Wish Me Luck !

[David Bethel]

Both of my IBM 2000 Severs running Windows 98se are heading to the grave yard ( 1 is totally gone, the backup is burping more every day )

 

I found a company in California that builds PCs to order with legacy software and hardware

 

I just received 

 

Motherboard:    1 Full Size ISA slots
Processor:    Intel P4 2.40GHz 512 Cache - 533MHz FSB
Memory:    1GB DDR PC2700 (333MHz)
Hard Drive:    WD Standard - 500GB Blue SATA 6GB/s 7200rpm 32MB cache
Optical Drive:    DVD /-RW Drive
Floppy Drive:    1.44 Floppy Drive
Video Adapter:    On-Board Video Adapter
Network Adapter:    On-Board Network Adapter
Power Supply:    300 Watts PS2 Power Supply (with -5 Volts)
Operating System:    MS Windows 98 SE (supports max 1GB RAM)
Warranty:    2 Year Standard Warranty

 

This could be my salvation !!!

 

I'll let you know on the progress !

[SLW210]

Good luck!

[paulmcz]

I remember running W98SE and XP in dual boot, where I had 2GB RAM. There is a hack for W98 to work with 2GB RAM. I don't remember what did the trick now but I am sure you can still find it. Google is your friend.

 

I too wish you luck David.

[f700es]

LOL you kill me David! Good luck indeed

 

[David Bethel]

So far So good !

 

The tower is built like a tank !!  Lots of room for air flow

 

Remembering autoxec.bat config.sys  *.386 system.ini file setting was fun!

 

R12 DOS is up and running !

As is XTree ZTree QEedit MS Works Acrobat 5.0  Distiller 5.0 Floppy CD

Network LAN connections and sharing

 

HO 6P Printer is next on the list

 

The cpu fan is quite  noisy.  We;ll see how they handle this !

 

I'm still not convienced 98 can handle 1GB of ram

 

-David

[David Bethel]

Well lessons learned so far

 

Even though they think that they helping you by using the latest and greatest, it's not always the most useful

 

    Go with components sized closest to what was available at the OS time 

    Hard Drives  :  In this case 100GB is plenty : For these types of situations, even 500GB  is too much :  maybe PC Magic can help here

    RAM   :  Even though there are workarounds for 1 GB RAM, Stick with the 512 MB ( DOS mode doesn't deal with it well )

 

As Benny Hill said "Learning All The Time 

 

 

   

 

[f700es]

Trying to recall what my last P4 box had in it. It was a HT P4 I do remember that. 4 GB of ram (max) for sure. All but gave it away.

[David Bethel]

 

What I'm finding is 98's DOS mode doesn't handle that much ram with EMS386.EXE well   XMS doesn't seem to  be as  bad.   But it does have some issues. 

 

I don't think I have ever heard of a setting or software that can control this

 

I think you are correct.  The P4 CPU can handle a lot more

[f700es]

Have you look at FreeDOS? I have NO idea if it holds/provides any better features than MS DOS but might be worth a look.

[David Bethel]

Yes, I did a while ago.  I don't remember what 98's DOS version was or event if it had 1.  I do know it was

more advanced than MS-DOS 3.1 ( i think that was the last stand alone.

 

I really don't mind the Windows back ground if it behaved  itself.  Makes backups and file transfers much easier

 

Thanks  -David

[tombu]

I remember a few people using DR-DOS in mid '80's which came out before the first version of Windows. It rated better than MS DOS at the time for handling memory. https://winworldpc.com/product/dr-dos/7x

[CyberAngel]

I am legally required to ask this question: did you consider a virtual machine?

[David Bethel]

Thanks !

 

I tried DR-DOS and VM over the years.  VM was horribly slow and didn't have decent drivers for things like video and move.

DR-DOS was an upgrade from MS-DOS but just to late to the party

 

DOX Box was another

 

Regards  -David