[X] My Assistant

Something called libtorrent.

that could be any number of torrent clients using that library underlying them.
Or thunder is lying about itself again.

Got Windows XP installed on my dell latitude D610 without using the optical drive.

1. Install FreeDOS on the HDD using a USb stick. Running it off a flash drive like a boot disk won't be good enough. Put it on a small partition. Maybe 2GB, possibly less. You need at least 800MB of free space, I think, before starting the install. Leave a lot of empty space for putting your WinXP partition in.
2. Copy all windows XP cd contents to a FAT32-formatted flash drive. You can re-format your FreeDOS install USB and re-use that, if it's big enough (probably will be since it's not 2006).
3. insert flash drive and then boot into FreeDOS.
4. move to the correct drive letter (probably D:) and cd into 'i386.'
5. optionally, load smartdrv or whatever the FreeDOS equivalent is. I didn't.
6. run WINNT.EXE.
7. If you didn't load smartdrv, be prepared to wait ~6 hours for the files to copy from the flash drive to the hard disk.

If you do load smartdrv, it'll maybe take an hour tops, probably a lot less but it depends on your HDD/SSD speeds. Parallel ATA might be close to an hour, I'd imagine.
I let it run overnight, since I didn't bother messing with trying to load smartdrv.
Windows will be installed... on drive letter E, though (shrug)

I might be able to fix that, but with all the registry fuckery I'd have to do I'm probably just going to leave it like this.

You can edit boot.ini to re-add FreeDOS on the FreeDOS partition when done and you'll have a DOS/Windows XP dual boot.

I tried making bootable XP install USB's many different ways, nothing worked except this.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Oct 23 2022, 03:26

I tried making bootable XP install USB's many different ways, nothing worked except this.

I've had success with [easy2boot.xyz] Easy2Boot, there's a version of it with drivers specifically for loading 32-bit WinXP images.

I've had success with [easy2boot.xyz] Easy2Boot, there's a version of it with drivers specifically for loading 32-bit WinXP images.

Isn't that a windows binary?

I didn't have a single windows machine to run things on, and hadn't since I wiped this laptop and put OpenBSD on it a while ago.

Lot harder when you live outside of the ecosystem.
I don't really understand it either, because WinAPI is an absolute bitch to program in when there are options like FLTK that support unicode in sane ways.

Edit: Anyway - I could probably have done it in a VM with USB passthrough, but that'd also feel like a lot of work. Having to do that for tethered-jailbreaking an old ipad the other week (with OS X) took a lot out of me and way longer than I had anticipated for it to.

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Edit 2:
Pic of current laptop (taken last night):
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/IMs5mXkg.jpg)
I'm pretty pleased with my photoshopping (GIMP, actually) skills erasing information on the screen itself.

Even though it came out the same year as (or maybe one year later than?) my PowerBook G4, it beats the living daylights out of it performance-wise. Even if I cap the CPU to 1.33GHz max and run the same operating system on both (Debian Sid) so that it can be compared on a clock-for-clock basis. Some of that is likely compiler optimizations, but I think most of it is just the silicon design.

The fact that basically throwing a bunch of cache on a Pentium III so dramatically improved performance into mid-netburst territory just goes to show how terrible Netburst was.

I also like how in XP I can tweak the colors of desktop dialogues and such. This color scheme is made to match the modified 'crimson' CDE/Motif color scheme that I use for everything on my linux machines. I also have GTK themes and qt5ct to get everything else looking uniform with it. I'm actually using the GTK theme on the xchat window in the picture (XChat is patched to compile on and is running via Cygwin with the Cygwin XWin X server).

I also had to use an old version of Cygwin, since it hasn't supported XP for seven years now. I remember running it while it WAS still supported, though, and I've kept a lot of patches from that time period handy.

Not looking forward to whenever TLS 1.2/1.3 become required for something I use Cygwin with... I'll likely have to try to backport a newer OpenSSL version when that happens. I've already got patches (stolen from Hexchat) to make XChat compile with newer OpenSSL, but I still have no idea what else will need updating as build dependencies for a newer OpenSSL version.


