Anything about old PCs, their uses, related OSes and their users
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Not really. My son is an artist, and I taught Physics and Chemistry secondary field. The precautions and risk factors become more meaningful when you have the lives and health of 30 to 120 naive (indestructible / "know everything") teenagers on your hands every year. Even more when your own is one of them.
I took FAR more risks on my own than I was willing to watch the kids take!
Not really. My son is an artist, and I taught Physics and Chemistry secondary field. The precautions and risk factors become more meaningful when you have the lives and health of 30 to 120 naive (indestructible / "know everything") teenagers on your hands every year. Even more when your own is one of them.
I took FAR more risks on my own than I was willing to watch the kids take!
There is a psychological slip that happened. The word paint means flowers, nature, beauty etc., for me. So it is easy to
loose train of thought, get carried away and forget that paint can be toxic also.
Wiped out the HD of the street found C2D, partitioned the HD as I want it and installed an old slacko on it. Really glad I got this done, feels good now. It is ready for use when I need it.
compare him to me now, still dreaming about installing Free Dos on this C2D and then getting around to LFS.
Focus is vital in life, having too many interests, challenges and jumping around doesn't help. However, this has been
my life and I am trying to do my best.
Wiped out the HD of the street found C2D, partitioned the HD as I want it and installed an old slacko on it. Really glad I got this done, feels good now. It is ready for use when I need it.
Added a more recent slacko on it, doesn't seem much different but for the firefox browser, Dillo is not available in the
packages. Plan to try LFS and other distros on this slowly.
All the 4 USB slots in the front don't work, next time I open this must replug the mobo connection for these.
Also, need to install on this the VirtualBox and eBooks reader software that also converts to different formats.
Freedos Install trial
Tried to install Freedos 1.2 on this PC, it didn't recognize the partitions eventho I had a primary DOS partition,
so unwilling to wipe out this HD, stopped the install. Tried the install on another C2D very old with just 512Mb Ram,
installer gave insufficient memory error and the install stopped. There were few other errors also. Appears it is
best to use FreeDos in VM. Use DosBox for most dosgames, this is safer.
1. Pleased to share that the first medium sized oil painting I worked has dried ok now. It looks a lot better now also that it
is done.
2. Got FreeDOS 1.2 installed on an old P4 PC, it gives out a lot of warnings but does not bite as bad. Just the base is installed, not all the Utilities, games etc., Those remain on the CD are zipped and left for the user to install. Have to take my time to get familiar with all the programs there, at least the major kinds. Will progress with this slowly and steadily,
no rush for now. Even if I finish learning this in one or two weeks, this will be good.
Tried FreeDOS today for long, these are my first impressions with it:
1. it is fat partition, so less safe online. I wouldn't go online with it.
2. It doesn't come with spreadsheet program.
3. Some of the stuffs it came with don't work (Don't wish to name those programs, don't recall now)
4. It says it has emulator but there are none on the CD
5. I went to all directories and tried all programs pretty much that were installed
6. dosbox is much better for gaming
7.the gui s it came with are pathetic
8. it boasts a lot, but offers very little
9. it is good for those into such IT stuffs
10. The games I tried are Bolitaire and Liquiwar, in Bolitaire
unable to figure out how to select a group of cards, in liquiwar
there are no instructions. The Tetris clone was ok.
11. I installed all the programs that were to install on CD, the FDIMPLES is super
helpful. Only approx. 1Gig is needed to install all in the FreeDos CD.
12. Perhaps with time I might learn to appreciate and use it better.
Forgot to add that I also tried minesweeper game clone, it loads slowly but otherwise is ok. In the GUI the mouse moved too fast. So takes time to get used to this.
If someone is into embedded software or legacy software, then FreeDOS might be good. It is also good for those into retro IT stuffs and retro IT programming.
Personally, I like retro IT that is a bit more useful to me in my present situation, this is just me. So CLI linux is my choice for this. Who knows, perhaps in future I might find a need, use for FreeDos. For now, for all those who work with and enjoy FreeDos my best wishes.
Distribution: Mainly Devuan, antiX, & Void, with Tiny Core, Fatdog, & BSD thrown in.
Posts: 5,479
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Basically FreeDOS has two uses, for those that still need DOS, & for the inquisitive.
Most old DOS programs will run on it, you can find lots of old programs online.
