Is there any way to try out an existing machine (AMD "486", in my case)
to see that it's worth attempting a complete installation? I seem to
have read that the installations that begin with a couple of floppies
(?) essentially "prove out the machine", more or less, before you
transfer oodles from CD-ROM and do the detailed configuration.
The machine is question has been notoriously unreliable as a Win/DOS
box, but it could be *only* because of a bad CPU fan combined with a
ridiculous cooling-air intake that is more useful for equalizing
barometric pressure :) between the inside and outside of the case.
Hopes are that if I take care of the cooling (new CPU fan with thermal
grease, and provide a filtered air intake, maybe with a booster fan), I
might be able at least to run Moss Doss 6.22 and Win 3.11, if not Linux.
(Have read (ESR's Hardware HowTo, maybe?) that Linux expects a lot more
of the hdwe., which is why I'm posting this message.)
Alternative is to save the good stuff (some is OK; motherboard is
suspect) out of that box and build my own system when I can afford it.
(Fwiw, had Xdenu kernel and file system running on my Old Reliable H-P
Vectra 386/16N, which I'm using right now. Very interesting experience!
Am thinking about installing a larger HD than the present 52 MB, which
is really tight, considering that I want to keep DOS 6.22 and Win 3.1
for a few apps that require them. However, I truly hate to risk munging
my one machine that relaibly accesses the 'Net. Fallback is my old,
beloved Amiga 1000, but its modem is 1200 bps.)
TIA!
|* Nicholas Bodley *|* Electronic Technician {*} Autodidact & Polymath
|* Waltham, Mass. *|* -----------------------------------------------
|* [EMAIL PROTECTED] *|* The personal computer industry will have become
|* Amateur musician *|* mature when crashes become unacceptable.
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