CompuServe Messages

Jerry, the XT was like the IBM PC only with Intel's 8086 (16-bit) instead of 8088 (8-bit) CPU. Towards the launch of the AT there were even some XTs with the new 80286 CPU (my wife used to have one at her office back in '88/'89). About the only problem you have with an old PC/XT/AT is Windows. Most DOS programs will run happily in the standard 640K RAM (well, 512K may be another thing). Though if you work in a (Novell) network, the drivers may take up so much memory that you can't load any decent DOS (productivity) app anymore, so if you have 1 meg you'd want a program like QEMM to put to use those 384K between the DOS limit and what you actually have. You might even buy a decent GUI for your machine which will run acceptably even on old 8088 systems – GEOS (which even gave a GUI to the C-64!). But current software isn't developed for DOS anymore (well, it nearly isn't for Windows 3.x as W95 is nearing D-Day). So about the only thing left to do is buying a new Pentium system with 16MB RAM and 1 GB hard disk to be able to run the current soft. And in two years time W95-96 will be discontinued because by then enough people will own 16MB Pentium systems which are able to run Windows NT 4.0 (well, walk rather – but if you put another 8-16 megs in that machine…) which has been "the real thing" all along, only people's measly hardware (486DX2-66/8Megs – get outta here!) just wasn't up to it, so MS just HAD to make W95 for the benefit of those poor souls which hadn't been able to afford such a system back in 94-95. Cheers, // Christian "ELP" Busse \X/ near Frankfurt, Germany