Turning old slow obsolete laptops into dedicated Classic 99 units

[Ed in SoDak]

Happy Dance! SXB now works fine, thanks Tursi!!

-Ed

[wierd_w]

On 4/13/2020 at 5:00 PM, Ed in SoDak said:

I'm a new duckling in the PC pond. I snagged this Dell laptop mostly for the purpose of using Classic99. XP is the newest version of Windows it will support. I will keep Windows since I'm using notepad, Nitro for PDF files, TIdir and a few other programs. I don't plan to have it online much, I installed AVG for some baseline protection.

 

I like running Classic99 in a large window and just sleep the computer between sessions. Seems like the best of both worlds to me. I'm finally able to do some XB programming in emulation. Using Notepad and pasting XB into Classic99 is so much better than on the real iron's small screen. So far, the only thing I miss is Classic99 won't boot my Super Extended Basic, the XB I am most familiar with since I have an original Triton cart on my real iron TI, bought new when it was released.

 

I'll take my Mac's GUI any day over Windows XP, but I get around alright. I can run Classic99 on my old PPC Macs, using Virtual PC to emulate a Windows 98SE or Millenium system, but it's a total sloth. It's been a real treat using it on the platform it was created on. Thanks Tursi!

-Ed

That chromebook is anemic by basically every metric.

 

Specs:

CELES- early generation

 

Intel Atom Brasswell @ 1.6ghz

Intel cherryview video

Intel + realtec audio codec

2gb of RAM

16gb eMMC

SDCard Slot

ACPI based bus (emulated PCI subsystem with MrChromebox bios)

 

Really, it is an "XP-class" system, if it were not for the ACPI based bus. Getting Xubuntu to run on it was... troublesome.

 

Your Dell would probably work right out of the box.  Grab a copy and see, then try to replicate my process.

 

[Ed in SoDak]

40 minutes ago, wierd_w said:

Your Dell would probably work right out of the box.  Grab a copy and see, then try to replicate my process.

 

Hoo boy. I got my hands full now, just learning the ropes of Classic99, a few TI99 support apps and WinXP. The machine is a Dell 610 Latitude with 2gig RAM and 70-80gig HD. Linux/Ubuntu is something I might try someday if I can boot it from a thumb drive and not disturb the existing OS on the HD. All I really care about using right now is Classic99.

[wierd_w]

There are benefits to using linux.  One of them is transparent ram compression with zram backed swap.

 

xubuntu (and lubuntu, and other light-weight distros) are all tailored for machines of this class, and work surprisingly well.  I can even run some old classic windows games on that chromebook. Classic 99 works just fine.

 

Yes, there are live-USB images for xubuntu and pals.  I should see about assembling such an image with classic 99, but the legality of that is dubious. (Classic99 does not have the kind of permissive redistribution license I would need. I doubt Tursi is gonna bitch, but that's not the point. He would need to be the one to assemble the image for it to be legit.)

 

 

[Tursi]

I did that license on purpose. You must be the first person to ever observe it, though.

 

I don't think those compilations require me to change my license, and my license only requires that you ask me and I say "yeah, sure, whatever.". Consider those words spoken, if you care to pursue it.