{"id":937,"date":"2010-05-23T20:30:04","date_gmt":"2010-05-24T02:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=937"},"modified":"2010-05-24T16:44:21","modified_gmt":"2010-05-24T22:44:21","slug":"more-fun-with-old-computers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=937","title":{"rendered":"More fun with old computers"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a lazy layabout I am.\u00a0 Also, I am a nerdy neerdowell, a silly scofflaw and a mischievous malcontent.\u00a0 And I have had a day of fun with my two very old computers.<\/p>\n

One of these I have had since 1998.\u00a0 The other is a recent acquisition, courtesy of Uncle Furry.\u00a0 Thanks Uncle Furry!<\/p>\n

First, I’ll tell you about what I did to my first PC, my HP2160.\u00a0 I know you are dying to know all about this, so please remain calm.<\/p>\n

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\nA couple of weeks ago I went searching for that “Powertoy” that was available for Windows 95 and Windows 98.\u00a0 This was available from Microsoft, and it’s called “TweakUI”.\u00a0 It has a twin of sorts available for Windows XP, and frankly I don’t care about Vista or Windows 7.\u00a0 People who like that shit shouldn’t be allowed to customize anything lest they break the fuck out of it.<\/p>\n

In any case, I found “TweakUI” where I least expected it.\u00a0 It’s not available as a downloadable program, but as an option for the Windows Control Panel, installable from the Windows 98 CD.\u00a0 Huzzah!<\/p>\n

So all one has to do to get TweakUI on a Windows 98 system is insert the Windows 98 CD, browse the CD in Explorer, navigate to tools\\reskit\\powertoy, right-click on “tweakui.inf” and install it.\u00a0 You’ll need to close the help files that open to proceed and finish the install.\u00a0 For some reason, TweakUI is on my standard Windows 98 CD and not my Windows 98SE CD.\u00a0 For shame!<\/p>\n

But anyway, once I had gotten that installed, I did things like clean up my start menu and make some other things less annoying.\u00a0 I also used a freeware program called “ActivIcons” to change most of the systems icons to some I had made many years ago.\u00a0 Now that I think of it again, here are those icon files for download:<\/p>\n

Icon DLLs for Windows 95\/98<\/a><\/p>\n

I really can’t see if anyone will have any use for these, as the icons in later versions of Windows past 98 have better resolution and would look quite crappy replaced by these.\u00a0 Don’t ask why Mr. Burns has always been the icon for “My Documents” in Windows.\u00a0 It just IS that way.<\/p>\n

In Windows 98, these icons look really sharp.\u00a0 On XP, I only use a few.<\/p>\n

Anyway, on to boring you with details about what I did to my 10 year old Laptop that I’ve had for about a month.\u00a0 I basically installed as many old games and emulators on it as I know it can handle.\u00a0 And some of those, sadly, it couldn’t.<\/p>\n

But here’s what I now have installed:<\/p>\n