smullyoz wrote on 2022-08-03, 02:46:

Getting cozy with WinXP. […]
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Getting cozy with WinXP.

Nice setup!! I love me some 2000 and XP times!!

appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-03, 05:43:

I really can't understand how and why anyone would be nostalgic for XP, it does nothing better than what came after and as far as I know there is next to nothing that runs on XP and nothing else? I absolutely despised this OS, and resented every moment I spent with it between 2000 Pro and 7 Pro..

I dont know but WInXP flies for me, i only use for gaming and i have zero issues.
All i do on that system is install game, play game. Thats it.
Its a Core2Duo E7500, 4GB ram, Geforce 7900GT, Sound Blaster XFI system.
Its not playing Win7 games, or Win98 games, and i dont think i need Win2000 as all i do is gaming there.
I tried playing FarCry2 and Colin DIRT, but they run pretty poorly on the 7900GT, so right about that time around 2008-9 would be the cut off.

smullyoz wrote on 2022-08-03, 13:58:

I dont know but WInXP flies for me, i only use for gaming and i have zero issues. All i do on that system is install game, play […]
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appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-03, 05:43:

I really can't understand how and why anyone would be nostalgic for XP, it does nothing better than what came after and as far as I know there is next to nothing that runs on XP and nothing else? I absolutely despised this OS, and resented every moment I spent with it between 2000 Pro and 7 Pro..

I dont know but WInXP flies for me, i only use for gaming and i have zero issues.
All i do on that system is install game, play game. Thats it.
Its a Core2Duo E7500, 4GB ram, Geforce 7900GT, Sound Blaster XFI system.
Its not playing Win7 games, or Win98 games, and i dont think i need Win2000 as all i do is gaming there.
I tried playing FarCry2 and Colin DIRT, but they run pretty poorly on the 7900GT, so right about that time around 2008-9 would be the cut off.

That is a fantastic system for XP era DX9 games. Systems like that XP just flies on

It really does. WinXP itself just works very fast, programs run quicker than on my faster Win7 computer.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-03, 05:43:

I really can't understand how and why anyone would be nostalgic for XP, it does nothing better than what came after and as far as I know there is next to nothing that runs on XP and nothing else? I absolutely despised this OS, and resented every moment I spent with it between 2000 Pro and 7 Pro..

Don't mix nostalgia with practical use. Though both are understandable.

For nostalgia, XP had an absurdly long relevance. One could daily drive it from the start of elementary school all the way up to bachelor's degree. Those are very influential years in everyone's lives. It's also a transitional OS from the clunky Win9x to the modern experience which includes a lot of firsts and last. I believe Win2k can thank a lot to XP. 2k was still more of a workstation OS, but because it's similarities with XP and XPs popularity it became a feasible home OS.

As for software than runs only* on XP. As a gaming OS, if you have a preference for retail games over digital releases, there are a lot of games that doesn't run on Win9x and broken because it's DRM on Vista/7.

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-08-04, 05:46:

As for software than runs only* on XP. As a gaming OS, if you have a preference for retail games over digital releases, there are a lot of games that doesn't run on Win9x and broken because it's DRM on Vista/7.

Is there a list of such?

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-08-04, 05:46:

For nostalgia, XP had an absurdly long relevance. One could daily drive it from the start of elementary school all the way up to bachelor's degree. Those are very influential years in everyone's lives. It's also a transitional OS from the clunky Win9x to the modern experience which includes a lot of firsts and last. I believe Win2k can thank a lot to XP. 2k was still more of a workstation OS, but because it's similarities with XP and XPs popularity it became a feasible home OS.

Don't quite understand what you mean here? 2K was out there before XP, running as the workstation OS, while ME was the home computer offering at that time. They "merged" into XP which was the first home-consumer Windows based on the NT kernel.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-04, 05:52:

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-08-04, 05:46:

As for software than runs only* on XP. As a gaming OS, if you have a preference for retail games over digital releases, there are a lot of games that doesn't run on Win9x and broken because it's DRM on Vista/7.

Is there a list of such?

