Wunderbar98

Thank-you for responses. Pale Moon wouldn't be trivial to build on an 800 MHz machine. Just personal preference, i wouldn't use the browser for banking, will continue to use an SSE2+ system for this. Interesting what AutoHotkey can do. My perfectly functional Yamaha PortaSound (circa 1980s) gets dragged out occasionally for playtime, personal preference is to keep it real. Eventually i may find other uses for AutoHotkey, for now happy with improved keyboard controls.

Unless regional only, THAT popular video site revamped and broke most 9xweb video_fetch functions. Got all functionality working again, must test and tweak more. The old 9xweb download was pulled, any future sharing will likely be private, although i'm unsure if attachments can be sent via private message, maybe email. All old releases will be broken for video_fetch, the last release posted should still work for video search. Not sure how long the fixes will last but for now vanilla Windows 9x systems should still get some access. Probably the beginning of the end, i've read THE site plans changes that will lock out alternative accessibility methods that don't receive full advertisements. Future releases of THEIR recommended browser will also apparently do away with useragent strings. Most project screenshots are accessible from the first link of this thread, page 17 of the 'Running vanilla Windows 98...' thread. Some updated screens can be found on the bottom of page two of this 9xweb thread. The screenshot below displays videos that have been tagged (=>) in video search [c]ache. This means the video's URL was previously sent to system clipboard, it could have been preview fetched, full fetched, 403 Forbidden, fetched with fallback site keepvid[dot]works or not acted on. Just makes it easier for the user to identify which video(s) were accessed when viewing a long search result list with similar titles.

= Quickie FreeDOS v1.2 Review = Used QEMU v0.8.2 in vanilla Windows 98 to install and test FreeDOS v1.2. Been wanting to trial it for a long time. Just a basic OS test, not online, no sound, no gaming or 3rd party software installs. It is obvious a lot of work has gone into development and distribution. QEMU command used to create virtual disk (named freedos): qemu-img.exe create freedos -f qcow 256M QEMU command used to install FreeDOS: qemu.exe -hda freedos -L . -cdrom fd12LGCY.iso -boot d QEMU command used to run FreeDOS: qemu.exe -hda freedos -L . -cdrom fd12LGCY.iso -boot c Helpful QEMU shortcuts: Ctrl-Alt to break out Ctrl-Alt-f toggle fullscreen Various installation images are provided on the FreeDOS website. The site has lots of goodies and information, including a wiki. The FD12LGCY.iso (418 MB) was downloaded, crazy big for a DOS system. However, it appears to have all of FreeDOS' software, organized into numerous directories: archiver, base, boot, devel, edit, games, net, pkginfo, sound, util. This should set up an extremely functional DOS environment. The ISO played nice with this old QEMU. A base install was selected. Nice installer, informative and user friendly. After install, rebooting from the C: drive provides a boot menu with memory options. Even a base install has lots of extras. This includes good documentation, built-in help command, tab autocomplete, CTMOUSE.EXE, TREE.COM, UNDELETE.COM, UNZIP.EXE, XCOPY.EXE, memory managers, disk defragmenter and more. According to CHKDSK.EXE results the base install footprint appears to be about 9 MB. 'Fully-loaded DOS' might be more appropriate. How many developers worked on this compared to the MSFT army? The file and directory structure is a bit different. For example, the kernel is KERNEL.SYS and CONFIG.SYS is now FDCONFIG.SYS, preconfigured to provide a nice boot menu. The default AUTOEXEC.BAT file is well populated with lots of REMarks, aliases and information. Some programs will be different, for example CHKDSK is utilized in place of SCANDISK. The main DOS directory is FDOS. The C:\FDOS\APPINFO directory contains an information file for each major program. The C:\FDOS\PACKAGES directory contains a list file for each major program, listing which files that program has installed on the drive. FreeDOS ran well and was stable. It pretty much just feels like you're running any other DOS, meant in a good way, obviously with lots of enhancements. If you're used to DOS, it's usage is intuitive and the learning curve is minimal. Would i use FreeDOS? Yes if i needed a dedicated DOS install and didn't already own legitimate copies of Windows 95 and Windows 98, which provide the flexibility of booting into Windows. The only issue would be 3rd party software compatability, something that wasn't tested. Hearsay only, DOS gamers appear to occasionally report incompatabilities - no idea. FreeDOS is actively developed and supported with v1.3 RC2 released in December 2019. It is free, open source, GNU GPL licensing. Pretty cool, long live FreeDOS.

