Returning to Win98 or maybe 95 on old machine/ mobile broadband andW98

I have a 1999 Fujitsu with 512 mb upper limit for RAM and a 1.3 ghz
CPU. I have spent time and money stretching it with a bigger hard
drive, more USB ports, a graphics card and doubling the RAM from 256
mb, and also by trying many Linux distros (including XFCE versions),
along with XP, W2K and even Vista Home Basic. Its performance isn't
atrocious, but it does of course draw windows and work with the
internet not so fluidly as my Vista-cum-Windows 7 laptop and my
netbook. I'm thinking of reverting the purpose of the machine back to
why I bought it secondhand, just to write a novel on, and I use the
Wordpad derivative Jarte after a year of trying OpenOffice.

I stupidly gave a Windows 98SE CD away with a laptop I sold but might
buy another off eBay, though I do have a Windows 95 somewhere. I
didn't see any 98 isos on 'certain sites' but would feel more
comfortable with my own CD anyway unless anyone has any
recommendations.

Would I _notice_ a performance improvement if running an OS from the
era the machine was built, or would it still be glitchy in the same
way? I have seen Windows 98 in action fairly recently, but that was
on a 200mhz and a 500mhz machine with 80mb and 128mb RAM, so I've
ignored my impression.

I have a 240 gb hard drive, with a 20gb one sitting in a drawer.
Apparently the 240gb will be of no use to 98 or 95, but is that simply
a case of setting up a partition smaller than 80gb or whatever to get
it to use Windows 95 or 98, or is it going to have to be that the
240gb hd sits in the drawer for now?

My other, not immediately viable option is to buy a new motherboard,
CPU and RAM and put all this in the Fujitsu's case with its psu etc,
but I'm a bit wary of how that might turn out, envisioning explosions,
flames and so on... For now, and in this post, it's the 95/98
question I'm interested in.

Lastly, has anyone here successfully set up a mobile broadband dongle
with Windows 98, maybe as a dial-up connection, or is the lack of 98
drivers a permanent scuppering of this? I'm not super-bothered, as
it'd be healthy to prevent myself getting online with this machine.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

On 12/03/2009 04:31 PM, poachedeggs wrote:
I have a 1999 Fujitsu with 512 mb upper limit for RAM and a 1.3 ghz
CPU. I have spent time and money stretching it with a bigger hard
drive, more USB ports, a graphics card and doubling the RAM from 256
mb, and also by trying many Linux distros (including XFCE versions),
along with XP, W2K and even Vista Home Basic. Its performance isn't
atrocious, but it does of course draw windows and work with the
internet not so fluidly as my Vista-cum-Windows 7 laptop and my
netbook. I'm thinking of reverting the purpose of the machine back to
why I bought it secondhand, just to write a novel on, and I use the
Wordpad derivative Jarte after a year of trying OpenOffice.

There were other alternatives to Open Office, not quite so full
featured or memory demanding, but more than adequate for your intended
needs.


I stupidly gave a Windows 98SE CD away with a laptop I sold but might
buy another off eBay, though I do have a Windows 95 somewhere. I
didn't see any 98 isos on 'certain sites' but would feel more
comfortable with my own CD anyway unless anyone has any
recommendations.

Now would be a good time to check with your friends to see if any have
their old 98 CD stuffed into a closet or somewhere.


Would I _notice_ a performance improvement if running an OS from the
era the machine was built, or would it still be glitchy in the same
way? I have seen Windows 98 in action fairly recently, but that was
on a 200mhz and a 500mhz machine with 80mb and 128mb RAM, so I've
ignored my impression.

98 runs smoothly if run on the intended era of computers, and fairly so
with some of the early newer machines, though they might take a bit of
tweaking. Your 512megs of memory should be more than adequate, as well
as the 1.3ghz CPU [though if its a dual core you will only be using one
core, dual cores require the kernel support from NT or Linux or like].

The 200MHZ. would have been extremely slow for 98SE, though 98FE MIGHT
have been acceptable [though slow by today's standards]. I actually ran
a machine like that for a test bed for years [even tested XP with it].

You also likely looked at fully configured machines [firewall, AV, and
other installed] which would slow performance considerably. The memory
would have been adequate for 95, but 98 likes about 256megs+, so you saw
another aspect of this as a speed hit with memory swapping, CPU, and
like activities on those machines.
The more background apps running the more CPU slices, hard drive
swapping and/or and memory consumed.



