Digging out the old laptop

[Cat333Pokémon]

My laptop computer lost its backlight, so it's now stuck at home with a monitor always attached. I'm now working on 1995-6 laptop, attempting to convert it to a netbook. It might work, it might not. Currently I'm in the process of finalizing an installation of Windows 2000. I had to remove the 32 MB RAM expansion extracted from another computer, as it caused the thing to constantly bluescreen, fail the memory test, and freeze for no reason. (Now I see why the Me machine it was from kept bluescreening.) I'll retrieve the original 32 MB RAM expansion that originally came with it in the morning. For now, it's very slowly booting on a mere 16 MB of RAM. The 2 GB internal hard drive will have to do for now. I could probably put some programs on a flash drive, though.

As the computer has no USB ports (well, it has some on the dock) and obviously no wireless 802.11 adaptor, I had to get a PC Card USB adaptor and a USB 802.11 adaptor, both of which are supported on Windows 2000. When I finally get it up, I'll try installing Opera 10, which is about the only modern brower to still have support on Windows OSes before XP. I may also have to use an old version of MS Office or OpenOffice, depending on which seems like it'll work better.

Wish me luck!

[AnathemA]

Good luck, and no USB ports? Thats like not having internet O:

Are you using the trackpad, or those old rollerball mices that use the old PS/2 port?

[.name//Technomancer]

Holy balls.

Sixteen megs of RAM... A Two gig HDD... No USB ports... Windows 2000?

It's like an upgraded Macbook. D:

On a sidenote, my phone is more powerful than your laptop. >.< How sad is that.

Do yourself a favor: Save up a bone, go to a pawn shop, and buy some POS they have on display. I guarantee it's in better shape than your erm... Paperweight.

[Buoysel]

Originally Posted by .name//Technomancer

It's like an upgraded Macbook. D:

Um... you have heard of this right? I'm going to guess that this is temporary?

[LiteTheIronMan]

Originally Posted by .name//Technomancer

Holy balls.

Sixteen megs of RAM... A Two gig HDD... No USB ports... Windows 2000?

It's like an upgraded Macbook. D:

At first I was like but then I was like |:

On a sidenote, my phone is more powerful than your laptop. >.< How sad is that.

Do yourself a favor: Save up a bone, go to a pawn shop, and buy some POS they have on display. I guarantee it's in better shape than your erm... Paperweight.

Lol you're tearing apart a really old computer and putting new stuff into it.

[Yoshi648]

When you do start bringing it to school, bring a camera so we can take a picture of that huge machine next to my actual netbook .

Originally Posted by Buoysel

Um... you have heard of this right?

I wouldn't get Ubuntu for that, it's kind of a resource hog. I do think Puppy Linux would work just fine. I've also been trying out WattOS and Lubuntu on my netbook and they seem pretty good.

[FreezeWarp]

Originally Posted by Yoshi648

I t wouldn't get Ubuntu for that, it's kind of a resource hog. I do think Puppy Linux would work just fine. I've also been trying out WattOS and Lubuntu on my netbook and they seem pretty good.

I was about to attack you like the fanboy that I am until I realized just how right you are

But, yeah, to run Ubuntu you're going to need nearly 3 times the RAM once you find that 32MB extension. The hard drive will work for pretty much anything Linux or Windows 2000, but MS Office is nearly a gig in-and-of itself if you plan on installing anything 2003 or after (OOo is smaller, but it's not necessarily worth the downgrade if you have a copy of MS Office readily available - I still have a copy of Office 98 somewhere, and it would probably be ideal here ). Windows 2000 will work, but certainly even XP won't even come close to working.

In the end, I would concur with Yoshi on Lubuntu, since it still has all the security advantages of modern software. Never used Puppy Linux so I can't speak there

[Buoysel]

I guess if you wanted to go small you could go DSL. :/

[MultiWishMaker]

Originally Posted by Yoshi648

When you do start bringing it to school, bring a camera so we can take a picture of that huge machine next to my actual netbook .



I wouldn't get Ubuntu for that, it's kind of a resource hog. I do think Puppy Linux would work just fine. I've also been trying out WattOS and Lubuntu on my netbook and they seem pretty good.

I've tried puppy linux on a few netbooks and it works pretty well.

[A'bom]

Wow, Cat. I'm not very tech-savvy, but even I know that's and old clunker of a machine.

I assume you're just doing this for the challenge of it? I'm just too lazy to understand converting it into another device when I could just buy a new one.

Anyway, Good luck with that!

[Cat333Pokémon]

I tried Puppy and DSL on it a while back, both of them having issues. Regardless, it seems like the PC card (PCMCIA) slots didn't work and a fe, so I just returned some stuff I bought and picked up a new netbook. I'll have fun getting Windows 3.1 running on that (not really).

[Buoysel]

Originally Posted by Cat333Pokémon

I tried Puppy and DSL on it a while back, both of them having issues. Regardless, it seems like the PC card (PCMCIA) slots didn't work and a fe, so I just returned some stuff I bought and picked up a new netbook. I'll have fun getting Windows 3.1 running on that (not really).

Why a netbook? Why spend 300 on a netbook when you can spend the extra like $50 at Walmart and buy a regular laptop? A lot more horse power?

[JC]

That's some ancient technology there.

[Cat333Pokémon]

I got curious and wanted to see if my 1.5 TB external drive would work in it. It did. Notice the nice juxtaposition with the 16 MB of RAM.

[JC]

How much hardrive space can 2000 have, before it can't recognize anymore?

[.name//Technomancer]

I'm sure it's very little, but recognition does not mean it is unable to use said space.