Comments on: A Parting Of Ways

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:51:11 +0000

window 3.1 and dos 6.22 sound familiar.

i’ll try letting it run for a bit longer. the clean room explains the high price i was quoted. thanks for that info.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 01:13:50 +0000

Sounds like you need to turn it on and let it run to get the drives up to operating speed. They get slow if they aren’t run for a while.

If you can’t get the drive up to speed, you have to send it to a data recovery company, because it will have to be put on a new spindle and motor to be read. That’s a clean room operation.

It was probably trying to spin up to be readable, but didn’t reach operating speed.

It was probably Windows 3.1 which ran on top of DOS 3.1 to DOS 6.22.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 23:37:00 +0000

the ps2 is a windows 3.something machine, i think [i could be confused at this point], but can be run in dos something.something. it’s been a while since i did anything with it [obviously], but the last time i tried to turn it on, it just ran and ran and ran… i’m thinking this isn’t a good sign. i’ve been weighing how much it’s worth to me to take it somewhere and pay a professional try to save the data.

tell me i’m not hallucinatiing [or put me out of my misery and tell me i am hallucinating]– didn’t there used to be a fairly simple, easy-to-get program that will read every byte [bit? i don’t remember] off of one disk and write it onto another? you wouldn’t happen to know where i can get a copy would you?

the other two machines are win95 and 98, they both have 3.5″ drives, and i have spare floppies. the files i especially want to save are small enough to fit on floppies. i’m all set, if i can just figure a way around the boot problem.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 05:06:04 +0000

I assume the PS2 was a straight ms-dos machine and it had a floppy. There shouldn’t be a problem if it will still boot. If it were to be one of the OS/2 machines there might be a problem, but not insurmountable if you don’t wait until there are no more 3½” floppies available.

Linux is a good choice for an old machine. If I can ever convince my last W95 client to move to something different, that machine is going to Linux.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 03:24:10 +0000

i’ve got two older computers sitting around. well 3, actually, but i’m only keeping the ibm ps2 till i can figure out how to get some stuff off of it and onto a newer computer, as it’s the one i had back when i was dabbling in freelance writing. for pay, not just as a penny-ante blogger. i’d really like to salvage some of those words if i could.

i’ve been considering converting at least one of the others to a linux box, just because i like geeking around with stuff. now that i’ve finally bitten the bullet and am paying for fast internet, rather than dialup, it actually seems worth doing [setting up more than one computer].

conversation? what’s that?

seriously, though, i’ve got family and friends scattered around the countryside, and we can all converse like houses on fire. my phone bills used to be horrendous, and with the advent of email, i not only saved moey, i actually got to “talk” with [and get to know] these people even more. im is just faster email.

and for the price of one or two of my old phone bills, you can buy one of the nicer webcams and have video instant messaging. my parents, my brother, and i think a few other famiy members, have done this, but i’m not quite that gregarious and have resisted so far.

i’m still marginally sane: i haven’t really gotten into text messaging, though i have tried it.

dirk gently was right about that interconnectedness of all things. 🙂

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 00:29:55 +0000

The only “Instant Messaging” I use is usually called conversation, and it works in person or over the telephone.

I had to put up with what is known as “IM” today working on corporate networks and I found it singularly annoying.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 23:25:13 +0000

hipparchia, I’m not an IMer myself, but I noticed when I put up Ubuntu Linux on an old computer recently that it supports clients for a couple of the more popular IM services. I really don’t know what I’m talking about here 🙂 but if you’re truly going to multiple computers, it might be worth your looking into. As Bryan notes, viruses that target Linux are rare, and unlike Windows, it’s designed from the ground up with security in mind.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 20:44:38 +0000

If you are going to multiple boxes, you could build a Linux box for surfing, which ignores most viruses, but it would include all of the IM software.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 20:34:16 +0000

argh! trade-offs, trade-offs! computers are supposed to be our slaves, not the other way around. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

newest solution: 3 computers. one not hooked up to anything at all. one with heavy security just for online transactions and communications. one just for surfing the internet, and nothing else on it, so that i can periodically format c: and re-install a basic os and browser when it gets too bogged down.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 15:46:00 +0000

Steve, the slow updates are really weird. They are reading some data files for signatures. It’s almost as if they are doing a complete merge-purge every time it happens. Not a very efficient system.

Hipparchia, I notice the IM thing, but I also noticed the lost cycles from all of this surveillance. Bit Defender is the slowest of the group on the PC Mag comparison.