Hello!!
Today I will tell you a story about the WORST thing I have read in this year, maybe even in XXIth Century. First I shall introduce
you into the context of all of this.
Someone asked in a post for help. He was copying files from CD to his Windows 10 computer. It was 0B file and process was
interrupted by error: Wrong MS-DOS function. This caused some "experts" in comments to say things as Windows is GUI for DOS.
ABSOLUTE CRAZY THING TO SAY IN 2026. If he was using Windows 98 it would be correct but its Windows 10...
Reading these statements made me enough pain to start sharing my knowledge about this.
In short: DOS IS DEAD. DOS IS OVER. DOS IS DEAD FOR 26 YEARS AND UNSUPPORTED FOR 20. NOBODY USES IT,
SELLS IT OR SUPPORTS IT. THERE IS NO DOS ANYMORE.
And for those wanting the longer version:

In 90s there were 2 families of Windowses living next to each other. The DOS based and NT based. Story begins in 1981, when IBM
releases IBM PC. Only problem about it was that they didn't have any Operating System for it! They only had BIOS.
IBM asked Microsoft for Operating System for their new x86 based computer and Microsoft sent back: MS-DOS.
In meantime Microsoft started to release their GUI for MS-DOS: Windows. Releases 1, 2 and 3 were standalone products which were
actual GUIs for DOS. In 1985 IBM woke up with hand in potty and dethroned from Leader position of Computer Market.
As a response they tried to make "second generation" of IBM PC: IBM PS/2. It was incompatible with previous IBM PC, expensive in
licenses and once again - with no Operating System! IBM again asked Microsoft for help and Microsoft said: We write new OS from
scratch. This is the birth of Windows NT. Work of IBM and Microsoft gave us OS/2. In meantime Microsoft released Windows 3.0 for
MS-DOS and it sold so good Microsoft started to be more interested in further development of DOS Windows than OS/2. They also
wanted to implement looks of Windows 3 to OS/2. All of this made IBM and Microsoft break their friendship, everyone took their
toys and went back to their sandboxes. Microsoft took OS/2 code with it, rewrote it, added Windows 3 GUI and so was made:
Windows NT 3.1!
In meantime Windows NT was developed into version NT 3.5. Then comes year 1995. New DOS Windows is released: Windows 95.
In 1996 Microsoft develops Windows NT 4.0 and borrows Windows 95 GUI for it. Later next there's Windows 98 FE and SE.
Then comes year 2000. Microsoft is still trying to keep the NT/DOS division. They release Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) and its evil
brother: Windows Me (DOS 8.0). Windows 2000 is pretty much forgotten because it was overshadowed by XP year later and Me is known
from being awful unstable software, sometimes mistaken with 2000.
Now you might ask why there was this NT / DOS division? Reasons are two: Our computers and software. Let's go back to 1993 for a
moment. Currently we have DOS 6.0 and Windows 3.1 on top of it. Current Windows NT was 3.1.
First issue was hardware: the DOS Windows 3.1 needed 1MB of RAM. The NT 3.1 needed 12MB of RAM! I could finish here but i'll
continue: DOS 3.1 could run even on Intel 286. NT 3.1 must have had at least 386 @ 25MHz. DOS 3.1 would fit on less than
10MB on your HDD while NT 3.1 needed 75MB!! In 1993 these numbers were crazy and no mortal had such setup. And that's our
reason two: Software. Since no statistical bread-eater had such setup and such system, very little games and user programs
were ported to NT back then. People were to stick to DOS because it was a lot lighter. NT series were thought for servers.
Now we go back to year 2000.
Me was a bad OS and had no reason to exist (i'll return to that in future). It introduced few new things which were later
fitted into Windows 2000 and XP. Microsoft understood that DOS based Windows have hit their limits and keeping it alive is bad idea.
Also what happened over time is peoples computers got simply better. In year 2001 when XP was released Microsoft has chosen to make
XP a general customer oriented OS, while for servers they were making Windows Server 2003 based off XP and 2000.
XP has it's own issues: before SP2 it was a hell of a virus magnet! It also wasn't running well for everyone. Some went back to
Windows 2000 as general use OS. Some had another reason for that: XP was the first Windows to require activation online. Putting
random key you got on flea market wouldn't be enough! Going back to 2000 wasn't the worst idea. 2000 had NT kernel version 5.0
while XP had NT kernel version 5.1. They were very similar OS in general! And that would be it. DOS based Windowses THANKFULLY
died and stayed in XXth Century, thriving on older hardware in rooms of nerds like me. After the XP we got Vista, but that's for
another story :-)
And that error from post from beginning? It was Windows 10 using it's some backward compatibility functions to try read the file but
CD was damaged so it failed. Windows XP up to 11 is fuuuuull of backwards compatibility stuff. You can't name folder "con"
even in Windows 11 because of MSDOS from 80s. Modern windowses also have drivers for parallel or serial ports, SCSi or even
floppy drives and modems! You think why your main drive is still C? ;-)
This is hella long lol, I hope not too long. Going to sleep

