I resisted Win 10 free upgrade but now try and find things

[Mikefromlondon]

I was searching for old PCs with ISA slots, apparently one computer manufacturer in USA still makes PCs with ISA slots when it realised how heavily some industry or machinery depends on older hardware that once ran on ISA slots, though a bit pricey, they are adapting modern fast processors to integrate or adapt to old style ISA slots, so there is still some hope that all is not lost yet.

Imagine if NASA send a space mission to a distance galaxy, and when it reaches it with new propulsion systems travelling at thousand times faster than our current technology, some 100 years later, no one on earth would recognise the signals or formats sent back if software cannot last 100 years whilst the spacecraft may well last all that time.

I feel sorry for Radio Hams, no more short waves and long waves as digital revolution killed all those hobbies. Internet is the boss now. I still don't know what the heck is the new thing we are being told will take over everything and it is called Cloud. Do we need more clouds or do we need more sunshine? If technology starts moving faster than we can adapt it, we will trip and fall on our face and bruise badly. There are older folks who still have no clue how to operate a simple computer system, my wife is included in that, she cannot even turn on or off a computer, she does not even know how a smart phone works. She has a problem working an old Nokia!

 

[Rider]

I understand that Windows 10 will be the 'last' Windows OS, according to Microsoft. At the same time, I'm sure that there will continue to be updates and upgrades automatically applied to W10.
I'm hoping that this means that there will be no more 'incompatible' software in the future, but I'd like to be assured of this. The most annoying thing that I have found, having witnessed several changes of Windows, is that old hardware (like a perfectly working scanner I own) suddenly won't work with W10 and the manufacturer has no intention of creating new drivers.

I understand that's the way it's going to be. Windows 10 will be the last OS. I did see it suggested that even the '10' will be dropped in the end and the OS will just be called 'Windows'.

I wonder if the reason for the push towards everyone using the same OS is because Microsoft are working towards not having to support a number of operating systems all at the same time? They have been a bit unique in doing that over the years. It seems most other big players have the one system that they issue updates for. Perhaps Microsoft want to move towards that too.

If this the case, I hope it does mean an end to the 'older hardware and driver' problem. I can't help thinking that updates or service packs for Windows might still end up stopping older hardware from working though.

 

[Rider]

I was searching for old PCs with ISA slots, apparently one computer manufacturer in USA still makes PCs with ISA slots when it realised how heavily some industry or machinery depends on older hardware that once ran on ISA slots, though a bit pricey, they are adapting modern fast processors to integrate or adapt to old style ISA slots, so there is still some hope that all is not lost yet.

Imagine if NASA send a space mission to a distance galaxy, and when it reaches it with new propulsion systems travelling at thousand times faster than our current technology, some 100 years later, no one on earth would recognise the signals or formats sent back if software cannot last 100 years whilst the spacecraft may well last all that time.

I feel sorry for Radio Hams, no more short waves and long waves as digital revolution killed all those hobbies. Internet is the boss now. I still don't know what the heck is the new thing we are being told will take over everything and it is called Cloud. Do we need more clouds or do we need more sunshine? If technology starts moving faster than we can adapt it, we will trip and fall on our face and bruise badly. There are older folks who still have no clue how to operate a simple computer system, my wife is included in that, she cannot even turn on or off a computer, she does not even know how a smart phone works. She has a problem working an old Nokia!

There is hope. Did you see 'Independence Day' where a virus from a Mac laptop was uploaded to the alien space fleet? Well, that alien system understood the malicious code transmitted by the Mac, so they must have been on an Apple system as well. It wasn't even a Windows virus!

Seriously though, if a distant civilisation were to be advanced enough to intercept our deep space probe, they might also be clever enough to decode software-based information ..well maybe.

Progress always has a downside and the rise of the Internet is no exception. Jobs have been lost and shops closed because of the convenience of online shopping. I used to know a radio ham. I don't know if he has dropped the hobby now that communications around the World are commonplace by using the Internet. Maybe there still is the challenge and satisfaction of doing it by radio signals.

I'm classed as an old person now and use a computer quite a bit but I know a few of my age who don't. One friend doesn't even have a telephone of any kind, despite efforts of trying to persuade him he ought to have one. One thing about him though. He is the most happy and conversational person I know. Maybe that says something.

An older person perhaps shouldn't feel that they need to be on the Internet or learn to use a computer. I'd say they aren't missing out on life very much by not owning one. It's just that younger people think they are. The young can miss out by using computers and smart phones too much.

