Well.......It's not so new, but I just discovered that a old Toshiba laptop that was given to me about 2 years ago, still has a good battery in it! It's also new enough to have a USB port!!=20
I mentioned in a previous thread, "Memory Upgrade", that I was still using an old DOS program to upload/download programs to/from my CNC's. The old Gateway P1 computer I'm using has a bad floppy drive (tried 3 used/refurbished ones- no go), so I LapLink it to an HP386 and copy everything to a floppy.
That's getting to be a PITA. This Toshiba doesn't have a floppy drive. It has a CD ROM, but not a burner. When I discovered that it had a USB port, I thought - Way Cool!. Grabbed a flash drive/thumb drive/memory stick.....whatever you want to call them, and copied everything from the floppy onto it.
Only problem is that this Toshiba is loaded with Windoz ME - which sucks - and I can't run my old DOS programs on it. Funny part is, they run on my office PC that runs Win XP! And , of course, they run just fine on the old Gateway w/Win98.
I've upgraded quite a few computers, but I've never 'downgraded' one. I also had a really bad experience when I upgraded my Win95 Compaq to WinME about 8 years ago. Had nothing but trouble with it afterwards, and wound up having to kill it and bring it back to life with the original Win95. It's been OK ever since, but anything with WinME in it scares the crap out of me.=20
This Toshiba is a Tecra 520CDT. It's a P166, and if IIRC, that was back in Win95 days (maybe not for laptops). I'm thinking that this thing has been upgraded to ME.=20
My questions is: Can I load Win98 in this thing? I have the original Win98 disk that came with a P1 HP I bought for my wife back in 1998(?).=20 Will this disk work in the Toshiba? Or will it think it's an HP?=20 Also, IIRC, flash drives weren't yet around in Win98 days. Will Win98 recognize the drive?
Like I said, WinME is scary, and I'm not too sure what will happen if I mess with it. Other than the fact that it won't run my DOS programs, it seems to be a pretty good little computer. I'd rather not wreck it.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Matt