Topic: New computer assembly with old hard drives (Read 18739 times)

Sirgod · « **Reply #20 on:** April 16, 2004, 05:56:50 am »

Quote:

To remove his hardware w/out him knowing it...take hime to the woods with a burlap bag and a bat, tell him to go out calling "here snipe, here snipe" and while he's occupied...go home and grab it

Mike

the good old Snipe hunt. takes a few of those Snipes to fill the Belly.

Stephen

E_Look · « **Reply #21 on:** April 16, 2004, 04:37:25 pm »

Or easier, I could get him over to a friend's house, where there is X-Box or GameCube or some other such puerile systems. He will then forget about his PC. (I tried ST:Shattered Universe at my bro-in-law's- it is as some said, a fighter game... somewhat reminiscent of a Wing Commander fighter going after some Kilrathi capital ship... give my any of the SFCs and a compatible PC any day!)

Of course, I could do as you suggested, except maybe tell him to bag a Wampus who will give you his $$$ to release him so he can come back to buy a plot with crystite, hopefully to out earn the mechtrons or whatever they were called.

Capt. Mike · « **Reply #22 on:** April 16, 2004, 06:11:32 pm »

My Atari 800 still runs w/it's happy drive...when the kids come over we still play a game or two of M.U.L.E. And I still abuse Alternate Reality, the city and the dungeon. That is a great RPG. It's just too bad it got lost in the shuffle.

Hope everything works out..

MIke

E_Look · « **Reply #23 on:** April 16, 2004, 11:21:03 pm »

"My Atari 800 still runs... "

I'm jealous.

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #24 on:** April 19, 2004, 04:40:53 am »

I hear they're steam powered

Capt. Mike · « **Reply #25 on:** April 19, 2004, 05:33:54 am »

No, but you have to keep the hamster on his wheel @ 3600 RPM so you don't lose your game

Mike

E_Look · « **Reply #26 on:** April 19, 2004, 01:17:35 pm »

Seriously, I wish they'd release a Windows version of Star Raiders.

My favorite part was docking with and backing away from the starbase. In those days, that was a visual treat!

Capt. Mike · « **Reply #27 on:** April 19, 2004, 04:19:04 pm »

I do remember that game. It is amazing what some programmers could do with only 64K of memory available. Nowadays, you need 512M just to get things to operate in a timely manner.

Mike

Capt. Mike · « **Reply #28 on:** April 21, 2004, 10:06:53 pm »

So how has the snipe hunt worked out??

Did your son get any?

Mike

E_Look · « **Reply #29 on:** April 21, 2004, 10:52:27 pm »

Nah, I think in a day or two, when he's konked from "too much schoolwork" (yeah, right... why in my day, we had to... ), I'll download the zeroing out software from the sites Javora posted and sneak into his comp, load the stuff, and wipe the 40 Mb drive clean. Then, I'll disconnect it along with the CDROM and install them in the new system. This ought to last him the next ten birthdays, at which time he ought to go build his own rig... if he saves his pennies.

You know, I don't think my kids would even know what an Atari 800(0?) is. I'll bet they'd jeer at the graphics, and let that color their view of the gameplay. Some games today, whatever format they be in, are mainly graphics... all flash and candy, while the gameplay is a bit thin.

Capt. Mike · « **Reply #31 on:** April 22, 2004, 05:25:04 am »

There are some emulator sites for the Atari out there, but I haven't been to any in a while. I think they also have places to get the old games...suppose I should do a Google and see...if anyone get's there first, post it.

Mike

E_Look · « **Reply #32 on:** April 22, 2004, 11:09:33 am »

Some years ago, I tried an Atari emulator for Win 95 or 98, but the Star Raiders game for it wouldn't run properly.

Capt. Mike · « **Reply #33 on:** April 22, 2004, 05:06:44 pm »

Try http://www.atari-explorer.com/emulation-8bitQS.html They have the ROMs too..I've heard that V4.0 is out, and have seen people saying they run it under XP..could be fun, will try it this weekend as the wife will be away at a conference.

Let me know if you have any luck.

Mike

E_Look · « **Reply #34 on:** April 25, 2004, 10:56:30 pm »

Thank you all for all your most helpful input. The system got built and works fine, except one of the fans that came with the case is kaput. Oh, well, I'll replace it with one of those glowy LED fans.

One little warning in case anyone is interested- if you build a Win XPsystem with a zip drive in it, leave it unconnected to the mobo until AFTER Windows XP is installed. Otherwise, it will wreak minor havoc by assigning your (main) hard drive some other letter besides C: (in my case, I got E:) and any subsequent programs that look for drive C: as the hard drive will not find it and lots of software may not work or even get installed (properly).

I had to disconnect the zip drive and reinstall XP (that's really not too bad, as far as problems go, but it's still annoying) to set things right.

And- Microsoft's website is of little help in this matter. They acknowledge the problem, but no solution.

E_Look · « **Reply #35 on:** April 26, 2004, 11:46:54 pm »

Whoops...

... one other annoying thing:

The 250 Mb ATAPI Zip drive won't work- I mean, it gets power, accepts and ejects disks, but it seems that whenever it tries to access the zip disk, the system sort of hangs... until I pop the disk out. I just refuses to read the disks!

I have already tried to disable it control via the BIOS, checking connections and jumpers; the only thing I haven't done yet is searching to see if there are any new drivers for it at Iomega's site.

Oy, wotta pain.

Capt. Mike · « **Reply #36 on:** April 27, 2004, 05:27:00 am »

There probably are newer drivers...however, I installed a new controller card and put the zip on the secondary line (I've got more crap stuffed in this thing...won't throw a working hard drive away)..the zip works fine..

I hope everthing works out.

Mike

E_Look · « **Reply #37 on:** April 28, 2004, 11:19:29 pm »

I'm e-mailing Iomega support. They tell me something, I try it and tell them (truly) that it didn't work, they tell me something else, and round and round it goes. Zip drives do tend to be problematic at times, but oh, the capacity and rewritability!

Stormbringer · « **Reply #39 on:** April 29, 2004, 12:37:25 am »

I concur USB is the way to go. Many now do not need drivers on the host and are treated as a removable hard drive drive by whatever machine they are plugged into. The 1 GB ones are far too expensive though.

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Topic: New computer assembly with old hard drives (Read 18739 times) var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

Sirgod

E_Look

Capt. Mike

E_Look

SL-Punisher

Capt. Mike

E_Look

Capt. Mike

Capt. Mike

E_Look

Kmelew

Capt. Mike

E_Look

Capt. Mike

E_Look

E_Look

Capt. Mike

E_Look

Javora

Stormbringer

Topic: New computer assembly with old hard drives (Read 18739 times)