Logging out, Skilowi

Week without posts. Ugh!
Again nothing interesting happened in last week. Work > Games > Sleep. Repeat. But now things are happening!
I got reminded of Proxmox and clustering. I have two C2D E4700 computers, two 1:1 setups. I pulled them out, stacked one on
another on my workbench and got to work. After changing cables and wondering why computers give no image I realized that RAM
is missing! I took it out some time ago and forgot about that. I have 6 1GB sticks and 6 512MB sticks (DDR2).
Each computer will have 3x 1GB and 1x 512MB, making 3,5GB altogether. Not much but is equal. I tried to boot the computers
and only one gave image. After cleaning the ports and juggling the RAMs 2 1GB stick were dead. Ugh. Damn me.
So the second computer could have 1x 1GB and 3x 512MB sticks at best, making it 2,5GB RAM. That's not good.
I went to eBay and for 40 euros bough 10x 1GB and 4x 2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM sticks. Good price if you ask me. I should never ever
run out of RAM sticks.

From different things: My Windows XP computer might need GPU change!
My computers are as follow:
Windows XP PC (2004)
Windows Vista PC (2008)
Windows 7 PC (2014)
Date next to each computer is what year I target with that specification. Even if Windows 7 was released in 2009, my setup with
it is dated for ~2014. Primarily I wanted to make it slightly newer but my olde GTX760 fits is nice, no need to buy 980.
Anyways, back to the XP PC. As you can see I want this computer to be like from year 2004. Thing that bugs me is GPU. Currently
it is equipped with MSI 7600GT on AGP. GPU itself is from 2006. I was thinking of replacing it with some more powerful but
older GPU from ~2004-5. Maybe 6600 will be better fit (some 6800 cost more than new RTX). It also must fit to AGP. Mobo has no
PCIe. Maybe I will simply leave 7600 in it. Since it is no high-end model it can be nice equivalent of 6700.

Oh, and the title "RAM cookies" is what I did: bake RAM. As last resort I tried to bake these two sticks to maybe save them
or at least buy me some time until new RAM comes. Didn't work.

Logging out, Skilowi

That's what I did today: nothing.
Well, almost. I was thinking: if there's something wrong with me or I am meeting wrong people all life long? I really can't get
into socializing with people since I am 8. Once some kids did something bad to me, I went home and never went out again. Rest of
the story brought me here, so I would say it's not so bad. Design of main office site is my little opus magnum, one of best things
I ever created and most likely I ever will.

It is the 10th post on this blog today! If I were posting it consistently everyday it would have happen like a week ago but I don't
have always interesting things to say like today, because today I played RimWorld all day.

I trimmed my horse farm a lot: 4k of Leather and 13k of Meat. What a win. Freezer full. I also have 19-21k Rice and up to 4k Cave
Mushroom. Yeah, my colonists LOVE mushroom (and don't mind human flesh, why waste the corpses of those who attacked me?)
I also had a quest where I had to tank 5 Insectoid Nests for 800 Plasteel, Psychic Emanator and 8 glitterworlds. they only had to
spawn in my mushroom farm to easily cook them with one Molotov.
I have also sent a caravan consisting of 4 full Bionetic cyborgs with assault rifles and doctor with job of destroying enemy
colony. I really hope I can manage it with just 5 people, because previously I did it with 8 people but I was a lot poorer and enemy
was only armed in clubs, knifes and bows. A big fight is coming.

