This is probably the wrong place to ask, but does anyone know the name of a (early?) Windows app I'm looking for?

A few details I somewhat remember:

• It was about decorating a holiday tree
• It was, if I'm remembering this correctly, by a company/developer called "DR. Computer"
• It ran in Windows 98, and maybe in 95/3.1 as well.

it decorates Windows desktops like a christmas tree?

No, it was just an app that let you decorate a virtual tree.

Ah, I’m sorry, I do not really know. All I can remember are some apps that let me put Christmas lights around the desktop. Some kind of animation and then there is also After Dark, famous Toast screensaver animation.

SVD wrote on 2020-11-22, 22:17:

Been going over a 486 DX33 desktop system i got a while ago. It got a single speed cartridge cd rom. And 2 free 5.25" bays. I wanted to put a 5.25" floppy drive in there, but of course it needs drive bay brackets i am missing.
Btw the motherboard has this double 8bit ISA slot, wider than 16bit. What is that for?

Proprietary memory expansion.

See if https://www.thingiverse.com/ has any rails.

You can always make your own out of wood otherwise. Hell I've made them out of unsplit chopsticks.

*edit Something like this?

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2742133

Bruninho wrote on 2020-11-23, 03:46:

Ah, I’m sorry, I do not really know. All I can remember are some apps that let me put Christmas lights around the desktop. Some kind of animation and then there is also After Dark, famous Toast screensaver animation.

What has flying toasters got to do with Christmas?

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-11-23, 04:31:

Bruninho wrote on 2020-11-23, 03:46:

Ah, I’m sorry, I do not really know. All I can remember are some apps that let me put Christmas lights around the desktop. Some kind of animation and then there is also After Dark, famous Toast screensaver animation.

What has flying toasters got to do with Christmas?

I just spoke about what I remember about “decorating” the desktop. After Dark had various screensaver animations, maybe they had a Christmas one. I commented about flying toasters animation because that was what made them famous. That’s all I can remember.

I managed to beat TES: Arena on my Pentium Machine, albeit with the L1 Data cache disabled via setmul so that I can have normal gameplay. It was fun, in a janky sort of way.

That ending screen is really comfy.

Jed118 wrote on 2020-11-23, 03:48:

Proprietary memory expansion. […]
Show full quote

SVD wrote on 2020-11-22, 22:17:

Been going over a 486 DX33 desktop system i got a while ago. It got a single speed cartridge cd rom. And 2 free 5.25" bays. I wanted to put a 5.25" floppy drive in there, but of course it needs drive bay brackets i am missing.
Btw the motherboard has this double 8bit ISA slot, wider than 16bit. What is that for?

Proprietary memory expansion.

See if https://www.thingiverse.com/ has any rails.

You can always make your own out of wood otherwise. Hell I've made them out of unsplit chopsticks.

*edit Something like this?

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2742133

Thanks luckybob and Jed118 😀

Unfortunately they are L shaped made of tin plate, with the protruding part in line with the bottom of the drive. I could try to 3d print some though. but my heater core for the printer have burned out, so that have to wait.

I've built a SATA adapter for IBM's Ultrabay 2000 and now I have a 120GB SSD inside of my A22p machine.

The only thing I'd need to fully max this out would be a Pentium 3 Mobile 1GHz for the socket 495. But these are nowhere to be found in Europe, it seems... 😥

schmatzler wrote on 2020-11-23, 21:38:

The only thing I'd need to fully max this out would be a Pentium 3 Mobile 1GHz for the socket 495. But these are nowhere to be found in Europe, it seems... 😥

There was an SL5TF at https://www.cpu-world.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34784 a few months back that might not have sold. You will need to register there to see For Sale listings.

Been taking a break between the last bit of activity and the past couple of days working on an Eddie Van-Halen tribute guitar instead of PCs.

But as of the last couple I've managed to...
- get the NEC Versa M/75 into my gmail account using FLMail (takes bloody forever to download mail though over WiFi)
- Also get MPXPLAY working on the Versa (WSS support actually works pretty well there)

Also I'm working on grafting in an Antenna from a modern laptop to attach to the Aironet. This will allow me to use other things than just tethering to my phone.

