Decided to relax a little, but failed because I found a channel on YouTube called "NCommander," where a guy who knows his subject plays with old software. For instance, I watched him compile WinWord for OS/2 v. 1.2.
It was a very tense operation as I saw loads of long-forgotten OS/2 errors that in later OS/2 versions meant at least boot from floppy and from the third install floppy run fdisk (with some switches I've forgotten) or else the dreaded rf-ri -- reformat-reinstall.
But the real waves of dread came in the video in which he installed SLS Linux from 31 floppies. It didn't go well, but what got me were the parts that did. Installing Linux a quarter century ago was hell. It was a minefield.
Still, if you're not subject to nightmarish flashbacks, it's a pretty enjoyable video. The whole floppy-swap experience and everything. (Though he didn't get into editing Xf86config, which was half the . . . fun.)
dep Pictures: http://www.ipernity.com/doc/depscribe/album Column: https://ofb.biz/author/dep/
On Friday 24 March 2023 06.18:55 dep via tde-users wrote:
But the real waves of dread came in the video in which he installed SLS Linux from 31 floppies.
How many floppies were there for OS/2 2.x?
Though he didn't get into editing Xf86config, which was half the . . . fun.)
That's where my first Linux experience ended. I'd just got my first 17" Screen and would not take the risk of destroying it.
Thierry
said Thierry de Coulon via tde-users:
| How many floppies were there for OS/2 2.x?
It depended. About 25, I think, but a dozen more if you also had IBM's Voice-Type Dictation. (Which was a monster in and of itself. Had to be trained. I know of people who got it to work, but I never did.)
| > Though | > he didn't get into editing Xf86config, which was half the . . . fun.) | | That's where my first Linux experience ended. I'd just got my first 17" | Screen and would not take the risk of destroying it.
Those were the wild west days. I'd burn a new kernel whenever one came out, which almost always required upgrading some package or another, and on RPM-based systems you didn't know which ones very easily. I'll never forget the time I tried up upgrade GCC. It ultimately worked out, but it was a hair-raising couple of days. The good test to see if I had everything working properly was to compile the latest XFree86, which took a very long time. And there was a long period during 1.x and 2.x when some of us, me included, would compile a whole new version of KDE every few days. One of my little jobs was to make sure everything worked on a Cyrix equivalent of a 486-233, because I had one and we weren't entirely sure just how Intel compatible they were. (configure --prefix /opt/kde)
More fun then than it would be now, I think. -- dep
Pictures: http://www.ipernity.com/doc/depscribe/album Column: https://ofb.biz/author/dep/
On Fri, 24 Mar 2023, dep via tde-users wrote:
said Thierry de Coulon via tde-users:
| How many floppies were there for OS/2 2.x?
It depended. About 25, I think, but a dozen more if you also had IBM's Voice-Type Dictation.
I have my original OS/2 2.1 kit at hand. It contains 46 3.5" floppy disks. About half were for the operating system, and the other half seem to contain device drivers, etc.
Those certainly were the days!
Jonesy
said Marvin Jones via tde-users:
| I have my original OS/2 2.1 kit at hand. It contains 46 3.5" floppy | disks. About half were for the operating system, and the other half | seem to contain device drivers, etc.
Funny, I still have, in boxes with all the stockers and even the little microphone/headset, all of the versions of OS/2 from 2.0 on. When OS/2 3.0 -- the first version called "Warp," because everyone involved in OS/2 development and testing, in Boca and in Westchester, were Star Trek fans -- they had a big rollout in New York City and those of us who were reporters got our copies in really nice black Lands End-style canvas briefcases that had a big OS/2 logo on the side. I still have mine -- it's a really good briefcase. Later, when I was writing for Linux Planet, I'd carry it to events like Linux World Expo to collect literature and swag, where Michael Hall would call it "DEP's bag of broken dreams."
(I was very lucky: I lived in Westchester and was a member of the Westchester OS/2 user group. Which meant we were on first-name terms with Lee Reiswig and the like, got first access to -- everything; Corel sent a rep to demonstrate and hand out copies of the excellent and then very expensive Corel Draw! for OS/2 -- a kinda miserable Mirrors port, but it worked; and we even held bif OS/2 birthday parties in the big hall of the best local hotel, with IBM and TeamOS/2 picking up part of the tab. It was great!) -- dep
Pictures: http://www.ipernity.com/doc/depscribe/album Column: https://ofb.biz/author/dep/
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On Friday 24 March 2023, dep via tde-users was heard to say:
(Though he didn't get into editing Xf86config, which was half the . . . fun.)
I have a very clear memory of experimenting with modlines on my boss's laptop, trying to get Xwindows to work, watching the very strange ways the screen blanked and the crackling sounds it made each time before I could switch back to the tty.
That was a couple years before Knoppix, and the spectacular leaps Marc Knopper made in hardware detection.
Yeah.
Thanks for triggering that memory, dep.
Curt-
- -- You may my glories and my state dispose, But not my griefs; still am I king of those. --- William Shakespeare, "Richard II"
On 2023-03-24 00:18:55 dep via tde-users wrote:
(Though he didn't get into editing Xf86config, which was half the . . . fun.)
Spoken like a true software masochist. :-)
Leslie -- Platform: GNU/Linux Hardware: x86_64 Distribution: openSUSE Leap 15.4 Desktop Environment: Trinity Qt: 3.5.0 TDE: R14.0.13 tde-config: 1.0
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Curt Howland -
dep -
J Leslie Turriff -
Marvin Jones -
Thierry de Coulon