Logging out, Skilowi

Hi!
Sorry for not writing yesterday, I was really tired after school and couldn't get up from bed :-p
Yesterday I managed to do some play with parallel port on the HP laptop. First I had to cheat the computer with 3 jumper wires that port
is occupied, I did stick the oscilloscope probe into D0 and with LPT Tester I could switch the D0 HIGH and LOW. HIGH is 3.2-4V. Quite
far from 5V. Today I bought My Summer Car. I remember playing it looooong time before, cracked on Windows. I tried 3 times to finish
first day (wanted to make basic shopping): First time I left without saving (I thought sleeping is enough, apparently you must
interact with toilet bowl). Second time I fell in the side of road and tractor flipped (happens, my fault). Third time while going back
I made a stop to pee. While peeing my tractor magically flipped 180 degrees, landed on roof trapping me in top-right corner of map.
I was pissed off. I thought I should install GrabAnything mod just in case such things happen - MSCModLoader didn't work for me,
experimental linux binary neither. I was at 118 minutes of playtime at that point and was so angry I chose to refund the game.
Call it a skill issue but I awaited higher quality for that price (This game could easily run in web browser 10 years ago, Unity
Web Player, remember that?). I also came back to playing RimWorld. Took a while to remind myself where did I stop.
And I am still on search for ATX case which would fit (by design) on my desk (by how I feel when I see it). For now I saw very nice
case, cheap (5 Euros) and in middle of nowhere (200km 3 hours drive), but I was too late and when made account offer was already
removed. I found another nice looking case but I couldn't take it because it had no steel "construction" inside. It was only Styrofoam inside.
Nice for PC which doesn't make any vibrations but ONLY Styrofoam is not very convincing, and if I really wanted to suppress computer
I would use sponge clothes like I did on my main PC with HDDs.

Also the website is getting a bit looooong and big. Someday it will grow in size reaching hundreds of kilobytes and even megabytes,
making website slow to load. I will have to program this to load 3 posts and load more as user scrolls down. I only must find if
there is such possibility in HTML. Or I will divide this blog into few posts long pages - separate html files. On Lenovo EOL site
I noticed they have main HTML site in which you select your machine and model and then they embed another HTML file into the site
with all the drivers for that machine. Maybe I could do same thing with loading and embedding next HTMLs as user scrolls down?

As I write this I found what model was the case I missed: Chieftec Dragon CS-601. Yes I am actively searching for computer case.
Not the easiest thing. Simple people putting the offers often do not know how they should fill the category information about the
case, so best search method is just looking for "computer case" with no filters. Now I have to shovel trough all other offers with
~2008 cases which I can get at scrapyard in a price of 2 beers, cheap chinese ITX cases or "gaming" cases which look like
ThinkCentre lol. I even saw some Raspberry Pi and Fujitsu Terminal cases! There's also lots of "aquariums". Other few cases which would fit
on my desk were mATX. At page 20 offers are just Expansion Slot Covers. Ebay is so empty in computer cases. Nothing on local listings...
Gotta hunt.

Logging out, Skilowi

Howdy!
As title suggests I finally finished the Windows 7 Gaming PC! "Gaming" because specs aren't anything special, but I will get to that soon.
I installed games and nvidia drivers today. Yesterday entire day I was fighting with Windows 7 and to activate it. Had to turn off UEFI
and reinstall because old key burnt in motherboard BIOS was causing me trouble. Now Windows is activated. Then I had to fight with nvidia
drivers on Windows 7. Newer drivers do not want to be installed on Windows 7 because of expired signature. Installing slightly older driver
worked. Then I went to customization: I flipped trough all CDs from computer magazines (I have 3 boxes of CDs from years 2007-2014) and
installed all software I would use on Windows 7 computer in 2014, even if now is kinda useless (just a decoration for desktop).
Here are the specs of the computer:
CPU: i5 4590T 4/4 @ 2GHz
GPU: Palit GTX760 2GB VRAM
RAM: DDR3, 4GB 1600MHz + 4GB 1333MHz

