VOGONS


Reply 20 of 26, by greasemonkey90s

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Jo22 wrote:

I seond that. If you're lucky, then there's a separate OEM CD-ROM release of DOS 6.22 and WfW 3.11 each.
For WfW 3.11, there's at least one in existemce (I own such a disc.

Is the oem release similar picked it up for a buck at goodwill. Of course its not bootable but interesting to have.

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Reply 21 of 26, by leileilol

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Dhigan wrote:

Late answer ... FAT16 formated HDD is the key.

Not really. That's not even an advantage. FAT16 requirements are common knowledge not worth necrobumping about.

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Reply 22 of 26, by ATauenis

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dr_st wrote:
I'd say that Win98 gives you the following advantages: […]
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I'd say that Win98 gives you the following advantages:

  1. Better networking support (More supported NICs including WiFi, easier file sharing, better internet compatibility)
  2. FAT32 support which removes 2GB partition and 7.something GB total hard drive limit
  3. Some games and some sound cards actually perform better from within Windows 98 rather than in pure DOS due to better audio drivers

Also 9x are more stable than 3.x. In 9x you may kill a hang application, when 3.x will hang entirely (it's a bug in WinAPI since 1.0 and NT 3.1, partially fixed in 95/NT4 and complete fixed in WinXP).

But 32-bit Windowses are more "voracious" for RAM. Windows 95 is consuming about 8 MB of RAM just after boot. If you have a less amount of RAM (or 8MB), 95 may work too, but it will frequently use the swapfile which will drastically reduce the PC perfomance. On 8-16MB systems there will be a small amount of free RAM for applications. If the PC have a network connection, Win95 will use more RAM for their network stack, about 12 MB. Now calculate: a 16 MB PC with network and Win95 installed will have only 4 megabyte free for software.

Windows 3.11 for Workgroups with a working LAN connection is using only 8 MB after the start. It is a large benefit over Windows 95 on older machines. Windows 3.10 without networks is a more modest - it is using less than 1 MB after start in 286-Standard mode and about 2 MB in 386-Enhanced mode. On 8MB machines Windows 3.1 giving much more memory for software! Even 4 MB 386s are good PCs for Win3.1 games.

2×Soviet ZX-Speccy, 1×MacIIsi, 1×086, 1×286, 2×386DX, 1×386SX, 2×486, 1×P54C, 7×P55C, 6×Slot1, 4×S370, 1×SlotA, 2×S462, ∞×Modern.

Reply 23 of 26, by leileilol

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ATauenis wrote:

But 32-bit Windowses are more "voracious" for RAM. Windows 95 is consuming about 8 MB of RAM just after boot. If you have a less amount of RAM (or 8MB), 95 may work too, but it will frequently use the swapfile which will drastically reduce the PC perfomance. On 8-16MB systems there will be a small amount of free RAM for applications.

That's a little overstating it. I've seen 8mb Win95 PCs have enough ram to play Doom and other similar 4-6mb requiring games with little performance penalty. I didn't have much memory problems with Quake on 16MB even with bumping -winmem up to 12 for the more ambitious mods

Win98 on the other hand.....

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Reply 24 of 26, by Jo22

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ATauenis wrote:
dr_st wrote:
I'd say that Win98 gives you the following advantages: […]
Show full quote

I'd say that Win98 gives you the following advantages:

  1. Better networking support (More supported NICs including WiFi, easier file sharing, better internet compatibility)
  2. FAT32 support which removes 2GB partition and 7.something GB total hard drive limit
  3. Some games and some sound cards actually perform better from within Windows 98 rather than in pure DOS due to better audio drivers

Also 9x are more stable than 3.x. In 9x you may kill a hang application, when 3.x will hang entirely (it's a bug in WinAPI since 1.0 and NT 3.1, partially fixed in 95/NT4 and complete fixed in WinXP).

I partly disagree with that. 😉 While it's true that WfW sure had its problems when it was "maxed out" (lots of drivers, high res graphics),
the plain old Windows 3.1 ran very stable with the (16-Bit) drivers it came with. Especially Standard Mode was rock solid, I think.
I remember about less than 10 blue screen in the whole time. Most of them where triggered by buggy applications
(some had 386 in-line code that didn't work on my 286) or non-Windows (DOS) programs.
This was very different to my Win98SE experience. It randomly caused blue screens and freezes on my computer.

To be fair, I don't think it was entirely 98SE's fault. Buggy VXDs (a form of *.i386) and quick&dirty written programs contributed a lot to this.
The most prominent issue was a "missing function in XYZ" error, issues with kernel32.vxd and "program XYZ caused an illegal operation" errors.
Anyway, I don't blame Win98SE for that. But by the early 2000s it became clear that 9x was an aged platform.
Most issues, especially with emulators like Snes9x and mz700win (?), automagically disappeard when I got my copy of WinXP (SP1 ?).

