IT... Computing....

[Master]

Ah ok, truth be told I don't really pay much attention to the prebuilt space these days, so I'm not quite sure who's the best manufacturer or what hardware to go for. I know bloatware has always been a concern with prebuilts, but I don't know how true that is nowadays. There's also the matter of repairability and long term viability, a lot of prebuilts tend to use propreitary hardware that isn't so easy to swap and replace (see Dell and their use of custom PSUs and mobos).

[EdgyRabbid]

Ah. That is frustrating.

My mom isn’t the most technologically savvy, so we’re probably gonna end up looking at Best Buy.

[Master]

Hmm, well while I can't give a recommendation, perhaps if you could share what you come across, we could at least discuss its viability, and any potential drawbacks or things to be aware of.

[EdgyRabbid]

Yeah! I think that would be fantastic idea!

[PluMGMK]

Unfortunately I'm not in a position to provide recommendations either, for pretty much the same reasons as Master Tbh the only manufacturer I can even think of is Dell, because absolutely every place I've worked / studied has used exclusively their hardware for nearly as long as I can remember…

Cool, that's a beautiful blast from the past! I must try to install it myself, even if my PC is a self-build as opposed to an Acer

Let me know when you do actually do this, I'm looking forward to it!

Here ya go:

The taskbar is there because I use the Calmira XP shell

[EdgyRabbid]

Unfortunately I'm not in a position to provide recommendations either, for pretty much the same reasons as Master Tbh the only manufacturer I can even think of is Dell, because absolutely every place I've worked / studied has used exclusively their hardware for nearly as long as I can remember…

Tbh my laptop is dell. It runs Linux mint fantasticly. Though i accidentally knocked the charger port, it became loose and now it also won’t connect to the internet??

[Reese Riverson]

Here ya go: ACEDEMO.PNG The taskbar is there because I use the Calmira XP shell

Beautiful! I love it!


What are the system specs of your Windows 3.1 system?

[PluMGMK]

What are the system specs of your Windows 3.1 system?

Well you can see the CPU and GPU right there in the screenshot 32 GB RAM, HD Audio with a janky driver whose maintainer seems to have disappeared in the last year or so… Obviously it's a dual boot with my main Linux installation!

[Reese Riverson]

What are the system specs of your Windows 3.1 system?

Well you can see the CPU and GPU right there in the screenshot 32 GB RAM, HD Audio with a janky driver whose maintainer seems to have disappeared in the last year or so… Obviously it's a dual boot with my main Linux installation!

Will you teach me your magical way?

Seriously, I wouldn't mind toying with doing this on a rig, I think it'd be awesome.

I've been wanting something like the Pixel x86 for my own retro needs, or even one of those industrial motherboards like this would be nice.

[PluMGMK]

What are the system specs of your Windows 3.1 system?

Well you can see the CPU and GPU right there in the screenshot 32 GB RAM, HD Audio with a janky driver whose maintainer seems to have disappeared in the last year or so… Obviously it's a dual boot with my main Linux installation!

Will you teach me your magical way?

Well, in mid-2021, I installed DOS in QEMU, then cloned the disk image onto a physical HDD, turned on legacy boot in the BIOS, used the BIOS's boot menu to select it (without holding out too much hope) and – DOS booted! Since then I've been writing drivers to make Windows 3.1 more pleasant to use on modern hardware, which are on my GitHub so others can also benefit

I've been wanting something like the Pixel x86 for my own retro needs, or even one of those industrial motherboards like this would be nice.

That is a beautiful piece of hardware! I kinda want it But not really since I don't have the space for another machine, or the willpower to use it on a regular basis

[Reese Riverson]

Well, in mid-2021, I installed DOS in QEMU, then cloned the disk image onto a physical HDD, turned on legacy boot in the BIOS, used the BIOS's boot menu to select it (without holding out too much hope) and – DOS booted! Since then I've been writing drivers to make Windows 3.1 more pleasant to use on modern hardware, which are on my GitHub so others can also benefit

That is a beautiful piece of hardware! I kinda want it But not really since I don't have the space for another machine, or the willpower to use it on a regular basis

Were you able to get any of the USB based drivers going in this? Because I remember shoving a basic USB PCI card into one of my old 486 machines that actually had PCI, and ran a driver that let me mount it under DOS which was handy.

The Pixel x86 are so small and compact, I can't access their website anymore and haven't been able to for weeks now, as Cloudflare keeps saying "Invalid SSL certificate" on their end. I'm not sure if Pixel x86 is no more or what.


Though do you by chance know of anything similar that would make for a decent DOS/Win95/Win98 rig?

[PluMGMK]

I haven't had any need for USB drivers, since the BIOS handles keyboard emulation just fine, and I have a PS/2 mouse. I don't think any DOS USB drivers would work on my PC, because the Haswell xHCI hardware seems to be particularly tricky to support, as I found when trying out the CSMwrap project.

EDIT: Actually it seems someone fixed that – with ChatGPT https://github.com/FlyGoat/CSMWrap/issues/118

[Steo]

All the complaining people do about AI non stop, and it actually fixes something.

[EdgyRabbid]

Alright I’ve settled on a pre built laptop from Costco. It’s 32 gigs of ram and has 1TB of storage. Honestly I might go for something less powerful since I don’t think games like Beyond Good and Evil or Rayman 2 take up too much storage or goes too hard on my computer. Tho I need to restart psyconauts because my dumbass forgot to back up my progress when I switched os’.

[Reese Riverson]

EDIT: Actually it seems someone fixed that – with ChatGPT https://github.com/FlyGoat/CSMWrap/issues/118

Gonna give it a try, now that it's all fixed?

[PluMGMK]

EDIT: Actually it seems someone fixed that – with ChatGPT https://github.com/FlyGoat/CSMWrap/issues/118

Gonna give it a try, now that it's all fixed?

Well I'll have to figure out how to compile it first, given that the fix only exists in source form for now. At any rate, the only reason I was trying CSMwrap was that someone wanted to know if my SVGA driver would work with it (there's no reason it wouldn't). My motherboard's own CSM works really well so I don't actually need CSMwrap myself!

[Reese Riverson]

You know, with as compact as this little guy is, also being capable of being powered via PoE, I am quite tempted to seeing if your methods of running Windows 3.1 natively would work on it:
https://www.amazon.com/MINISFORUM-3-4GH ... JKPKL?th=1

If not, I can still do stuff with 86Box, I'm looking to make a way to run older OS's for the old Windows games, especially to try to get my niece to try out some of them. Something tiny and compact would be sweet.

[PluMGMK]

Worth a try, although I wouldn't be quite so hopeful with a 12th-gen Core processor (whereas mine is only 4th-gen!). Is that a UEFI-only platform?

[Reese Riverson]

Worth a try, although I wouldn't be quite so hopeful with a 12th-gen Core processor (whereas mine is only 4th-gen!). Is that a UEFI-only platform?

I wouldn't think so, while it's not apples for apples, I'm certain my AM5 rig can still due the old boot methods. Probably will depend on the BIOS more than anything, especially on a device like that one.

[PluMGMK]

I know Intel were quicker to drop legacy boot support than AMD though!