so, the place is almost as clean as it was when i brought those shelves in last week. almost.

the 16-bit pc has been placed in the space on a bookend table, beside one of the speakers. the kvm is sitting on top of it, and i'll need to connect it the next time i turn it on. it's a shame it takes power, but whatever.

i've moved the 32-bit pc back where it was, which is close to but not in it's resting spot. i need to rebuild it, first - and i'm currently rebuilding it temporarily.

one of the two bookshelves had a back, but the nails were mostly missing. i ran around the back with some finishing nails. while you can see crumbly particleboard if you look, it's almost as good as new - i just need to screw the wobbly top piece back in place by rescrewing it beside the old broken screw. so, yeah - you'll be able to tell if you look at it. but, who cares? it's been scrubbed down, and it's otherwise ready to put some books and cds on it....as soon as it gets some shelves.

i finally took apart that old chest thing that i had converted into a headboard, and has since just flat out broken. by my account, i should get roughly 6 shelves out of it,  and could potentially get a few other things out of it. these walls are full of pre-existing holes. it'll make it easy to screw a couple of pieces of wood in as loose shelves, and i might need it.

the table is in kitchener, apparently. that's about a three hour drive. so, i'll need to set the two tables up when it gets here, and then have space to set things back up on that side of the apartment, as well.

for now, i'm going to eat....

and, then we're back to this, hopefully quickly - the last update was actually not february but back on january 30th:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vdvEPJ8NtNUbuPItFour9gJdFa4Yy0gE/view?usp=sharing

so, that was absolutely the right install disc - it picked up the drivers and even installed the old software i remembered. perfect. 

i was able to get the network card installed by pointing it to the e:\win98 directory when it asked - simple but not obvious.

there was a root usb hub that wouldn't install, and i think i just went over the max number of installable hubs. it hardly matters, because windows 98 can't pick up flash drives, pretty much at all.

but, the partition is essentially perfectly installed at this point - i just need recording software. and, what i'll be using is cool edit as the crux.

i'll get back to it in a few days. for now, i want to clean a little in here before it gets to 7:00 and then shift to the diet writeup, as i left it off last month. that's my task this week - to get as much of that done as i can. and, it's an easier process.

that will let me finish the posts i left off with.

in order to restart in 2013 and move forwards, i need to get the recording pc running again. for now. what i need is some way to boot into a functional windows xp....the version on the 9x machine won't be it.

in order to do that, i had to setup the xp machine first.

and, i still have tons of cleaning to do, too. the table should be here today,....

i'm going to want to compile some extra exe files for specific sound applications that only run on this platform and in the end burn everything to a single dvd for backup, but once i get the video card installed i'm going to put this way until next friday because i'm serious about splitting my time up and sticking to it and i need to shift back to finishing up the food blog before i can get back to 2013.

put another way, i have a series of half-written posts and need to finish them before i move on.

so, i'm burning the ati iso to disc, and i think that the modem should install if i tell it to use a "generic ne2000" driver.

so, i think this is the file i want.

https://archive.org/details/ati-international-installation-cd-ver.-101

i can probably check it on xp first.

i'm going to have to download something.

while i'm at it, let's write down that i need drivers for a kingston etherrx kne20plug and play isa adapter.

no, it didn't take it.

i've got the card out in my hand and let's get the exact device name, here - ati rage theatre 213rt1zua32 / aiw128 agp 53401.

and, let's try again.

if not, i'll have to download something.

this thing has an ati all in wonder in it, which was a high end video card at the time. i can plug a cable line directly into it, and used to use it to watch tv sometimes. i hardly want to pay for cable in 2021, but i could conceivably do that if i really wanted to.

the 98 disc doesn't have the drivers, but the xp disc does.

let me try that, maybe it's that easy.

yeah - the exact thing i wanted to install has been installed, and it works great.

perfect.

now, i need to get the display driver updated....

yeah. the driver works. i just need to install it manually from the disc.

ok.

let's try to get the software running.

ok, wait. i think i might have got it.

i'm so used to windows doing everything for me that i forgot that you used to have to tell it where to look. remember that? maybe you really don't. but, there was a time when you had to tell windows that a sound card was a sound card, what company manufactured it, etc - and hope it installed the right thing.

it's rebooting, and it might work when it comes up.

the software bundle on the iso is something very much like what i remember from years ago, so i'm going to stick with it.

let's see if i can wipe the thing out of the registry entirely and try to just install the drivers, first.

yeah, i'm not getting the drivers to install at all. so, the software installs, but then it tells me it doesn't have a device to utilize. i need to get more specific 98 drivers, first.

let's get the chronology right.

this device was manufactured in 1998. i received it as a gift in late 1999 - around christmas of that year (my 19th birthday was the second week of 2000). the drivers are dated to may, 2000.

so, this is not the version of the drivers or software that came with the device, but would probably be the last version for a 9x architecture and possibly intended for windows 2000 sp1.

let's see what happens when i install from disc. but, i may be stuck:

1) it may be too new for 98

2) it may be too old for xp

so, can i find a different os? or can i find a different iso? i was lucky to find this one...

what i'm trying to avoid, i think, is the ntvdm. i've got these separated in my mind as "9x is 16-bit, nt is 32 bit" but that's not quite right, of course. it has to do with the underlying treatment of dos. this was a long time ago...

so, i want the last version of windows before that, which may have been 2000 sp 1?

let me try in 98 from the disc.

or was it windows 2000?

lol.

i don't remember...

i'm going to have a try a few, though. it's why i'm doing this.

if i can't get 98 to work, i'll need to try me,  somehow. i want a 16-bit os on here...

i neither have me nor nt 4.0 kicking around - i have 98, and i have xp. 

i think i was actually running me.

i got a nap in. it was inevitable.

the bluescreen i'm getting in xp is a driver_irql_not_less_or_equal which is consistent with the idea that the drivers don't work right in xp. but, when i try to install in 98, i'm getting a host of missing files errors. 

given that the disk is dated to may, 2000 it was almost certainly intended for a 9x application rather than an nt appliction. at the time, nt was still mostly used for servers. 9x was the consumer grade product. so, why isn't it installing correctly, then?

i'm going to actually burn a cd and try to install it from there. it's almost done. and, it's useful to have as backup.

i want to flip these dates over though because i have the electrical to worry about.

fri night--->mon morn: working on the discography (starting at period 3)

mon morn--->thurs night: moving forward through the blogs (starting in 2013)

thus night---> fri night: the alter-reality (starting in 1989)