Get the picture

[Enzo]

I have a CRT monitor, worked with the last computer, works with the newer one. Lately, every now and they it gets a shaky sort of effect on the screen. It passes. Today I was surfing, then got the call, and went out to meet the wife for lunch and to keep her company while she got brakes. (Insert gimme a brake joke here) I did a good job, I let her buy me lunch and we pulled under a tree for some shade and I look a nap.

SO after three or four hours away, I get back and my screen is dark. Normal, it went to sleep. Trigger the mouse, no wake up. Uh oh. Power light not blinking. Awww. it's not sleeping, it's dead.

So I went out and got me a new 20" LED monitor. Skinny little thing. Gives me lots of room behind it to store canned goods or maybe some immigrants. Snapped it together, figured out the wires and plugged it in. Instantly a little blue light in the corner comes on, YAY. A glow appears on screen, then a box appears in the middle, it says "Hey fuckhead, you have the resolution set wrong. Make it 1600 by something or I won't make pictures."

Oh crap. I hate fooling with the computer. How will I adjust my settings if there is nothing on my screen. I know enough to be dangerous, I've heard of "safe mode" and I know the screen puts up some sort of message for a millisecond or two talking about setup. SO I managed to turn it off and restart it.

WHA??? it came up and said "Oh, this is wrong, wait a minute while I adjust the picture, fool." And then... and then... I made pictures!!! I am proud of myself, really. Once in a while I actually win one.

Man these things are WIDE. Aside from the new aspect ratio, it looks different. The grain of the image is different, got to get used to that. Viewing angle left right is not so sensitive, but vertically it makes a large diference. I think setting it farther away and enlarging the image might make sense.

Bottom line is I did it myself, and it actually worked. Go figger.

[wring]

congratulations. By the way, they lied - I didn't get out of the car place until almost 5. but the car stops now. They said it was a good thing I didn't drive this past weekend, it was nearly at a 'ohmygodyouhavenobrakes' stage. but thank you dear for hanging out with me.

[Мастер]

Good work, Enzo, you've got to let the machines know who is in charge!

Regarding moving it back and the like, you might want to experiment with different resolutions, despite your reluctance to mess with that sort of thing :)

I find generally, configuration of hardware is worlds better than it was a bunch of years ago . . .

[Enzo]

I remember when you had to set which interrupt something served, or something like that, and multiple things might change that, so IR4 might be right for a thing, but if you had two of these other things then IR6 worked. . I am happy we have gone beyond that.

[Lance]

IRQ 4 is COM 1 and (if present) COM 3.
IRQ 6 is for the floppy disk controller.
Video can go on any free IRQ but with newer cards with on-board GPUs, they use DMA (Direct Memory Access) and are no longer interrupt driven. They do their own processing.

There is NO REASON for me to still know all that. It has been obsolete for years now. On the other hand, I can still get the new sound card working in your PC Jr. if the need ever arises.

Oh, those COM ports that share IRQ 4? They use different memory ports so they don't conflict. COM 1 = #03F8 and COM 3 = #03E8. COM 2 and 4 used IRQ 3 and ports #02F8 and #02E8 respectively.

Congrats on the new monitor.

[Мастер]

I even remember modifying a COM1/2 card for a PC to be a COM3 card. It worked. Sort of.

[Enzo]

I still have a RadioShack TRS80 Model 3, and I am sure if I turned it on it would work. But my first real computer was a 386 I bought from DAK. I loved my DAK catalog, every product has such hyped captioning. The 386 came in a bunch of big boxes - the monitor, the computer itself, the printer (a nice big wide Toshiba, ran on an Epson 850 driver), and a big box of books. I got thick books on the computer, on Windows 3.0, on MS-DOS. Had to boot in DOS then launch Windows. I felt like I was a real computer guy doing that. But all the software came with books. Big thick book on Word for Windows. Thinner books for all the odd stuff like a world atlas, mailing list, desk top publishing.

Thankfully today, we don't have to know anything to use the computer. Hopefully.

I wonder if there is any market for a set of manuals for the MSDOS, Windows 3.0, and Word. (Word 3.0 maybe?) Or a Toshiba dot matrix printer. Makes carbons if you turn the ribbon off and use carbon fan-fold.

[Мастер]

I still have a RadioShack TRS80 Model 3, and I am sure if I turned it on it would work.

Awesome, does it have one of those big-ass 8" disk drives?