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My D610 has a crack in the lid from where I did something stupid while taking it apart; I just saw a nice 2GHz (Pentium M 760) 1400x1050 D610 on ebay decided to plunge $50 on it.

My current one is 1.73GHz (Pentium M 740) 1024x768; I'm looking forward to the upgrade.

Also, the CPU is socketed in these things, so you can replace them with faster parts (I think 2.26GHz is the max?) and reap the benefits if you so desire. I think mine gets hot enough already, though.

I don't know if this comes with a charger, or if the battery works, but I have both a charger and a miraculously-still-working OEM battery, so I'll probably just slide the HDD from my current laptop into the new one if it's all working properly.

Otherwise it'll be time for me to combine the two laptops together, but I don't think I will have to do that. Might still have to take the hinges out of the one I'm getting, though, since they tend to develop a wobble (which can be mostly fixed with a hammer if you first remove the hinges from the computer itself). It likely depends on how heavily used this one I'm getting was... but my current one came from a high school so my assumption is I've seen the worst of it already.

Looks like this one comes with a 40GB 2.5" PATA HDD as well. If that is in working order, too, then this is gonna be pretty nice because I can steal it and put it in my (lower-end) 90's thinkpad.

Oh, also it comes with an optical drive. So I don't have to dig mine out of a storage locker. Not sure if it's a DVD burner or just for CD's, but that doesn't matter to me since I have plenty of other computers that can burn DVD's.

The weakest part of my current laptop (well, the part that bothers me the most frequently) is the low resolution. Sure, I guess that can be part of the "charm," but 1024x768 feels rather cramped next to my 1280x800 computers. But 1400x1050 gets me both more width and height than my 1280x800 daily driver laptop (X201 tablet).

But for some old VN's, I suppose 1024x768 is actually advantageous compared to higher resolutions.

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Last thought: It's really weird to think that some day optical drives are going to be almost as bad as floppy drives to find working units and good blank recordable media for. Sure, that's sort of already happening with playstations and the like (at least the 'good, fully functional drive' part)... but some day we're going to have PATA/SATA optical drive emulators for PC's, in all likelihood.

I'd be pretty happy to see those emerge.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Oct 23 2022, 22:09

Isn't that a windows binary?

I didn't have a single windows machine to run things on, and hadn't since I wiped this laptop and put OpenBSD on it a while ago.

If I remember right it was. They've got a page for creating a drive with Linux up now but I haven't personally tried it. I've since moved on to Ventoy for my USB booting purposes and I haven't tried XP on it, but I don't imagine it works "out of the box".

Recently discovered the damn Windows+number shortcuts (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)
Basically they load things from the taskbar, but more importantly, they damn start when I slip while aiming for Alt, and it minimize the game window and load some crap I have to close, usually in the middle of a battle/situation where I REALLY don't appreciate to be kicked out.
And from what I've seen so far, you can't disable those damn shortcuts specifically, at best you can only turn off ALL shortcuts using the windows key, but it would be too inconvenient to turn it on/off all the time.

Recently discovered the damn Windows+number shortcuts (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)
Basically they load things from the taskbar, but more importantly, they damn start when I slip while aiming for Alt, and it minimize the game window and load some crap I have to close, usually in the middle of a battle/situation where I REALLY don't appreciate to be kicked out.
And from what I've seen so far, you can't disable those damn shortcuts specifically, at best you can only turn off ALL shortcuts using the windows key, but it would be too inconvenient to turn it on/off all the time.

Speaking of stupid shortcuts, which retard thought it's a good idea to assign Ctrl/Command(+Shift)+Q/W to close all tabs/close window should burn in hell. The number of times I kill all my tabs or close my editor by mistake when what I want to do is simply select all the text.

God bless AutoHotkey.

In modern firefox there's an about:config pref to stop ctrl+q from quitting.