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-11-20, 05:33:

Picked up a 400MHz Thinkpad 240 from Japan (2640-43J) that went for less via Buyee. Found out that due to COVID-19 Japan Post suspended all SAL small airmail parcel to the US, and with the 2nd wave happening the suspension won’t be lifted any time soon - so instead of spending about 27 USD on shipping, I paid about 48 for DHL. Surface (SEA) mail wasn’t that much cheaper (35) and transit is quoted at nearly 2 months, while DHL can get it here in a few days (aiming for right after Thanksgiving?). I still have the 300MHz machine arriving from Surface mail from Japan, which will arrive before Christmas (I hope). Oh well, the plan is for the 300MHz machine to get Windows 2000SP4 while the 400Mhz will get OpenStep 4.2 (maybe?). I would probably put Win98 on it and see how well it performs on old school games.

Have to shop around for a hot air pencil to repair the T21(s).

Just received the ThinkPad 240 - despite traveling halfway around the world in the past 2 days and not being particularly heavily padded, the machine made it to me in immaculate shape - the 20 year old battery still holds a charge, believe it or not. This machine looks rarely used and still has its floppy drive gasket intact. The laptop is licensed for Win98 SE, and runs the Japanese version. I am planning to install OpenStep on it.

The seller never wiped the contents of the machine - it has a few documents that points to the machine being used by an agent (more accurately, a regional manager) for Sony Life Insurance in Osaka. Sony (yes, of the Playstation/Vaio/Walkman fame) has a financial services division in Japan thats responsible for roughly 9% of the company's overall revenues, and Sony Life Insurance (formerly Sony Prudential Life) is a major part of it. No customer data, but the manager did have a self-introduction sheet, and a couple of guidelines for life planning. I do find it...interesting that Sony financials didn't give their own employees Vaio PCG-SR1/5/7k or N505s but went with IBM ThinkPads.

Anyways, I'll be wiping it, then adding a single 256MB SODIMM to bring it to 320MB of RAM (maxing it out). I have a Celeron 300 model still coming to me via slowboat, and I picked up a refurbished Celeron 300 motherboard to repair a third (parts machine). Going to use the broken motherboard as a test mule for working with the hot air pencil I just ordered.

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-11-25, 05:04:

The seller never wiped the contents of the machine - it has a few documents that points to the machine being used by an agent (more accurately, a regional manager) for Sony Life Insurance in Osaka. Sony (yes, of the Playstation/Vaio/Walkman fame) has a financial services division in Japan thats responsible for roughly 9% of the company's overall revenues, and Sony Life Insurance (formerly Sony Prudential Life) is a major part of it. No customer data, but the manager did have a self-introduction sheet, and a couple of guidelines for life planning. I do find it...interesting that Sony financials didn't give their own employees Vaio PCG-SR1/5/7k or N505s but went with IBM ThinkPads.

That's shocking, that a company as large as Sony don't enforce wiping drives when systems are decommissioned! Makes you wonder just how secure any customer data really is.

Made a cmos battery for an Acorn RiscPC whose battery is showing signs of corrosion. No pcb damage yet.
Using battery contacts out of an old insect spray dispenser, tadiran ext battery holder out of a 486 and rechargeable AA battery.
No need to deIn the process of making cmos battery for an Acorn RiscPC whose battery is showing signs of corrosion. No pcb damage yet.
Using battery contacts out of an old insect spray dispenser, tadiran ext battery holder out of a 486 and rechargeable AA battery.
No need to dessolder the old battery off the RiscPC mobo. Just attatch the ext battery connector to the negitive posts that mount the oem battery and one of the positive posts. I use a pair of side cutters to separate the oem battery from the posts.

Installed Windows 98 on my IBM Thinkpad A31p. It's a maxed out P4 machine with 1600x1200 LCD and ATI Mobility FireGL 7800 graphics onboard, and it officially supports W98. The interesting thing is that I read everywhere that W98 does not work properly with more than 512 Mb RAM. And this laptop has 1 gig onboard and works fine. Runs HL1, runs DOS games with SB emulation, performs any tasks.
What am I doing wrong?

debs3759 wrote on 2020-11-25, 05:14:

That's shocking, that a company as large as Sony don't enforce wiping drives when systems are decommissioned! Makes you wonder just how secure any customer data really is.