Thanks for the feedback Drugwash. Good call, probably won't return to the XMPlay site so fetched: AAC input plugin, MIDI input plugin, SF2 soundfont. Like audio but don't know squat about setup and won't use most of their custom audio formats. Took a bit to get the soundfont running, sounds great but adds 27 MB of bloat. Will likely delete it as Windows Media Player v6.4 already handles MIDI. Always thought MIDI was under-appreciated. There are still a lot of download sites around. Fondly remember converting a bunch of MIDI files into Theme Hospital (Bullfrog games) jukebox packs for my significant other's favourite Windows game. No mistake, SSE CPU instruction as in GNU/Linux 'lshw | grep sse'. Wasted a lot of time today trying to get the highest GNU/Linux SSE-only browser to properly run a problematic banking site. IIRC can only handle up to Firefox ESR v52 and SeaMonkey v2.49. Chromium dropped SSE-only support before these other browsers. Even if some genius one-man-show hacked something together i still wouldn't use it for banking. Shame mainstream developers left behind perfectly good hardware. Wouldn't blame the machines for getting rid of us HUMANS, we've done a pretty good job of messing things up. Enough of my first world problem, hope everyone is safe and healthy.

XMPlay is sweet indeed, got a skin that works for me - WMP10 v2 (grey).xmpskin. Streaming some nice Christmas music. For anyone that wants something really lightweight that keeps the registry clean, the entire XMPlay directory including skin and playlist is 501 KB. Don't think any plugins were installed yet, not that they need much space. Compare to Winamp, which truly is also good, with an install footprint of 19.4 MB - almost 40x larger. Process Explorer also displays less CPU usage with XMPlay while streaming, almost non-existance on this 800 MHz system. Another keeper in the toolbox. Modified my AutoHotkey script to better fine tune volume control. Instead of each keystroke stepping volume by a factor of '5' it's now '1'. #Up::SoundSet +1 #Down::SoundSet -1 #Left::SoundSet, +1, , mute #Right::Soundplay, %A_WinDir%\Media\notify.wav #o::Drive, Eject #c::Drive, Eject,, 1

Thanks for trying to help Drugwash. Unfortunately Pale Moon from Walter Dnes is already over 2 years old, just like the last SeaMonkey my non-SSE2 systems use. The Slackware release linked is from 2015. Pale Moon has subsequently released lots of updates. Once major browsers switched to an SSE2 requirement some time ago no major updates to non-SSE2 browsers are anticipated. These two year old browsers already show their age on sites that require the latest JavaScript. On the bank site i use some of the data input fields no longer work. Complaining doesn't help once they know you're not using their recommended OS and latest browser. The only SSE2 capable system here is an 11 year old netbook, which is more functional in this situation, but for me a desktop is preferred. It's okay Santa pre-approved a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B. I will just continue to use a KVM switch with all that sweet old Windows 98 goodness just a button push away.

Thank-you MrMateczko. XMPlay is decent, very lightweight, no install needed, lots of audio support, good for Windows 9x plus. Great to see software that's still being developed for Windows 9x. Not a 'skins' guy but i just can't get used to the interface, default or custom. Works well otherwise. Will play around a bit more and get some experience. Some skins don't display as intended as vanilla Windows 98 lacks some custom fonts, noted as a popup when the skin is selected. Not a big issue as the skin then utilizes another system font.

Legacy Twitter has been very useful, didn't even require JavaScript. Just saw this on their site today. The Twitter search engine from the RetroZilla Search Engine collection utilizes the legacy version, so this will likely break right away. Goodbye Twitter, nice knowing you. This is the legacy version of twitter.com. We will be shutting it down on 15 December 2020. Please switch to a supported browser or device. You can see a list of supported browsers in our Help Center. You are on Twitter Mobile because you are using an old version of Firefox.