ATauenis wrote:
Windows 3.11 for Workgroups with a working LAN connection is using only 8 MB after the start. It is a large benefit over Windows […]
Show full quote

Windows 3.11 for Workgroups with a working LAN connection is using only 8 MB after the start.
It is a large benefit over Windows 95 on older machines. Windows 3.10 without networks is a more modest - it is using less than 1 MB
after start in 286-Standard mode and about 2 MB in 386-Enhanced mode. On 8MB machines Windows 3.1 giving much more memory for
software! Even 4 MB 386s are good PCs for Win3.1 games.

Can't disagree here. 😀 I used Win 3.10 (+DOS6.20) for a long time (throughout the 90s) on a 286-12 w/ 4MiB of RAM and
it was very stable and fast there. In fact, the hard disk was probably the most limiting factor.
That beeing said, it was a heavily upgraded system. SCSI CD-ROM drive, 16-Bit soundcard (PAS16), handy scanner (Mustek ?), serial mouse.
Which was in stark contrast to the ground card. The mainboard was from the mid-80s paired with a BIOS from the West Germany (Schneider).
Surprisingly, it could still run a number of (Win16) programs made ten years later in the second half of the 90s. 😁

Edit: A picture of the old PC I'm talking about is available down here.
Edit:

greasemonkey90s wrote:
Jo22 wrote:

I seond that. If you're lucky, then there's a separate OEM CD-ROM release of DOS 6.22 and WfW 3.11 each.
For WfW 3.11, there's at least one in existemce (I own such a disc.

Is the oem release similar picked it up for a buck at goodwill. Of course its not bootable but interesting to have.

20180612_232904.jpg

Thank you very much for sharing these pictures with us!
To be honest, I'm a little bit jealous even. Your CD is by far more prettier than mine! 😀

ERdit: Some typos fiexed.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 25 of 26, by ATauenis

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leileilol wrote:

That's a little overstating it. I've seen 8mb Win95 PCs have enough ram to play Doom and other similar 4-6mb requiring games with little performance penalty. I didn't have much memory problems with Quake on 16MB even with bumping -winmem up to 12 for the more ambitious mods

Yes, I also have built a 386DX-40 machine with 5 MB of RAM. It was worked some fast with Win95, but heavy apps like Total Commander 16-bit was worked slower than on Win3.1. After some time I had removed W95 from 386's HDD and reinstalled DOS 6.22 and Win3.10.

Quake is working normally with 16 MB even in Windows 98, as Windows can swap self into swapfile to free up memory for the DOS game. But after quit from Quake return to Windows is taking about one minute (!).

Jo22 wrote:

This was very different to my Win98SE experience. It randomly caused blue screens and freezes on my computer.

To be fair, I don't think it was entirely 98SE's fault. Buggy VXDs (a form of *.i386) and quick&dirty written programs contributed a lot to this.

Buggy drivers are Win3.x problem too. Especially *.VXD/*.386. But Windows 3.x is using real mode DOS drivers for network and storage devices. It is why 3.x are very rare crashing on USB Flash drives, diskettes, or at network troubles (not counting the DHCP BSOD on WfW start up when the network cable is disconnected; Windows 95 OSR2 and newer can detect the cable connection and disable LAN stuff for that adapter). Windows 9x is using internal 32-bit drivers that can crash the system if they are buggy or there is a hardware problem. Even file systems are handled through IOS.VXD, and if it crashes the system also will be defunct. 3.1 is using DOS services which are damn stable.

Jo22 wrote:

the plain old Windows 3.1 ran very stable with the (16-Bit) drivers it came with. Especially Standard Mode was rock solid, I think.

You forget about GPFs. If a program on 3.1 writes to another program's memory, the system says about a "GPF at xxx:yyy; ABCDE will be closed [OK]", and after the click the system freezes. Also, buggy display drivers (like one for OAK OTI 077) can break DOS Prompt windows.

2×Soviet ZX-Speccy, 1×MacIIsi, 1×086, 1×286, 2×386DX, 1×386SX, 2×486, 1×P54C, 7×P55C, 6×Slot1, 4×S370, 1×SlotA, 2×S462, ∞×Modern.

Reply 26 of 26, by Jo22

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^I remeber GPFs, but from my memory, Win 3.1 did recover from that when it happened. For 9X/NT GPFs were a more serious issue, I believe.
In my defence, I was running it in 16-Bit protected mode only (real-/protected mode drivers only, no VXDs).

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//