22 Nov
2007
22 Nov
'07
2:11 p.m.
Subject: Re: Windoze reqs
From: Josh Dersch <derschjo at msu.edu>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:11:43 -0800
To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only <cctech at classiccmp.org>
If I may ask, what was glitchy about video modes in Windows 3.1? I ran
it at 640x480 for years without any obvious video issues...
Same here, I still have a copy running on a laptop at that resolution.
As an aside, I had Win95 running on EGA for awhile just
as an
experiment. On a 386sx-20 with 4mb ram on a 65MB Miniscribe MFM drive.
It ran, but that's about the only good thing I can attribute to the
experience ;).
Not enough ram, at 8mb it become moderately useful. I used to make
headless print network servers that way. Install 95B, strip out OE/IE
and cruft install laser printer driver put on net. It usually fits
well in 100MB. Prefered CPU for that was any of the miniboard 386 or
486s but one time I had a 386sx/16 brick and used it with good results
(it was a slow printer to start with). The boards with 86sx were best
cooling was never an issue so the fans could fail and CPU coolers
were not needed.
Allison
Josh
Fred Cisin wrote:
>>> 3.00 would (and did) run on 8088. One of the font editors that I used
>>>
>
> On Wed, 21 Nov 2007, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
>
>> Not only that, it worked properly with a CGA.
>>
>
> 3.10 would also work with CGA, but like all video modes, it was somewhat
> glitchy. It appears to me that 3.10 was written by people using
> 800 x 600. With a little playing around, it's probably not too hard to
> determine which video board they used.
>
>
>
>
22 Nov
22 Nov
5:34 p.m.
Not enough ram, at 8mb it become moderately useful. I
used to make
headless print network servers that way. Install 95B, strip out OE/IE
and cruft install laser printer driver put on net. It usually fits
well in 100MB. Prefered CPU for that was any of the miniboard 386 or
486s but one time I had a 386sx/16 brick and used it with good results
(it was a slow printer to start with). The boards with 86sx were best
cooling was never an issue so the fans could fail and CPU coolers
were not needed.
Right, with 8mb or more RAM, win95 was a pretty decent experience most
of the time. But my 20Mhz, 4mb, EGA machine was an experiment just to
see what was the lowest spec hardware I could get 95 to run on. The
lack of RAM was one thing, but the Miniscribe MFM drive and controller
was what really made the experience :). No native 32-bit drivers for
the controller, and a seek time of somewhere around 3 seconds (ok, I
exaggerate) meant that the machine was waiting for the disk most of the
time, and since it was swapping constantly... well, I booted it once
just to say I'd done it and left it at that :).
Josh
23 Nov
23 Nov
6:37 p.m.
Not only can Win 3.0 run on an 8088 and CGA, it can be installed and run
on an HP100LX or 200LX. It's a little slow with the very limited RAM
but it does work. The weird part is that the mouse is nearly as large as
the computer!
Jim
Allison wrote:
Subject: Re:
Windoze reqs
From: Josh Dersch <derschjo at msu.edu>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:11:43 -0800
To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only <cctech at classiccmp.org>
If I may ask, what was glitchy about video modes in Windows 3.1? I ran
it at 640x480 for years without any obvious video issues...
Same here, I still have a copy running on a laptop at that resolution.
As an aside, I had Win95 running on EGA for
awhile just as an
experiment. On a 386sx-20 with 4mb ram on a 65MB Miniscribe MFM drive.
It ran, but that's about the only good thing I can attribute to the
experience ;).
Not enough ram, at 8mb it become moderately useful. I used to make
headless print network servers that way. Install 95B, strip out OE/IE
and cruft install laser printer driver put on net. It usually fits
well in 100MB. Prefered CPU for that was any of the miniboard 386 or
486s but one time I had a 386sx/16 brick and used it with good results
(it was a slow printer to start with). The boards with 86sx were best
cooling was never an issue so the fans could fail and CPU coolers
were not needed.
Allison
> Josh
>
> Fred Cisin wrote:
>>>> 3.00 would (and did) run on 8088. One of the font editors that I used
>>>>
>> On Wed, 21 Nov 2007, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
>>
>>> Not only that, it worked properly with a CGA.
>>>
>> 3.10 would also work with CGA, but like all video modes, it was somewhat
>> glitchy. It appears to me that 3.10 was written by people using
>> 800 x 600. With a little playing around, it's probably not too hard to
>> determine which video board they used.
>>
>>
>>
>> 
7:02 p.m.
On 23 Nov 2007 at 13:37, scheefj at netscape.net wrote:
Not only can Win 3.0 run on an 8088 and CGA, it can be
installed and run
on an HP100LX or 200LX. It's a little slow with the very limited RAM
but it does work. The weird part is that the mouse is nearly as large as
the computer!
To keep the chronology of capabilities straight. Win 3.0 supported
real, standard and enhanced 386 modes, 3.1 dropped real mode, WFWG
3.1 supported standard and 386 enhanced modes, 3.11 supported only
386 enahnced.
Do I have that right? Or could you run WFWG 3.11 in standard mode?
Cheers,
Chuck
11:06 p.m.
On Fri, 23 Nov 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote:
To keep the chronology of capabilities straight. Win
3.0 supported
real, standard and enhanced 386 modes, 3.1 dropped real mode, WFWG
3.1 supported standard and 386 enhanced modes, 3.11 supported only
386 enahnced.