Hi Drugwash. Yeah it's a shame about the P4s, similar experience here. To me the P4 is really the ultimate hardware right now, the sweet spot between being able to run the really old stuff like DOS and Windows 9x yet still SSE2 capable for the latest GNU/Linux with the latest web browser. I am seeking some of this hardware now, not sure what i will find. Traditionally i never paid anything for old hardware, just used other peoples left over junk but now PCs seem to have gone retro-crazy. Worst case scenario i pay a few bucks at a used computer store or from someone shady, take my chances with hardware breakage, no big deal. My eyes are still pretty good and my soldering iron is HOT :) Edit: PS to PROBLEMCHYLD. Gmail announced beginning next year they will likely empty account data that hasn't been used in two years, so log in once in a while. Reminds me to check my old Yahoo account...

There is a current thread about capacitor plague with Windows 98 era hardware that referenced a Wikipedia source. There is probably substance to the issue, however, my Windows 98 era hardware for the most part has been solid, new purchases and give-aways. Not disputing the claim, there may have been motherboards with bad capacitors back-in-the-day replaced under warranty or sent to an early grave. Actually the only old system here that broke in the last few years was a Pentium 4, maybe more Windows NT era. The Pentium 3 stuff has been good. Wintertime, tend to cleanup old hardware. Most of the work is with a vacuum cleaner, dry paintbrush and human powered air. Unrelated to computing, cleaned out a 1987 Zenith 21" colour television, purchased new but never opened and cleaned. It has good passive ventilation but the vents are not louvered so there was a crazy amount of thick, caked on dust inside (i live in a clean house, really). Quite a job, even used damp rags to wipe clean components, such as the inner plastic case, picture tube, larger aluminum heat sinks and capacitors. No more fire hazard. The television still runs like new, good colour and sound. It was used daily from 1987 until 2000, hundreds of shows and movies, lots of videogames. We also have a 1970s era 'electronic' knitting machine, the electronics still look like new including the capacitors. Why can't new CFL and LED lightbulbs last more than 2-3 years? Sadly we already know the answer. Still on a Raspberry Pi kick. Seems the only way to run Windows 9x on this type of hardware would be through emulation, which has been done. If some genius was able to port Windows 9x to ARM architecture with drivers...just dreaming. A fellow created a 'Pi-powered Windows 98 smartwatch', very interesting just wanted to share the picture and article. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/classic-windows-on-a-35-computer-how-to-fire-up-windows-3-1-95-98-and-xp-on-your-raspberry-pi/ The smartwatch project uses QEMU. Began playing with QEMU PC emulator version 0.8.2 again, the best version i've found for vanilla Windows 98. Just used it to install and run 'MS-DOS v5.00 with MS-DOS Shell' on a 32 MB virtual disk from 3 floppy images (Disk0*.img files). May emulate some other older DOS releases for fun or test FreeDOS. DOS emulatation seems snappy through a Windows 98 host even running older 800 MHz hardware. If anyone wants to play with QEMU v0.8.2, it is embedded in my 'Modern Web Browser Emulation' project download. This QEMU release was hard to find on the interweb, think i originally extracted it from an old Damn Small Linux release. https://msfn.org/board/topic/177106-running-vanilla-windows-98-in-2020/page/21/?tab=comments#comment-1177321 This site was useful for QEMU reference and DOS emulation. Note QEMU v0.8.2 noted above does not use 'change floppy0 /path/to/image/msdos33-2.img' to swap floppy disks. Replace 'floppy0' with 'fda', so something like 'change fda Disk02.img'. https://www.theblackzone.net/posts/2018/msdos-in-qemu.html

