Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 12:13 am
Future PC have already started to do away with the floppy disk. Take for example, Dell have already started distributing new computers with CD-burners and no floppy disk drive. With such PC, you'll have to specially get an extra floppy disk drive (either internal or external).GameMaster.EXE wrote:Another of the many ways you are wrong. If future PC's do come out I'm hoping that they have a floppy disk drive. Most of my dos games are on floppy disks and they come in handy when you're tight on hard drive space.
Personally, I still prefer using a floppy disk because you don't have carry a casing for it unlike a CD for fear of scratching it. However, nowadays, it more convenient just getting a thumbdrive. It's so small that you can put it in your pocket, can stored lots of information just by plugging into a USD port.
Whether you want to get Win XP or Win 95 for your laptop depends on your purpose of using the laptop. Don't you find it more difficult to play games on a laptop compared to a desktop? The keypad buttons are smaller / softer. You may say I'll get use to the it. However, no matter how you get use to it, it's still not as smooth to use as a desktop keyboard. Then the laptop uses a touchpad. You can however buy an external mouse to attach to get around this.
Actually Win 98 is better than Win 95 but that's another story.
From what I know dual boot (with Win 95 & Win XP) seems to be the best solution. However, your hardware resources must be able to handle it. What I find out from changing to newer PC over the years is that the most important thing is the hardware matters more than software. Hardware like processing speed, RAM, graphics card, sound card, modem speed etc. I am typing this post using a Win XP PC.
If you got Win XP and want to run dos programs, then you must be prepared to do some tweeking when you use dosbox (dos emulator), vitual dos or change to compatibility mode etc. It does affect the sound / graphics of some games so you have to change some settings unlike running a dos program from Win 95. Most dos games say about 80% will run fine after doing the necessary adjusting. Often people like to blame Win XP for the cause of not being able to run their dos game. However, this is not always the case. In some cases, it is because of the hardware that they have. There was a few dos games that work perfectly fine on Win XP by directly launching them as if it was running on Win 95 dos. One example is Prince of Persia. I confirmed with a friend who ran it using Win XP and he did not encounter any problems. We did not use any dos emulators or change any settings. Those people that had problems running the game had a different hardware and need to use dosbox to solve their problem running the game. Dosbox doesn't solve all problems. Hardware also comes into play like when someone using Win XP who had the same graphics card as I had graphics and other problems with Lemmings Chronicles when running under dosbox. The only way, the game would work was to play it without sound. Many others, who using Win XP but had a different graphics & sound card, ran the game fine under dosbox. Win XP not only affects dos games, it also affects some old Windows games because the system files (eg. kernel file etc) are different. Take for example, Aladdin for Windows 95. It will run under Win XP. The option is to play the dos version using dosbox or a console version but that is another matter. Aladdin for Windows 95 has better sound and graphics than the dos version of Aladdin. The official Disney website has confirm that it will not run under Win XP. For other old games of theirs, they will tell users how to troubleshoot by running under compatibility mode etc.
Win XP has better user interface and better for running newer programs.
By the way, old PC have better internal speaker sounds. The internal speaker sound gets worse and worse with newer PC. Probably because manufacturers think that users only need a good sound card for external speaker sound. Sometimes, using dosbox can get you the internal speaker bleeps that you use to miss, sometimes it does not.
Right now, I am using Win XP for both serious work and for games. However, where Win XP does not satisfy the running of games, I turn to my old Win 95 PC. The only thing is that the Win 95 PC being an older PC although it's a Pentium, has less hard disk space and RAM.