DOS Games Discussion

Why doesnt Microsoft release windows 3.1 for freeware?

do they think they are going to sell it @ all

Dodgy company microsoft is...

Apple has all the older system software avaliable to download.....

:Angry: @ microsoft

with apple

Cheers

:Angry: @ Microsoft
:Angry: @ Apple
@ Ha><0rs, Linux, MEEEEEE


lol
-Richard-

wally4000 wrote:Why doesnt Microsoft release windows 3.1 for freeware?

do they think they are going to sell it @ all

Dodgy company microsoft is...

Apple has all the older system software avaliable to download.....

:Angry: @ microsoft

with apple

Cheers

Microsoft wants people to buy new computers so they can sell another windows liscence. Keeping windows 3.11 or later out of the freeware market keeps all the older 486 and earlier machines going to the scrapheap instead of schools or organisatiosnt that would use them instead of a new computer. Even the pc's donated to goodwill cant really be used legally without buying a new OS because they have to have the original windows media and liscence. I dont think windows 98 is available for sale any longer, possibly ME also. Its 2003 or Xp and that needs newer hardware.

Apple doesnt have all their OS's for dounload

While apple IIgs os 6.01 is available all the older versions are not.
While apple has OS 6.x and 7.x up to 7.55 as a free download they do not offer 7.61, 8.0, 8.1, 8.5, 8.6, 9.0, 9.1 as a free download even though none of the systems they currently sell can run any of these.

Does anybody know where I can download Linux and Apple?

Linux : Linux.org has a list of linux distributions. I reccomend redhat linux.

i also hear debian linux is good, you can run multiple OS's as windows. also check out www.lindows.com

[DGO] Joris wrote:Does anybody know where I can download Linux and Apple?

Linux: order from your newsagency or the website www.linux.com

Mac OS is support.info.apple.com I think!

Cheers

If you ask me, I would rather stick with DOS on a 486 machine, rather than use windows 3.1 (or 3.1.1; They're just about the same). It just plain sucks too much for it to be sold. I used to work with the UVI, and after being there for 5 years, I REALLY must say I prefer DOS.

Besides a few daily crashes win 3.11 wasnt that bad, its still usable. At least with windows 3.11 you could browse the network (or the internet) and easily move files to other machines while not needing more modern hardware and memory that win95 needed. Windows 3 apps could do cut and past easily compared to just dos apps. OS/2 is a better choice for a 486 system, but win 3.11 did get the job done during its era.

I haven't really screwed with OS/2 that much. And, I never even knew the Internet existed until about 4 years ago, when we got our first phone line. A 486 50 MHZ on a 14.4K modem. God that went slow....

Ha!! You should've started on a 300, 1200 or 2400 baud modem. BBS text pages load so's you can see the letters appear in a line by line basis (the letters actually can be seen to come up one at a time at 300.... about 3x the speed of a decent typist). Downloads are like walking in the desert. My first 1 meg d/l at 2400 took ~40 min using X-Modem, 0.4kb/sec. The day I got a new Zoom 14,400 hardware modem ($89.95, ) was like heaven. 1.2-1.5kb/sec allowed you to see a text page come up almost instantly. A meg d/l'd in ~15 minutes and had no errors on Z-Modem.

Win 3.11 was stable at least, though I didn't use it much. Sticking with DOS and Dosshell seemed plenty good for file control (as long as you knew the basics of making batch files) till Win95 got to "B" or "C" version and would run all day if you were careful. I have a few sets of Win3.1/11 hanging around if you really gotta have one.

A good trick was discovering that you could help Win95 (NOT vers before "B"!!!!!!) alot by fdisk & formating the drive with a Win98SE boot disk. The command.com/IO.sys/etc is better at mem control. The Win95 install will come up with "replace older files" screens eventually. I keep the Win98SE files. You also may get a "starting Win98" at boot, especially if you "sys" the drive after install finishes. Might even see Win98 at the "system" screen.

Now, while I recommend this proceedure, Please-please-please backup important files before you trust me and it all goes to hell due to your own setup being just enough different than the ones I use. Please give the PC a good test out afterwards.

We discovered this one day when we used a Win98 boot disk accidentally for a Win95 install. One thing for sure, the CD drive didn't disappear at the install reboot, like it usually does. Win98 disk also picks up nearly all of the SCSI cards and drives (problems: some Buslogic and Future Domain cards). That's REALLY handy!!!! Now, I don't put in W95 without it.

Interesting, eh??

wally4000 wrote:
Apple doesnt have all their OS's for dounload

While apple IIgs os 6.01 is available all the older versions are not.
While apple has OS 6.x and 7.x up to 7.55 as a free download they do not offer 7.61, 8.0, 8.1, 8.5, 8.6, 9.0, 9.1 as a free download even though none of the systems they currently sell can run any of these.