 

[JBR]

There is hope. Did you see 'Independence Day' where a virus from a Mac laptop was uploaded to the alien space fleet?

Wow! And there's me thinking that Apples don't get viruses... at least if staunch Apple users are to be believed!

 

[securespark]

and the manufacturer has no intention of creating new drivers.

That's unusual.

 

[JBR]

and the manufacturer has no intention of creating new drivers.

That's unusual.

I did search for updated drivers for Windows 10, but couldn't find any. It is, admittedly, an old model (Visioneer) and I can't even find that on the manufacturer's web site.

No problem, though, as my mother-in-law (yes, really!) passed on one that she had and that works perfectly with W10.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Latest Update.

I am back in full swing, having got my Engraving machine computer restored by installing a new (well not quite new but from another working pc someone no longer needed, the computer itself would have been no good as it had no ISA slots to plug in my eng, machine card)

So that HD was formatted and DOS 6.2 loaded, had quite a few problems to just do that, not used to loading and formatting HDs in DOS, but somehow managed to format an 80GB HD to just 80Mb! just to get me going, which means the disc is already half full with just DOS 6.2 leaving no room fo0r Windows 3.11, I also needed Windows 3.11 or up to windows 98 to load Scanvec Pro a graphics package used for designing jobs, i.e. shapes and so on, and these jobs end up with an extension .scv, then exported to Cipher running in Dos, where the exported file format is converted to HPGL supported file called plate file or .plt files, from these my engraving machines runs the job.

I was also very very lucky that I managed to retrieve all my job files out of failed HD, this was just one off fluke, there after I could not open and read files in that HD.Luck has been on my side I guess.

Incidentally, my spare PC which was picked up from a pavement someone dumped years ago, and ran perfectly on Win98, it also had ISA slots and when I tried to run this computer with the crashed HD from my work computer, this computer also failed to boot up there after, I returned its original Wion 98 HD back in it, and it refused to boot up, so I had somehow killed it, everything was pointing to BIOS chip having been buggered up, there was this Dallas DS1285 a 24 pin chip which when i checked on internet was a 16K flash memory with lithium battery, and I was pretty sure that this was the bios chip, hence why it had the battery back up as well, with 10yr life.

I have a memory reader, and when I tried reading its contents, all bits were High, at all its 16 thousand addresses, so i was pretty sure that the chip had lost any bios information, and so i tried to programe random data in it using my home made eprom programmer, set to 5v operation, it was writing new data, and so I pretty much new that it had died, since at one point it started to draw over an amp and quickly switched it off, it had got pretty hot.

Then not giving up, I continued to ponder further into that Windows98 pc, looked and searched on internet on ebay, to see if anyone may have a spare bios chip por bios file I can load in a new chip I might get, but two weeks later I started that computer and to my surprise it booted up! and I really don't know how that chip acquired bios file or was there another bios chip and this chip possibly holds user defined values, so any ways, now i have that computer restored and I have 454Mb HD and loads of spare space and managed to load Scanvec software which seems to run perfectly well on Windows 98, earlier on I tried to load Scanvec on my laptop running on Win10 and it would not support that package.

So now I have no problem, I can design jobs on win98 PC which has no USB ports, so floppy drives are still very precious for me, and I can transfer files from this to my other engraving machine computer which again has no USB ports, so floppy drives come to rescue, and I can now run my machines with just a slight bit of hassle.

Any way, I thought I was probably an odd old timer still running things on old computers, but i found how many people are still busy building older than mine computers using relays and what not, many are restoring the old IBM mainFRAME COMPUTERS WHICH USES KILOWATTS of power for fun.

 

[AlanE]

Well done shows perseverance pays off.

Also interested in you success and how you did it. Not everyone that reads posts is able to really help, in some instances, but even for those, such as me, are often interested to learn of a good outcome.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Thanks Alan, for showing interest in my problem, these old PCs are so hard to get hold of, I went to a computer shop who had 100s of old PCs in his backyard, he let me help myself to see if I can find a PC with ISA slot, most looked pretty ugly and old yet they were still fairly modern as they all had pentium processors and or AMD, and none I took the covers off had any ISA slots, all were PCI slots, I must have gone through at least 20 to 25 pcs, and I gave up, I just left my phone number and asked the guy to contact me if he comes across one with a ISA slot.

They are like Gold Dust now, the only ones available on Ebay are from germany going at around £250-£300 a piece. So I am glad that my windows 98 PC is up and working as it has an ISA slot as well as the one that had HD problems and now I have backed up all my work files.