Computer in its current form is ready, finished. Following Steam Hardware survey 2014 this specification is actually nothing special.
It can play games but there are some TODOs:
First one you could see on your own while viewing specs of this computer. It is changing the 1333MHz stick for 1600MHz one.
When I get one I will swap it.
Second TODO is to change optical drive. Current one is loud AS HELL, sometimes need to reinsert CD to read it and makes clicking noises.
Thankfully I have lots of optical drives, maybe even bit too much :-)

CPU didn't raise its temperature above 49 degrees Celsius. It is so good because on this 1150 CPU I mounted copper 775 heatsink. GPU is
different thing. It is a blower GPU. Blower GPU that probably has never been opened. During game it reached easily 80 degrees Celsius and
during games it was noisy like optical drive wasn't enough.
And as we talk about games. I don't have any games from around 2014! I only have Farming Simulator 2015 with two official DLCs.
I was offered to play Crysis on it (but can it run Crysis?) but Crysis is 2007 game so it belongs to the Vista Gaming Computer.
I was thinking about playing Hitman Absolution on it. I also don't know many ~2014 games. Minecraft 1.7.10 on mods?
I have some memories of playing Far Cry 4 on cousins Xbox 360 maaaany years ago. I would also like to obtain physical copies of actually
good games from these years (Big Box releases are welcome). Theoretically I should play GTA V on it, but computer is bit old and R* tends
to be annoying for PC. I don't know if their launcher will work on this dated OS. And don't even think about Steam. This WILL NOT run.
If some games will be less appealing for me I'll simply get ISOs from Internet. Now I must focus on getting new ATX case for another computer.

Logging out, Skilowi

Hello everyone!
Sorry for not writing lately, had lots on my head lately and it hurts now.
As in Post #6 I wrote I'll be fighting with Capture Card with no drivers for Linux or Windows 10. First I tried to make it run under Linux:
It was detected as "Philips Semiconductors SAA7160" with no kernel module loading for it. There were few saa modules but none worked
for this card. I tried to compile the non-official saa716x driver but I couldn't accomplish that. I also tried various Ubuntus from release 10 up
to 22 to check if card was supported somewhere in the past. Apparently it wasn't. Then Virtualization kicked in. I did read about PCI
Passtrough, in long story short on basic qemu machine I managed to pass Capture Card and install drivers - everything worked like butter
and GT710 GPU which driver gave Error 43 (god help me). Since motherboard is ASRock B450M and beside turning IOMMU on I couldn't
find any other settings which could help me, I took the computer to the workbench and scrapped it.

Plan is as follow: Change mobo and case of computer. New case will be some another old early 00s ATX case and new MOBO is
MSI B550-A. It supports two PCIe slots on CPU, so I won't have to fight with IOMMU Groups while passing both GT710 and CaptureCard.
I need to pass the GPU too because "generic VGA" is not enough for OBS to run, it needs acceleration. I'll also have to learn to use
libvirt. I need to load older version of Q35 chipset emulation, since newer ones bluescreen Windows 7 (and using 1996 i440FX might
be the reason for Error 43).

One of parts from disassembled computer is PSU. Previously I built ~2014 Windows 7 computer just for this CaptureCard, but because
it was just Windows 7 it's integration into my Linux computer was unsatisfying. It is an ITX machine with only one 16x PCIe.
I put new PSU in it and my olde Palit GTX 760. From now on it is my Windows 7 Gaming Computer. Tomorrow I will install system,
drivers and games on it while waiting for parts to come. :-)

Logging out, Skilowi

Hi guys!
First I wanted to name this post "Conquering HP" but that would make 50% of my post be titled with HP
and my war with that laptop didn't become that personal.

I bring you a success! I came back from work and went into full focus:
Installed Vista on laptop, 32-bit Home Premium version worked. It had drivers for most if not all hardware
right away. Damn you XP. I installed rest of drivers with SDIO, installed PuTTY and DosBox. I connected nc6320 and
760ED together with null-modem cable and tried the connection with HyperTerminal: It worked.
Then I installed TTD on HP laptop with DosBox, added serial port, set up both laptop with game and:
It works! Could play TTD in multiplayer on two laptops! Hell yeah! Too bad got no-one irl to play with me
but that's okay, it was just an experiment. No errors. No problems. Lucky day I guess. Next thing will be about CaptureCard and making it
work with my computer. I should mention, this card has drivers ONLY and ONLY for Windows 7.
No other OS in the world can run this card. It is going to be lovely.