I don't know if anyone ever made one. SafeDisc and especially StarForce are often broken on Vista or newer, but there are exceptions. I think SafeDisc got broken intentionally by a Windows update because a security was found in it so it depends on whether your Windows has that update or not.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-08-04, 06:00:

Don't quite understand what you mean here? 2K was out there before XP, running as the workstation OS, while ME was the home computer offering at that time. They "merged" into XP which was the first home-consumer Windows based on the NT kernel.

And I don't quite understand what you don't quite understand, so I reply as best as I can.

Yes, 2k was out before XP. ME was a failure for Microsoft so regardless of its intentions I'll ignore it. 2k is NT5.0 while XP is NT5.1 and they are very similar under the hood. And as a result, because XP became a very popular home OS 2k could get into its slipstream and despite its intended primary function (workstation OS) it could become sort of an XP-Lite for home users. Without XP it's very likely 2k would have became something like NT4.0 without much relevance for home users.

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-08-04, 06:25:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-08-04, 06:00:

Don't quite understand what you mean here? 2K was out there before XP, running as the workstation OS, while ME was the home computer offering at that time. They "merged" into XP which was the first home-consumer Windows based on the NT kernel.

And I don't quite understand what you don't quite understand, so I reply as best as I can.

Yes, 2k was out before XP. ME was a failure for Microsoft so regardless of its intentions I'll ignore it. 2k is NT5.0 while XP is NT5.1 and they are very similar under the hood. And as a result, because XP became a very popular home OS 2k could get into its slipstream and despite its intended primary function (workstation OS) it could become sort of an XP-Lite for home users. Without XP it's very likely 2k would have became something like NT4.0 without much relevance for home users.

Oh, in that matter. For me the experience 2000/XP was pretty chronological, so I never considered anything from XP being slipstreamed "back" into 2K. Even when I ran SP3 of 2K, I never considered it as being "updated" with XP features.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-08-04, 08:56:

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-08-04, 06:25:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-08-04, 06:00:

Don't quite understand what you mean here? 2K was out there before XP, running as the workstation OS, while ME was the home computer offering at that time. They "merged" into XP which was the first home-consumer Windows based on the NT kernel.

And I don't quite understand what you don't quite understand, so I reply as best as I can.

Yes, 2k was out before XP. ME was a failure for Microsoft so regardless of its intentions I'll ignore it. 2k is NT5.0 while XP is NT5.1 and they are very similar under the hood. And as a result, because XP became a very popular home OS 2k could get into its slipstream and despite its intended primary function (workstation OS) it could become sort of an XP-Lite for home users. Without XP it's very likely 2k would have became something like NT4.0 without much relevance for home users.

Oh, in that matter. For me the experience 2000/XP was pretty chronological, so I never considered anything from XP being slipstreamed "back" into 2K. Even when I ran SP3 of 2K, I never considered it as being "updated" with XP features.

2K SP4 is more or less Windows XP under a better shell.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-04, 08:58:

2K SP4 is more or less Windows XP under a better shell.

Perhaps, but with a decade and a half of updates, XP SP3 is pretty far from 2K SP4. And in classic mode it looks almost the same as 2K.

At this point, 2022... Does it really matter where you enter game.exe or doubleclick that icon? No it does not. You adapt to the hardware/software if theres some incompatibility with drivers and thats about it, unless someone wants to argue they preffer 2k over xp cus they daily drive it.

All your OS feelings got obsolete 😜

I guess I picked a good time for my first post. Going along with the XP discussion, here are two machines I refreshed this past year.

Socket 478 , Pentium 4. I have both 2.0Ghz and 2.8Ghz processors for it. ATI 9550 64MB GPU. Was originally sold as an XP machine, still is, but I may try installing Windows 98.

This was my first pc Build. It got updated over the years, but I finally reverted it back to an XP gaming machine. Overclocked Phenom II X 6 1055T, 970A Motherboard and Swapped the 6850 for a GTX 580.

I also just picked up a Cyrix Based Acer machine, complete with Monitor for $1. I had a similar era, but Pentium based Win95 Acer as a kid. Planning to refresh it.

BrwPcNrd87 wrote on 2022-08-23, 19:17:

I guess I picked a good time for my first post. Going along with the XP discussion, here are two machines I refreshed this past […]
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I guess I picked a good time for my first post. Going along with the XP discussion, here are two machines I refreshed this past year.

