on my new Core i7 based computer.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2014, 11:45:18 PM by icefoglights » Logged

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Re: Old computers? « Reply #26 on: July 26, 2014, 02:08:06 AM » Author: mrboojay
Weird. I wonder what you heard clunking away, then? Maybe the floppy drive doing a self test?

I just looked at the picture again - does this not have a CD-ROM drive? You're gonna need one if you want to get Windows 95 on it. If you have 15 floppy disks on hand, you could install Windows 3.1 instead. I don't see an IDE cable, either - you'll need one to connect the hard drive and CD-ROM drive. I might have an IDE cable and a CD-ROM drive I could send you, too. I'd have to check.

This computer will never connect to the Internet wirelessly. It has only ISA slots, which were used until the mid 1990s, so no ISA wireless cards exist. It isn't hard to find 10 Mbit ethernet cards that will work, though.



Windows 95 may have come on floppies as well (my church has 98 disks as well as CD-ROM).  I am sure sure you can access this site but it will be slow as the outdated IE won't like it or the PC with all of the pics also as it is not an https site you shouldn't have security issues (hopefully).  As for wireless, I wonder if you could find a USB card online that will run on 95 or 98.  Though IDK if 95 would even support such a thing without an third party program.

Also that is cool icefoglights.  I need to get the specs off of mine once I get to it.
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Re: Old computers? « Reply #27 on: July 26, 2014, 02:20:46 AM » Author: themaritimegirl
Yes, Windows 95 did come in a floppy version, some 30 disks if I recall. I see a couple of downloads for the floppy version on Vetusware, an abandonware website I've used off and on for years. Alternatively, if you have the CD version, and a lot of time on your hands, you could also take a floppy and transport the files disk-by-disk onto the hard drive, then run setup from there. However, some of the CAB files might be too large to fit on a floppy.

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As for wireless, I wonder if you could find a USB card online that will run on 95 or 98.

The computer would have to have USB first.  :P Unless you mean an expansion card containing USB ports, into which you could plug in a USB wireless adapter. That isn't possible in this case, either, as ISA USB cards were never made.
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Re: Old computers? « Reply #28 on: July 26, 2014, 03:55:08 AM » Author: icefoglights
The floppy version of Windows 95 came on a special 1.64MB disk that could still be read in standard 3.5" floppy drives.
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Re: Old computers? « Reply #29 on: July 26, 2014, 07:19:01 AM » Author: mrboojay
The computer would have to have USB first.  :P Unless you mean an expansion card containing USB ports, into which you could plug in a USB wireless adapter. That isn't possible in this case, either, as ISA USB cards were never made.

By the sounds of what, TheUniversalDave1 was saying, it seems to have USB and later versions of 95 do have USB support.

The floppy version of Windows 95 came on a special 1.64MB disk that could still be read in standard 3.5" floppy drives.

That is cool.  I did not know that.
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