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other
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Found Items: Save for Museum?
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Oct 14 20:55 UTC 2003 |
Two interesting items have just come into my possession, and I'm
wondering there's a museum to which the should go, or if someone wants to
take them off my hands for, oh, I don't know, maybe a $10-$20 donation to
the 501(c)3 organization of your choice.
Both items are in their original shrinkwrap packaging and appear
undamaged.
1) IBM Disk Operating System 5.00 Upgrade (requires a hard disk with
a previous version of DOS (2.1 or higher) already installed).
Includes printed manual and software on three 720kb 3.5-inch diskettes.
2) Borland dBase IV for DOS version 1.1. Includes printed manuals
and software on 5.25 and 3.5 inch disk sets. Requires PC or MS DOS
versions 2.10 through 3.31, 4.01 and 100% compatibles. Multiuser mode
requires Netware 286 and 386, 3Com 3+, IBM PC LAN (including Token Ring),
100% compatibles.
Anyone interested?
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| 32 responses total. |
mcnally
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response 1 of 32:
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Oct 14 21:11 UTC 2003 |
> Anyone interested?
Not at all. A copy of Windows 1.0 might be a genuine curiosity but
Dos 5.00 and dBase IV 1.1 were *way* too common..
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gull
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response 2 of 32:
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Oct 15 01:34 UTC 2003 |
I have a copy of Windows 2.0 somewhere. Not the original disks, though,
unfortunately.
Windows 1.0 is hardly recognizable as Windows. The Program Manager didn't
appear until 2.0, for example.
Anyone remember DESQview? I never had a copy, but I remember when it was
pretty hot stuff.
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other
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response 3 of 32:
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Oct 15 02:04 UTC 2003 |
Did I mention these items are still in original shrinkwrap?
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cross
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response 4 of 32:
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Oct 15 02:17 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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scott
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response 5 of 32:
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Oct 15 02:31 UTC 2003 |
I know a *lot* about DESQview, since my old company's original (warehouse
software) platform was DOS. We used DESQview to multitask several DOS
programs at once: Recovery logger, user interface, alarms handler, radio
terminal server... it was pretty slick, actually. They had an API for
DESQview, so programs to send messages to each other and control which window
was on top. And the memory manage, QEMM, that stuff was genius. Of course
setting up each machine required using different tricks, but it would steal
unused areas between 640K and 1Mb to run stuff in, so you'd have as much as
possible below 640K.
Never did play with the X windows stuff, though. I think that was a separate
product.
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cross
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response 6 of 32:
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Oct 15 02:55 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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gull
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response 7 of 32:
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Oct 15 13:36 UTC 2003 |
Yeah, and then Microsoft came out with their own inferior clone of it.
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polygon
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response 8 of 32:
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Oct 15 14:58 UTC 2003 |
I didn't like dBaseIV, but I'm still using FoxPro, which started as a clone
for dBaseIII. I use FoxPro to maintain and regenerate the 20,000-some
pages of PoliticalGraveyard.com.
Admittedly it's kind of weird to be using DOS software in 2003, but I have
more than 30,000 lines of code into this; it works well; and I can't
imagine making the time to port the whole thing into something else.
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jp2
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response 9 of 32:
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Oct 15 15:08 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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other
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response 10 of 32:
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Oct 15 20:14 UTC 2003 |
If 'twere me, I'd be looking at ways to automate the port process. I'm
sure there're lots of code snippets in the original which could be
grepped and replaced with the appropriate replacement code using regexps
as part of a source conversion utility which would probably be easier to
develop than a manual replacement for the whole thing.
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gull
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response 11 of 32:
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Oct 16 13:42 UTC 2003 |
But on the other hand, if what he has now works, why change it?
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other
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response 12 of 32:
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Oct 16 13:46 UTC 2003 |
Well, as the hardware/software combo on which it is running gets older
and more out of date, I suppose it will be more and more expensive to
maintain in the current format. Making a change now will make it more
practicable to keep the whole thing up to date the next time. It is sort
of a circular logic, but then that's the way technology works...
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goose
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response 13 of 32:
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Oct 16 14:04 UTC 2003 |
In fact Microsoft's business plan depends on that very model. ;-)
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aruba
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response 14 of 32:
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Oct 16 15:57 UTC 2003 |
I think if it's working, there's no good reason to change.
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other
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response 15 of 32:
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Oct 16 23:24 UTC 2003 |
Normally I'd agree, but in this case, that is the same logic that made
Y2K such a huge debacle.
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lk
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response 16 of 32:
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Oct 16 23:52 UTC 2003 |
(Indeed. In preparation for Y2K, I stocked up with a 2.5 gallon jug of
water. During the power outage in August, I couldn't find it. A few
weeks later it showed up in the furnace room. Alas, the cap was loose
and I didn't consider it good for anything other than watering plants.
What a debacle! Not needed, not found, not drinkable. What a waste of $3!)
Anyone have a good jug of water to trade for a Sperry PC?
(Actually, I think my sister just tossed it.)
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keesan
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response 17 of 32:
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Oct 17 16:32 UTC 2003 |
Kiwanis threw out lots of copies of DOS 5 -supposed to be the worst version.
We use 6.22 or DR-DOS.
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tod
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response 18 of 32:
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Oct 17 17:00 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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jep
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response 19 of 32:
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Oct 17 18:44 UTC 2003 |
My first computer was a Sperry PC. I got it from the MTU bookstore.
It had MS DOS 3.3, 640K of RAM, 2 big 360K floppy disk drives for
storage, and a Hercules monochrome graphics card. It cost around $2500.
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lk
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response 20 of 32:
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Oct 17 23:57 UTC 2003 |
(And was actually made by Mitsubishi.)
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jep
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response 21 of 32:
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Oct 18 01:59 UTC 2003 |
(Yes, that's right. It was a very good computer for it's time.)
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asddsa
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response 22 of 32:
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Oct 19 04:23 UTC 2003 |
DRDOS is horrible.
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polygon
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response 23 of 32:
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Oct 19 15:07 UTC 2003 |
The first non-mainframe computer I used was a Kaypro 4.
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keesan
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response 24 of 32:
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Oct 20 02:41 UTC 2003 |
My Zenith 148 was similar to jep's (a bit less memory) and cost half as much
but I had to wait 6 months for it. The video was MDA not MGA and that cost
me about $200 extra (instead of CGA).
I used it until the late 90's, after adding 5M of hard drive.
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