Your favorite obsolete computer program/utility.

The proper DOS version of FRACTINT, the world’s best fractal software, and the only reason I can think of to run Windows 98 under VMWare.

A Windows Adventure?

There are no just gods…

We still have CompuShow on 3½ around here somewhere.

Wish I could remember the terminal program that I spent many hours having my C64 communicate with almost every single BBS in the New Orleans area. I could go look but that would mean fighting with my closet doors.

I was a big fan of, and I hope I get this right, 1-Der. It was an Xtree-like file utility.

Ditto

Yes. They do.

I would yell “band name!” but I don’t know … the 1-Ders … I don’t really like band names with numerals.

Maybe The Oneders!

One I remember is Neko, a little cat that would chase your mouse pointer around the screen. I first saw it on IBM OS/2, but it was originally from the NEC PC clone in Japan.

Now there are versions available for lots of machines, including a html web one at http://webneko.net/.

Yes! When I first got OS/2 2.0, there was a kind of three-way conflict between OS/2, my RAM, and my motherboard. Any two worked OK, but with all three, when OS/2 was idle, my computer would crash. I found that if I had Neko running, the computer was busy enough that it wouldn’t crash, so that was set to go on startup.

I still have my 486 in the basement, capable of booting to OS/2 (without the problem any more), DOS, and maybe Windows 95 too. 66 MHz DX2, 32 MB RAM, and a 4 MB caching disk controller. A screamer.

Check out Dwarf Fortress

In Word 2003, Format > Reveal Formatting, or Shift + F1. Not quite the same as WP’s Reveal Codes, but about as close as you’re gonna get.

I also miss After Dark and would run it if I could. Loved the rock-paper-scissors one, and also Bad Dog!

Xtree was the very first thing I thought of upon reading the thread title. How I loved it. It took so much of the stupid out of MS-DOS.

As a little kid I enjoyed playing Odell Lake. Funny thing is, until a few weeks ago when I decided to look up the game, I had always thought that the Dolly Varden trout was joke name based on Dolly Parton. I never knew it was an actual type of fish.

Forgot to mention: whenever I see a license plate with the letter combination “LFN,” I think of Long File Names, a handy utility I used on my first computer, bought in 1993, on which 8.3 filenames were still standard. It put a file with the extension .lfn in every folder, containing the pointers from my long file names to the “real” ones.

I miss my Windows ME, but haven’t actually replaced it. I had Explorer customized to my own eccentric parameters, & I think the search function worked better than in XP.

Procomm Plus…I got a pleasant surprise when learning how to access Cisco network equipment via the console port, minicom is open source, and reminds me a LOT of Procomm

Funny, I think that’s pretty much how OS/2 used to handle it, too.

For years and years I did all my PC-based computing in Geoworks Ensemble, a vastly-more-efficient alternative to Windows. The difference in performance and memory usage and features (at least at first) was night and day. But, not being published my Microsoft, it faded away…

Geoworks Ensemble : Windows 3.0 :: QDos : Dos (or something like that)

I had my share of old Commodore programs (wish I could remember some of the utility names, especially my old moderm terminal program and the disk-copy utility) but I had a moment today where I needed to download some files off an FTP site and realized that I’ve been using the same FTP client for nearly 15 years. I got it off one of those CDs you’d get with the “Explore The Internet!” style books back in the 90’s (which told you about UseNet and IRC and Lynx…). I’ve transfered it to every new computer I’ve bought and even use it at work.

I just looked and see they’ve jazzed it up with a new interface and that they charge for it now ($40!). But I’m still using that freeware version from the mid 1990s.

Having recently gotten an apartment after an extended period of homelessness, and having further managed to salvage a working Windows 98 computer from two non-working computers, I found a need to locate a utility called StepUp 98. If you follow the links that claim to take you to it today, they take you to the right site (Winability.com), but try to get you to download something called “ABC commander”, or something like that, which bills itself as some kind of replacement for Windows Explorer if I understand things correctly.

After extreme effort, I lucked onto the information that the setup file I was looking for was “su98.zip”, not “setup98.exe” or even “setup98.zip”, and without much further effort found a copy. StepUp 98 has “Rename by Mask” (i.e. rename cd*.c*, or even .), as well as “Copy by Mask”, “Move by Mask”, and even “Stamp by Mask” (Change the Date/Time Stamp). No promises as to how it works on newer operating systems.

One of the neatest features of SU98 is its “MicroDesk”. One of its System Tray icons will display a little miniature copy of the Desktop when you click it from which you can either launch the programs represented by the icons or right-click on them and get the normal response you would get by right-clicking on the actual icons. It’s the easiest way, “IMHO”, that anybody has come up with to get to the desktop icons.

Another feature I like is its “Folder History”, which, when you right-click on a folder in Windows Explorer, provides a list of the most recent folders you’ve visited, and you can go back to them. These are remembered between reboots. I don’t remember how it handles multiple explorer windows open at the same time, and haven’t had time to experiment.

If you use StepUp 98, I suggest using the Alternative Icons (go into Control Panel to change the settings). The new ones all look too much alike to me.

I found su98.zip at:

ftp://ftp.chatnfiles.com/Winfilesdotcom/winfilesdotcom-june-98-1-of-4/shell-custom/su98.zip

Take Care,

Jim H. (aka CuriousJ)

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity,
and I’m not sure about the former.”
– Albert Einstein