Sean-Ward.com

My downstairs neighbor had mentioned a couple weeks ago that she was going to be getting a computer from a friend and would like me to take a look at it and clean it up so she could use it. Overall, she wanted the following done:

• Clean up the computer by removing any old programs
• Install something so she could type up documents
• If possible, see if it could get online

I could see no harm in doing so, and on Wednesday night, I went downstairs to take a look at it, thinking as I was doing so that I have some memory from computers that I had 5 or 6 years ago that I can possibly throw in, depending on the computer. What awaited me was a Packard Bell Multimedia C110 with accompanying monitor and speakers. Needless to say, that scrapped the memory idea. The C110 has the following characteristics:

• Motherboard: PB 680 (I think)
• Processor: 120 MHz Intel
• RAM: 16MB, which was two 8MB 72pin EDO sticks (max 128MB)
• HDD: 1GB
• Operating System: Windows 95
• Available slots: 3 16-bit ISA and 1 PCI (of course, the possible max combination is 3 ISA or 2 ISA and 1 PCI), all of which was off of a ISA riser

I had to mentally consider what I could do here. I expected a machine that was barely able to run XP, but instead I had a computer that might not have been able to handle Windows 98. I actually debated, after hearing the noises that are standard for a computer like this, if it was really able to handle Windows 95, but it was running it, and that all that mattered. Looking in the back, I was surprised that the computer had PS/2 connectors for the keyboard and mouse instead of a 5-pin Din AT and 9-pin serial ports, respectively. That’s one thing that would be easier to deal with anyway.

I carried the computer back up to my apartment and got to work. I of course opened it up, but I noted that the silver seal sticker had never been broken, meaning that this was the first time since leaving the factory that the case on the computer had come off. Surprisingly, there was little to no dust inside the machine. In some sort of irony the universe is known for, the same day I showed the staff in the office a 14″ long 8-bit ISA card, I was working on a computer that had more ISA slots than PCI slots. At least it had that PCI slot, and it was being unused, as I needed that for the network card so I could download OpenOffice on to the computer.

Ah, the network card. I knew getting it installed wasn’t going to be a cake walk, I so I wasn’t surprised when it asked me for Windows 95 Disk 19. I knew that I should be able to just check C:\Windows\options\cabs\ to get the files I needed, but it didn’t want to let me manually type it in. I knew I had a CD around that might do the trick, but I wasn’t certain. Sure enough, I have Windows 95 CD that was living with other outdated software in a tub in the closet. Once I tried to use that to get the drivers (it didn’t want to because the Windows 95 on the CD was newer than the one on the comptuer), I was finally able to manually type in the location of the cabs. That meant I could end the process I was starting of using the included program to create the installation floppies. All 30 of them. I at least remembered that to check on networking I needed to use winipcfg.

Getting the computer cleaned up, while easy, probably took the longest, as I had to make sure that what I was uninstalling, or deleting, wasn’t being used elsewhere. At the beginning, there was just under 15MB of free space on the 1GB hard drive. By the time all was said an done, there was 494MB of free space. That includes OpenOffice and IE, but those programs proved interesting to install. First, I tried burning the necessary OpenOffice installer to a CD-RW on my XP machine, but the CD drive on the C110 did not like the disc. Why not just download OpenOffice onto the C110? That’s because there was no non-dialup browser available on the computer. IE and Netscape were at some point on there, but I only know that because of the directories that were left behind.

I didn’t want to install IE, but it was the easiest option available. I tired using the February 2004 CD that Microsoft gave out with updates for their different operating systems, but it did not include Windows 95. I couldn’t use a burnt CD, apparently, to get IE onto the machine, so I decided to try my luck with the Windows 95 disc I had. Sure enough, I was able to use the explore option to navigate to a directory that had an installation program for IE 3.01, which is good enough for what I need. Once I got that installed, I was able to download PKUnzip and then OpenOffice 1.0.3.1, which was the last version to have legacy support for Windows 95. OpenOffice did require me to get the DCOM95 updated from Microsoft as well. Interesting fact about IE 3.01: pretty much every page I went to threw a javascript error of some kind. Once I was done with that, the C110’s foray into the Internet ended, as the poor machine couldn’t handle most of what was out there anyway.

Thus ended my work on a computer that is at least 12 years old. Since she had speakers that required a power supply she did not have, that meant I was able to remove a pair of speakers from my collection that I’ve had for years. All in all, it was refreshing to work on that computer since it was so old, as it meant I actually had less things to worry about compare to a Windows XP or Vista machine that a student at BGSU might use.