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Turning old slow obsolete laptops into dedicated Classic 99 units


Omega-TI

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25 minutes ago, wierd_w said:

True enough, but if the issue is "dodgy USB boot support", then PLOP should sort it, since you can boot that from a CDrom, then chainload the USB drive.

True, and that's a great tool, but we don't necessarily need USB, we just need alternate boot. The CDROM would be fine. :)

 

(I can't remember why I was playing with PLOP, but it was seriously fun at the time... all I remember now though is a starfield...)

 

Google image search tells me that machine is a Toshiba Satellite, maybe A35-S1593. 

 

Toshiba seems to suggest there is no hot key for booting from USB, but you have to enter the BIOS. Once there, go to the BOOT tab, and move USB to the top of the list. (It appears from the screenshot that you highlight the top entry and use F5 and F6 to toggle through. You will probably want the USB first, ODD (optical disc drive) second, and HDD (hard disk drive) third for this. Then, F10 to save and exit, and in theory it should boot the connected USB when it's present.

 

https://support.dynabook.com/sscontent?docId=98084122 (down at the bottom, but it's just a screenshot. Despite the name, this seems to be Toshiba's tech page.)

 

Apparently the exact BIOS key varies, but if you get a TOSHIBA logo, press escape immediately, then read the bottom of the screen. It should tell you to press F1 or F2 (you have only have a few seconds). If you don't see a message but the Escape key does clear the picture, then just try one then the other and see what it does. ;)

 

Since it does have a DVD drive, we could just burn a bootable CD, too. Here's MenuetOS as a CDROM image. I tested it in VM and it seems to boot okay. :)

 

menuetos.iso

Edited by Tursi
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I find it useful for booting older laptops that have failing laser pots in their drives.  It just needs to load a small stub reliably, rather than trying to read a whole OS's install files.  For those units with the combination of "failing cdrom" + "Cannot boot USB natively", it's an effective combination. 

 

I have a fujitsu laptop that meets that description.  Useful for starting linux live sticks on it.

 

Said Fujitsu's button is, IIRC, F12.  Brings up the boot drive selection menu.

Edited by wierd_w
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Yeah, I was messing with the order the other day, I took a picture this morning so you can see how I arranged the order.  Oh, yeah, it's a Toshiba M35X-S329  I remember upgrading the BIOS about 5 or 6 years ago so I could run Ubuntu on it (which I no longer have).  I downloaded the menuetos.iso file. 

 

Order.thumb.JPG.a5f32d57d01916a74e64ef03a2fdfade.JPG

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29 minutes ago, --- Ω --- said:

 

Your wish is my command sir... DONE.

:P  This just makes it easier for other people to discover.  If you are successful then I would lobby for it to be included in the FAQ (or the blog you will make of it.)  All valuable resources we have around here.

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4 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

:P  This just makes it easier for other people to discover.  If you are successful then I would lobby for it to be included in the FAQ (or the blog you will make of it.)  All valuable resources we have around here.

Heck, I'd be for making the ISO available for download (if/when it comes to fruition).

 

Hmmm, I was only thinking of a video, but yeah, a video in a blog entry, "That's the ticket laddie!", as Scotty would say.

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On 12/24/2019 at 12:27 PM, arcadeshopper said:

simple, run xubuntu linux on it, and make it load classic99 with wine.. its super easy.. long as it has enough ram it should work fine

Looks like there's a Linux native Ti emulator, which would allow you to skip the WINE step:

https://github.com/billzajac/ti99sim

 

I'm more of a new Linux than old Windows person, so I might try this myself today. 

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4 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

Looks like there's a Linux native Ti emulator, which would allow you to skip the WINE step:

https://github.com/billzajac/ti99sim

 

I'm more of a new Linux than old Windows person, so I might try this myself today. 

yep but it's pretty limited on what it emulates.. and comes with nothing.. there's a lot to convert to make it work..  once you get it working there's a good library of files on here if you search for it

 

classic99 is ready to use out of the box

 

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1 hour ago, Flojomojo said:

Looks like there's a Linux native Ti emulator, which would allow you to skip the WINE step:

https://github.com/billzajac/ti99sim

 

I'm more of a new Linux than old Windows person, so I might try this myself today. 

 

Don't forget MAME for sure.

 

(Edit: Re-reading the actual topic of this thread, I cannot really recommended it, not only because "old/slow hardware"does not fit MAME, but MAME is not so good at delivering a Classic99 unit ;) )

Edited by mizapf
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6 hours ago, --- Ω --- said:

Yeah, I was messing with the order the other day, I took a picture this morning so you can see how I arranged the order.  Oh, yeah, it's a Toshiba M35X-S329  I remember upgrading the BIOS about 5 or 6 years ago so I could run Ubuntu on it (which I no longer have).  I downloaded the menuetos.iso file. 

 

Order.thumb.JPG.a5f32d57d01916a74e64ef03a2fdfade.JPG

Ah.. Removable Devices would potentially be the USB, but since your CD works we'd probably be best to stick to that. I guess the note that your machine is 32-bit only is important, will have to remember that going forward! ;)

 

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4 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

:P  This just makes it easier for other people to discover.  If you are successful then I would lobby for it to be included in the FAQ (or the blog you will make of it.)  All valuable resources we have around here.

Unless someone else does the work, you might be jumping the gun a tad. ;)

 

Hmm.. reading on, looks like everyone does expect someone else to do the work...

 

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5 hours ago, --- Ω --- said:

This is starting to get exciting.  With a bare bones OS and Classic 99 as the shell, this thing should boot up blindingly quick.  

 

Oh, BTW - there seems to be an 'issue' with the M32-086B image, which could be why I was never able to get it to work.

That's fine, just means we've ruled that out as a baseline. I'm liking Weird's embedded XP idea more, but I want to make clear up front that Classic99 is NOT to be distributed with pirate copies of Windows. Otherwise I'd have already been all over the XPe answer. ;)

That said, maybe we can make it work with IOT Core, which does appear to be free to distribute, if it'll run on that machine!

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