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Getting a Classic PC Working After 25 Years?
tunersedge writes "Yesterday I dug out of my parents' basement a PC they had bought brand new in 1984: Epson Equity I personal computer; 512K RAM; 82-key keyboard; 2 (count 'em!, 2) 5.25" floppy disk drives; 13' RGB monitor (with contrast/brightness knobs); handy on/off switch; healthy 25-year-old yellowed plastic; absolutely no software. (My mom ran a pre-school, and they used it to keep records and payroll. I cut my programming teeth on this thing. GW-Basic was my friend. Kings Quest screens took 2 minutes to load when you walked into a new one.) When I resurrected this machine I pulled the case off, dusted out a little, and plugged it in. It actually fired up! I'm stoked, except the disks we had are missing. What I'm looking to do is either buy some old working disks with whatever I can find (MS-DOS 3.22, GW-Basic, whatever), or try and recreate some using a USB-based floppy drive and some modern software. Has anyone tried to resurrect a PC this old before?"
Well it's not *that* old, it's not like anyone has or ever will need more than 512K of ram...
Yesterday I dug out of my parents' basement a PC they had bought brand new in 1984: Epson Equity I personal computer
Just admit it, it was under your bed wasn't it? At least now it's on that thing you call a table.
"but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
"except I had a HDD"
Rich brat! I had to walk twenty miles to school, up hill, both ways!
Microsoft is claiming that Windows 7 will work on such a machine, if you can wait a little while.
Slap Vista on that baby and it'll run like a champ.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
My parents dug up an Amstrad PC1512 while tidying their house and called me up asking me what to do with it. I said throw it away. They said isn't it worth something? I laughed.
Personally, I'm more impressed with the 13 foot monitor. I'm assuming its some sort of front projection device. Wonder what the resolution is? :)
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
You got to go to school?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I think the Epson Equity was the one that had a typo in the BIOS when you inserted a floppy disk. The typo was in the word disk, and exhorted the user to insert a system dick when they booted with a non-boot floppy.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I went to school for programming, and I've only been out for a year, so I'm still pretty new to all this. But what on Earth does "Cut your teeth" mean?
Hundreds of years before the dawn of history
Lived a strange race of people... the Druids
No one knows who they were or what they were doing
But their legacy remains
Hewn into the living rock... Of Stonehenge
imagine the tech receiving this tech support call. "hi, i'd like to get the original software that came with my system. ... 1984. ... hello?"
I think that Windows 7 will have lower hardware requirements than Vista. Why not give it a try?
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Some admin at Epson is watching the logs as a 1984 manual gets slashdotted, and wonders WTF?!
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
You didn't really give us much here continue with...
It's "feign indignation at the high quality of life of the previous poster" + "state your childhood desires to have such luxury" + "state how much worse you had it" so that the next poster can follow up. Get with the program!
I'd like my operating system to have more than two possible settings.
1) ON
2) OFF
3) NEITHER ON NOR OFF
4) SOMEWHAT ON
5) ROOTED
6) FROZEN
7) DEAD
8) JUST MOSTLY DEAD
You had a hill? We had to go up a 20 mile vertical cliff
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
FreeDOS probably would boot on this machine.
I actually know the machine you're talking about - except I had a HDD. I know for a fact the thing will run MS-DOS 5.0.x
Heh. I had the same Equity I also, but since my dad was something of a computer geek himself, he sprang for a 20MB hardcard for it. At the time, 20MB seemed like it would be enough space to last me the rest of my life :/
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
You had schools? In my day, we had to build our own schools, out of sticks and stones (bullies were readily available).
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
I'm a pilot and had to fly around your 105,600-foot cliff, you insensitive clod!
Getting home was much quicker, wasn't it?
You don't seem to have grasped the concept of "...uphill, both ways". : - )
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
9) PINING FOR THE FJORD
Please insert Windows 7 Floppy Disc 127,693 Part A.
What, like it doesn't FEEL like an eternity?
=)P