I once installed win 98se on a virtual machine just to see if the serial number i know by heart works. (back in the day i was reinstalling win98 on a weekly basis). And yes, the serial number was correct, my memory was intact.
I was digging around looking for an USB IDE adapter the other day, found a SuperDisk with bootable Windows 98/Shandalar on it, so I went off looking for a working SuperDisk. And spend the rest of the day playing MTG Shandalar on my old laptop.
I remember when I was young, I had to help my dad back up his computer. I would insert a disk, it would transfer data, eject disk, I would number it and place it on a stack, insert new disk and click okay. The disks had to be formatted beforehand as well.
What if you never upgraded you PC from 20 years ago?
Recently I was thinking about making a low-powered pc to play music, so I loaded up Windows 98se onto an early Compaq terminal running a Via 400MHz CPU with 128Mb of soldered 100Mhz RAM, and booting Wyse Terminal OS from a 64Mb flash board.
I pulled the flash bosrd and found it had a 44 pin pata hard drive header, so I used an old Atari ribbon cable to connect an 80gb laptop drive taped to the case through a slot cut into the outer plastics.
Before connecting up, using a Windows Xp virtual machine I formatted the drive and made it bootable with the Win98 start up disk image, and whilst I was there I also dropped in all the Win98 setup files from my original cd so I could install it direct from the disk (no cd drive on a terminal lol!)
It took about 50 minutes to install, all the drivers worked straight out of the box, and is was quite quick too, though the Internet has moved on so much not a lot out there loaded properly. Firefox v2.0 was the last supported version I think, and whatever videos I could get loaded from YouTube were basically just slide-shows.
Most other stuff worked though, including the iconic screen savers and the flight sim buried in Office Excel 97. Winamp 2.0 worked fine, and even ran some of the visualisations whilst playing mp3s from the hard-drive through external speakers connected to the headphone socket. Fun times 🙂
Crap Internet support led me to upgrade: Remember updating Windows 98 to Windows XP? Drop the install files from the CD to the local drive and hit Setup.exe: It worked in this too!
It did take a while, and real world performance was decidedly poor at this point: 128Mb of slow memory will get you to the desktop, but not much further. More tinkering with MSconfig reduced the memory rewuirements but then I found running a WiFi dongle was just too much for the poor wee thing and I got bored again. I deleted Windows, loaded Damn Small Linux (super quick but super limited on this thing), before realising I had better things to do and called it Game Over at that point.
Amazing how tech has moved on in 20 or so years, even more amazing to see how far old stuff will still somewhat work in today’s world!
What’s the smallest / least power machine you use today? How small can we go and still get the job done? 🙂
There are still w98 boxes out there. For instance in the tiny screw business ( Swiss screws) there are machines that cut the cams for the machines that make the tiny screws. The cam cutter is controlled by a w98 486 through a rs232 cable. In order to extend the lifetime of that process I bought 3 Used w98 boxes and configured and tested each one. Hopefully they will last beyond the owners retirement.
You guys are laughing but I am crying real tears. I had to use one of these about 3 months ago to restart some cold stamping equipment at work. They have special procedures to get the disks to make sure no one puts a magnet near it.
Actuallu had to make a ton of those earlier this year, and actually use them I learned just enough dos to install 98. I’m moving on to learning linux its amazing how far we’ve come
So as a kid on a boy scout outing (2004ish) we’re out in the badlands of a desert (hour drive from large city). Hunting for fossils and snakes and whatnot in the rocky crevices.
I did find a fossil: A Windows 98 Developer’s Beta disc, intact but scratched far beyond usability.
Someone, somewhere in a small retail shop, is still running their inventory management system on a win98 machine because they only have one copy, and this is the only computer it works on. And when you find that shop, say hi to my mom.
A USB copy of the boot files would still boot Win 7 BSOD systems sometimes, even though Hiren’s will boot almost anything, I tried it for kicks. I haven’t bothered to try it on a 10 machine.
DEVICE=C:WindowsHIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=C:WindowsEMM386.EXE NOEMS
FILES=30
STACKS=0,0
BUFFERS=20
DEVICEHIGH=C:WindowsCOMMANDANSI.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=C:MTMCDAI.SYS /D:123
“Why have you 3D printed the save button?”
I once installed win 98se on a virtual machine just to see if the serial number i know by heart works. (back in the day i was reinstalling win98 on a weekly basis). And yes, the serial number was correct, my memory was intact.
I found a copy of Spy Hunter on a Commodore 64 cassette tape the other day cleaning out my dads storage unit….found the tape deck too
Did you know there is an underground OS group? They customize and sell classic OS. Win 98 is very popular with these circles.
“high density” 1.4 mb hahah that’s like ¼ of a photo now
I was digging around looking for an USB IDE adapter the other day, found a SuperDisk with bootable Windows 98/Shandalar on it, so I went off looking for a working SuperDisk. And spend the rest of the day playing MTG Shandalar on my old laptop.
Now I’m off to find that USB to IDE adapter…
“High density” the equivalent of “sharp” knife from the stone age
The precious!!
Why so small? I got 5 1/4″ floppys still lying around.
