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Ancient History

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  Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-25 04:41 +0000
    Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-25 03:15 -0400
      Re: Ancient History John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2026-08-25 08:19 -0700
        Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-25 19:57 +0100
          Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-26 04:25 -0400
            Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-26 09:33 +0100
            Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-26 18:20 +0000
              Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-26 21:27 +0100
                Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-27 01:13 +0000
                  Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-27 03:24 -0400
                    Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-27 20:03 +0000
                      Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-27 23:47 -0400
                        Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-28 06:54 +0000
                          Re: Ancient History John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2026-08-28 09:28 -0700
                            Re: Ancient History Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-28 18:53 +0100
                        Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-28 12:11 +0100
    Re: Ancient History "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-08-25 11:41 +0200
      Re: Ancient History Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-25 11:53 +0100
        Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-25 12:54 +0100
          Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-25 19:25 +0000
        Re: Ancient History "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-08-25 14:23 +0200
          Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-26 03:28 -0400
            Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-26 09:12 +0100
              Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-26 18:26 +0000
                Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-27 03:56 -0400
                  Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-27 12:00 +0100
                  Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-27 20:25 +0000
                    Re: Ancient History Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-08-27 21:48 +0000
                      Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-28 00:26 -0400
                        Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-28 06:59 +0000
                          Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-28 12:05 +0100
                      Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-28 12:03 +0100
                    Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-28 00:06 -0400
                      Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-28 12:08 +0100
                    Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-28 12:03 +0100
                      Re: Ancient History Chris Ahlstrom <OFeem1987@teleworm.us> - 2026-08-28 12:07 -0400
            Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-26 18:23 +0000
              Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-26 21:29 +0100
      Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-25 12:31 +0100
        Re: Ancient History Chris Ahlstrom <OFeem1987@teleworm.us> - 2026-08-25 07:53 -0400
        Re: Ancient History Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-08-25 18:26 +0000
          Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-25 19:37 +0000
      Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-25 19:16 +0000
        Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-25 20:21 +0100
          Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-26 04:40 +0000
    Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-25 12:30 +0100
      Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-26 02:49 -0400
    Re: Ancient History "Mr. Chang Man-wai" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-08-25 20:07 +0800
    Re: Ancient History Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2026-08-25 11:20 -0400
      Re: Ancient History Robert Riches <spamtrap42@jacob21819.net> - 2026-08-25 17:44 +0000
      Re: Ancient History Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-08-25 21:55 +0000
    Re: Ancient History not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-08-27 08:59 +1000
      Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-27 01:20 +0000
        Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-27 03:38 -0400
          Re: Ancient History vallor <vallor@vallor.earth> - 2026-08-27 08:08 +0000
            Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-27 22:13 -0400
              Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-28 04:24 +0000
      Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-27 03:21 -0400
        Re: Ancient History not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-08-28 08:58 +1000
          Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-28 00:36 -0400
          Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-28 04:42 +0000
            Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-28 02:37 -0400
    Re: Ancient History Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2026-08-28 08:59 +0100

Page 1 of 4  [1] 2 3 4  Next page →

#90485 — Ancient History

In my OCD quest to rejuvenate old machines I finally dug out the tower 
buried under other junk out in the shed. Turns out it's a Compaq Presario 
4550. It has a 233 MHz AMD K6 that was AMDs challenge to the Pentium II. 
It was pin compatible and could be used in a Socket 7 board. It has 48 MB 
of RAM (no, that's not a typo) and a 4 GB HDD. For your computing 
convenient, it has a 56K modem. There are 2 USB ports although I think it 
expects the mouse and keyboard to be plugged into the PS2 ports.

Two distros that claim to run in 48 MB are Tiny Core and Slax. slax 
specifies text only unless you have more RAM. Tiny Core isn't very 
specific.

I think I'll let that sleeping dog slumber on although I might see if it 
boots at all. 

Now for the real puzzle. I was a fairly decent machine in 1997 and came 
with Windows 95. Windows 95 claimed a minimum of 4 MB, recommended 8 MB, 
and if you had 16 MB or more didn't bother creating a swap file. What the 
flaming hell has happened to us?  Even by Windows 98 24 MB was 
recommended. Now you can barely run a pared down Linux in 48 MB and I 
doubt it's a very appealing UX.