Logging out, Skilowi

Hello internet!
Today after work I found energy to finally do something with this HP laptop. Windows installer didn't find any HDD
controller for 3rd time. This time I was done for good. I put installer CD into my main computer, ripped it into ISO file
and installed it directly on HDD using QEMU. After basic setup and first boot I plugged HDD into laptop and I got
greeted with "error while reading hard disk". Words cannot describe how mad I am right now. Apparently you can't install
Windows XP SP3 Professional 32-bit on this laptop. Tomorrow I will try with Windows Vista and if that won't work, I'll use Debian.
I might find more energy for it since it's weekend! :-). I am also having more good experiences with Vista.
Yeah, I prefer Vista over XP.
I don't like looks of XP and without Service Packs it was a virus magnet. Awful OS which compared with
Windows 2000 is bloated as hell. Vista had it's own issues like having to reactive the system after hardware change
and being resource heavy, but all you had to do is not run it on 90s Computer (it was 2006 not 2001 anymore duh).

Also you might be curious why I won't run Linux right away on this laptop and I am fighting so much with old Windows.
That's because it's 2026 and not 2018! Linux is not anymore a magic spell saving 2000s laptops. Especially these with
underpowered CPUs and Intel GMAs. Even my ThinkPad T400 with maxxed out specifications was struggling to run Debian with
lobotomized KDE Plasma. Currently I run Vista on ThinkPad T60 (which is also maxxed out) and my Vista Gaming Computer:
Intel C2Q Q6600, 2x 2GB DDR2 RAM and Palit GTX285. It's running like a charm.

Also because all of this madness is because of TTD, I must mention with new year OpenTTD 15 got released! Arch Linux repository
finally updated and new version is playable. When I finish this 1-Player TTD Multiplayer test I will run some trains in more
accessible TTD .;,;.

Logging out, Skilowi.

Holy! That was 5 days? Well I am back.
I am (unfortunately) an owner of HP Compaq nc6320. I could say it's a normal laptop from 2006. Whats nice about is connectivity:
It has 4 USBs, Ethernet, Modem, VGA, two Jacks, ExpressCard, PCCard, SDCard, FireWire, Serial, Parallel, S-Video, Optical Drive.
Basically laptop-orchestra. And that's not everything! It even has fingerprint reader, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Perfect laptop you might think.
And all of this begins 5th January. I have Transport Tycoon Deluxe on my 760ED. I don't have irl friends that live next to me
to play multiplayer together, but I wanted to try out the multiplayer over serial - you connect 2 computers over null-modem
cable on serial ports and game should run. My 760ED has serial, but all other ThinkPads that run Windows 9x in my possesion
have no CD drive. No CD - no TTD. HP Specifications mentioned that laptop shipped with Windows XP Home or Pro SP2 or Vista 32.
It even had FreeDOS as option! Supported OS are 64-bit Vista (if you have 64-bit CPU duh) and Windows 2000.
SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 is labeled as "certified", whatever that means. anyways.
I wanted to install TTD on this laptop. TTD requires at least DOS. Windows 3.1 or 95 is seen nicely tho.
I installed FreeDOS (first tried Ventoy, had to switch to burnt CD because it didn't work off Ventoy).
TTD Installer did run, but could move mouse only on upper half of screen. Running English installer directly from files
has thrown error 4. What does Error 4 mean? I don't know! Ask MicroProse! Anyways, FreeDOS did not work.
I thought maybe Windows 3.1 will help game run with some drivers - apparently to run Windows 3.1 on FreeDOS you need
to recompile the kernel! I was already in time for sleep so I thought I don't want to do it.
I thought I need MSDOS. I have only one USB Floppy drive so installing MSDOS 6.22 would take looooong time.
I installed MSDOS 6.22 on QEMU machine, added OAKCDROM.SYS and installed Windows 3.1 on top of it.
Then I dd'ed .img of Virtual Machines HDD to laptops HDD and booted. MSDOS ran, Windows didn't.
Games installer did not load.
I was already pissed off. I thought maybe running Windows 9x and DOS isn't best idea on XXI Century Laptop.
I tried to install Windows XP Professional SP3. I did put CD into the drive, it booted. After ~15 minutes of
grinding the CD installer finally started - and said it couldn't detect any HDDs in my computer.
Reboot. And same thing again. Does this laptop need special driver to have HDD recognizable by Windows?
I once had to fight Lenovo and no functioning Ethernet because of no driver but this is new low, HP.
Do you even remember what I did all of this for? I put the laptop away and went to sleep.
Plan was to scrap this laptop next day or try Linux, maybe over Wine it will run and be able to access Serial.

