23 Jul
2021
23 Jul
'21
4:29 p.m.
On 7/23/21 11:23 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
Win95: 13 disks.
That's fewer than I remember.
Though, Windows 3.1 was 6 disks and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was 8
disks. That was on top of MS-DOS 6.22 which was 3 disks. For a total
of 9 or 11. So, 13 isn't that big of a jump.
Win98: 38 disks.
Maybe that's what I'm thinking of.
Netware 3.1: can't remember... lots:
I have 29 disk images in my collection for NetWare 3.11.
Ya. I remember NetWare being a puzzle of disks.
Ha! Trying to google, I found a piece I wrote myself!
https://www.theregister.com/Print/2013/07/16/netware_4_anniversary/
$ReadingList++
I think it was circa 20-25 disks. I remember I had to
copy them before
installation, in case. And at that time, the DOS 3.3 DISKCOPY command
didn't swap to disk or XMS/EMS, and with 640 kB of RAM, copying a 1.4
MB floppy could take 3-4 reads and as many writes.
Oh good $DEITY!
I would have borrowed a 2nd floppy drive from another system, done the
copy, and returned the floppy drive. It would probably have been faster.
It took me over an entire working day to duplicate all
the disks, IIRC.
Ya. I bet.
There was, and I think in some markets -- Japan maybe?
possibly
because of non-adherence to CD standards? -- it was sold on floppies.
<ASCII shruggie>
I also have unpleasant memories of trying to install
Slackware from
floppies, because it couldn't see my SCSI card, and the only CD-ROM I
had was SCSI. The command switches for Linux kernel modules weren't
standardised and I couldn't find out how to tell Linux about my cheap
& nasty built-in AHA1520 SCSI controller's IRQ and DMA settings. I
knew what they were, but I didn't know the syntax to tell the
module...
Ya. Early Linux, which Slackware in the '90s definitely qualifies as,
often had a chicken and egg problem. You could create a new boot disk
and / or modules for hardware /if/ /only/ you had a functional Linux
system to do it from. Bootstraping Linux in the '90s was ... touchy.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die