Lately, I've found myself using a (recently-undeveloped) program called PCem once again to emulate older systems, most notably a Cyrix Cx486 to run Windows 3.1 on with the Calmira shell, but also to play with some other ancient software too, and I've been thinking, "Why keep this to myself when I know good and well that there are other retro computer enthusiasts out there too?".
Put simply, that's why I'm sharing my opinions here in my first blog.
It all starts when I stick my USB Key in my computer (very ironic when you consider I'm effectively going back to 1992 from a technological perspective) and mount the drive. From there, I'm only a few clicks and a keystroke away from my desktop being transformed into a computer of old (sort of, but bear with me).
My general preference (systemwise) is a 486/compatible (AMI WinBIOS 486) with two floppy drives, Adlib/Soundblaster 1.0, Tseng ET4000AX (I think it's pronounced approximately as "chang" as in "Changbai" or "tseng", but correct me if I'm wrong) at 640×480×8, a 1X CD-ROM drive, and powered by a Cyrix Cx486S/25 with 16 MB of RAM.
I never understood what it was about wanting to be different, but it suits me, so I roll with it.
Anyway, the configuration runs MS-DOS 6.22 (or thereabouts) with Windows 3.1 on a (generally) 150ish megabyte hard drive image.
I know it's not exactly a sensible configuration by any means whatsoever, but I do say that there is a certain charm I get from that, though the true recursion comes from the fact that I have the Calmira shell installed, which essentially (had it been around in stores in 1995 when Windows '95 was released) would have been the perfect reason for most people to justify not getting the new OS and going with what could have been called the first "budget build", another thought that has an odd charm to it.
My general software suite consists of Microsoft Works/Microsoft Office 6, Netscape Communicator, and Microsoft Encarta '94, as well as a few other things that I'm not sure of at the current moment. Still, though, it's a good thing to play around in, even if I'll never get any real networking stack within the VM (I attribute that to my own unwillingness and possible incompetence to get that configuration set up more than any incompatibilities in the program). At least I'll be able to code some webpages and maybe run them in an "intranet" type setting (Basically a bunch of HTM files on a secondary image) so it doesn't feel so cut off, and so I can see what anything I could come up with would have looked like in the early-to-mid '90s.
Another thing that I've realized when I do this is just how little I use out of a modern system's capabilities and potential some (or most) days, assuming I satisfy my internet needs with either a different system or a phone/tablet. Granted, while using an emulator to run a Windows 3.1 system is fun and can give me a pretty good idea of the experience (at least from a software perspective), no matter what you do, you can't ever get the feeling of slotting a 5¼" or 3½" diskette into its drive and wait for everything to spin up, although you can definitely try.
Going back a page, I would like to bring into perspective that, apart from some of the modern conveniences in word processors now (LibreOffice Writer for one), everything I do when making documents and spreadsheets can generally be accomplished in 20-30 year old software, despite how different it may end up being, or the fact that it's at a crummy resolution on my 16:10 desktop or laptop. Granted, basic internet surfing more than makes up for the excess power on some of my machines as they're generally several years old themselves. Regardless, it's surprising when you put into perspective how little some tasks change over time, even if we try to convince ourselves otherwise.
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