Next day - 06 January - I was incredibly tired after work. I went to sleep right I came back home. Woke up for short while to
refresh myself and went back to sleep.
Today - 07 January - I did not touch this laptop. I don't have energy for it. I cleaned my computer, made some nice pics of it,
cleaned my Microsoft IntelliMouse 1.2A, brought all my thoughts back to write this post and soon I am going back to sleep to work!

I could end it here but I cannot not complain some more about this laptop.
BIOS is absolutely awful. At boot it might cry about CMOS Date & Time being wrong. But you can't set them or even view them in BIOS!
There's no such option! You can turn off second CPU core, turn off any extension and communication port you wish.
You can set weirdest settings for booting, but you can't set the damn date which laptop asks for.
Some stupid industrial standard I guess. Someday I will describe the medical computers from flea market. Someday.
This strawberry milk is good! Anyways,

Logging out, Skilowi.

Some time ago my Computer started to make drilling noises.
Moving it a bit was helping. Touching the case made the vibrations go away. Something inside was not doing well.
After picking up the CD I bought few sponge clothes and wrapped my HDDs in them. I also found loose screw under one HDD.
Who the hell built this? .;,;.
As I write this Takanaka is playing nicely and can't hear any vibrations. I could say entire computer got quieter. (I wonder why duh)
DHL has my SSDs in delivery. Soon they will come and website will go down for a while.
Also, few laptops got their Specifications and Descriptions added on the site. Go check that out! .;,;.

Logging out, Skilowi.

So this is how we begin new year: I woke up all sweaty, everything that was in the bed was on floor and my left arm hurts for hours now.
Courier came with new USB-SATA adapter. Tomorrow SSDs should come and I will go to town to pick up my package from Japan:
CD release of Finger Dancin' album by Masayoshi Takanaka. I waited loooong for it to come. I think I paid for it in November?
I know in December it's usual for all postal services to get overrun but I guess this year stuff began earlier.

I just did read my Post #1 and it is SDCard that died, not the Pi. Pi is doing well as you can see these posts .;,;.

Also I had few thoughts about blog itself. It's a bit like a YouTube channel - post to not get forgotten.
If I won't post with some regularity I will have to remind people of my website with each post.
I don't want to be annoying. But also people don't want to read about me playing RimWorld for 16 hours a day for 5 days .;,;.
I will see what I can do.
And one more thing about the "original" index on my website: It's abandoned. Sometime in future I will replace that website with this Office.

Logging out, Skilowi.

Hello World!

2 days ago my Raspberry Pi (server on which I host all of this) stopped responding. After some testing conclusion was simple: it's dead.
Well, rest in peace, you served me well working 24/7 for 2 years and 4 months. I didn't buy new microSD Card. I resigned off them.
Right now it's all running from 16GB SSD plugged on USB adapter. I bought 3 64GB ADATA SSDs. I think I will stick to SSD on USB.
Need backup? I will simply make iso file off harddrive and keep it on my computer. (gotta use that 2TB HDD).
I finished setting up all things on my server: apache, ssh and keys, no-ip, smb and let's encrypt.
I only have to setup openvpn as tunnel for smb - home netflix *wink wink*.
Yesterday I made the laptop website (which is still WIP) and just now I finished this blog website.
It might change looks over time. From time to time I will post something here.

Logging out, Skilowi.