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#90498

On 8/25/26 00:41, rbowman wrote:
> In my OCD quest to rejuvenate old machines I finally dug out the tower
> buried under other junk out in the shed. Turns out it's a Compaq Presario
> 4550. It has a 233 MHz AMD K6 that was AMDs challenge to the Pentium II.
> It was pin compatible and could be used in a Socket 7 board. It has 48 MB
> of RAM (no, that's not a typo) and a 4 GB HDD. For your computing
> convenient, it has a 56K modem. There are 2 USB ports although I think it
> expects the mouse and keyboard to be plugged into the PS2 ports.
> 
> Two distros that claim to run in 48 MB are Tiny Core and Slax. slax
> specifies text only unless you have more RAM. Tiny Core isn't very
> specific.
> 
> I think I'll let that sleeping dog slumber on although I might see if it
> boots at all.
> 
> Now for the real puzzle. I was a fairly decent machine in 1997 and came
> with Windows 95. Windows 95 claimed a minimum of 4 MB, recommended 8 MB,
> and if you had 16 MB or more didn't bother creating a swap file. What the
> flaming hell has happened to us?  Even by Windows 98 24 MB was
> recommended. Now you can barely run a pared down Linux in 48 MB and I
> doubt it's a very appealing UX.

   Yes, there ARE a few distros customized to run
   on VERY old hardware. This is good.

   HOWEVER - is it WORTH it ???

   Newer hardware, even if in the bargain-basement
   "refubished" bin, has a lot more speed and better
   chips and more RAM and such.

   My last desktop ... not a bad unit ... I installed
   the new board and an SSD and MX ... and then NEVER
   USED IT AGAIN. It's just sitting in the back room.
   Don't really have enough SPACE out front for it and,
   since I'm kinda stuck with wifi connections, the
   speed is mostly wasted.

   So ... bought BMax/BeeLink mini-boxes. Fast Enough,
   Capable Enough, pretty cheap (at least before the
   AI RAM-plague). They do all I need now very well.
   "Laptop Speed" turned out to be Good Enough.

   Also have a 'legacy' Core-2-Quad box with floppies
   and such. NEVER getting rid of that. It's not SUPER
   fast but better than you'd expect if you use Linux.
   Core-2-Quad was also the last Intel CPU that would
   run 8/16 code. CAN boot the old IBM CP/M-86 floppy
   on it.

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#90539

On Tue, 25 Aug 2026 03:15:49 -0400
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:

> Yes, there ARE a few distros customized to run on VERY old hardware.
> This is good.
> 
> HOWEVER - is it WORTH it ???
> 
> Newer hardware, even if in the bargain-basement "refubished" bin, has
> a lot more speed and better chips and more RAM and such.

Depends, but a lot of newer hardware gets pretty flaky with age.
Meanwhile I've got a PDP-11/73 that's north of 40 and still running as
well as it ever did.

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#90558

On 25/08/2026 16:19, John Ames wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Aug 2026 03:15:49 -0400
> c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
> 
>> Yes, there ARE a few distros customized to run on VERY old hardware.
>> This is good.
>>
>> HOWEVER - is it WORTH it ???
>>
>> Newer hardware, even if in the bargain-basement "refubished" bin, has
>> a lot more speed and better chips and more RAM and such.
> 
> Depends, but a lot of newer hardware gets pretty flaky with age.
> Meanwhile I've got a PDP-11/73 that's north of 40 and still running as
> well as it ever did.
> 
Slightly more expensive original purchase price though :-)
...and far less computing power


-- 
Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.
  – Will Durant

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#90617

On 8/25/26 14:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 25/08/2026 16:19, John Ames wrote:
>> On Tue, 25 Aug 2026 03:15:49 -0400
>> c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, there ARE a few distros customized to run on VERY old hardware.
>>> This is good.
>>>
>>> HOWEVER - is it WORTH it ???
>>>
>>> Newer hardware, even if in the bargain-basement "refubished" bin, has
>>> a lot more speed and better chips and more RAM and such.
>>
>> Depends, but a lot of newer hardware gets pretty flaky with age.
>> Meanwhile I've got a PDP-11/73 that's north of 40 and still running as
>> well as it ever did.
>>
> Slightly more expensive original purchase price though :-)
> ...and far less computing power

   Grew up on the PDP-11 ... great box, and soon
   there was that newfangled 'C' language :-)

   SOME of those surely do still exist/run.
   They were SOLID - if in contemporary
   view - pretty limited.

   DID find some video of some guy bringing up
   THE original HTTP site on a PDP-11 ... from
   a strip of PAPER TAPE.

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#90619

On 26/08/2026 09:25, c186282 wrote:
> Grew up on the PDP-11 ... great box, and soon
>    there was that newfangled 'C' language 🙂
> 
>    SOME of those surely do still exist/run.
>    They were SOLID - if in contemporary
>    view - pretty limited.
> 
The last of them are being taken out of service in embedded/industrial 
applications.