Do I have that right? Or could you run WFWG 3.11 in standard mode?
Hmmm. didn't try that
I used a somewhat unorthodox approach to finding the differences. I
opened the calculator in Win 3.11, and asked it to calculate 3.11 - 3.10
It gave an answer of 0
11:26 p.m.
On 23 Nov 2007 at 15:06, Fred Cisin wrote:
I used a somewhat unorthodox approach to finding the
differences. I
opened the calculator in Win 3.11, and asked it to calculate 3.11 - 3.10
It gave an answer of 0
I never could figure out what happened to WFWG 3.2, 3.3., 3.4,
3.5....3.9 and 3.10.
Cheers,
Chuck
24 Nov
24 Nov
5:57 a.m.
> I used a somewhat unorthodox approach to finding
the differences. I
> opened the calculator in Win 3.11, and asked it to calculate 3.11 - 3.10
> It gave an answer of 0
On Fri, 23 Nov 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I never could figure out what happened to WFWG 3.2,
3.3., 3.4,
3.5....3.9 and 3.10.
MS-DOS version numbers are ALWAYS an integer, a period, then a two digit
decimal number (stored internally in binary). There was never a DOS
version "3.3", but there was a "3.30". It was internally stored as 3
and
THIRTY. (1E03) Ver "6.2" was actually 6 and TWENTY, etc. (1406)
Were Windoze versions stored similarly?
If so, then "3.1" was actually 3 period TEN, (0A03)?
and "3.11" was actually 3 period ELEVEN. (0B03)?
6:26 p.m.
On 23 Nov 2007 at 21:57, Fred Cisin wrote:
MS-DOS version numbers are ALWAYS an integer, a
period, then a two digit
decimal number (stored internally in binary). There was never a DOS
version "3.3", but there was a "3.30". It was internally stored as 3
and
THIRTY. (1E03) Ver "6.2" was actually 6 and TWENTY, etc. (1406)
I think you're right. I'll have to get out my copies of Windows NT
3.2, 3.3 and 3.4 to check for similar incremental versions.... :)
Were Windoze versions stored similarly?
If so, then "3.1" was actually 3 period TEN, (0A03)?
and "3.11" was actually 3 period ELEVEN. (0B03)?
Internally, as a return from GetVersionEx, 32-bit Windoze versions
are kind of strange:
Windows Server 2008 6.0
Windows Vista 6.0
Windows Server 2003 R2 5.2
Windows Server 2003 5.2
Windows XP 5.1
Windows 2000 5.0
Windows Me 4.90
Windows 98 4.10
Windows NT 4.0 4.0
Windows 95 4.0
So Windows Server 2003 actually registers as being later than XP--and
ME shows as being version 90 (that should have been a hint to
everyone that MICROS~1 wasn't going to take the 9x platform any
further.
The Win16 GetVersion() simply returns 32 bits; the low order word is
divided into MajorVersion/MinorVersion bytes with the build number or
0 in the high-order word.
Cheers,
Chuck
7:02 p.m.
Internally, as a return from GetVersionEx, 32-bit
Windoze versions
are kind of strange:
Windows Server 2008 6.0
Windows Vista 6.0
Windows Server 2003 R2 5.2
Windows Server 2003 5.2
Windows XP 5.1
Windows 2000 5.0
Windows Me 4.90
Windows 98 4.10
Windows NT 4.0 4.0
Windows 95 4.0
So Windows Server 2003 actually registers as being later than XP...
Nothing strange
about that -- XP was released in 2001.
Josh
25 Nov
25 Nov
10:19 p.m.
On 24 Nov 2007 at 11:02, Josh Dersch wrote:
I guess you're right. I remember it from "Codename Whistler Server"
and mistakenly remembered that it was released at about the same time
as XP.
Thanks for the memory refresh.
Cheers,
Chuck
So Windows
Server 2003 actually registers as being later than XP...
Nothing strange about that
-- XP was released in 2001. 
24 Nov
24 Nov
7:21 p.m.
New subject: Golden Triangle Disktwin (Nubus)
I recently snagged some old Mac Nubus cards, one of which was a Golden
Triangle Disktwin card. Anybody have the control panel for this card? It was
used to mirror a work HD in the background (it is a SCSI card with external
connector) incase the main drive up and dies. The mac you use it on can not
see it so you cannot erase it accidentally.
Like most items sold by companies that are no more and pre internet, there
is very little on the internet about this card.
TZ
3:08 p.m.
Chuck,
You are correct. WfWg 3.11 does not run in standard mode. I just tested it.
Jim
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 23 Nov 2007 at 13:37, scheefj at netscape.net
wrote:
Not only can Win 3.0 run on an 8088 and CGA, it
can be installed and run
on an HP100LX or 200LX. It's a little slow with the very limited RAM
but it does work. The weird part is that the mouse is nearly as large as
the computer!
To keep the chronology of capabilities straight. Win 3.0 supported
real, standard and enhanced 386 modes, 3.1 dropped real mode, WFWG
3.1 supported standard and 386 enhanced modes, 3.11 supported only
386 enahnced.
Do I have that right? Or could you run WFWG 3.11 in standard mode?
Cheers,
Chuck
6256
days inactive
6259
days old
11 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
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ajp166＠bellatlantic.net -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
derschjo＠msu.edu -
scheefj＠netscape.net -
teoz＠neo.rr.com