so I need to install DOS, windows 3.1, Print Shop Deluxe III, and a printer driver onto this Pentium II laptop.
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@foone I wonder if you could replace the CMOS with a pin-compatible flash memory chip. Unless it's one of those all-in-one things that have a built-in RTC.
You could build a "hat" even if it's not pin compatible.
Logic would be the biggest showstopper
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@n_dimension @foone Well, it's a laptop, so I'd argue that space is the biggest showstopper. That said, a teeny daughter board the size of the existing chip could work. Building it, though, is probably more effort than it's worth. Swapping a chip is one thing, designing a bespoke board and then populating it with rice-sized components is something else.
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so I need to install DOS, windows 3.1, Print Shop Deluxe III, and a printer driver onto this Pentium II laptop.
Difficulty: The system has a dead CD-ROM drive. It does have a floppy drive, however... but that's a lot to move via floppy.
It's a win98-era laptop. It has USB, serial, parallel, PS/2, dual PCMCIA slots, floppy, DVD (broken), and a docking connector.
So now my challenge is: How do I get this software onto the machine without having to slowly write something like 10 floppy disks?
@foone Cursed idea: one of those adapters for the cassette player in '80s/'90s cars with them, except for a floppy drive.
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COMPUTERS ARE FUN
28 year old laptops even moresoI finally finished installing DOS 6.22 onto it
and then the hard drive failed
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I don't know if there's any software I could install that'd let me use the USB ports.
well, any software short of Win98. I'd love to have win98 on here, but HOW DO IT GET IT OVER THERE?
@foone win98 quick install (the Linux based installer for Windows 98) has a boot floppy (containing a smol Linux kernel) for systems that cannot boot from CD or USB. I wonder if that could work.
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I finally finished installing DOS 6.22 onto it
and then the hard drive failed
@foone Ahh, the genuine 1980s DOS experience then?
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I finally finished installing DOS 6.22 onto it
and then the hard drive failed
I think I have a CF to 44pin IDE adapter somewhere
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I finally finished installing DOS 6.22 onto it
and then the hard drive failed
@foone Failed how? If it's not spinning the platters, it could be that the lubrication has degraded over time, but if you can manually rotate the spindle a few times you might be able to breathe new life into it. Though probably not a lot of life, and you'd want to keep it spinning for a while to let the bad lube work its way out.
Bad lube.
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so if you get delayed providing the requested Disk 2 of DOS 6.22 because your USB drive died, and it has to wait for over 5 minutes... the drive will spin down and not come back up.
so the installer will read the files off the drive and then completely fail to write them to the disk! and you have to start over again!
@foone oh noes
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I finally finished installing DOS 6.22 onto it
and then the hard drive failed
@foone It's cursed.
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@foone It's cursed.
@Tamber that's the only kind of computer I work with, yeah
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I think I have a CF to 44pin IDE adapter somewhere
alice! hey alice.
future alice listen to me: when you do set up the CF to 44pin thing, partition and format it using the DOS disk in the laptop, then remove it again connect it to your laptop and just copy over windows 98 or whatever. don't deal with serial or floppies -
alice! hey alice.
future alice listen to me: when you do set up the CF to 44pin thing, partition and format it using the DOS disk in the laptop, then remove it again connect it to your laptop and just copy over windows 98 or whatever. don't deal with serial or floppies@foone ha ha ha, if i had a nickel for every time I've ran into this problem. (my main Win9x pc doesn't have floppy or cd and is a pain in the ass to reinstall every time cuz i need to use my IODD) -
alice! hey alice.
future alice listen to me: when you do set up the CF to 44pin thing, partition and format it using the DOS disk in the laptop, then remove it again connect it to your laptop and just copy over windows 98 or whatever. don't deal with serial or floppies@foone it's a good reminder that CF cards are essentially just miniaturised 16 bit ISA devices
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alice! hey alice.
future alice listen to me: when you do set up the CF to 44pin thing, partition and format it using the DOS disk in the laptop, then remove it again connect it to your laptop and just copy over windows 98 or whatever. don't deal with serial or floppies@foone setting up a scheduled reply to remind you in a month 🫡 /half-joke
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