As part of my ongoing quest to experience the unmitigated awesome that is the Windows 3.1 operating system, I have acquired an old laptop. Thanks, Uncle Furry. ;)
It’s from the heady year of 2000, which was once a large-looming “FUTURE” but is now, like, ten years ago.
And it has Windows 98 already on it. I have a Windows 98 installation already, and I actually still use it, believe it or not. It’s the only setup my scanner will work with. Buy a new flatbed scanner? NEVER!!!!
Back to talking about the brilliant, futuristic (as seen from the 80s) Windows 3.1. I’m sure some Unix fans will call it futuristic only from the 70s, but in the 80s I rocked a Commodore 64, so believe me, Windows 3.1 is like the fucking Matrix compared to that.
And why do I want it? I’ve gone into a little bit of detail about that in a previous blog post, but the answer can be summed up succinctly with an informative Venn diagram:
That’s me right smack dab in the middle.
I will also offer this diagram for you consideration:
Take from these informative graphics what you will.
Now, I’ve briefly tested out this new/old laptop of mine, and it does load. I couldn’t get it to boot from a Lubuntu Live CD I had kicking around, but I’ve burned a fresh copy of the latest Ubuntu at 4x speed (the lowest I can with my current batch of CD writers) and I will give it a try later today.
I do have a copy of Windows 3.1, but I need to install DOS onto that thing first. And therein lies the rub. I don’t have a working copy of DOS that would allow me to install Windows 3.1. Things were so much simpler with Windows 95 and 98. DOS came included in the OS.
Okay, one more Venn diagram:
I shall report back in verbose detail about my experiments with the vintage ThinkPad, as I’m sure you are on the edge of your seat with excitement and anticipation, breathlessly gnashing your fingernails and continuously hitting “F5” on your keyboard as you view my blog in your web browser.
I wonder if I should hook that laptop up to an internet connection just to get as infected as I possibly can before I install a new OS onto it. Meh. That would be about as much fun as installing Bonzi Buddy.