I have a 240 gb hard drive, with a 20gb one sitting in a drawer.
Apparently the 240gb will be of no use to 98 or 95, but is that simply
a case of setting up a partition smaller than 80gb or whatever to get
it to use Windows 95 or 98, or is it going to have to be that the
240gb hd sits in the drawer for now?

The model number for the 1999 Fujitsu would be beneficial for adequate
suggestions so the BIOS support and other could be reviewed.
Also, pick the particular OS so advise can be adequately supplied.


My other, not immediately viable option is to buy a new motherboard,
CPU and RAM and put all this in the Fujitsu's case with its psu etc,
but I'm a bit wary of how that might turn out, envisioning explosions,
flames and so on... For now, and in this post, it's the 95/98
question I'm interested in.

Lots of people upgrade their cases and hardware so those visions would
not likely be viable, unless you mess up badly... most electric
connections such as PSU are keyed or the manual explains how to connect
clearly. Bad electrical connections generally and quickly burn out
something [motherboard, capacitors, etc.], so that eliminates most fire
hazards. The other internal electrics are low voltage and amperage [12v
or 5v] so they pose little hazard and are also generally "keyed".


Lastly, has anyone here successfully set up a mobile broadband dongle
with Windows 98, maybe as a dial-up connection, or is the lack of 98
drivers a permanent scuppering of this? I'm not super-bothered, as
it'd be healthy to prevent myself getting online with this machine.

Depends upon the dongle, AND sometimes where you are trying to connect
through/to... got something already, then look for 9X drivers. If not,
then look for one that had/has 9X drivers. Likely you'll need one
including a supplicant for most connections.
What dongle manufacturer and model are you talking about?

Beyond that, 9X is becoming extremely hard to find anything related to
security protections, like AV; has no file or local file protections so
there are potential issues there; most people still using it for the
Internet are finding it more difficult to use, as websites use more and
more Flash, JAVA, and other which the OS was not really designed for, so
it would be best to just forget the Internet since you obviously have
other computers to use.
Then again, you can still buy some good AV/malware products which are
being produced for commercial usage [commercial/business/government
networks still using 9X]; so you can buy one of those or use Clam AV or
other, so you can piece together some pretty good protection with a
little careful planning. Just stay away from the questionable sites...


Thanks in advance for any advice.

Give us a little more information, and maybe we can provide better
suggestions.

--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm
Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking
http://peoplescounsel.org
The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government
___---

On 12/03/2009 04:31 PM, poachedeggs wrote:
I have a 1999 Fujitsu with 512 mb upper limit for RAM and a 1.3 ghz
CPU. I have spent time and money stretching it with a bigger hard
drive, more USB ports, a graphics card and doubling the RAM from 256
mb, and also by trying many Linux distros (including XFCE versions),
along with XP, W2K and even Vista Home Basic. Its performance isn't
atrocious, but it does of course draw windows and work with the
internet not so fluidly as my Vista-cum-Windows 7 laptop and my
netbook. I'm thinking of reverting the purpose of the machine back to
why I bought it secondhand, just to write a novel on, and I use the
Wordpad derivative Jarte after a year of trying OpenOffice.

There were other alternatives to Open Office, not quite so full
featured or memory demanding, but more than adequate for your intended
needs.


I stupidly gave a Windows 98SE CD away with a laptop I sold but might
buy another off eBay, though I do have a Windows 95 somewhere. I
didn't see any 98 isos on 'certain sites' but would feel more
comfortable with my own CD anyway unless anyone has any
recommendations.

Now would be a good time to check with your friends to see if any have
their old 98 CD stuffed into a closet or somewhere.


Would I _notice_ a performance improvement if running an OS from the
era the machine was built, or would it still be glitchy in the same
way? I have seen Windows 98 in action fairly recently, but that was
on a 200mhz and a 500mhz machine with 80mb and 128mb RAM, so I've
ignored my impression.

98 runs smoothly if run on the intended era of computers, and fairly so
with some of the early newer machines, though they might take a bit of
tweaking. Your 512megs of memory should be more than adequate, as well
as the 1.3ghz CPU [though if its a dual core you will only be using one
core, dual cores require the kernel support from NT or Linux or like].

The 200MHZ. would have been extremely slow for 98SE, though 98FE MIGHT
have been acceptable [though slow by today's standards]. I actually ran
a machine like that for a test bed for years [even tested XP with it].

You also likely looked at fully configured machines [firewall, AV, and
other installed] which would slow performance considerably. The memory
would have been adequate for 95, but 98 likes about 256megs+, so you saw
another aspect of this as a speed hit with memory swapping, CPU, and
like activities on those machines.
The more background apps running the more CPU slices, hard drive
swapping and/or and memory consumed.