It is an asinine shortcut, I agree.

Edit: I think the pref name is 'browser.quitShortcut.disabled', and it's a boolean value.

On older FF versions (and in Seamonkey), I would unzip omni.ja, edit a specific file containing the quit shortcut declaration, and re-zip it. That would effectively stop it from happening, too.

Could probably have done it with a XUL overlay extension in Seamonkey, at least.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Oct 26 2022, 02:19

Is there any way to stop the huawei router my ISP supplied from trying to use its own self signed TLS certificate on secure connections? I have it in bridging mode to a high end wifi router.

I probably need to find a new VDSL2+ modem, unfortunately so many available are not 100% compatible with the latest updates for high speed connections.

This post has been edited by EsotericSatire: Oct 26 2022, 06:11

Bought a new screen lid and bezel for my existing old laptop, since the seller of the 'new' laptop i ordered is being slow as hell shipping the thing and the bezel on my existing one is only going to get worse but the laptop is otherwise totally functional.

So I should end up with an SXGA (1400x1050) latitude D610 as well as an XGA (1024x768) one. Will probably continue to use the 1024x768 for VN's. But the 1400x1050 outclasses my daily laptop in both width and height and is a better aspect ratio to boot. So I'm considering doing something silly and dailying it for a while.

Recently discovered the damn Windows+number shortcuts (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)
Basically they load things from the taskbar, but more importantly, they damn start when I slip while aiming for Alt, and it minimize the game window and load some crap I have to close, usually in the middle of a battle/situation where I REALLY don't appreciate to be kicked out.
And from what I've seen so far, you can't disable those damn shortcuts specifically, at best you can only turn off ALL shortcuts using the windows key, but it would be too inconvenient to turn it on/off all the time.

My keyboard has no windows key. Problem solved.


This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Oct 26 2022, 20:30

Bought yet more stuff; a new lid and bezel for my existing D610 with the lid broken right along the hinge.

Seeing Facebook limits cost me 3 accounts
But at least I know what can be uploaded and what can't, and to be honest, it's too random, that's why I'm glad that Apple is finally doing something right, and by doing something right I mean ending Meta's business model.

Got my replacement lid and bezel for my laptop today.

Got it installed, and then realized the new lid backing was also chipped (in a different, less vital corner, but still).

They're going to send me another one for free, but I really wish I'd looked before taking the screen out of the old one and everything.

On the bright side, I'd forgotten what non-wobbly hinges felt like. They feel good.

You can largely fix wobbly hinges on these with a hammer (smacking this friction-providing metal sleeve/shim piece back into place; they slowly work their ways free with use). But with the crack in my old lid in a structurally important spot, that wasn't enough.

Overall: I'd rather have the chip this lid has than the old one. But I'll probably swap it out anyway when the replacement-for-the-replacement arrives.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Oct 30 2022, 02:08

Seeing Facebook limits cost me 3 accounts
But at least I know what can be uploaded and what can't, and to be honest, it's too random, that's why I'm glad that Apple is finally doing something right, and by doing something right I mean ending Meta's business model.

Yeah but apple's intrusive AI detection is far more aggressive and they report far more aggressively as well.

It won't be that far off that its wrong think that they are detecting and reporting.

They are already arresting people for memes.

You can largely fix wobbly hinges on these with a hammer (smacking this friction-providing metal sleeve/shim piece back into place; they slowly work their ways free with use). But with the crack in my old lid in a structurally important spot, that wasn't enough.

My old toshiba laptop was like that. Even the tech support just gave me a guide on percussive maintenance.

Yeah but apple's intrusive AI detection is far more aggressive and they report far more aggressively as well.

It won't be that far off that its wrong think that they are detecting and reporting.

They are already arresting people for memes.
My old toshiba laptop was like that. Even the tech support just gave me a guide on percussive maintenance.

I just sort of figured it out myself independently. Didn't know others had done it, although I'm not super surprised either I guess.

I've never opened a Toshiba laptop that wasn't a complete bitch to take apart and reassemble.

