Desktops...

[nonconformist]

I often watch the news in Welsh when I am stoned .

"A new leisure centre opened in Cardiff today. On a completely unrelated note, Farmer Jones reported that six of his sheep had gone missing"

 

[Chairman Meow]

Some shells for Windows: Explorer (default), Calmira, NT4 Explorer demo, Litestep, Darkstep, Aston, and many more... all of these can be customised. I did once do a heavy customisation but something went pear-shaped and it was lost, so now I just do simple changes for performance benefits.

I used Calmira on Windows 3.11 for a while dual-booting with Windows XP, which I had using Program Manager. So, the result of this was that Windows XP looked like Windows 3.11, and Windows 3.11 looked like Windows 95...

 

[Rambuchan]

"A new leisure centre opened in Cardiff today. On a completely unrelated note, Farmer Jones reported that six of his sheep had gone missing"

.. ..

 

[stormbind]

I used Calmira on Windows 3.11 for a while dual-booting with Windows XP, which I had using Program Manager. So, the result of this was that Windows XP looked like Windows 3.11, and Windows 3.11 looked like Windows 95...

There is an XP skin for Calmira but I do not know how good that is. Calmira just doesn't do it for me because icon selection is so peculiar that it fails to fool users, but I did once try to make a 1990 25MHz 386SX with 4Mb run Windows NT 3.1 (which should work) and then customise the shell to make it look like NT 5.1

This project failed because Windows NT 3.1 was on CD and 386 could not accomodate such a drive. I moved it's 450Mb HDD to my PC with the intent of copying the setup files but my modern system could not read/write to such an old HDD!

There is a lack of documentation for those old pre-PnP computers. You need to set the twitches on the IDE controller manually but I had no manual. I think, computers of that age, would have connected a CD-ROM to the soundcard IDE interface

To customise it, I planned to use either Calmira XP or try to force a modern Microsoft shell to run on NT 3. I have a pre-release of Explorer 4 -beta which looks like Win9x/NT4 and was intended as a demonstration for Windows NT 3.51 users. That might have been skinnable with one of the regular Win9x/NT gadgets like eFX

You can get a 100% overclock on the AMD 386 processors, so technically it should be possible to setup a 100MHz 3x86 with an OS that looks just like Windows XP and has the same underlying kernel. I have no idea what you would use it for though... the project did not have a purpose extending beyond nostalgia. The best thing I got a 386 to do was play Mario Bros., Trolls, and other platform games (though I installed a word processor & PSP aswell)

 

[Rambuchan]

There is an XP skin for Calmira but I do not know how good that is. Calmira just doesn't do it for me because icon selection is so peculiar that it fails to fool users, but I did once try to make a 1990 25MHz 386SX with 4Mb run Windows NT 3.1 (which should work) and then customise the shell to make it look like NT 5.1

This project failed because Windows NT 3.1 was on CD and 386 could not accomodate such a drive. I moved it's 450Mb HDD to my PC with the intent of copying the setup files but my modern system could not read/write to such an old HDD!

There is a lack of documentation for those old pre-PnP computers. You need to set the twitches on the IDE controller manually but I had no manual. I think, computers of that age, would have connected a CD-ROM to the soundcard IDE interface

To customise it, I planned to use either Calmira XP or try to force a modern Microsoft shell to run on NT 3. I have a pre-release of Explorer 4 -beta which looks like Win9x/NT4 and was intended as a demonstration for Windows NT 3.51 users. That might have been skinnable with one of the regular Win9x/NT gadgets like eFX

You can get a 100% overclock on the AMD 386 processors, so technically it should be possible to setup a 100MHz 3x86 with an OS that looks just like Windows XP and has the same underlying kernel. I have no idea what you would use it for though... the project did not have a purpose extending beyond nostalgia. The best thing I got a 386 to do was play Mario Bros., Trolls, and other platform games (though I installed a word processor & PSP aswell)

WTH?

 

[anarres]

He's trying to use paperweights as computers.

 

[Rambuchan]

He's trying to use paperweights as computers.

OK. I'm just going to take my whale for a walk while they do that.

 

[stormbind]

Thing is though, my hardware exploits work. I admit that capacitors have blown up, and I once had smoke pouring out of a graphics card*... but the thing is, the systems I modify absolutely scream in terms of performance

It was a 3dfx Banshee 16Mb 110MHz SGRAM. It was outperforming a GeForce 256 in Quake III (when those things were brand new). Rendering was smooooth like 220fps but it froze up a lot. I did a hardware experiment, rebooted and I could smell smoke coming out of the computer - the back of the graphics card was on fire! I had smoke come out of a weird workstation graphics card once aswell but that was a complete failure.

I let you know that PSP worked on the 386!

But the graphics card only supported 256 colours so it wasn't much fun.

 

[Rambuchan]

Thing is though, my hardware exploits work.I let you know that PSP worked on the 386! .....????????..........But the graphics card only supported 256 colours so it wasn't much fun.[/size]

I'm gonna take your word for it man.

 

[tjedge1]

I understand you Stormblind, but I can't see how you got them to outperform. That seems to be over my head.

 

[stormbind]

I understand you Stormblind, but I can't see how you got them to outperform. That seems to be over my head.

Reduced latency settings, reduced software message paths, increased frequencies, and some quirks-mode settings that I never really understood but which were discovered with trial & error.

 

[tjedge1]

Ah, now that makes sense. I was too busy looking at your hardware and scratching my head. Good thinking.

 

[Portuguese]

Here it goes my latest desktop. It's from my soccer team.
I could translate the text,but I think it is quite obvious...

 

[Portuguese]

Just 2 notes:
1. the club simbol is equal but with a ancient soccer ball instead of the world.
2. I'm using the Windows Xp, with the "best performance" option on.

 

[schmiddi]

My desktop at work (sorry for the quality) :

 

[Jack the Ripper]

My current one:
(guess who)

 

[Communisto]

California Uber Alles

Dead Kennedys, biznitches

 

[Jack the Ripper]

While im at it heres my old one:

 

[vbraun]

Here is my current Linux one:

I took my avatar from this picture.

 

[WickedSmurf]

Confirming my World of Warcraft addiction by posting my current desktop.