Is more like the subcontractor in charge to wipe Sony e-Waste trash didn't care at all to do their job completely. Very common in e-recycle world. Time is money, and marking stuff as disposable as soon as you can is the rule... Specially if also Sony didn't paid for the "premium" service because "why the f*ck?! It is just trash" (tm).

Finished off the RiscPC replacement cmos battery project. Nipped the old battery off leaving about 3mm of the pos/neg posts sticking up from the mobo. Added some solder to them then tinned two pieces of 32 thou lockwire and soldered that to one positive and the negative posts. Bent the positive post in such a way I could placement battery packs on both easily and then fitted the connector and placed the battery holder in the convenient channel that runs along the front edge of the system. Pack is secured in place with velcro.

Tested the system and everything is working as it should.

hyoenmadan wrote on 2020-11-25, 17:35:

debs3759 wrote on 2020-11-25, 05:14:

That's shocking, that a company as large as Sony don't enforce wiping drives when systems are decommissioned! Makes you wonder just how secure any customer data really is.

Is more like the subcontractor in charge to wipe Sony e-Waste trash didn't care at all to do their job completely. Very common in e-recycle world. Time is money, and marking stuff as disposable as soon as you can is the rule... Specially if also Sony didn't paid for the "premium" service because "why the f*ck?! It is just trash" (tm).

Yeah, you figure that something as simple as zeroing out a drive would be done, but nope...I should hunt down that insurance salesman via LinkedIn and tell him that his data was not sanitized properly. This is the same company that screwed the pooch on millions of PlayStation Network users, after all.

I accidentally trashed the Japanese Win98 install trying to get a Cardbus USB2 adapter going, so it’ll be reinstalled later. I wanted one machine but somehow ended up with 3. There’s a few thing that needs to be figured out - MicroSD-to-IDE or mSATA-to-IDE storage? Swap the VL2020 solder-tab batteries with a slimline ML1220 battery holder? Replace its thermal pad with thermal paste? Max the RAM to 320MB? Battery pack rebuild?

I got TIE Fighter and Space Quest 3 going. The Neomagic MagicGraph 128XD onboard is not a bad card and certainly more compatible than the later NeoMagic Magicmedia 256AV (which has an AC97 audio controller embedded as well). It has an ESS Solo-1 for DOS, so ESFM OPL3. Here’s a comparison shot of it running Win98 DOS mode versus a MacBook Air 11 running DOSBox.

There’s also the machine by itself running Gods, MS Flight Simulator 5.0 and Commander Keen Episode 4.
Gods shows some minor scrolling issues but both MSFS5 (VESA 1.2) and Keen4 is decently smooth.

A 400Mhz Dixon-128 mobile means that it has a bit more ooomph for the old school DOS stuff, but I am not sure how effective is cpuspd in slowing it down - Test drive 3 is still twitchy as hell. Wing commander 2 seems to work well though.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-11-25, 18:17:

Finished off the RiscPC replacement cmos battery project. Nipped the old battery off leaving about 3mm of the pos/neg posts sticking up from the mobo. Added some solder to them then tinned two pieces of 32 thou lockwire and soldered that to one positive and the negative posts. Bent the positive post in such a way I could placement battery packs on both easily and then fitted the connector and placed the battery holder in the convenient channel that runs along the front edge of the system. Pack is secured in place with velcro.

Tested the system and everything is working as it should.

Good work ! Think you need to clean the lens on camera/phone, a bit fuzzy but think could make out what you did.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-11-23, 04:31:

Bruninho wrote on 2020-11-23, 03:46:

Ah, I’m sorry, I do not really know. All I can remember are some apps that let me put Christmas lights around the desktop. Some kind of animation and then there is also After Dark, famous Toast screensaver animation.

What has flying toasters got to do with Christmas?

🤣 now that gave me a good laugh ! Thanks !