Re: Oh, for the daze of Win98?

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 04:11:58 -0700, sillyputty
<karmictaragem@xxxxxxxxx> put finger to keyboard and composed:

I found an old Compaq computer someone had discarded by our apartment
dumpsters and thought I'd see if it still worked. Cracking it open I
discovered it was caked with dirt. So I got out my vacuum, set it on
reverse, ...

Why?

... put on a dust mask and created a veritable dust cloud on my
porch.

I brought it in and it started right up, but hung before Win98 loaded.
Fortunately, the previous owner had copied the 98 install disk onto
the HD, so it was a simple procedure to reinstall the OS. It had a
10GB HD and AMD 400mhz CPU!

I'm typing this on a Win98SE machine with an AMD K6-2/450MHz CPU and
13GB HD. I don't need a dual-core machine to access the Internet. OTOH
my multimedia box is an AMD XP 2500, also running Win98SE.

I found an old ATI Rage LT Pro vid card,
downloaded and installed the legacy drivers, but the max resolution it
could support was 800x600 on a 17" monitor. How did I ever get along
with such low resolution?

You didn't have to, unless your monitor was a 14" VGA type. Even my 9
year old PC Chips motherboard's integrated graphics is better than
that.

In fact I also have an old 486 Win95 box with an S3 Trio64V+ card that
can do 1024x768 and 1152x864. An even older 486 Win95 box with a
Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 graphics chip can do 1280x1024 ... even in DOS
mode. The manual for the RTVGA ISA graphics card for an old 286 box
lists 1024x768 as a supported resolution, although limited to 16
colours.

Looking through my floppies I found Doom2, installed and fired it up.
The graphics that were once cutting edge were blocky and jagged. What
could I expect with a video game that weighs in at a bit over 5MB? I
watched the demo a few times, tried playing it, but didn't get past
the first level. Especially with a dual-core machine sitting a few
feet away loaded with recent games.

I played around with it some more, tried installing some more DOS
games and programs, but lost interest. I went to bed thinking I might
be more enthusiastic the next morning. But after getting up and taking
another look at it, I shut it down and carted it off to my storage
closet. I may try installing a DOS emulator on my XP machine and
loading some DOS games, but haven't gotten around to it (no round tuit
jokes, please). However, several days later my sinuses are still
irritated by the dust still stuck in the nooks and crannies of the
machine and exhausted into my apartment.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Oh, for the daze of Win98?
    ... I found an old Compaq computer someone had discarded by our apartment ... I played around with it some more, tried installing some more DOS ... games and programs, but lost interest. ...
    (alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt)
  • DirectX 9.0b
    ... Installing a newer Direct X version doesn't improve the ... graphics of certain games. ... This will only happen if your Video Card Supports ...
    (microsoft.public.games)
  • Using C for game development
    ... I want to begin by making simple 2D games for Dos. ... features of C should I look to strengthen? ... graphics bit but in general. ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: 3D hardware acceleration
    ... If the hardware you have on the system won't handle the graphics ... > games. ... >> Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC ... >>> DirectPlay Service Providers ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.games)
  • Re: LOTRO graphics card
    ... | turned down as far as it will go graphics wise. ... original Dell power supply was not nearly enough to drive it, ... On the older games, the performance jumped quite a bit. ... addition of the graphics card had much higher results. ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg)