Author Topic: Computer help... (Read 4015 times)

Boomhauer · « **on:** November 13, 2009, 10:45:58 AM »

I'm trying to get an ancient Packard Bell desktop set up for my father and running with both DOS and Windows 95. Honestly, I am not that skilled at computers but know enough to be dangerous. He needs this to run his ancient billing program he uses for his business and an ancient printer that's setup to print for him.

The computer is from my grandmother, and somehow she set a password so I can't change the boot sequence or anything, you can try to get into 'setup' (I'm assuming this is the BIOS setup) and she set a password for that. I can get into Windows 95.

Best way to proceed? We've got the floppies for both DOS and the billing program, and the CD for Windows 95. I've seen on another thread that loading a program called KillCMOS onto a bootable floppy will erase that BIOS password- is this a good course of action?

Thanks

AJ Dual · « **Reply #1 on:** November 13, 2009, 11:06:34 AM »

I would look on the motherboard to see if there is a way to jumper/reset the CMOS/BIOS first. That'll reset it to factory defaults, and no chance of losing any vital settings or configuration.

Although honestly, I would see if his billing software will run from the Xp DOS/command line shell. There are computers so much newer than a Mid-90's Packard Bell that people are throwing away all over, or availible on Craigslist for $25-50 etc.

As long as the computer has a parallel port or serial, I'm thinking the old dot matrix (for multi-part carbonless invoices I'm guessing...) will work.

Gewehr98 · « **Reply #2 on:** November 13, 2009, 11:07:52 AM »

I'm usually loathe to say something like this in somebody else's computer thread, but that might indeed be a good candidate for a small version of Linux. Knoppix comes to mind...

Torchman · « **Reply #3 on:** November 13, 2009, 01:31:41 PM »

My first puter was a Packard Hell. Look for the J1 jumper on the lower right of the motherboard as it is laying on its side. Their are 3 prongs, short it to the other side then replace. Any other

's ask!!

Torchman · « **Reply #4 on:** November 13, 2009, 01:33:43 PM »

OHHHH...plan B if that doesnt work....pull the CMOS battery...go to bed...go to work...then deal with it after two beers after work...

Boomhauer · « **Reply #5 on:** November 13, 2009, 01:44:58 PM »

Quote

As long as the computer has a parallel port or serial, I'm thinking the old dot matrix (for multi-part carbonless invoices I'm guessing...) will work.

You got it, ye old ancient Citizen Dot Matrix printer, separates invoice into two parts. Dad called the company that made the software, then they tried to bill him for $95 when they had no clue about what to do in getting the program transferred...

I'll try installing the program from the DOS prompt in Windows, but when you're dealing with such large generational gaps and such...plus, having to find out how to get the printer to play nice...pain in the ass.

There are reasons why I am not in the computer field.

Thanks for the suggestions, folks!

He was running the software on a very old IBM PS/1 Consultant- with the blazing speed of a 25mhz 486SX processor and an 85mb harddrive, plus 2mb of memory, running Windows 3.1, but it is dying.

lee n. field · « **Reply #6 on:** November 13, 2009, 01:47:46 PM »

I used to be factory authorized for Packard Bells of that era. There'll be a jumper on the board. Couldn't begin to tell you where that would be. And of course it varied from model to model.

Quote

There are computers so much newer than a Mid-90's Packard Bell that people are throwing away all over, or availible on Craigslist for $25-50 etc.

Another possible solution is virtualization. MS Virtual PC, or Virtualbox. Current hardware (at least Intel boards) does not support W95/8/ME. I had a situation a year or two ago, of needing to get an ancient app running on a new computer. Ordered out an OS-less Intel box. Could not get W98 to run, at all. XP + 98 in a virtual worked fine. of course it's more complicated. The alternative was the customer spending many thousands on new software for his needs.

Mabs2 · « **Reply #7 on:** November 13, 2009, 04:38:20 PM »

I hope you realize just how vulnerable such an old computer will be to viruses and etc that love to steal billing information. =\

RocketMan · « **Reply #8 on:** November 13, 2009, 07:04:38 PM »

Mabs makes a good point. However, if the system is not on the 'net then you should be okay.

Thor · « **Reply #9 on:** November 13, 2009, 07:14:11 PM »

Or........... one could simply remove the motherboard battery for a few minutes.....

RocketMan · « **Reply #10 on:** November 13, 2009, 07:18:40 PM »

Quote from: Thor on November 13, 2009, 07:14:11 PM

Or........... one could simply remove the motherboard battery for a few minutes.....

As old as it is, the motherboard battery should probably be replaced anyway.

Boomhauer · « **Reply #11 on:** November 13, 2009, 07:18:50 PM »

Quote from: Mabs on November 13, 2009, 04:38:20 PM

I hope you realize just how vulnerable such an old computer will be to viruses and etc that love to steal billing information. =\

It's not on the net, no modem. No need for net connectivity with this computer. The billing software does not contain any sensitive information, anyhow- just the customer name, what the case we did them entailed, and the amount they owed us (and when it was paid). No account numbers, no credit card numbers nothing like that.

I'm going to tell dad to pull the motherboard battery and see if that works. Crossing our fingers...

tyme · « **Reply #12 on:** November 13, 2009, 07:33:42 PM »

Quote

Current hardware (at least Intel boards) does not support W95/8/ME.