This is only part right. Apple gives free downloads for updates of OS 7, 8 and 9 if they are already installed. So you can go from 9.0 to 9.4 for free, as I did in July this year. What really is good about Apple is the update/repair ability of any OS before 10. Many times I've stuck a 8.5 CD in an old Mac with OS 6/7 and off it went. And I've fixed damaged OS's from disk/CD without a hitch. Gawd, if Windoze was that easy....

johpower wrote:

wally4000 wrote:
Apple doesnt have all their OS's for dounload

While apple IIgs os 6.01 is available all the older versions are not.
While apple has OS 6.x and 7.x up to 7.55 as a free download they do not offer 7.61, 8.0, 8.1, 8.5, 8.6, 9.0, 9.1 as a free download even though none of the systems they currently sell can run any of these.

This is only part right. Apple gives free downloads for updates of OS 7, 8 and 9 if they are already installed. So you can go from 9.0 to 9.4 for free, as I did in July this year. What really is good about Apple is the update/repair ability of any OS before 10. Many times I've stuck a 8.5 CD in an old Mac with OS 6/7 and off it went. And I've fixed damaged OS's from disk/CD without a hitch. Gawd, if Windoze was that easy....

OS 8.5 will have problems with any machine that run OS 6 or anything before 7.5.2 because its for powermac only and cant run on a 68k machine (will give you a version error)

Yes apple gives free updates for os 7.6x,8.x,9.x buth not a complete working OS even though all of those OSs are not supported on any currently selling mac. I guess when the warrenty runs out on the last OS 8.x/9.1 booting machine they might make it a free download.

I assume OSX has the same problems with updates/fixes that windows has at this time.

Back when I had my first computer (A 386 something. I cant remember), I didnt even have windows installed. I had a 30 MB drive, A 1.44MB floppy, and a CD. Almost everything was controlled by Batch files.

I spent a small fortune putting a math coprocessor and 16mb of ram on my 386 dx 40 so it would be a windows 3.x powerhouse (did well with games like falcon that used mathcoprocessor). Excell sped up quite a bit doing calcs with a mathchip. That was early 90's

My 386 dx 40 with mathcoprocessor and 32mb ram (8x4mb) that I have now cost me under $10 (early this year , old 386 was long gone) and makes a good early dos machine (I have desqview/x on it for kicks).

The only machine that will have win3.x on it will probably be my current 486/66 project that will run os/2 2.1 or 3.0 with windows 3.x built in.

Windows 3.1 doesnt have to be freeware from microsoft because there are millions of copies out there that people will let you have for free if you look hard enough. Plus its the earliest windows that you can still find drivers for plus software that lets you browse the web, do irc, etc.

I didn't have a Windows machine for personal use until 1999 and my family got our first windows machine in '95 so early on I used DOS for computing. I used a 486 which had been upgraded to a Pentium 1 and had a 20 MB drive. We later installed a 500 Meg D drive on the thing as I kept on having to delete everything I installed in order to put anything new on it. Strangly, even though I was running a relative "garbage heap" it was the best computer (enjoyment wise) I've ever had. I had a CD browser with 1001 great DOS games and spent hours each day playing Tyrian, Radix, L.A.D., Moraff's World, Ken's Lab, Duke Nukem, Apendex, Solar Winds (still one of the best games ever made, though it's sequel was somewhat short and dissapointing), Super ZZT, and so many more games that it'd take an hour to remember them all. My sisters would always use DOSShell when running it though I preferred just using the command prompt. Later I installed Windows 95 on it which made it run as slow as hell but allowed me to play most windows games in addition to DOS.

Eventually, I got a hand-me-down 95 machine (my family had just gotten a '98) but it couldn't play half the games I could with the ol' 486 (Pentium 1 upgrade )and since then I've never had a more compatible computer than the old one. Unfortunately, I lent that computer to my brother in law who promptly fried it by using it during a lightning storm with no surge protector.

Now what I find funny about this is every time M$ makes a new OS it ends up being less and less compatible with previous versions and older software. Instead of being better, XP is *worse* than 98SE. It scares me to think of what the next OS will be like.

XP is a hybrid of windows 2k and windows 9x (mostly win2k). Windows 2000 was designed for stability and buisiness use more then for dos compatibility (which is what win 98 SE was built on). So while it might not run most of your old dos games you can pick up a computer out of your neighbors trash for free to run those old apps. Nobody makes you throw away your old computers and software just like nobody makes you upgrade your computer every year either. It cracks me up to see people upgrade their perfectly good OS to windows XP and then complain about how their apps and games wont run like they used to or run too slow. Why upgrade if you dont need to, and if you do upgrade put together a completely new computer while keeping the older machine and OS to run your legacy hardware and software on. Putting winXP on your old p233 mmx doesnt make it a new computer.

Unknown_K wrote:Putting winXP on your old p233 mmx doesnt make it a new computer.

For your information, its a p266 mmx, thank you very much.

Kazer0 wrote:

Unknown_K wrote:Putting winXP on your old p233 mmx doesnt make it a new computer.

For your information, its a p266 mmx, thank you very much.

For your information your not the only nut job to do something like that. Anyway I was referring to the Pentium 1 233mmx and you must have a pentium 2 266 (unless its a laptop or you overclocked you p1)

Look down.

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