Old PC and Win95

"optimize what's there, not try to make it something its not..."

I have an old PC with Win95 OS, and laughably small memory (among other limitations).

It is NOT my main PC....I keep it because it has at least 2 OLD DOS civil engineering programs that I own (which run) but are not supported anymore...

[I have the concept that old DOS programs won't run in a Windows XP environment??]

I was also told by a previous tech that I probably couldn't transfer those programs to another PC (key issues? permissions? I dunno) for use. [this is something I may look into more]

AND, I occasionally need to export the results from those programs, but all it has is a 3.5" floppy drive (well, I might be able to somehow network it together with another PC...)

SOOO...What I'm looking for is advice about "upgrading" this PC by (perhaps) adding a CD drive and/or flash drive, increase memory (which I've never done) or ??....

...update drivers??

...update web browser??

...basically optimize what's there, not try to make it something its not...

Oh - and I really don't know anything about Win95 as to whether programs (freeware/shareware etc) will run in it.

Any input and/or education would be appreciated....
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What is your computer specifications ? Download this

http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/

and post us the reports !! :cool

 

I think I'd better run that on THIS PC, and then manually extract the same info from the old PC to post here.....attempting actions like this are some of the problems I think I have with it...

 

You may find it next to impossible to get an optical drive that will work. 95 is not plug and play and anything that you purchase today will not have drivers for the device to work in 95.

I just e-cycled an old Gateway laptop. It had 98 and when I remembered that I could not just plug in a USB device and have it immediately recognized, I decided the frustration to get things working was just not worth my time and effort tracking down drivers.

 

Quick thought,
Why don't you just go get a virtual machine? Install it to your main computer and emulate a version of 95 off that? It would seem to solve your problem(i think).

 

Ya, that might be a possibility if the OP has his diskettes. Try Virtual PC from MS, worth a shot to save and use your proggies.

 

"has his diskettes" !

You guys have side jobs as standup comedians??

Now headlining at Vegas:

Augiedoggie and the Diskettes!
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If the machine is as old as I fear, then it might not even have enough RAM installed to run Virtual PC worth a darn.
An old IBM I have has 98 on it and 500MB RAM and will barely run lots of the newer programs with any real satisfaction.

 

LOL, hey, I tried man!roflmao Sorry.(continues snickerering):-D Seriously, I think it's toast then.

 

I wasn't referring to that machine I was referring to his main machine. Run the Virtual PC (Win 95) off of his main machine and scrap the 95 machine.

 

Well, without any specs we're just speculating on things. I'd bet you could put a network interface card in it and network it somehow to a more recent computer. The virtual machine is a good idea too, Win95 probably doesn't take too much space or RAM or CPU time to run, even with the other programs on it.

Maybe it's time to update to newer programs. No use reinventing the wheel when there's a cart full of them sitting there for the taking if you know what I mean.

 

Even with a NIC card, can you be sure there is a driver for Windows 95?

 

RealTek 8139 based NIC's are still available, they'll run ok on W95, MacOS8 and suchlike.

 

I have a very old Wang Laboratories PI (more of typewriter with screen attached), but thats a long story.

I have a PII pc, bx-mobo from SuperPower, came with fried processor. So I hooked a PIII 433MHz (vertical) and it recognized as 33XMhz but its OK. See it wont run XP no matter what. In the HDD (4gb, it wont recog past 20gb) there was Win98 installed and working, but I had no use for it. The only feasible thing I could do it was linux. It runs Puppy, Fedora, Mint and stuff well, and it accepts 64MB graphix, 512+ ram not in one stick but collection of 128' and 256'xes. On pdf manua for it, it can take 10xxmb max ram combination and 733Mhz celeron processor max. On the mobo there are pins for two usb but no connector so I made mine, can even connect usb hub and usb modem. I can do normal stuff with it, including running windows apps on wine (even office07), network card (100kb/s, enough for XAMMP server), two graphix (one agp the other pci-videocard), dvd writer, usb keyboard though I still use old keyboard, virtualbox (here even XP runs without having to reboot, but pretty much does little due to shared sys resources, but a 98box works fine), normal stuff. In trying to install xp I even run a bios update to 1999 release.

There's no way yours is PI, so its PII or better still PIII. Cheer up mate .