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Riiiiise from your gra...well, box really.


Mord

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I've recently taken the 486 computer I've had in storage since 2004 and put it back together.

 

For the most part, it works! Well, as much as it ever did. The only thing of note is that the left ALT key on the keyboard doesn't seem to function. I'm not sure if there's just something wedged under it or if it's outright broken.

 

*checks*

 

Could be either. I'll know for sure if the crap I blew away from it was causing the problem the next time I turn it on. The right ALT key works fine at any rate so it's not that big a deal.

 

There are things on it I'd like to get off like old qbasic programs, etc but to do that I needed 3.5" diskettes as that's about the only way to take anything off of it's 400 megabyte harddrive.

 

Luckily I found some of those at Future Shop today! Might start using the comp just for fiddling around with qbasic rather than messing around with some other basic in a more current console. I've got ideas of what I want to test out, and I know that they should be within my capability since I've already done similar programs with qbasic back in the 90's. So the question is whether or not I'll remember enough of it to do anything productive.

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Qbasic eh. Did you write qbasic programs or did you download qbasic programs and use them?

 

I like downloading Qbasic games and play them. Some games are great.

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If it's an IDE hard drive I'd say buy either a cheap USB adapter or just connect it as a slave drive to your current computer.

 

I used to do a lot of quick and dirty programming in Qbasic. Unfortunately, I don't think Windows 7 will run it properly.

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Qbasic eh. Did you write qbasic programs or did you download qbasic programs and use them?

 

I like downloading Qbasic games and play them. Some games are great.

 

Most of my qbasic experience was pre-internet days. I wrote a lot of programs/games although I probably only ever actually -finished- one of them. Which could have seriously been done better. :D

 

Most of the qbasic programs stuck on the 486 however were written by my cousin it seems, meaning mine are stuck somewhere on in my backups archives and/or on a couple 5.25" disks which are probably corrupted after a decade+ of non-use. I should really try to dig them out.

 

(I found 3.5" disks afterwards, although I may have to play around with formatting. The old computer likes it just fine, but the current comp complains about formatting.)

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We share the same story: I begun making Qbasic and Basic games from my PCjr.

 

Later, I worked more games from my second computer 486sx. I saved games from 5.1/4 disks to 3.5 disks.

 

In 2000, I saved games from 3.5 disks to CDs on a pentium celerom. I bought a cd rom burner in 2006.

 

I bought a new computer in 2009. Using Dosbox, I still play and make more qbasic games today.

 

About your formating problem, I don't know if your 486 support a 1.44 meg or a 720k. Or are you trying to format a 720k disk on a 1.44 meg driver?

 

My big guess your disks you want to format are broken. I mean, too many errors and the disks are useless.

 

I suggest to find an old CD-rom burner who can work on 486s.

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About your formating problem, I don't know if your 486 support a 1.44 meg or a 720k. Or are you trying to format a 720k disk on a 1.44 meg driver?

 

My big guess your disks you want to format are broken. I mean, too many errors and the disks are useless.

 

I suggest to find an old CD-rom burner who can work on 486s.

 

The comp sports a 1.44 meg drive. The disk I tested it with was pre-formatted so next time I turn the comp on I'm going to try to manually format it and try again. Most of the progs on there probably aren't worth yanking out since they aren't the main ones I use to work on growing up. Those, if I still have them, are locked away on a 5.25" diskette it seems. Didn't find them on my CD archive unfortunately. (Did find other things that were definitely transferred from the original 3.5" diskettes - including some pc programming that never really got anywhere. :D)

 

I suppose I could try to install the ancient harddrive from my old, and now garbaged 386. Not entirely sure if it's worth all the trouble however as I don't think there's much if any possibility for the .bas progs to be on it.

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