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Cheapest Laptop?

Ryan_man

Ryan_man

New Member
Lately i've been developing websites plans and structuring for a couple small businesses...

The other day I dug out my old NEC Ultralite SL/25C. I found that the hard drive had bad drive cylinders and a damage Drive Controller. Rather then spending $40 CAD on a HD, I'm looking to get at least a 286 with at least 20 MB hard drive so I can take notes and such when i'm on the road. I don't want to get a hand held computer (palm pilot) because I want the full keyboard and screen.

I've been looking around on ebay and such, and the cheapest laptop I could find (in Canadian dollars) was about $74.00 plus $50 shipping. That's for a 120mhz too. (I bought one a couple years ago 233mhz for $120 off ebay) All I need is Win3.X... ohh ya, win3.X that brings back memories.

Anywho, more to the point. What's the cheapest laptop I can get:
Minimum CPU: 286
Minimum RAM: 2MB
Minimum HD: 20MB

Anyone?
 
Check garage sales and surplus warehouses. Half.com also has a couple of laptops in the $10-$100 range.
(And you can download Win3.1 at this url <removed> but remember, must have DOS installed first. You can, of course, get that at the same URL. Mods, this isn't warez because Microsoft isn't selling or supporting Win3.1 or DOS any more.]
 
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Yea I know. I actually still have all my old software. Word 6.0, Windows 3.1 and about 100s of other disks in a big box I collected just over my few years with the '92 computers.

Thanks for the link, i'll definatly check it out.

Oh btw, yardsales just don't work for me when it comes to computer hardware. It's always some old lady who was told by her grandson to sell a laptop worth $50 for $250. So. But thanks anyways.
 
Last I checked Windows 3.1 *wasn't* free (legally). :rolleyes:
And don't ever try feeding me that "abandonware" crap.

However if you do install Windows 3.1, mare sure you check out Calmira. It's an awesome 16-bit shell for 3.1

:)
 
Fine then, it's halfway legal. Microsoft isn't making any money off of it, nobody's selling it and all it does is sit in people's closets and basements.
 
Originally posted by notnamed
Fine then, it's halfway legal.
Click to expand...

Microsoft still have rights to this software, and as far as I am aware have not released it into the public domain. Please don't link to illegal software from here.

Thank you,
 
No, it's not "half-legal" either.
Abandonware is a joke.
Just because the developers aren't making money off it doesn't mean it's free for public distribution.
 
I think some abandonware should be legal. Why you ask? Well, first off, it's not supported by the company anymore, no one is benefitting off of it... that is, you can't buy Windows 3.1 anymore, and if you have a 286 that will only run Windows 3.1, then I really don't see a problem with downloading a copy off the net.

I mean think about it, it's like someone putting a working 10 year old Television on a downtown sidewalk, then just walking far away from it.

The guy doesn't want the TV anymore, because he has a new TV that he's getting much better reception with. He didn't use it because of his new TV, and he wasn't planning on using it again.

The guy walked away from it and didn't look back, why shouldn't someone be able to take it and use it. What's the problem with that?

Am I making any sense to anyone besides myself here?
 
It's up to the company whether or not they want to release the software for free, not for you to decide on your own.

Don't give me that TV on the sidewalk crap. It was put there for someone to take, Windows 3.1 wasn't.
 
OK jmiller, I'll give you a real-world example then. This is 100% true. Some guy (QBasic webmaster) e-mails Microsoft and asks about the legality of the QBasic runtime being downloaded on-line.
The answer: Microsoft doesn't support DOS or QBasic any more. You probably won't be able to find a copy on the Internet anyway.

The site this comes from isn't responding, and Google didn't properly cache it and archive.org seems to be b0rkified. It's at http://eagleperch.net if anyone wants to view the original one later.
 
That is one small example, and a poor one at that.
QBASIC was usually distributed freely by MS anyways, so I highly doubt they'd care.

Just because of that one occurance, doesn't give you the right to pirate software.
 
QBasic 4.5 was NOT free. It was paid software. Sorry if I confused that. QBasic 4.5 and 7.1 was commercial software, and the Microsoft representative was not just referring to the free version.
 
I worded my reply poorly.

QBASIC (it's an acronym, hence the caps) 4.5 was distributed with DOS, back in the day.

And again, even though it's not supported, does not mean it's free for the taking. :angry2:
 
Hmm, I'm probably wrong about 4.5 but, I believe a later version came with both DOS and Win98, not 1.0
 
have a look around some second-hand computer stores or pawn shops. best bet as said before would be a computer trade show or something like that.
 
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