Thank-you for all responses and contributions. Winamp v5.34 (circa 2007) has been good for several sessions. Sometimes CPU usage sticks at 100% when switching stations without manually stopping the stream inbetween (stop button), monitored with Process Explorer v8.52 minimized to system tray. For some reason CPU usage doesn't always settle so not just temporary buffering. Resolved by closing and relaunching Winamp. Probably a bug long fixed in a more recent release. Most Internet Radio addresses work just by using the embedded HTTP address without further modification. For whatever reason none of the stations i've streamed require Opus support. Downloaded the plugin, will test if an Opus stream is encountered. Maybe aging, don't care much for skins anymore. Still using the modern theme in Winamp just changed the colour scheme from 'Default' to 'MonoDark'. There are over 40 built-in colour scheme choices. Suppose anything could be a weather app. I coded a Bash function years ago for my other systems that pops up the weather, handy when a browser isn't open. A quick search did not reveal any obvious free, configurable weather apps for Windows 98. Something lightweight and simple to sit in the system tray. Personally i have no need for this but if someone could help out @Bracamonte that would be cool. IIRC @Bracamonte you're using the Raspberry Pi. When my old Windows 98 era hardware is due for inevitable upgrade will purchase Arm processors. Leapfrog past 20 years of IMHO overpowered and unnecessary 'modern' hardware. Cheap, quiet, efficient, GNU/Linux and BSD capable - sweet. Although older 32-bit non-SSE2-capable hardware can still run many of the latest GNU/Linux releases, it is no longer possible to run the latest releases of a full featured web browser. Recently watched an ~11 minute video titled 'Yellowed Keyboard Restoration - Windows 95 Retrobright'. Grossest keyboard i've ever seen. Restored with soap, water, baking soda, elbow grease and a hydrogen peroxide and UV light bath. Query using actual RetrObright. Crazy, looked like new again, fixed the aging yellow plastic. True or trickery?

Rendering is game, hardware, driver and settings specific, too many variables to generalize. For me the best is to run the OS and hardware that's best suited for the game. If it came out in the Windows XP era then stick with that. If it's an older Windows 98 era game, especially DOS, then use Windows 98. There are plenty of older games the community has figured out how to run on newer hardware/OS, sometimes better and sometimes not. For me if i can play the game on native hardware with native OS that's almost always preferred. Well it sounds like your hardware is good to go, game on! Keep the hardware clean to prevent heat build-up, even around the capacitors. If the BIOS supports temperature monitoring, set a temperature alarm. If you haven't thoroughly cleaned the board and re-seated the CPU with fresh thermal paste, it is highly recommended before runtime. At your discretion (follow safe practices), if you've never opened up the power supply and cleaned out the dust you'll probably be in for a surprise. A clogged power supply will not let the case properly ventilate. Treat your classic hardware with care but really just enjoy the system. Life has many more worries than an old motherboard :)

Hi caprireds. Of course not otherwise who would still be running the hardware. This household runs Windows 98 era hardware almost exclusively for years with only rare issue, not typically capacitor related. If you already own the hardware then just 'run what you brung'. If purchasing online requesting detailed hardware pictures may be of limited use but will not identify most problems. Either will the sellers 'word' that everything's in working order (when last tested in 2006). It is best to either get stuff for free (giveaways not stealing) or negotiate the best purchase price possible, then a failure won't seem as catastrophic. It also depends on how well the hardware has been stored, transported and maintained. Any component can fail anytime even new stuff, maybe especially new stuff as there are so many untested and un-broken in components. My last new vehicle purchase, for example, was 10 years ago. There were two items that needed replacement under warranty (rear shocks, heater blower fan). Since then it hasn't needed a single part aside from regular wear and tear (battery, filters, oil).

Thanks all for the feedback. Fondly remember Winamp from back in the day. Tested GOM v2.1.4.3.5119 and Winamp v2.95, neither worked well here. Apparently Winamp v5.34 is the last version for Windows 98, downloaded from link below, it's the bomb. The installer indicates support for m3u. No extra codecs or complicated configuration needed. Using the modern interface as 'classic' is hard on my aging eyes. Tested only briefly, it appears superior to VLC v0.8.6d for music streaming, history and playlist handling. Makes sense as it's a dedicated music player, very nice indeed. If too lazy to configure playlists just use it's built-in history to re-connect your favourite streams. Winamp_5.34_Full_Setup.exe, 6.44 MB, no JavaScript required. https://soundprogramming.net/software/latest-software-versions-for-windows-98/ Personally have never used a weather app, not really sure what it is even. Here i just bookmark my local weather page and several news websites in a browser. The World Radio Map site linked earlier makes it easy to find country/city stations for audio streaming of local news and weather. Not sure if this helps.