I have a 240 gb hard drive, with a 20gb one sitting in a drawer.
Apparently the 240gb will be of no use to 98 or 95, but is that simply
a case of setting up a partition smaller than 80gb or whatever to get
it to use Windows 95 or 98, or is it going to have to be that the
240gb hd sits in the drawer for now?

The model number for the 1999 Fujitsu would be beneficial for adequate
suggestions so the BIOS support and other could be reviewed.
Also, pick the particular OS so advise can be adequately supplied.


My other, not immediately viable option is to buy a new motherboard,
CPU and RAM and put all this in the Fujitsu's case with its psu etc,
but I'm a bit wary of how that might turn out, envisioning explosions,
flames and so on... For now, and in this post, it's the 95/98
question I'm interested in.

Lots of people upgrade their cases and hardware so those visions would
not likely be viable, unless you mess up badly... most electric
connections such as PSU are keyed or the manual explains how to connect
clearly. Bad electrical connections generally and quickly burn out
something [motherboard, capacitors, etc.], so that eliminates most fire
hazards. The other internal electrics are low voltage and amperage [12v
or 5v] so they pose little hazard and are also generally "keyed".


Lastly, has anyone here successfully set up a mobile broadband dongle
with Windows 98, maybe as a dial-up connection, or is the lack of 98
drivers a permanent scuppering of this? I'm not super-bothered, as
it'd be healthy to prevent myself getting online with this machine.

Depends upon the dongle, AND sometimes where you are trying to connect
through/to... got something already, then look for 9X drivers. If not,
then look for one that had/has 9X drivers. Likely you'll need one
including a supplicant for most connections.
What dongle manufacturer and model are you talking about?

Beyond that, 9X is becoming extremely hard to find anything related to
security protections, like AV; has no file or local file protections so
there are potential issues there; most people still using it for the
Internet are finding it more difficult to use, as websites use more and
more Flash, JAVA, and other which the OS was not really designed for, so
it would be best to just forget the Internet since you obviously have
other computers to use.
Then again, you can still buy some good AV/malware products which are
being produced for commercial usage [commercial/business/government
networks still using 9X]; so you can buy one of those or use Clam AV or
other, so you can piece together some pretty good protection with a
little careful planning. Just stay away from the questionable sites...


Thanks in advance for any advice.

Give us a little more information, and maybe we can provide better
suggestions.

--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm
Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking
http://peoplescounsel.org
The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government
___---

Does the motherboard BIOS support selecting the boot drive? If it does, the
ideal solution might be to install W98 on the 20Gb drive and put a newer OS
on the larger drive, and select between them at boot time. Even if boot
device selection isn't supported in the BIOS, installing a dual boot system
with a minimal W98 and WP on the small drive and a full version of another
OS on the big drive gives you a very flexible system.

The W98 install could include no networking and only the WP application.
You should still bring it up to date with the amalgamated patches and fixes,
but if its not networked you do not need to worry about AV etc - that could
be in the other OS (by default, W98 will see the 20Gb drive only (FAT32),
the other OS will see both drives). Performance should be very good.

I would not recommend trying to put a new MB into an old case - any saving
you make isn't worth the trouble it will take. Mobile broadband in W98
would be tricky - it depends on the particular device, but even if you can
get it to work don't expect any support from the manufacturer or the ISP.
But not having a connection from W98 simplifies things a lot, and if all you
are doing is that WP then you won't miss it. The on-line research for your
writing can be done with the laptop or the netbook.

Your Internet connection would be in the other OS only, and could be via a
wireless broadband dongle, or via a local (wireless or wired) connection to
the laptop and then through the laptop.
--
Jeff Richards
----------------------------------------

"poachedeggs" wrote in message
...
I have a 1999 Fujitsu with 512 mb upper limit for RAM and a 1.3 ghz
CPU. I have spent time and money stretching it with a bigger hard
drive, more USB ports, a graphics card and doubling the RAM from 256
mb, and also by trying many Linux distros (including XFCE versions),
along with XP, W2K and even Vista Home Basic. Its performance isn't
atrocious, but it does of course draw windows and work with the
internet not so fluidly as my Vista-cum-Windows 7 laptop and my
netbook. I'm thinking of reverting the purpose of the machine back to
why I bought it secondhand, just to write a novel on, and I use the
Wordpad derivative Jarte after a year of trying OpenOffice.