>    DID find some video of some guy bringing up
>    THE original HTTP site on a PDP-11 ... from
>    a strip of PAPER TAPE.

Well it's one way of programming a computer, though VAXen were a better 
choice if you didn't have a SUN...

-- 
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as 
foolish, and by the rulers as useful.

(Seneca the Younger, 65 AD)

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#90645

On Wed, 26 Aug 2026 04:25:25 -0400, c186282 wrote:

>    Grew up on the PDP-11 ... great box, and soon there was that
>    newfangled 'C' language

I didn't grow up on a PDP-11 but I'm familiar with the breed. A 8048 cross 
assembler was ridiculously expensive so I wrote my own on CP/M. 

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#90648

On 26/08/2026 19:20, rbowman wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Aug 2026 04:25:25 -0400, c186282 wrote:
> 
>>     Grew up on the PDP-11 ... great box, and soon there was that
>>     newfangled 'C' language
> 
> I didn't grow up on a PDP-11 but I'm familiar with the breed. A 8048 cross
> assembler was ridiculously expensive so I wrote my own on CP/M.

That's the spirit!

-- 
Gun Control: The law that ensures that only criminals have guns.

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#90654

On Wed, 26 Aug 2026 21:27:56 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 26/08/2026 19:20, rbowman wrote:
>> On Wed, 26 Aug 2026 04:25:25 -0400, c186282 wrote:
>> 
>>>     Grew up on the PDP-11 ... great box, and soon there was that
>>>     newfangled 'C' language
>> 
>> I didn't grow up on a PDP-11 but I'm familiar with the breed. A 8048
>> cross assembler was ridiculously expensive so I wrote my own on CP/M.
> 
> That's the spirit!

One of my 'get to know the language' projects in Java was writing a simple 
assembler for the AVR MCUs. Java was utterly unsuited for that task. I'd 
had hopes for the Write One Run Nowhere language but as they say about 
hope...

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#90666

On 8/26/26 21:13, rbowman wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Aug 2026 21:27:56 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> 
>> On 26/08/2026 19:20, rbowman wrote:
>>> On Wed, 26 Aug 2026 04:25:25 -0400, c186282 wrote:
>>>
>>>>      Grew up on the PDP-11 ... great box, and soon there was that
>>>>      newfangled 'C' language
>>>
>>> I didn't grow up on a PDP-11 but I'm familiar with the breed. A 8048
>>> cross assembler was ridiculously expensive so I wrote my own on CP/M.
>>
>> That's the spirit!
> 
> One of my 'get to know the language' projects in Java was writing a simple
> assembler for the AVR MCUs. Java was utterly unsuited for that task. I'd
> had hopes for the Write One Run Nowhere language but as they say about
> hope...

   JAVA ???!!! :-)

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#90695

On Thu, 27 Aug 2026 03:24:55 -0400, c186282 wrote:

>    JAVA ???!!!

I've made many mistakes in my life. I've never warmed up to C++. I used 
Borland's with OWL and preferred it to MFC but about the time Java was 
gaining steam, Borland had lost. Create GUIs with something less sucky and 
with cross-platform potential? Why not.

Java applets were nice too, but the browsers slammed the door on that line 
of development. Meanwhile Eich was brewing up ECMAScript and some marketer 
decided Java was real cool leading to decades of confusion. At least Eich 
didn't use Scheme. 

I probably still have the DVDs someplace but Microsoft's Visual J++ was 
quite nice but that turned into a fight with the junkyard dogs. It was 
reborn, sort of, in C#, which I like.

Meanwhile Java became well beyond clinically obese and cursed anything 
built with it like Eclipse to turtle like speeds. It's telling that IBM's 
skunk works Java project turned out better tools than Sun. 

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#90720

On 8/27/26 16:03, rbowman wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Aug 2026 03:24:55 -0400, c186282 wrote:
> 
>>     JAVA ???!!!
> 
> I've made many mistakes in my life. I've never warmed up to C++. I used
> Borland's with OWL and preferred it to MFC but about the time Java was
> gaining steam, Borland had lost. Create GUIs with something less sucky and
> with cross-platform potential? Why not.

   I also don't like C++ very much. Would rather write
   things the old fashioned way in straight 'C'.

   Did kinda get used to 'object Pascal' via Delphi
   and later Lazarus/FPC.