== Audio Streaming == = Overview = Thanks to forum member @Sergiaws for bringing up streaming radio on another thread, got me curious. Haven't streamed audio for years, so international, less advertising. Most Windows 98 media players use outdated HTTPS protocols or HTTP only. Many stations do not make it easy to find the streaming URL. However, thousands of channels are available via HTTP only and it doesn't take long to come up with some favourites. If the media player doesn't store playlists save the URLs to text. Stream at your own risk - HTTP only using an outdated OS and media player. Below my current ever-changing VLC playlist. = Streaming Sites = Internet Radio The site tracks thousands of stations. It loads okay in RetroZilla with JavaScript disabled. Either click on a genre or select a featured station. In RetroZilla the 'search' box is only visible after changing View -> Use Style -> None. Search results display the station and all important streaming link. https://www.internet-radio.com/ World Radio Map A mega list that works okay without JavaScript. Best viewed in RetroZilla with View -> Use Style -> None. Select a city, select a station. http://worldradiomap.com/list/ Garfnet The site only offers a few streaming URLs, mostly BBC, most appear to work. https://garfnet.org.uk/cms/tables/radio-frequencies/internet-radio-player/ = Extract Streaming URL = The key is extracting the embedded HTTP streaming link from the URL with some cut/paste and experimentation. Try the full HTTP URL first then systematically remove trailing snippets until it works or not. Separators are typically slashes, periods and ampersands. Internet Radio Right-click the '.m3u' link of the desired station and in RetroZilla select 'Copy link location'. Now the URL has been copied to the system clipboard. Paste it into the media player and modify as needed. The example below shows a full Internet Radio link. https://www.internet-radio.com/servers/tools/playlistgenerator/?u=http://iceradio.net:8000/listen.m3u&t=.m3u The embedded HTTP link is needed with some modification, here's the magic URL for VLC player. http://iceradio.net:8000/listen Other players may require something else, Windows Media Player (WMP) expects this, experiment. http://iceradio.net:8000/listen.m3u A second example. https://www.internet-radio.com/servers/tools/playlistgenerator/?u=http://192.99.83.149:8046/listen.pls&t=.m3u The '/listen' portion did not work, VLC needs below, no combination worked with WMP. http://192.99.83.149:8046 World Radio Map Most station pages have a 'Listen with your player' (English or other language) link in the top right corner. Right-click this hyperlink and in RetroZilla select 'Copy link location'. Now the URL has been copied to the system clipboard. Paste the URL into the media player and modify as needed. An example URL that worked in VLC, no combination worked with WMP. http://s2.stationplaylist.com:9440/listen.aac.m3u Garfnet Most upper table (non-HLS) links work without manipulation in VLC, none appeared to work in WMP. = Media Players = On this system VLC v0.8.6d streams well. Paste the URL into File -> Open Network Stream -> Network tab -> HTTP radio button -> URL box and click OK. Track information is displayed during runtime. URLs can be added to a playlist, saved and reloaded for replay. In WMP v6.4 paste the URL into File -> Open and it remembers the URL for next session. With rare exception most stream attempts do not work in WMP v6. Me thinks vanilla Windows 98 supports up to WMP v9, an upgrade may help or try a different media player. Not all media players support streaming, such as TCPMP, and some that should work don't, such as SMPlayer v0.6.7. These are the only media players tested. = Revolving Personal Playlist = This system's current VLC playlist, will ever change. Absolute favourite 247 Polka Heaven, the world needs stuff like this now more than ever. 247 Polka Heaven: http://192.99.83.149:8046/listen.pls Charlie's Party Box - German Schlager: http://87.118.87.46:8444/listen.pls Christmas Radio Live - http://167.114.64.181:8232/stream Playback UK - garage rock: http://198.245.62.81:8008/listen.pls Radio Oldyschop - German Schlager Volksmusik: http://162.210.196.145:22429/listen.pls The Hum - garage rock: http://91.121.174.141:31802/listen.pls?sid=1 UK Bass Radio - drum, bass, garage, house: http://94.76.216.200:8198/listen.pls?sid=1 Working Christian in Progress - metal: http://158.69.4.114:8622/listen.pls?sid=1 Zalewski Stream - grunge: http://184.154.43.106:8052/listen.pls?sid=1

