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Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment.

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Old 14th Aug 2019, 1:26 am   #21
emeritus
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

I still use XP on a laptop for most on-line stuff, more convenient than my smartphone. However, Kaspersky will cease supporting XP next year, so a new laptop is on the shopping list.
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Old 14th Aug 2019, 6:55 am   #22
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

Windows 98 making a comeback? I really, REALLY hope not, I've only just got shot of XP here...
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Old 14th Aug 2019, 8:15 am   #23
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

Whilst working at Manchester city counsel I found 10 win 95 PC's in an old store room all working ( managed to pass them on to a forum member in Manchester ) all Pentium 1 with 64Mb of ram ( I was once told that win 98 can only address 128Mb ram )
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Old 14th Aug 2019, 11:32 am   #24
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

In theory W98 can work with 1GB, but if you go over 512MB then various problems are likely. I think the most I've ever used with it is 384MB (three 128MB sticks).

A W98 machine is a useful thing to have around for those occasional legacy things that need the direct hardware access that the HAL in NT-based systems prevents. The sorts of machines in question were likely made before the "bad-caps" problem that plagued so many P4-era motherboards, so are likely to have plenty of life left in them.

The latests browsers I'm aware of are Firefox V2 and Opera V9.64, but it's pretty much inevitable that modern websites won't render correctly on such old browsers - legacy support is hard and expensive to provide. Connecting a W98 machine to the internet is a "brave" thing to do...
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Old 14th Aug 2019, 12:42 pm   #25
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Arrow Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bazz4CQJ View Post
Does anyone still routinely go Online using XP?
B
Yes: I do. At present it is my default OS. And I am not experiencing any problems in so doing. Eventually I will migrate to Win_7. At present, severe time-limitations plus other factors are restricting my move in that direction.

Al.
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Old 14th Aug 2019, 1:31 pm   #26
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

I was using XP on a tower unit until into 2016, but it was having hardware issues so I removed the hard drive (still working in an enclosure) and gave the away the rest on Freecycle.
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Old 14th Aug 2019, 2:23 pm   #27
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

It depends on whether the PC is a tool or a hobby in itself. An old setup will carry on working indefinitely, failures excepted. The problem comes with adding new hardware or connecting to the outside world when you just want everything to work seamlessly and worry free. Most things can be worked round if you have the time and inclination to do so.
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Old 18th Aug 2019, 9:04 pm   #28
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

I ran Win98 for years with a 1GB RAM system; I built the machine in 2002 and didn't want to pay for XP at the time, and it did everything I needed. I only upgraded to XP in the end when I wanted bigger disks than 98 supports (it can't handle above 128GB).

The only issue (I think it was the only one) was you needed to limit the size of the VCache in whichever ini file it's in.

So far as I'm concerned I still think the 98 shell (particularly the Start Menu) was my favourite, though I did get quite fond of the flashy effects in Windows 7's "Aero" interface- and then they took all that away and gave us the ugly "Modern" look anyway in 8 and 10. (I never could bring myself to use 8, it was truly terrible).

There was a large disk patch unofficially written for Win 98, but I decided I should upgrade rather than monkey around with that. I think the actual maximum RAM is about 1.5GB by the way, if you do the VCache thing.
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Old 19th Sep 2019, 8:18 pm   #29
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

I was using XP on one of my work PCs until July 2019, finally got around to upgrading it to win 7 and it's much happier to be honest...apart from one piece of software which had been in use since 1993 on various OS's from Win 3 onwards....it just won't run.

Win 98SE was very stable, which meant a lot of people used it for a long time...and much great software was produced for 98SE. The only real problem I ever had with it, and my reason for upgrading to XP back in the day, was 98SE's poor USB functionality.

Chances are a lot of 98SE software simply refuses to run in any configuration under 7 or 10. It might take a vintage rig to play games designed for 98SE.
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Old 19th Sep 2019, 8:49 pm   #30
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

I still use ME on my non-web connected Compaq Presario 'beige box' as it's the only way I can run my SCSI-connected Acer Scanwit slide / neg scanner, which I'm loathe to get shot of.
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Old 19th Sep 2019, 10:54 pm   #31
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

If you want to run old programs then Windows 2000 (not Windows Millenium)
is the one, it looks a bit agricultural now but has stable USB support and is a good bridge between the old and new.
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Old 20th Sep 2019, 11:03 am   #32
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

I've still got one PC that's XP-only, plus another that's dual-boot XP/Debian. I have no problem with the things I use that computer for but because an up-to-date browser is unavailable I know some web-sites wouldn't work properly.

It's main uses is as an MP3 player and because it's right next to my laser printer it's handy to print from it if the document is complicated. It's hard disk also has a separate back-up partition with a copy of everything from the last thirty years on. This isn't the only copy of that data but the easiest to access.

I certainly liked W98 but have found that the three versions of Windows that I have heavily used (98, XP and Vista) each have things I liked and things I didn't. I always have/had the Start menu on XP/Vista set to 'Classic,' ie W98-style.
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Old 20th Sep 2019, 11:46 am   #33
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

I have ME, 98 and 95 on my old computers that are not connected to the internet and I still use them. I also have 3.1 on a machine somewhere although I have not used that in years. The pain of this is my old printer Canon C40 (??) has packed up so I have to load onto floppies to get a printout form amore modern machine.
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Old 21st Sep 2019, 5:54 pm   #34
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

Quote:
Originally Posted by cheerfulcharlie View Post
'If you want to run old programs then Windows 2000 (not Windows Millenium)...'
I've never had a problem with ME, but I've never really pushed it to the edge. However... I may be able to find an old copy of Win 2000 at work, where we never had a problem with that, either, so I might just give it a go.

I run a RTTY and data decoder on it as well, sometimes. I'd really like to run them on my dad's old laptop (I've been on here before with this) but would need an expensive PCMCIA - SCSI card to run the scanner. I might put Win 2000 on that first and have a play.
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Old 21st Sep 2019, 6:45 pm   #35
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

When I did professional-ISP/hosting-stuff, tracking the browser/OS used by visitors was a big thing for clients - they wanted to know what their visitors were using so they could optimise their sites to deliver the best experience to the most-profitable visitors.

There were always the complainers - even in 2010 - who moaned that the AOL browser they got free on a magazine-cover CD 15 years ago, or Netscape Navigator 1.1 running under Win95, had access-issues. They tended not to be big spenders.

For old 16/32-bit Windows applications/software there's the likes of WINE and Virtualbox under Linux.

The last Windows I ran natively - until 2009 - for personal use was Win2K Professional; when it stopped supporting Office-2010 cleanly [the .NET framework etc] it was easier/cheaper to move to an Office-365 subscription (which I can access from anywhere).
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Old 21st Sep 2019, 6:54 pm   #36
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

While Windows 98 SE is probably the best Windows version for running Win32 software from that era (ME might do slightly better for some but worse for other software and hardware), I would never call it "very stable" (in my definition, stability has to do with opertaing reliably, not with the size of the historic user base). It WILL crash when it goes too long without a reboot. The longest you will ever get it to run without a reboot is 49.7 days. How much shorter it will actually run before crashing, depends on the stability of the drivers and application software.
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Old 23rd Sep 2019, 4:44 pm   #37
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Default Re: Is Windows 98 making a comeback?

I have a machine with four HDD's. One with windows ME, one with XP and one with Win7(32), in a multi-boot system. I still need ME for EPROM progamming.

I have one old 486 running DOS (under Win 95) for my pick and place machine.

Dan.
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