> Java applets were nice too, but the browsers slammed the door on that line
> of development. Meanwhile Eich was brewing up ECMAScript and some marketer
> decided Java was real cool leading to decades of confusion. At least Eich
> didn't use Scheme.
> 
> I probably still have the DVDs someplace but Microsoft's Visual J++ was
> quite nice but that turned into a fight with the junkyard dogs. It was
> reborn, sort of, in C#, which I like.
> 
> Meanwhile Java became well beyond clinically obese and cursed anything
> built with it like Eclipse to turtle like speeds. It's telling that IBM's
> skunk works Java project turned out better tools than Sun.

   I just skipped Java and especially JS ... bad
   to write, slow to run, just not something I
   would like. Tossed all my Java/JS books when
   I retired.

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#90732

On Thu, 27 Aug 2026 23:47:06 -0400, c186282 wrote:

>    I just skipped Java and especially JS ... bad to write, slow to run,
>    just not something I would like. Tossed all my Java/JS books when I
>    retired.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node.js

JavaScript was slow on IE 7 because MS never could write a browser before 
they adopted chromium. I've had no problem with node.js on the back end. 

As far as the front end,  you're not going far without JS, even if its 
only JQuery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JQuery

It's not 2000 anymore.

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#90771

On 28 Aug 2026 06:54:22 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

> As far as the front end,  you're not going far without JS, even if
> its only JQuery.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JQuery
> 
> It's not 2000 anymore.

I've been running FF/PaleMoon with NoScript since 2004; there are some
sites that I do have to whitelist, annoyingly, but the vast majority of
the sites I visit function just fine without. Graceful degradation is,
evidently, not as hard as sloppy web developers like to claim it is.

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#90772

On 2026-08-28, John Ames wrote:

> On 28 Aug 2026 06:54:22 GMT
> rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
>
>> As far as the front end,  you're not going far without JS, even if
>> its only JQuery.
>> 
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JQuery
>> 
>> It's not 2000 anymore.
>
> I've been running FF/PaleMoon with NoScript since 2004; there are some
> sites that I do have to whitelist, annoyingly, but the vast majority of
> the sites I visit function just fine without. Graceful degradation is,
> evidently, not as hard as sloppy web developers like to claim it is.

And some ad frameworks are reportedly growing more aggressive, to the
extent of possibly becoming malware. I've heard people report "AdShield"
being a thing that leads to 100% CPU usage, and a growing number of
sites if visited with JS enabled insist I'm ripping them off because of
some "ad blocker". That's funny given that in the profile where I have
JS enabled there is *no* ad blocker...

And this without mentioning the endless flood of sites which insist that
you have to show a cookie consent pop-up, but can't make declining easy
enough. Depending on the site, it's completely readable with JS
disabled, because there's no popup at all.

So I guess I'm going to use NoScript more, not less. I've just installed
it in Fennec (Android) this week.

-- 
Nuno Silva

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#90744

On 28/08/2026 04:47, c186282 wrote:
> I just skipped Java and especially JS ... bad
>    to write, slow to run, just not something I
>    would like. Tossed all my Java/JS books when
>    I retired.

Sadly I need JavaScript - I write a lot of web controlled stuff for my 
home systems

It is horrible. But mostly it works

Likewise PHP.

-- 
To ban Christmas, simply give turkeys the vote.

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#90507

On 2026-08-25 06:41, rbowman wrote:
> In my OCD quest to rejuvenate old machines I finally dug out the tower
> buried under other junk out in the shed. Turns out it's a Compaq Presario
> 4550. It has a 233 MHz AMD K6 that was AMDs challenge to the Pentium II.
> It was pin compatible and could be used in a Socket 7 board. It has 48 MB
> of RAM (no, that's not a typo) and a 4 GB HDD. For your computing
> convenient, it has a 56K modem. There are 2 USB ports although I think it
> expects the mouse and keyboard to be plugged into the PS2 ports.
> 
> Two distros that claim to run in 48 MB are Tiny Core and Slax. slax
> specifies text only unless you have more RAM. Tiny Core isn't very
> specific.
> 
> I think I'll let that sleeping dog slumber on although I might see if it
> boots at all.
> 
> Now for the real puzzle. I was a fairly decent machine in 1997 and came
> with Windows 95. Windows 95 claimed a minimum of 4 MB, recommended 8 MB,
> and if you had 16 MB or more didn't bother creating a swap file. What the
> flaming hell has happened to us?  Even by Windows 98 24 MB was
> recommended. Now you can barely run a pared down Linux in 48 MB and I
> doubt it's a very appealing UX.
> 

Back then, my machine that would happily run Win 98 had trouble running 
SuSE Linux. Linux wanted as much ram as possible.