Hi Drugwash. Two screenshots running 'example_CueBanner2.6.1.ahk' on this vanilla Windows 98 system. The first screenshot appears initially then after several seconds the Unicode dropdown appears to break. The text fields appear empty by default (ie. no cue). Selecting an item from the dropdowns produces just a normal text selection. There is no visible blur or shadow affect anywhere. The lower left 'normal' checkbox appears to have unreadable gibberish text. Clicking 'Click me' produces yellow text on grey that my eyes can't read without toggling back to black on grey. No noticeable change or improvement testing the example scripts for CueBanner v2.5 and v2.6. Just providing feedback if this helps you figure things out, thanks. Just an aside, vanilla Windows 98 isn't capable of uploading screenshots from a hosting website (that i'm aware of) that requires JavaScript :(

Hi Drugwash. Yes i did notice Unicode releases documented in the name and/or README. CueBanner had no executable. I tried simply moving all the CueBanner2.6.1 *.ahk files to My Documents, reloaded AutoHotkey and even rebooted, didn't appear to recognize the scripts at all, only the default AutoHotkey.ahk script. Next used AutoHotkey compiler to compile 'func_CueBanner 2.6.1.ahk', just keeping the default file and directory structure, which contained an 'extra' directory. An executable was produced but attempting to run the executable nothing happened. Then moved all files in the 'extra' directory up to the same root directory as 'func_CueBanner 2.6.1.ahk' and re-compiled, still no success. I've never compiled with AutoHotkey, maybe did something wrong or not compatible. Thanks for the Metapad and Notepad2 tips, may check them out but i'm very happy with Notepad. Does everything needed, don't even care that it doesn't have a toolbar, count lines of code, etc. Lately for me leaner is better, enjoying it very much. Even 9xweb, which has several hundred lines, is good with Notepad.

Hi i430VX. When something goes glitchy in Windows 98 and you can't remember installing or changing anything it's likely registry corruption. If SCANREG /RESTORE command fails, you have more than a sound issue. Default C:\WINDOWS\SCANREG.INI settings back up and optimize the registry at every boot, not every day, with max backup copies of five. Recommend either increasing max backup copies to 10 or more or regularly making a quick backup of your C:\WINDOWS\SYSBCKUP\RB00*.CAB files, especially when the system is running well, on other media into a date-stamped directory. Note the backup count is the number of boots, not days. So the issue may be that before a problem is discovered, or while troubleshooting, the system has already re-booted several times, negating a good registry backup.

Hi Drugwash. Yes it looks like you put a lot of work into VolOSD, most of them actually. So much brain energy utilized. Some didn't work in vanilla with 'Windows expects a newer version of ...', many did work. Sharing scripts is nice, to me the truest sense of open source. Nothing hiding behind binaries without providing source code. For now keeping my AutoHotkey simple, limit modifications to a single script. Added it's eject command so now Windows key plus 'o' opens the CD-ROM drive and Windows plus 'c' closes the tray. This system only has a single optical drive. Will probably add additional shortcuts as the need or desire arises. Thanks again for recommending it. #Up::SoundSet +5 #Down::SoundSet -5 #Left::SoundSet, +1, , mute #Right::Soundplay, %A_WinDir%\Media\notify.wav #o::Drive, Eject #c::Drive, Eject,, 1 Found a notepad bug, someone please let Bill know we need a hotfix. Open a document, toggle word wrap but don't change any text. Close Notepad and it will ask to save changes. Doesn't request saving changes when changing font settings.

Hi Gansangriff. Yeah it's fast and efficient. Recommend using it in GNU/Linux or BSD where performance isn't bottlenecked by a (slow) packet driver. It's been called Links for years, you could appeal to the developers but it's unlikely they will change the name. At least it utilizes internet-related nomenclature. Maybe it's too short, easily misconstrued for general usage of the word. The LINKS.BAT section of the first post already loads DuckDuckGo at startup as an example, so users unfamiliar with the browser won't get a blank screen. Don't think there's any way to permanently activate the menubar. Sometimes it's annoying but i believe intentional to provide a minimal, distraction free browsing experience. IMO once you learn the keyboard shortcuts, there's little reason to have the menubar always displayed. If someone finds a way to activate permanently i can update the first post. LH C:\DOS\LINKS\LINKS221.EXE -MODE 1024x768x16M32 https://lite.duckduckgo.com/lite

An updated 9xweb script is available for download (forum login required), v20201124 Beta. Relevant information and links, including helper software, can be found on post #1 of this thread. The changelog has been updated on post #2.

