ScuzzBlog: Diaries July 2017
Entry 9th July 2017: Post: 1
Guess I should just shut the Windows
Hi
As the 'IT' guy at work I kinda acquired all the old junk that was
getting thrown out. Mostly old tin boxes when they got replaced. In
truth my only aim was to clean out the data and then dispose, but it
never turned out that way. As a consequence my pantry became a store for
RM machines and monitors. Its odd looking at these machines today as
most have Colorado tape back ups and 250K zips and CD-ROMs, just your
basic. Hard drives range from 1GB to 4GB and there are a variety of
network cards and modems.
The first machine worked a charm until I discovered that the CD-ROM
wasn't working. I literally fit three different CD-ROM drives and none
worked. I was starting to think there was something up with the drivers.
Anyway the last CD-ROM I tried worked without fault, so we move on.
Funny thing was that I discovered the issue when trying to make a Win98
start-up disk. The computer identified that there was no CD-ROM drive
but still asked me to insert the Windows98 CD to get over the issue.
To the next two machines and these are large Win95 upgraded to Win98 RM
towers. The kind you could actually set up camp inside. Both worked
fine. I replaced the battery on the first and was in the throws of
transferring some files over from the 4GB drive when I got a blue screen
' fatal exception 06 ' which suggests an inability of the processor to
make sense of the information its receiving from a virtual driver. The
computer falls over at the same boot sequence moment. Given my fun and
games earlier this year with the Win 7 machine I suspect the video card.
I'll swap it out.
The second machine has two hard drives in. So funny.. both 1GB in size.
When you look at the beast of a machine this is it really just isn't
worth the trouble.
The last two machines for today are RM desktop mini towers. And both
wont even boot. They are giving out some very strange responses to my
efforts to get the thing restarted on the floppy. I fear they are
basically dead in the water as they stand. Machines were totally
hammered in their day so not surprised.
The one issue that is becoming quite apparent is the demise of the
CD-ROM. Not simply as a busted bit of kit but in their availability.
Getting quite rare. Whilst going through my boxes I found three fresh
babies so I am lucky I guess. I even tried to repair one last night but
failed. They really are a dying breed.
Anyway I backed up the entire contents of my A1200 and external drives
to one of these PCs and that is about all they are useful for.
Surprisingly I plugged in a large Mitsubishi monitor and the picture was
crystal clear. Just wonderful.
Anyway.. Windows is probably the most annoying OS to have to try and get
working. Fortunately its also one I have the most spare disks and
support floppies and CDs for so the worst I have to do is reinstall. Its
all you can do sometimes with Windows to get it functioning again.
All good fun.
scuzz
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