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RE: Digital Archaeology Expedition #4 - Dell C600
Retro??? That's one of them new fangled ones! I went to work for a guy running his cemeteries and told him I needed a computer. He had a computer graveyard (or museum depending on your point of view) and I selected the "newest" looking one he had. I plugged it in and was amazed! It had some pre-DOS OS that I had never seen before. You needed a password to get in and nobody could remember one, so I was lost!
The only pre-DOS machine I have is a Commodore 64 and technically that's not really "pre" DOS, it's just not DOS. I guess CP/M was probably the most common pre-DOS operating system (or there was TRS-DOS for TRS-80s and Apple DOS for Apple IIs...both of these would have been pre MS-DOS anyway). I wouldn't know off-hand how to get around any password though... Did you try 'coffin'? :)
No...I used my own. I had an old IBM Thinkpad and decided on that rather than wading through the graveyard looking for something that worked. Commodore 64's I think were pretty good in their day. I don't remember if it was you or not, but I told someone about my neighbor in college (early 90's) who was getting his Masters in Comp Sci. He wrote a program for the USPS that scanned zip-codes. His program (his Masters Thesis) was compact and took into consideration differences in handwriting, unlike the existing program. He did it on a Commodore 64.
Yeah, I think you mentioned the USPS thing on another post. I mostly used my Commodore 64 for games though I did learn how to program on it (in BASIC) and used it to write a school paper or two. They might have laughed at me if I tried to use it for a Masters Thesis by the time I was in college though...
I wrote mine on one just like this...a 286. It had the Arnold Palmer Course Design kit so I could design my own golf courses. It was fine for me lol!
This is identical to the one I took to college:
Though I spent many more hours playing Doom and calling BBSes than doing actual work on it. It was also the first machine I connected to the Internet with.