This old latitude is pretty straightforward, all things considered. Probably easier than my thinkpad, even, in that i don't have to flip it upside down to get the keyboard out and access the stuff under it. Just pop off an access panel above the keyboard and take out two screws.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Oct 30 2022, 02:22

This old latitude is pretty straightforward, all things considered. Probably easier than my thinkpad, even, in that i don't have to flip it upside down to get the keyboard out and access the stuff under it. Just pop off an access panel above the keyboard and take out two screws.

really wish they'd still do it like that, the latitudes we have at work literally require you to take the back cover off (full shell no windows for ram or anything), then disassemble EVERYTHING, untill all you have left is the keyboard. its absolute maintenance insanity.

I other thoughts/news. recently got access to a fiber connection and I really like how theres just a simple modem that does glass <-> rj45 without any handling of the connection and even though the isp provides a router to go along with it theres nothing stopping you from just putting your own router behind it. 0 isp hardware is a bliss experience.

This post has been edited by cate_chan: Oct 30 2022, 04:13

really wish they'd still do it like that, the latitudes we have at work literally require you to take the back cover off (full shell no windows for ram or anything), then disassemble EVERYTHING, untill all you have left is the keyboard. its absolute maintenance insanity.

I have one of those for work, too. Latitude 3420, perchance?

I discovered this because I spilled orange juice on mine (somehow, in under three weeks I'd done that to my work laptop, but I've not done that to any of my OWN computers in a quarter century or so). and looked up Dell's official video on how to replace the keyboard.

Their keyboards are like the blower motor in a Volvo 240. It's like they put down the keyboard and then bolted the body and everything else onto that to make the computer. So to get back to it you have to dismantle the whole thing.

I replaced the lid (bezel and backplate) in around 10-15 minutes today, moving the old LCD panel into the new lid. I think there were 12 screws in total to do all of that. What a difference 17 years makes (this is a D610).

I other thoughts/news. recently got access to a fiber connection and I really like how theres just a simple modem that does glass <-> rj45 without any handling of the connection and even though the isp provides a router to go along with it theres nothing stopping you from just putting your own router behind it. 0 isp hardware is a bliss experience.

Lucky devil.

I have to deal with comcast.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Oct 30 2022, 05:20

I just sort of figured it out myself independently. Didn't know others had done it, although I'm not super surprised either I guess.

I've never opened a Toshiba laptop that wasn't a complete bitch to take apart and reassemble.

I think thats the issue, to pay for them to do the repair was like $600 back then, vs just hitting it in the right place until something cracks.

I think thats the issue, to pay for them to do the repair was like $600 back then, vs just hitting it in the right place until something cracks.

We might be talking across terms. I don't know how you'd fix the problem in my laptop without actually opening it up and getting to the hinge.

I meant hammering this shiny sleeve down into the channel it is supposed to fit in (note that this one is most of the way in already; it had actually fallen out before and I had to re-insert it):
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/KfS5Pksg.jpg)
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/uamahKvg.jpg)

My new lid came with fresh hinges; this is a picture of one that I removed today.

The most annoying part is that if it's partially sticking out and not fallen out entirely, it blocks access to the screws you need to remove to take the hinge off. I think I ended up using a knife and pliers to shimmy screws out the first time.

I basically figured it out on my own just because there was a loose piece of metal rattling around inside my laptop near the hinge and I thought, "Hmm, I wonder where this came from." It wasn't some brilliant insight, in my opinion. If you meant by "that's the issue" that it wasn't common knowledge, anyway. if the issue was the laptop being a complete bitch to take apart and reassemble, then yeah.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Oct 30 2022, 06:34

I checked the readme of my version (3.7.9) of JoyToKey, and it contains:

This product comes with no warranty. It is freeware, but use it at your
own risk.

I wonder where the higher version that can be found on Internet nowaday, shareware and requiring to pay a licence, come from:

• source code stolen?
• reverse engineering?
• author becoming greedy?