I stupidly gave a Windows 98SE CD away with a laptop I sold but might
buy another off eBay, though I do have a Windows 95 somewhere. I
didn't see any 98 isos on 'certain sites' but would feel more
comfortable with my own CD anyway unless anyone has any
recommendations.

Would I _notice_ a performance improvement if running an OS from the
era the machine was built, or would it still be glitchy in the same
way? I have seen Windows 98 in action fairly recently, but that was
on a 200mhz and a 500mhz machine with 80mb and 128mb RAM, so I've
ignored my impression.

I have a 240 gb hard drive, with a 20gb one sitting in a drawer.
Apparently the 240gb will be of no use to 98 or 95, but is that simply
a case of setting up a partition smaller than 80gb or whatever to get
it to use Windows 95 or 98, or is it going to have to be that the
240gb hd sits in the drawer for now?

My other, not immediately viable option is to buy a new motherboard,
CPU and RAM and put all this in the Fujitsu's case with its psu etc,
but I'm a bit wary of how that might turn out, envisioning explosions,
flames and so on... For now, and in this post, it's the 95/98
question I'm interested in.

Lastly, has anyone here successfully set up a mobile broadband dongle
with Windows 98, maybe as a dial-up connection, or is the lack of 98
drivers a permanent scuppering of this? I'm not super-bothered, as
it'd be healthy to prevent myself getting online with this machine.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

poachedeggs wrote:

I stupidly gave a Windows 98SE CD away with a laptop I sold but
might buy another off eBay

I didn't see any 98 isos on 'certain sites' but would feel more
comfortable with my own CD anyway unless anyone has any
recommendations.

Windows-98se CD's are widely and easily available on torrent.

All you need is install a torrent client. Very easy to do. A year or
so ago I downloaded a Win-98 CD via torrent just to check it's file
structure against my own Win-98 CD and to scan it for malware - and it
checked out just fine. It also came with a text file of about 100
win-98 product keys.

Would I _notice_ a performance improvement if running an OS from
the era the machine was built, or would it still be glitchy in
the same way?

Windows 95 and 98 got a bad rap during the 1995 - 2002 time-frame
because of:

1) machines with pathetic CPU's and pathetically-low installed ram
2) buggy hardware drivers
3) motherboards and video cards with buggy AGP ports

Over time, all those problems were fixed or went away, and win-98 can
run very robustly on hardware (motherboards, video cards) from the 2003
- 2006 era.

I have a 240 gb hard drive, with a 20gb one sitting in a drawer.
Apparently the 240gb will be of no use to 98 or 95, but is that
simply a case of setting up a partition smaller than 80gb or
whatever to get it to use Windows 95 or 98, or is it going to
have to be that the 240gb hd sits in the drawer for now?

Any IDE driver larger than 128 gb will have to be fdisk'ed such that
only the first 128 gb are allocated to a usable fat-32 partition. The
rest will have to remain as un-allocated space. What you do with the
128gb partition is up to you. You can partition it as a single FAT32
volume (ie a 128 gb C: drive) or divide it up as multiple logical
drives.

What-ever you do, or how-ever you allocate the space, you must not
create any volumes or logical drives that reach into the drive beyond
the first 128 gb.

That's the easy answer. The more complicated answer is that if you
obtain a replacement for win-98's 32-bit protected-mode IDE driver
(esdi_506.pdr) then you can utilize drives larger than 128 gb. There
are several such replacements floating around. Ask if you want the
details.

If the drive is a SATA drive, then again this 128 gb drive-size
limitation is most likely not an issue.

My other, not immediately viable option is to buy a new
motherboard, CPU and RAM and put all this in the Fujitsu's
case with its psu etc,

If it's still available, I recommend the Asrock Dual or 4-core VSTA
motherboard. It's an ideal platform for win-98 or a dual-boot 98/XP
system. Almost all of the board's sub-systems have drivers for win-98.

but I'm a bit wary of how that might turn out, envisioning
explosions, flames and so on...

Wedging a new motherboard into what might be a propriatary case will
probably not work. The power supply in your Fujitsu will certainly not
be compatible with any motherboard made in the last 6 years.

A new case with power-supply will cost you as little as $50 or $60.

poachedeggs wrote:

I stupidly gave a Windows 98SE CD away with a laptop I sold but
might buy another off eBay

I didn't see any 98 isos on 'certain sites' but would feel more
comfortable with my own CD anyway unless anyone has any
recommendations.

Windows-98se CD's are widely and easily available on torrent.

All you need is install a torrent client. Very easy to do. A year or
so ago I downloaded a Win-98 CD via torrent just to check it's file
structure against my own Win-98 CD and to scan it for malware - and it
checked out just fine. It also came with a text file of about 100
win-98 product keys.