They have an IT-themed mall here (in fact, there are several), and I was walking through it the other day looking (unsuccessfully) for something. But I did walk past a place that had old Macintosh computers (the old all-in-one style from the 1980s) all in a row on the top shelf. I didn't ask how much they were . . .

Thankfully today, we don't have to know anything to use the computer. Hopefully.

I certainly feel like we're a lot closer to that ideal than we used to be. But it is still possible to dive in and get your hands dirty if that's what you want to do.

I wonder if there is any market for a set of manuals for the MSDOS, Windows 3.0, and Word. (Word 3.0 maybe?) Or a Toshiba dot matrix printer. Makes carbons if you turn the ribbon off and use carbon fan-fold.

Perhaps the shop I mentioned above would be interested.

[Enzo]

I used to repair those 8" floppy drives.

My TRS80 uses the 5" floppies. I have three drives. Two are built into the terminal, next to the screen, the third is this stand alone unit sitting next to it. Big ribbon cables connect them. With an entire 48k or RAM, it took several discs to do anything. If I recall the terms, you had the program disc they called the creation disc. Then a work disc, and a data disc. It would prompt you to swap them in and out. That was a pain when doing something like inventory records. SO I got the three drives so I could have all three discs going at once. I could address whichever one I needed at each point. I had a word processor and a database programs.

[Мастер]

I used to repair those 8" floppy drives.

My TRS80 uses the 5" floppies. I have three drives. Two are built into the terminal, next to the screen, the third is this stand alone unit sitting next to it. Big ribbon cables connect them. With an entire 48k or RAM, it took several discs to do anything. If I recall the terms, you had the program disc they called the creation disc. Then a work disc, and a data disc. It would prompt you to swap them in and out. That was a pain when doing something like inventory records. SO I got the three drives so I could have all three discs going at once. I could address whichever one I needed at each point. I had a word processor and a database programs.

Yes, the first IBM PCs were similar. You could have two physical "A" and "B" drives, or you could have one, in which case "A" and "B" would become virtual drives on the same physical drive, i.e., you would be prompted to swap them all the time.

[Lance]

(Word 3.0 maybe?)

Probably not. Version numbering for Word for the PC went from 2.0 to 6.0 in a move to realign the number scheme consistently across platforms.

[Enzo]

Ah. It has been a very long time. It looked like basic word, but lacked all the fancy capabilities they heaped on it later. I kinda preferred it to the later ones. Maybe it didn't have a number in its title. I recall a later upgrade I got was Word 1998 or 1997 (or some year like that), which I am sure had a version number, but not in the title.

I just realized I have some of the books here. Got a Microsoft book Windows for Workgroups & MS-DOS6.2, which is apparently a variant of Windows 3.1. And then another M-soft book MS-DOS 3.31. SO I guess those are what it ran. Don't see the Word book. Whatever 1991 or so had. ANother big book was the SPinnaker Window Works, which I guess is more or less like M-soft Office. The DAK guys threw in a lot of stuff.

[tubeswell]

I used to have a book of Microsoft Word 4 for mac about 23 years ago. I still remember that book, it was a reaaaally thick book that cost me about $100, and I hardly had time to use it before they brought out the next version of word. I too preferred that old version of word, even tho' it was in black and white, because I had learned to do all sorts of desktop publishing stuff on it. Today's version of word for the mac (Version 14.3.4) is so counter-intuitive I really struggle with the functionality of it. Its like some moron who is familiar with aps designed it for morons who use aps.

[Lance]

Word 2.0 on Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Ah, those were the days!

Word for Mac 4.0 was better by far than Word for the PC. Much more capable with fonts and stuff. It was Microsoft supporting Intel that was partly behind the push to make all the versions similar in capability. So when version 6.0 came out, it was pretty much identical across all platforms. Prior to that, Macs were winning the Desktop Publishing war by far.

[Enzo]

I have it on floppies, if you still need it.

[tubeswell]

I have it on floppies, if you still need it.

Thanks for the kind offer, but I don't have the machine (Macintosh Classic) to run it on any more.



Altho' I did see one in an exhibit at the Auckland Museum of Transport and Technology http://www.motat.org.nz a few years ago. Come to think of it, you could exhibit those floppies in that museum, beside the computer with a little plaque saying 'These floppies contain Microsoft Word Version 4, which operates on a Mactintosh Classic. Kindly donated by Enzo' or words to that effect.

[Lance]

I think I have it somewhere too.