You mean you could of restarted 1998 and didn’t do it when the pandemic started? You selfish bastard.
nah don’t need it – do you have duke nuke em on 3 disks?
Is this a life hack? Saving your progress in real life!?!
I remember when I was young, I had to help my dad back up his computer. I would insert a disk, it would transfer data, eject disk, I would number it and place it on a stack, insert new disk and click okay. The disks had to be formatted beforehand as well.
What if you never upgraded you PC from 20 years ago?
Recently I was thinking about making a low-powered pc to play music, so I loaded up Windows 98se onto an early Compaq terminal running a Via 400MHz CPU with 128Mb of soldered 100Mhz RAM, and booting Wyse Terminal OS from a 64Mb flash board.
I pulled the flash bosrd and found it had a 44 pin pata hard drive header, so I used an old Atari ribbon cable to connect an 80gb laptop drive taped to the case through a slot cut into the outer plastics.
Before connecting up, using a Windows Xp virtual machine I formatted the drive and made it bootable with the Win98 start up disk image, and whilst I was there I also dropped in all the Win98 setup files from my original cd so I could install it direct from the disk (no cd drive on a terminal lol!)
It took about 50 minutes to install, all the drivers worked straight out of the box, and is was quite quick too, though the Internet has moved on so much not a lot out there loaded properly. Firefox v2.0 was the last supported version I think, and whatever videos I could get loaded from YouTube were basically just slide-shows.
Most other stuff worked though, including the iconic screen savers and the flight sim buried in Office Excel 97. Winamp 2.0 worked fine, and even ran some of the visualisations whilst playing mp3s from the hard-drive through external speakers connected to the headphone socket. Fun times 🙂
Crap Internet support led me to upgrade: Remember updating Windows 98 to Windows XP? Drop the install files from the CD to the local drive and hit Setup.exe: It worked in this too!
It did take a while, and real world performance was decidedly poor at this point: 128Mb of slow memory will get you to the desktop, but not much further. More tinkering with MSconfig reduced the memory rewuirements but then I found running a WiFi dongle was just too much for the poor wee thing and I got bored again. I deleted Windows, loaded Damn Small Linux (super quick but super limited on this thing), before realising I had better things to do and called it Game Over at that point.
Amazing how tech has moved on in 20 or so years, even more amazing to see how far old stuff will still somewhat work in today’s world!
What’s the smallest / least power machine you use today? How small can we go and still get the job done? 🙂
Please contact the Smithsonian immediately
Superhot
I was ready with my 14 disks. Then it said : “Please insert disk 15”. Never been the same again.
Who the hell would 3D print the Save button?
Came here to say what’s already been said I guess
There are still w98 boxes out there. For instance in the tiny screw business ( Swiss screws) there are machines that cut the cams for the machines that make the tiny screws. The cam cutter is controlled by a w98 486 through a rs232 cable. In order to extend the lifetime of that process I bought 3 Used w98 boxes and configured and tested each one. Hopefully they will last beyond the owners retirement.
I have a sealed copy of Windows 3.0. should I post a picture? I got a real nerd boner for it if I’m honest.
Does it have cdrom.sys ?
Is that a fancy Japanese drink coaster?
Gimme
Send it
Save it for the Zombie Apocalypse
Just realized that I haven’t used my disk drives in like a decade.
I have some of those as well.
You got one to startup my life?
You guys are laughing but I am crying real tears. I had to use one of these about 3 months ago to restart some cold stamping equipment at work. They have special procedures to get the disks to make sure no one puts a magnet near it.
the total number of these i had floating around because i couldn’t find the other one was disgusting…
Make sure it’s in reach of everyone in the office. Grab a magnet and pin it to the fridge.
Actuallu had to make a ton of those earlier this year, and actually use them I learned just enough dos to install 98. I’m moving on to learning linux its amazing how far we’ve come
But, was it the bootloader? That doesn’t sound very sensible
So as a kid on a boy scout outing (2004ish) we’re out in the badlands of a desert (hour drive from large city). Hunting for fossils and snakes and whatnot in the rocky crevices.
I did find a fossil: A Windows 98 Developer’s Beta disc, intact but scratched far beyond usability.
Damn! You can afford that? I’m still on MS DOS 6!😭
Someone, somewhere in a small retail shop, is still running their inventory management system on a win98 machine because they only have one copy, and this is the only computer it works on. And when you find that shop, say hi to my mom.
A USB copy of the boot files would still boot Win 7 BSOD systems sometimes, even though Hiren’s will boot almost anything, I tried it for kicks. I haven’t bothered to try it on a 10 machine.
It’s been a long time old friend. A very long time…
Thank God you have one copy!! I couldn’t find mine
I only have windows 95 so this would be an upgrade!
I had one of those growing up. Had all my porn stored on it.
Whoa buddy. Damn it’s been a long time.
io.sys
msdos.sys
[command.com](https://command.com)
All the rest is Windows dressing.
🤣🤣🤣
This is what true power looks like
Add gdisk and reference to it in the ini or inf file and leave it in the drive…good times.
At least yours is labeled. Found four unlabeled in the back of my desk.