Would I _notice_ a performance improvement if running an OS from
the era the machine was built, or would it still be glitchy in
the same way?

Windows 95 and 98 got a bad rap during the 1995 - 2002 time-frame
because of:

1) machines with pathetic CPU's and pathetically-low installed ram
2) buggy hardware drivers
3) motherboards and video cards with buggy AGP ports

Over time, all those problems were fixed or went away, and win-98 can
run very robustly on hardware (motherboards, video cards) from the 2003
- 2006 era.

I have a 240 gb hard drive, with a 20gb one sitting in a drawer.
Apparently the 240gb will be of no use to 98 or 95, but is that
simply a case of setting up a partition smaller than 80gb or
whatever to get it to use Windows 95 or 98, or is it going to
have to be that the 240gb hd sits in the drawer for now?

Any IDE driver larger than 128 gb will have to be fdisk'ed such that
only the first 128 gb are allocated to a usable fat-32 partition. The
rest will have to remain as un-allocated space. What you do with the
128gb partition is up to you. You can partition it as a single FAT32
volume (ie a 128 gb C: drive) or divide it up as multiple logical
drives.

What-ever you do, or how-ever you allocate the space, you must not
create any volumes or logical drives that reach into the drive beyond
the first 128 gb.

That's the easy answer. The more complicated answer is that if you
obtain a replacement for win-98's 32-bit protected-mode IDE driver
(esdi_506.pdr) then you can utilize drives larger than 128 gb. There
are several such replacements floating around. Ask if you want the
details.

If the drive is a SATA drive, then again this 128 gb drive-size
limitation is most likely not an issue.

My other, not immediately viable option is to buy a new
motherboard, CPU and RAM and put all this in the Fujitsu's
case with its psu etc,

If it's still available, I recommend the Asrock Dual or 4-core VSTA
motherboard. It's an ideal platform for win-98 or a dual-boot 98/XP
system. Almost all of the board's sub-systems have drivers for win-98.

but I'm a bit wary of how that might turn out, envisioning
explosions, flames and so on...

Wedging a new motherboard into what might be a propriatary case will
probably not work. The power supply in your Fujitsu will certainly not
be compatible with any motherboard made in the last 6 years.

A new case with power-supply will cost you as little as $50 or $60.

MEB wrote:

The 200MHZ. would have been extremely slow for 98SE, though 98FE
MIGHT have been acceptable

What is your evidence or what do you base your claim on that SE has a
different (more demanding) performance curve compared to FE?

MEB wrote:

The 200MHZ. would have been extremely slow for 98SE, though 98FE
MIGHT have been acceptable

What is your evidence or what do you base your claim on that SE has a
different (more demanding) performance curve compared to FE?

"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
MEB wrote:

The 200MHZ. would have been extremely slow for 98SE, though 98FE
MIGHT have been acceptable

What is your evidence or what do you base your claim on that SE has a
different (more demanding) performance curve compared to FE?

Windows98SE worked fine on my old IBM Aptiva 200mmx with 64Mb RAM
(Increasing to the Mother Board max of 128Mb RAM didn't seem to make that
much difference)

The old Aptiva came with Win95
I complained to Microsoft OEM Division, that IBM only provided a password
protected recovery disc and they sent me a Win95c OEM disc with a note
saying that they would be getting in touch with IBM :-)

ATM running 4 PCs, networked and using a Belkin 4 port KMVA Switch
2 WinXP - 1 WinME - 1 Win98SE
(Had to look hard to find a suitable mother board that was Win98 friendly,
and had an AGP slot for a Voodoo5 video card :-) )

"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
MEB wrote:

The 200MHZ. would have been extremely slow for 98SE, though 98FE
MIGHT have been acceptable

What is your evidence or what do you base your claim on that SE has a
different (more demanding) performance curve compared to FE?

Windows98SE worked fine on my old IBM Aptiva 200mmx with 64Mb RAM
(Increasing to the Mother Board max of 128Mb RAM didn't seem to make that
much difference)

The old Aptiva came with Win95
I complained to Microsoft OEM Division, that IBM only provided a password
protected recovery disc and they sent me a Win95c OEM disc with a note
saying that they would be getting in touch with IBM :-)

ATM running 4 PCs, networked and using a Belkin 4 port KMVA Switch
2 WinXP - 1 WinME - 1 Win98SE
(Had to look hard to find a suitable mother board that was Win98 friendly,
and had an AGP slot for a Voodoo5 video card :-) )