Windows 3.1/95

[theoscy]

Hello,
I'm newish to Linux and have recently been learning Python, so I have a good technical ability. Have heard that it is possible to run windows 95/3.1 on the pi in virtual box. Anybody got any suggestions of how to do this? I don't own a copy of either of these would it be illegal to download windows 3.1 given its age? I know of a website which archives ancient OS such as 3.1 but wont post it just in case.
Thanks
theoscy

[aaa801]

Not possible. Except with qemu

[Jim Manley]

One of the really evil mods (OK, that's redundant ) ran 3.1 on dosbox and another henchman of the Devil says that 95 runs on qemu:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... f=2&t=5090

[LemmeFatale]

I don't own a copy of either of these would it be illegal to download windows 3.1 given its age?

Yes, it would. It's very much still in copyright, and my understanding is that it will be for quite some time to come.

[W. H. Heydt]

It's probably a stretch to claim that 3.1 (let along 95) "runs" in DOSBox. Such an operation should probably be described as "walking" Windows on the Pi. (Though I will agree that, except for the last one--"Crusaders of the Dark Savant"--the Wizardry game series is quite responsive on a Pi.)

[theoscy]

One of the really evil mods (OK, that's redundant ) ran 3.1 on dosbox and another henchman of the Devil says that 95 runs on qemu:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... f=2&t=5090

Thanks Jim! Did you "acquire" windows 3.1? How difficult is the install process?

[pluggy]

I had Windows 3.1 on original floppies until a while back, maybe they'd be worth something now....

[liz]

Lord - I remember one of my first jobs, which I did in the year between school and university, involved having to install Windows 3.1 from floppy discs on all the machines in an office. And then Office. Office came on about a million floppies; Windows on only about half a million. It was one of the dullest things I've ever done.

[Jim JKla]

I just checked my archive Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on 8 x 3.5 floppies so even 5.25 floppies I think you may have been exagerating

My primary copy of office is however on a CD and I do agree it takes a headbangingly long time to load.

[liz]

24 floppies for Office 4.3, apparently (http://blog.andrewtechhelp.com/2010/08/ ... 90s-style/). Funny. I could have sworn there were at least 999976 more than that.

[LemmeFatale]

It was one of the dullest things I've ever done.

I take it that none of the floppies were bad, then? (Hence no statement of how it was one of the most maddening things you've ever done.)

[gritz]

I has Win95 on floppies (can't remember how many, but it was a lot). Not every computer had a CDROM back then! One of the floppies expired, but it was just a stock 3.5" disk formatted in DMF, so creating a new one wasn't the end of the world, even if the install procedure was...

There was a chap called Dietmar on the forum doing something devilish with Win95 a while back.

[Jim Manley]

Ha! Amateurs. I have Windows 1.0 ... on the original stone tablets!

I forgot to point out to Eben on the way into the museum the glass wall panel etched with the hex and ASCII bytes from the beginning of the paper tape for MS-BASIC 1.0 for the Altair - I'll post a photo next time I'm at the museum. Bill Gates donated a copy of the original paper tape and an Altair used to develop it, along with millions for the exhibit space. I also forgot to show him the Second Babbage Difference Engine (serial number 2 of 2, the original being in the Science Museum in London, of course) which I could have demonstrated (one of about a dozen people on the planet allowed to do so). I'm sure he's seen the one in London operated though, which only happens a few times a year now, AIUI - folks from the UK stop in all the time to see ours demoed since they rarely demo the London machine. It's a lot of fun being both the power supply and the clock for a mechanical computer!

[liz]

There's a glass wall in the common room of the Computer Lab at the University in Cambridge that has tape from EDSAC etched in it. Unfortunately, there is an error in the tape, which someone noticed back when we were students; I don't think the powers that be ever got round to changing it, though, because it was hellishly expensive to get it custom-etched in the first place!

[Jim Manley]

There's a glass wall in the common room of the Computer Lab at the University in Cambridge that has tape from EDSAC etched in it. Unfortunately, there is an error in the tape, which someone noticed back when we were students; I don't think the powers that be ever got round to changing it, though, because it was hellishly expensive to get it custom-etched in the first place!

When they etched the MS-BASIC panel (the FIRST time ... yes, you know what that implies ) the obviously right-brain type art major who was more interested in the typeface than the content managed to get all of the hard part right - the hex code - but only put seven ASCII characters per line on the right side of the panel, instead of the eight that corresponded to the hex codes on the left side! An even number of nybbles on the left means there has to be an even number of bytes on the right - DUH! The staff is heavy on historians and museum curators and light on true geeks, but on any given day, there are at least a dozen Silicon Valley veteran volunteers on-site who could catch that kind of thing in their sleep. Do they ever consult us? NoooOOOooo ... they don't like to think they could possibly ever be wrong, so they just don't ask - we have to play hide-and-seek-the-goofups with them

There were other whoopsies the exhibitionists (and that's probably accurate in all of its possible meanings) committed, including leaving enough space for someone to reach around an acrylic barrier and snatch one of the rare early mobile devices on display. They did manage to make it impossible to walk off with the "Lift-a-Luggable" Osborne in its sewing-machine style case - you can reach through a slot in an acrylic box to grab the handled and pick it up. Younger visitors can't believe business types actually hauled those things around on airplanes - they'd be classified as a massive throw-weight nuclear weapon today! At least no one has car-jacked the half of a 1980s Mercedes 500SEL in the microprocessor exhibit (first use of a microprocessor in a street-legal vehicle was for Bosch anti-lock brakes in that model), but the decade is young ...