Even if you set up SATA in bios to act like standard IDE?

I never would have thought to try booting from a win98 install cd... I know those OSes won't work under some hypervisors either (kvm for instance), but afaik they work under vmware or virtualbox (here at bottom).

Boomhauer · « **Reply #13 on:** November 13, 2009, 08:10:11 PM »

Dad tells me pulling the motherboard battery did not work. But he did go ahead and replace the battery with a fresh one.

lee n. field · « **Reply #14 on:** November 13, 2009, 10:27:27 PM »

Quote

Even if you set up SATA in bios to act like standard IDE?

Even if.

Jim147 · « **Reply #15 on:** November 13, 2009, 10:51:18 PM »

Quote from: Avenger29 on November 13, 2009, 08:10:11 PM

Dad tells me pulling the motherboard battery did not work. But he did go ahead and replace the battery with a fresh one.

Try starting the system with the battery out and then put the battery in while it is running. Don't touch anything else while doing this.

I had to do this once to get past a factory bios password once but I can't remember the brand of computer.

jim

Boomhauer · « **Reply #16 on:** November 13, 2009, 10:56:43 PM »

Quote from: Jim147 on November 13, 2009, 10:51:18 PM

Try starting the system with the battery out and then put the battery in while it is running. Don't touch anything else while doing this.

I had to do this once to get past a factory bios password once but I can't remember the brand of computer.

jim

I'll tell dad to give it a shot when he goes back to the lab Monday.

Phyphor · « **Reply #17 on:** November 14, 2009, 03:16:54 AM »

Or, start it without the battery and shut it down, then put in the battery.

Best yet, tell us the EXACT model number it is so we can find out how to clear CMOS.

Mabs2 · « **Reply #18 on:** November 14, 2009, 09:25:16 AM »

Quote from: Avenger29 on November 13, 2009, 07:18:50 PM

It's not on the net, no modem. No need for net connectivity with this computer. The billing software does not contain any sensitive information, anyhow- just the customer name, what the case we did them entailed, and the amount they owed us (and when it was paid). No account numbers, no credit card numbers nothing like that.

I'm going to tell dad to pull the motherboard battery and see if that works. Crossing our fingers...

Well then that's fine, but he wont be able to play Crysis.

KPT · « **Reply #19 on:** November 14, 2009, 11:40:02 PM »

Quote from: Avenger29 on November 13, 2009, 08:10:11 PM

Dad tells me pulling the motherboard battery did not work. But he did go ahead and replace the battery with a fresh one.

Was it plugged in? Assuming its an ATX powersupply it has to be unplugged, the mobo will always get 5 volts from the power supply.

Brad Johnson · « **Reply #20 on:** November 15, 2009, 11:31:35 AM »

The computer is for a billing program? Billing? As in "Very Important For Our Income" billing?

I know you're Dad won't want to hear this but stop trying to cheap it out. For under a grand you could get a new machine, an updated version of the billing software (maybe, depending on price), and a decent 15-20ppm laser printer (two pieces of #20 paper is a lot cheaper than one 2-part form).

My father went through the same thing, spending weeks trying to get it to work. I sat down with him and went through the whole "money value of time" thing. We figured he'd lost about twice as much as it would have cost to buy new equipment. Being up and running in a few days vs a few weeks makes a HUGE difference when you put a dollar value on it.

Oh, he also tried the "ink jet printer is cheaper" route. That lasted about three months. After the third batch of printer cartridges he spent the few extra bucks it required to go laser. Sure, the printer is cheaper, but the per page cost is far more. In his case it was 10 cents a page vs 1. Doesn't sound like much in actual cost, but it still represents a 1000% increase. If you only did a couple of pages per day you'd probably never care. Do a couple hundred pages and you're wallet will begin to scream.

Brad

Boomhauer · « **Reply #21 on:** November 15, 2009, 06:10:02 PM »

Brad: Not going to happen. It's not that critical (it can be done with a Microsoft Word template we have, too).
But we need this program running on a computer to read two decades worth of records that we have on a bunch of floppies. He's not trying to cheap it out, he's just not going to pay anything for non-critical equipment.

Dad's just trying to get through this month right now before he decides what to do in the end.

The business might be closing soon anyway, especially if Obamacare gets pushed through.

RocketMan · « **Reply #22 on:** November 15, 2009, 06:15:48 PM »

I hope your Dad has backups for those floppies. They are notoriously unreliable, especially as they get older and are accessed repeatedly.

tyme · « **Reply #23 on:** November 15, 2009, 09:37:03 PM »

Can you say what printer is it, and what billing software? Have you thought about using a usb floppy drive, and using virtualbox to run win95 in a vm? There are win95 install media floating around various torrent sites if that's a roadblock.

Boomhauer · « **Reply #24 on:** November 15, 2009, 10:40:13 PM »

Labmatequick is the software and I don't know the specifics of the printer (it's 60 miles away at this time).

virtual machines and such are quite a bit beyond my knowledge. I'll have to look them up.

We have the windoze 95 install media, no problem on that. Just got to get the software playing nice with the computer and the printer on the Packard Hell and we'll be rolling.

he's got a copy of killcmos on a 3.5 floppy now, and he'll try it when he gets down to the lab tomorrow.

News:

Author Topic: Computer help... (Read 4015 times)