Socket 478 , Pentium 4. I have both 2.0Ghz and 2.8Ghz processors for it. ATI 9550 64MB GPU. Was originally sold as an XP machine, still is, but I may try installing Windows 98.

This was my first pc Build. It got updated over the years, but I finally reverted it back to an XP gaming machine. Overclocked Phenom II X 6 1055T, 970A Motherboard and Swapped the 6850 for a GTX 580.

I also just picked up a Cyrix Based Acer machine, complete with Monitor for $1. I had a similar era, but Pentium based Win95 Acer as a kid. Planning to refresh it.

Was about to call the second (blue) system for sleeper, but GTX 580 is 10 year old now, it's a retro system 😳
Crzy how time flies, absolutly lovely systems you have there! 😀

Captain NA wrote on 2022-08-24, 12:58:

Was about to call the second (blue) system for sleeper, but GTX 580 is 10 year old now, it's a retro system 😳
Crzy how time flies, absolutly lovely systems you have there! 😀

Thanks! The 580 cost me $30 off ebay, so I tossed it in. The case mods were all done recently also, was just a plain old Antec 300 until the refresh. Currently trying to get Interstate 76 to run properly on it thanks to this forum. Mixed success. I see windows 98 or 95 in my future.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-03, 05:43:

I really can't understand how and why anyone would be nostalgic for XP, it does nothing better than what came after and as far as I know there is next to nothing that runs on XP and nothing else?

Empire Earth seems to only run right on XP. I've tried it on every version of Windows since, tried every recommended fix, tried the GOG version, and it always ends up freezing for about a second repeatedly during gameplay. XP is the only OS in which that doesn't happen to be.

Hi!

I just recently bought an old Northgate ZXPortable laptop in a 'dead' condition.

It's a 486SX machine with 4 MB RAM.

I was able to successfully revive it! After replacing a faulty fuse, some FDD racaping and replacing two video DRAM chips I was able to power it up. I was even able to repair the original Conner CP2124 HDD.

Somehow I'm really proud of this repair.

mnlog wrote on 2022-09-05, 19:53:

Hi! […]
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Hi!

I just recently bought an old Northgate ZXPortable laptop in a 'dead' condition.

It's a 486SX machine with 4 MB RAM.

I was able to successfully revive it! After replacing a faulty fuse, some FDD racaping and replacing two video DRAM chips I was able to power it up. I was even able to repair the original Conner CP2124 HDD.

Somehow I'm really proud of this repair.

Excellent work bringing this laptop back to life. Any fun plans for it now that it's working?

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2022-09-05, 20:27:

Excellent work bringing this laptop back to life. Any fun plans for it now that it's working?

Thanks for the encouragement! I appreciate it.

It may sound kind of dorky, but I like writing text on it. It had WordStar and WordPerfect installed on it. The previous owner had a lot of documents written on it (I've deleted them), so somehow I will continue his legacy 😉
I love the clicky feeling of the keyboard. The lack of any touchpad makes it feel more like a typewriter to me. I've managed to use it to keep a journal.

Also I've installed TASM and TurboC to play with real hardware on the low level.

In the future I plan to make a plug adapter so I could use it with a regular 12V supply.

Any idea for the pinout? I was able to find power and ground, but the rest? No idea.

mnlog wrote on 2022-09-06, 04:12:

Thanks for the encouragement! I appreciate it. […]
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chrismeyer6 wrote on 2022-09-05, 20:27:

Excellent work bringing this laptop back to life. Any fun plans for it now that it's working?

Thanks for the encouragement! I appreciate it.

It may sound kind of dorky, but I like writing text on it. It had WordStar and WordPerfect installed on it. The previous owner had a lot of documents written on it (I've deleted them), so somehow I will continue his legacy 😉
I love the clicky feeling of the keyboard. The lack of any touchpad makes it feel more like a typewriter to me. I've managed to use it to keep a journal.

Also I've installed TASM and TurboC to play with real hardware on the low level.

In the future I plan to make a plug adapter so I could use it with a regular 12V supply.

Any idea for the pinout? I was able to find power and ground, but the rest? No idea.

That sounds like an excellent use of that machine.