SPX

I'm a computer technician by trade, but some of what I read here indicates a level of knowledge regarding Win9X that goes far beyond what I've learned in school and in my time in the field. I'm often impressed by the degree of understanding when it comes to the OS's system files and other workings under the hood. So my question for these advanced users is: How did you build your knowledge up into what it is today? A lot of what I read seems to be things that one might know if they come from a programming/development background . . . and perhaps that's what makes the difference.

I have seen this question posed in other forums, but their definition of "low system requirements" differs from mine. Typically they are looking for games that will run on a PIII or whatever . . . I am looking for games that will run on a P166/64MB. I've already come up with some of the more obvious suggestions like Doom and Myst. Does anyone have any other ideas? Smaller games (like the Nstorm stuff, for those who are familiar with the company) would be interesting. Just looking for any and all suggestions.

I took a look at the K-Meleon site and apparently Win98 is "generally supported with updated Microsoft libraries." I'll give it a shot tonight and see how it runs. From what I can though tell they haven't added tabs as a feature and I think that's a mistake. (I could be wrong on that. I'll go look a little deeper.)

And indeed we want something modern. I can do without Flash. I attempted to add Flash 7 to Opera and go to YouTube and either it ran very choppily (the ads, Flash-based) or it didn't run at all (the videos). So Flash support is out. I just want something that will hop nimbly from site to site. As I mentioned, I know in the Linux world there is Dillo . . . but not sure what exists for Win9X. I will look into your suggestion, though.

Anyone got any ideas on the best web browser to run for Win98? I am currently running the newest Opera on a P166/64 MB. Tabs are definitely preferred, as it's a great feature. I think I'm looking for something like Dillo, but for Windows.

Chromatic: I think you may have hit the nail on the head. You are right that in fact I AM using an adapter . . . apparently the Libretto jack only supports a 3/32" (2.5mm) plug and not the more common 1/8" plug. So I bought an adapter from Radio Shack but didn't pay much attention to the specs and don't have the packaging any longer either. One thing I notice, though, is that in very small print there's the letter "M" next to the female portion of the adapter. Does this mean "mono" perhaps? I can't say for sure until I get a confirmed stereo adapter . . . but I'm hoping that it is in fact this simple.

I recently purchased a Toshiba Libretto 100CT (see my other post) and everything audio-wise seems to work well, except for one thing. The Libretto only has a single speaker, however, according to the documentation it should output in 16-bit stereo when speakers are hooked up to the speaker port. Nonetheless, when I hook up either a speaker set or headphones audio comes through only one speaker. It's very irritating. I've already looked at all the usual suspects. Toshiba doesn't offer a Win98 driver for the card, but Windows successfully detects it as a Yamaha Yamaha OPL3 SA3 and loads its own drivers. Thinking that the driver may still be the problem, however, I found another laptop which Toshiba manufactured that used the same soundcard for which they had 98 drivers. I grabbed them, loaded them, and somewhat surprisingly they worked . . . except for the fact that it was only sending audio to one speaker. I've also confirmed that "Desktop Stereo Speakers" are set in the control panel and that the balance isn't off. I don't think it's a hardware issue, but can't be sure. Any ideas here?

I recently purchased a Toshiba Libretto 100CT (P166, 64 MB RAM, 2 GB HDD) off of eBay and figured I'd share the story of some of what I've been through already as well as mention some of the problems I've run into along the way . . . perhaps you guys can help. First, my motivation. When I was 15 years old I saw an ad in a magazine for the Libretto. This was '98. For those who have never heard of it, it was one of the first--if not THE first--fully functional UMPC. At about the size of a VHS tape, it truly is tiny and, when it was first released, I also thought it was absolutely fascinating. Now, 10 years later, it seems I can afford one, and I happily picked up a 100CT on eBay for $100. One thing to understand right off is that the Libretto doesn't have a CD-ROM drive and the guy who sold me his apparently never decided to buy an external drive. It does, however, come with a PCMCIA floppy drive which it is capable of booting from. I knew that this would pose a problem as there was no way I was going to use the installation of the OS that was previously installed . . . I was definitely going to reinstall. My intial inclination was to go with Win95 OSR2 and, after a very long and laborious process, I had copied the contents of the Win95 folder to 29 floppy disks and had installed the OS on the Libby. Windows 95! Man, hadn't seen that in YEARS. It was fast as hell and only took up 120 MB on my tiny HDD. Unfortunately, there were problems. Virtually no software makers support it anymore, it would not run my wireless adapter, and after about half a day's use I was already getting errors about missing DLLs. It didn't take long for me to make the decision to move to Win98 SE. Unfortunately, the CAB files in 98 are too big, even for specially formatted 1.7MB floppies. So what I ended up doing was copying the Win98 folder over to the C drive via a painfully slow 115Kbps infrared link from my primary laptop, then went in with a boot disk, deleted every single file other than the Win98 folder, and installed Win98 from scratch. Now I'm living in Win98 land. It's very interesting . . . very nostalgic. I haven't used it in years. So far I've taken my little P166 and gotten it on the Internet, networked it to my laptop, played music, played movies (it choked on DIVX but VCD/MPEG1 files run well), and played a few games (though for some reason The 7th Guest errors out after playing it for a few minutes). I am still attempting to resolve certain problems (for which I intend to make other threads) but so far this has been a pleasant trip down Nostalgia Lane.