[TenTec] Help me, I'm dumb.

[Ron Notarius W3WN]

I don't know if this is true with WordStar 4.0 under the newer operating
systems, but I found that to avoid database corruption problems when running
dBase IV or Visual dBase 5.5/5.7 under XP and Vista, I used a small (20 GB
usually) separate hard drive formatted as a DOS 32 partition instead of an
NTFS partition. 

And if someone needs a legacy PC with serial & parallel ports, contact me
off list. I have a few machines recently taken out of service, and two more
about to come out of service, that may fit the bill. 

73, ron w3wn

May 19, 2009 04:44:45 PM, geraldj at storm.weather.net wrote:

On Tue, 2009-05-19 at 18:35 +0300, geoffrey mendelson wrote:


> One of the "features" of Vista was that it did not have hardware 
> support for old devices and programing support for some of the older 
> versions of Windows. It was designed with buying everything new. I've 
> stuck with XP and still have my copies of WordStar 3.3 (PC DOS version 
> of a CP/M program circa 1980) and WordPerfect 4.2 (circa 1986), both 
> of which I use about once a year.

WS 4.0 works well in DOS, windoze, and OS/2. Later versions corrupt the
document files way too much, but in non document mode its great for
producing C source code. All my computer keyboards have CTRL just to the
left of A, customized for WS cursor motion. I use it daily for packet
radio and often for program source codes in OS/2.

I could link my windoze computers that aren't used often to this linux
computer for printer access, but I keep DOS for burning eproms and
running AutoCad 12 and its hard to do networks with DOS. I've not yet
tried to run AutoCad 12 with xdosemu. Maybe I should try that.
> 
> Most new computers do not come with serial or parallel ports nor 
> floppy drives. New radios will have to come with USB or Ethernet ports 
> for computer control (doesn't the Omni 7 have an ethernet port?)

I suppose I'll only be using vintage computers as time passes. I can't
see using a 17 GHz CPU waiting for key strokes. The super fast CPU just
has to spend a greater fraction of its clock cycles in wait loops that
consume power just like adding and subtracting.
> 
> Either that or the hot topic on 2m will be keeping old computers 
> running.

There is some of that already. I'm talking about setting up a packet bbs
and since the software has been known to run on an 8088 at 4 MHz it
seems to be a waste to run a multiple GHz (and power hungry) super
Pentium or AMD doing such tasks. I would drop the clock speed on
whatever I use to reduce power consumption too for a computer that will
be running 24/7. I'm going to use a CF and adapter to the IDE connector
instead of a hard drive. That should save a few watts. I may do that to
my shack packet computer too.
> 
> Geoff.
> 

73, Jerry, K0CQ

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