[jojopi]

An even number of nybbles on the left means there has to be an even number of bytes on the right - DUH!

An even number of nibbles only means an integral number of bytes. The requirement to have even bytes per line comes more from the fact that the native word size is usually a power of two multiple of the native byte.

[Jim Manley]

An even number of nybbles on the left means there has to be an even number of bytes on the right - DUH!

An even number of nibbles only means an integral number of bytes. The requiroement to have even bytes per line comes more from the fact that the native word size is usually a power of two multiple of the native byte.

I was clearly discussing this in the context of MS-DOS and if you've ever worked with an analysis tool that this etching simulates the output of (such as a hex editor) you would have a clue. Your incessant attempts to parse each individual word I type in a derogatory way is only demonstrating how much of a tool you really are. Knock it off. No one is impressed, least of all me, especially since I've been doing this kind of work for around twice the time you've been in existence. They're nybbles, not nibbles, and it's requirement, not requiroement, BTW, since you're so hot to jump on everyone else's case. Don't go away mad, just go away before you damage your tenuous credibility (and I use that word in the loosest possible connotation) any further. Oh, and have a nice day.

[cleverca22]

I has Win95 on floppies (can't remember how many, but it was a lot). Not every computer had a CDROM back then! One of the floppies expired, but it was just a stock 3.5" disk formatted in DMF, so creating a new one wasn't the end of the world, even if the install procedure was...

There was a chap called Dietmar on the forum doing something devilish with Win95 a while back.

14 floppies plus a boot floppy, and all of them are 'high density' format, over 1.44mb
so they cant be copied with normal hardware/software (similar tricks have been used on the c64 as well)

[jojopi]

Your incessant attempts to parse each individual word I type in a derogatory way is only demonstrating how much of a tool you really are.

I can only apologise for being excessively pedantic, because I was certainly not derogatory.

Somehow you have misquoted my correct spelling of "requirement" — I have not edited it.

Obviously I disagree about "nybble", and in fact most sources seem to be with me. The original reason for spelling byte with a Y was to avoid the risk of confusion with bit, not just to be cutesy.

Back off topic: When I bought MS VC++ 1.0 in 1993, it came on fourteen 1440KiB 3.5" floppies. There was a coupon in the box to fill in if you required 5.25" media, bizarrely still formatted for the obsolete 360KiB drives. I sent that off expecting to get around sixty free discs, but sadly Microsoft ignored me.

[johnbeetem]

Back off topic: When I bought MS VC++ 1.0 in 1993, it came on fourteen 1440KiB 3.5" floppies. There was a coupon in the box to fill in if you required 5.25" media, bizarrely still formatted for the obsolete 360KiB drives. I sent that off expecting to get around sixty free discs, but sadly Microsoft ignored me.

Since this thread has devolved into pedantic arguments about syntax and semantics, I would like to point out that kibblebytes didn't exist back in 1993. Personally, I think kibblebytes and mibblebytes and gigglebytes are a silly notion, as if being off by 2.4% matters in a world of terabytes (terriblebytes?) IMO it's almost always clear from context whether K means 1000 or 1024, or else it really doesn't matter.

And I always write kilo with a capital K. That's how I learned it back in 1967 when all positive powers of ten were capitalized (D = deca) and all negative powers of ten were lower case (d = deci). Nice convention.

Whenever I write something I know is excessively pedantic -- like this comment -- I like to quote Eeyore: "A trifling matter, and fussy of me, but we all have our little ways."

[gritz]

Indeed John, indeed.

Perhaps one day computers (and the people who write the software) will grow a little common sense and pedantry (which is naturally encouraged by formal languages) can be consigned to history. However, given the propensity of the average nerd to favour semantics over the bgger picture I don't suppose that it will happen any time soon.

Contrary to popular belief, some things in computing happen awfully slowly. Dogma, everywhere... must... resist...

[Jim JKla]

I think this went off topic about the third post and it's been meandering around ever since.

[azeam]

And I always write kilo with a capital K. That's how I learned it back in 1967 when all positive powers of ten were capitalized (D = deca) and all negative powers of ten were lower case (d = deci). Nice convention.

So even when you (as in Americans, I assume you are from the US?), for once, use the metric system as the rest of the world, you have to mess it up by inventing your own standards

[gritz]

I think this went off topic about the third post and it's been meandering around ever since.

Well, what the O.P. wants to do is a bit "niche" and some of us here may be getting on in years a bit too...

In the absence of anything sensible to say these threads often spiral in to a version of the Yorkshiremen sketch, with each poster referencing his / her connection to ever more archaic technology.

"Punchcards? Eeeee, luxury! I had to wind t' handle on Babbage's Difference Engine."

etc...

[mahjongg]

And I always write kilo with a capital K. That's how I learned it back in 1967 when all positive powers of ten were capitalized (D = deca) and all negative powers of ten were lower case (d = deci). Nice convention.

So even when you (as in Americans, I assume you are from the US?), for once, use the metric system as the rest of the world, you have to mess it up by inventing your own standards

Whole "wars" are waged about this on Wikipedia, and lets not even start about the "kibibytes"!