-- 
Cheers, Carlos.
ES🇪🇸, EU🇪🇺;

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#90514

On 2026-08-25, Carlos E.R. wrote:

> On 2026-08-25 06:41, rbowman wrote:
>> In my OCD quest to rejuvenate old machines I finally dug out the tower
>> buried under other junk out in the shed. Turns out it's a Compaq Presario
>> 4550. It has a 233 MHz AMD K6 that was AMDs challenge to the Pentium II.
>> It was pin compatible and could be used in a Socket 7 board. It has 48 MB
>> of RAM (no, that's not a typo) and a 4 GB HDD. For your computing
>> convenient, it has a 56K modem. There are 2 USB ports although I think it
>> expects the mouse and keyboard to be plugged into the PS2 ports.
>>
>> Two distros that claim to run in 48 MB are Tiny Core and Slax. slax
>> specifies text only unless you have more RAM. Tiny Core isn't very
>> specific.
>>
>> I think I'll let that sleeping dog slumber on although I might see if it
>> boots at all.
>>
>> Now for the real puzzle. I was a fairly decent machine in 1997 and came
>> with Windows 95. Windows 95 claimed a minimum of 4 MB, recommended 8 MB,
>> and if you had 16 MB or more didn't bother creating a swap file. What the
>> flaming hell has happened to us?  Even by Windows 98 24 MB was
>> recommended. Now you can barely run a pared down Linux in 48 MB and I
>> doubt it's a very appealing UX.
>>
>
> Back then, my machine that would happily run Win 98 had trouble
> running SuSE Linux. Linux wanted as much ram as possible.

I used the same machine for Windows 98 and GNU/Linux. Granted, it
started with 64 MiB and was at some point upgraded to at least 256 MiB
(and later a bit more). That Pentium II Slot 1 machine was in use as the
main desktop until 2008 (by then running Debian for 1-2 years, IIRC),
while I at some point used KDE 3, it was happy with that amount of
memory (and could also run e.g. OOo; a laptop with 64 MiB was a bit of a
different story), and life became easier as at some point I moved away
from DEs.

But this is already more than 48 MiB, and probably at a sweet point
where it was enough memory for the kernel, X11 and applications.

The biggest challenge was updating (compiling, Gentoo) GCC because of
insn_attrtab.c [1] :-D

Other challenges IIRC included Firefox coping with a larger amount of
open tabs (although it still behaved much better than nowadays), and in
one specific use case, Egacs, er, Emacs.


Overall, Windows 98 was, even considering its issues, a nice system, a
nice interface usually with light resource requirements. I think the
only slowdown I remember was browsing DVD media in the Windows Explorer,
and I have no idea if that was a Windows issue in itself or something
with that specific optical drive. It's no Windows NT, but there's
probably a reason it tends to be fondly remembered, even with MICROS~1
being MICROS~1 (they've, for example, IIRC not released the fix for
KB312108 (NDIS "Protection Error" on fast enough CPUs [2]), instead
making it available on request through their support channels... (I have
no idea if this was on ftp.microsoft.com, I suppose it's possible it was
there despite this?)).

[1] <https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=29442> (behind Anubis)
[2] <http://web.archive.org/web/20040513001718/http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=312108>

-- 
Nuno Silva

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#90530

On 25/08/2026 11:53, Nuno Silva wrote:
> Overall, Windows 98 was, even considering its issues, a nice system, a
> nice interface usually with light resource requirements.

Yes. I knew people who ran that - I was on it until I got XP - and yes, 
it blue screened and crashed and locked up but when it worked it was 
sorta OK. Needed 16MB of RAM. And a 466 or Pentium, Think I had an AMD

I cant remember how big my first *desktop* linux machine was - I'd 
deployed it on a NAS already - but 256MB rings a bell.



-- 
Climate Change: Socialism wearing a lab coat.

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#90565

On Tue, 25 Aug 2026 12:54:04 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 25/08/2026 11:53, Nuno Silva wrote:
>> Overall, Windows 98 was, even considering its issues, a nice system, a
>> nice interface usually with light resource requirements.
> 
> Yes. I knew people who ran that - I was on it until I got XP - and yes,
> it blue screened and crashed and locked up but when it worked it was
> sorta OK. Needed 16MB of RAM. And a 466 or Pentium, Think I had an AMD
> 
> I cant remember how big my first *desktop* linux machine was - I'd
> deployed it on a NAS already - but 256MB rings a bell.

I installed Slackware from floppies on something. but I can't remember 
what. I also installed Mandrake from the shrik wrapped box set but it 
certainly wasn't on the Compaq.

https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4801

That recommends 128 or preferably 256 MB. KDE was fat by 2001.

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