What's best to do?? classically speaking

From: joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Thu Jun 21 18:31:27 2001

At 06:36 PM 6/21/01 -0400, you wrote:

>I have a Compaq Portable 386...

        I have a couple of those and about 4 Compaq Portable IIIs.. Damm
fine little machine IMHO, especially if you have the pod on the back.


>Classically speaking... what is best to do in the cases below?
>
>1)I am running dos 6.12, but I am thinking about re-installing with
>DOS 4 or DOS 5.

      FWIW They originally came with Compaq DOS 3.3. I'm running that
and DR DOS something on mine.


>Or more generally is it better to use a circa operating system or a modern
>operating system (Assuming the machine will run both) ?


     They'll run at least MS-DOS 5. I don't know if I've tried anything
higher than that.


>2) The machine came with a 5 1/4" diskette drive, I am considering
>replacing that with a 3 and a whatever" drive, or once again more
>generally when one has an older machine is it good to upgrade the hardware
>to make it more usefull.


     Careful! Those are 1/3 height drives. It might not be as easy to
install a 3 1/2" drive as you think. Personally, I'd leave the floppy drive
alone. It's more trouble than it's worth to replace it and you're not going
to gain much in capacity by going from 1.2 Mb to 1.44 Mb. One of the nice
things about the P IIIs is that they have a very extensive drive table in
the BIOS so you can install a LOT bigger hard drive.


>I suppose on my single machine no one cares really, the "historical
>Police" will not appear at my doorstep.
>
>Let us extend the argument, Given a running PDP/11, what of the person who
>installs a current day 60GB disk drive and DVD CD ROM?
>
>Curious in San Jose.
>
>
>BTW I have two of these portables and recently offered one in trade for a
>part, I am also willing to sell for cheap.


      FWIW they used to show up regularly on E-bay and they didn't bring much.

    Joe






>_______________________________________________________
Received on Thu Jun 21 2001 - 18:31:27 BST