When I was using it, I used it as a music player in the main, (on an ancient laptop that struggled with Linux), & for that it was good - booted & was playing in seconds.
I also had an office suite on it, but didn't use it much.
All thru my life I felt deep pulls of love that seemed so strange, many times I thought it was a woman. However, much
later on in life I realized my feelings of love and affection are for other non human living beings more. This I also
felt was abnormal love. However, as per video above caring for other non human living beings is normal and this is how
the Earth itself was designed. This is so good to know indeed, made me very happy.
These days for the past 3 weeks or so a very young pigeon comes to my balcony along with other adult pigeons. This baby
pigeon has a beak that is very soft and is unable to coo, still screams like a mouse. He (assuming this is a he) even flew
into my apt. sometimes via the back door window that I had opened up for ventilation. He checked out my apt. and then was uncomfortable after some time, so I helped him outsides. Later when he came indoors and begged, I gave him a few more small pieces of biscuits, few more seeds etc., Always after eating, he needed to be helped out as he couldn't fly high enough
to escape. Once he even came inside my bedroom, spent some time on the floor watching me, guess he was curious. Later on I helped him to fly away again. Now in a few more weeks or so, he will be an adult, more grown and more independent. The winter has also arriving here with a bang. Hope he grows up fully to adult hood and starts his own family.
If you like old computers, old software intensely, then reflect and see if you like non human living beings also, if you do then care for them where possible. This is a priceless experience. As I have mentioned here before I even chat with a person who helped rescue a beached whale and succeeded in that effort. There are lots of videos online about folks helping, rescuing other critters.
Basically FreeDOS has two uses, for those that still need DOS, & for the inquisitive.
Most old DOS programs will run on it, you can find lots of old programs online.
When I was using it, I used it as a music player in the main, (on an ancient laptop that struggled with Linux), & for that it was good - booted & was playing in seconds.
I also had an office suite on it, but didn't use it much.
Thanks for this post. archive.org has a neat collection of old DOS software.
Already I feel that IT is getting more powerful that what humanity needs. This is just my feeling. Feels like we are
left running after a car in motion, with time the car will get faster.
Considering this, going retro to enjoy the more peaceful times in past seems good.
I am the Master of excuses, if there is an excuse, I have given it, if there is a way to generate a new excuse I will be among the first to generate and use that excuse it appears. This is as fake as it gets, have to be sincere with myself if I need to get results. Perhaps I might even get a PhD and world record for giving excuses if there was one.
This thread has been running since 2013. I have chat on and off about trying Arch Linux among other OSes but never did.
Well this video shows how to install arch in 10 minutes.
Installing Arch Linux in less than 10 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKdPSGb9f5s
So basically, compare this, 5 years or even more of excuses as opposed to 10 minutes of getting the job done, smooth, sweet and nice. This is not for anyone else, this is just for myself. Hoping others can learn from this. By the way, I still have many excuses in my mind and have not tried Arch install.
Here is my ultimate excuse if I don't even try all these OSes in my lifetime:
10 Things We Will Do in HEAVEN That Will SURPRISE You !!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6zS3FZE5VA
No old computer or OS needed after leaving this planet permanently.
Here is another advice from experience, if you have a room with lots of old computers, related parts, and an official such as city inspector, fireman, police comes to your apt., asks you to open the door, try and ensure they don't have an experience like this one:
If they get that experience, then the outcome will not be a good one, might even make it to local media. So try to avoid such an experience at all costs.
Think of all the various colors and patterns one sees in the lab, use these with paints to do abstract painting, many good
pieces of art can be produced that are healing. As opposed to pornography, call this colorography perhaps ? This serves
better purpose in Lord's kingdom. Art Therapy is a very big field. Thank You Jesus.
I will share my experience here with respect to porn. I have read a lot about how to overcome sexual addiction, watched related videos. I have supported others against it even on and off. Came clean for sometime and then got pulled in again. It is being promoted really intensely, while true romance as of the Lord is being slowly pushed aside.
Someone I know in real life, prayed for me recently it appears, after that I haven't had a need to see it, realize it is dirty, evil and spend porn time on praying for those into porn. Now this person is not Christian I think but I still deeply thank this person for the prayers and super strong cleansing.
Dear Lord: Please send your ministers and angels to bring others into pornography out of it, so that they can do your will on this earth. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
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