486 build ramblings

[ST251]

I'm starting this little thread to share the details of my next adventure, which is cramming Windows 95 onto a 40MB MFM hard drive in my 486 machine.

[Trixter]

People didn't do this; a 386 in 1990 came with an 80MB IDE drive, for example. I'm not sure 40MB is even enough space for Windows 95, even with compression.

[GiGaBiTe]

The absolute minimum amount of disk space is 50-55 MB if you don't install any optional software in setup. I doubt disk compression would help. If it did, you'd literally have no room to install anything else and it'd be dreadfully slow.

[ST251]

Yeah, I understand there's no practicality to it whatsoever. I'm just doing it "because". I know it isn't the setup of a typical machine but I did start this because I wanted to see if it was at the extreme edge of possible, and actually on that note I actually did it. I'm just trying to make it all into one neat post before I submit it here.


One word. Stacker

[maxtherabbit]

Maybe NT 3.51 would be a better fit

[ST251]

Maybe NT 3.51 would be a better fit

I actually have two other hard drives with different versions of Windows for this machine. another 40MB MFM drive of mine with Windows 3.1 and a 1GB IDE drive with Windows 95.

[Trixter]

Yeah, I understand there's no practicality to it whatsoever. I'm just doing it "because".

You may find your target audience for such a setup is 1.

One word. Stacker

Stacker can't work miracles. It's tuned for speed, not efficiency, so it will do 1.5x on executables at best and that's not going to be enough to fit everything on there. Also, you can't install with compression, you can only apply it afterwards. So this is extremely unlikely to work.

If you want a period-correct challenge, try the challenge I did in 1995: Install Windows 95 on a system that meets the bare requirements: A 386sx-16 with 4MB of RAM. Can you install it via floppies? Yes. In less than a day? And when finished, have it boot in less than 20 minutes? And launch programs in less than 5 minutes? Well, those are the real challenges.

[maxtherabbit]

I have a 386sx16 with windows 95 on it. 8MB RAM makes a tolerable machine out of it.

[Trixter]

"Tolerable" being the operative word

[Unknown_K]

"Tolerable" being the operative word

We all have different ideas of tolerable.

I was watching a video on the history of Cyrix on Youtube and there was a quote from a Cyrix spokesperson stating that 13 FPS was "smooth" for FPS gaming. People today bitch if the FPS of shooters is under 60.

My 286-12 Packard Bell that I purchased new came with IDE. Granted the 286 era was pretty long but few if any 386 class machines would have MFM.