Good to hear from you Drugwash, thanks, will dig through it. You've archived the same AutoHotkey release, good to know. Lots of stuff to use, study or as a template. Remember some of this from an earlier download, more meaningful now with some AutoHotkey experience. My favourite application thus far is HotkeyCD. For whatever reason the Dropbox link reverted to dl=0 when attempting to fetch via RetroZilla. Manually changed it back to dl=1 in the URL bar and the download proceeded. Just mentioning in case it affects others. File public_work.7z (~ 118 MB), no JavaScript needed.

== AutoHotkey for Custom Keyboard Shortcuts and Other Stuff == = Overview = AutoHotkey (GPL v2 license) was used to create keyboard shortcuts for volume control. Modern systems and most GNU/Linux window managers have this functionality built-in. AutoHotkey can be used for more, this is all that is presently needed on this system. The software has extensive built-in help and is user friendly. It does not require formal install and uses minimal resources as a background process. Thanks to @Drugwash for mentioning the software some time ago. Pasting some AutoHotkey documentation, a free, open-source utility: - Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. - Create hotkeys for keyboard, joystick, and mouse. - Expand abbreviations as you type them. - Create custom data-entry forms, user interfaces, and menu bars. - Remap keys and buttons on your keyboard, joystick, and mouse. - Respond to signals from hand-held remote controls via the WinLIRC client script. - Run existing AutoIt v2 scripts and enhance them with new capabilities. - Convert any script into an EXE file that can be run on computers without AutoHotkey installed. = Download = No idea if this is the last version that works in vanilla Windows 98, good enough (AutoHotkey104805.zip, 2 MB, no JavaScript needed). https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/86134-autohotkey-10-classic-and-basic-versions/ = Setup = Extract AutoHotkey104805.zip using 7-Zip or similar. Rename extracted directory something like 'AutoHotkey' and move into C:\Program Files. Drag and drop a shortcut from C:\Program Files\AutoHotkey\AutoHotkey.exe to the desktop. To run AutoHotkey as a background process on every boot, move the shortcut to C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp\. = First Run = Running AutoHotkey.exe creates a background process with a system tray icon. On first run there is a user prompt similar to 'create a sample script?' and of course answer yes. A sample script named AutoHotkey.ahk is created in C:\My Documents\. Use this as the template for customization. = Customize = Modify C:\My Documents\AutoHotkey.ahk as desired. Delete or comment out undesired lines by prepending a semi-colon. Personally all sample 'code' was removed and only the volume controls below were added. In the sample below '#' is the 'Windows' key so '#Up' is the keyboard combination Windows key plus Up Arrow. When working from the desktop the Windows 98 volume control icon in the system tray animates to muted with key combination '#Left'. The '#Right' entry just plays notify.wav for quick sound volume reference. It's trivial to change this to whatever is desired. #Up::SoundSet +5 #Down::SoundSet -5 #Left::SoundSet, +1, , mute #Right::Soundplay, %A_WinDir%\Media\notify.wav Whenever the script is modified save AutoHotkey.ahk then right-click the AutoHotkey system tray icon and select 'Reload this script'. It will notify about any script errors. If in doubt refer to built-in help or online. This has been helpful as the baseline volume on multimedia files varies considerably and 'mplayer.exe' has no GUI. Now multimedia can truly be played full-screen without GUI interference or returning to the system tray to adjust volume.

Thanks for your input @UCyborg. Watched a couple gameplay videos, Interstate '76 looks and sounds pretty groovy! Those 1970s cars always make a great scene, lots of bounce and body roll. Gaming is an industry, pushing products fast for maximum dollar. Sounds like most operating systems, endless bugs and patches, all software sucks and all that. To me PC gaming has always trumped consoles, wish i never spent any money on consoles over the years. The best games are usually the ones with lots of fan support and involvement. Never played Need for Speed Special Edition but i do own Need for Speed II (Windows 95 CD-ROM) and Need for Speed III Hot Pursuit (1998-2000). The car physics weren't the best but very entertaining.

Thanks for your input @Deomsh. Although i'm not a DOS expert, your suggested configuration was trialed without noticeable benefit. I'll let it go, SMARTDRV.EXE does not appear useful for Links, probably best to keep the config simple.