[Archive] Old(ish) CDs from the library

This is a repost of an old article I originally wrote on September 3, 2015 when I was 15 that you can find here. So please excuse my immaturity in my prose. I do still have the old CDs referenced in this article, almost 10 years later, right next to me as I’m typing this actually. I found it a while back and put it in a shoebox full of other trinkets.

Well, so the library was giving out free old books and CDs today…

Free software! Yay!

A quick run through of what I have :

1. Microsoft Office 2000 Training
2. CompuServe
3. Universal Translator Deluxe
4. Key Resume
5. E-Book #1 : Networking and Internet Reference Series

Some of these crashed when I slotted it in. Some of these suck. Only one I could truly appreciate. Let’s go through them, shall we?

Microsoft Office 2000 Training

I tried. I really did. This old program just kept crashing. That doesn’t mean I won’t be able to use this at all , it will just take a bit more time than usual, time I just don’t have. As far as this program goes, it was one of those ‘self-teaching’ CDs if I’m not mistaken. Possibly came with a book, though there is no evidence to support that. This disc might have been used years ago to teach students how to use Microsoft Office, but judging by what I see and having poked around, It was probably not designed for more than one user at a time. File format for what I think is animation is an STM file, which I can’t find anywhere on the web, though there does seem to be a magic “RTIS” embed into every of file of that format.

Compuserve

As far as I can tell, this was likely to be stuck at the back of a magazine, most likely one called “PC Magazine”. It’s a disc containing a bunch of freeware software (and a few trial software and a demo of an old Fifa game) as well as some code samples which come from the magazine. Take note that while it advertises “Includes latest Fifa game!”, it actually, in truth, has a demo of the latest Fifa game, which, by the way, if you haven’t figured out already, is an old Fifa game by now.

Look at all these freeware programs. I would say crapware, but I wasn’t messing around much with computers at that time so I wouldn’t know.

I should probably point out that the FIFA game crashed in less than a minute, before I even started playing. Not sure if I could do anything to prevent that, but I didn’t bother trying.

Not the first time Fifa disappointed me (see DS Fifa Exploits)

But truth be told, this really is my second favourite of the list, besides working at all and not crashing (mostly), the code samples are the real thing I’m interested in here, despite being slightly outdated.

Universal Translator Deluxe

This program…I couldn’t get it to run, it crashed when I ran the setup.exe file. I did, however, find reviews on the internet (Amazon) which claim that this is a terrible product, so I don’t feel too bad not being able to run this. I somehow get the feeling the library never managed to run this program or nobody bothered to use it XD . Anyway, what this program claims to be is a ‘revolutionary translator’. Don’t judge me too harshly for not running this program on my own, it crashed my computer the first time, with my laptop refusing to power down for some reason (even through a hard reset!), and after that I tried again even though I was worried. Perhaps some day when I have nothing to do I’ll attempt once more.

Key Resume

Key Resume, another not-so-bad program. It crashed – but only because of my computer. I took the time to download Window 3.1 on Dosbox and run it through there, since that was the minimum version needed for the program. It worked fine, the Resume looks neat and professional – Granted, it isn’t anything ‘modern’ and ‘fun’ looking. And I suppose one might have trouble printing it out now that printer drivers are different…

Filling up my resume The screen is a bit narrow, but I think that’s either because of a setting in Dosbox, or Windows 3.1 is naturally like that. It is likely later supported versions of Windows can display it nicer. It is, however, very much still usable in Windows 3.1, as long as you don’t mind scrolling a bit more.

E-Book #1 : Networking and Internet Reference Series

Last but definitely not least, the best thing I have out of the five, a bunch of e-books slapped into a disc.

Look at all those e-books!😊

A slight downside to this is that the images are not embed in directly in the HTML files (back then epubs were non-existent, pdfs might have been a viable candidate for ebooks, but with html, it was more interactive). The only reason I can gather is that it is for speed or readability. The HTML format of the books are OK, nothing impressive, just a plain HTML file for each page.

But the content in these (Fifteen!) books are great! Again, nothing overly impressive, and it slightly outdated, but it is nice to have an offline copy of these. It is also great fun to read through and see how times have changed (Did you know that LILO used to be the Bootloader for Linux before GRUB?! Or did you notice how they said Java is in it’s infancy?  Or…) Though I suppose some might see this as a danger to those new to the topic they are researching (for e.g : using outdated dangerous code).

Even so, I’ll certainly be looking forward to reading all these!

Conclusion

Outdated things may be outdated knowledge, but knowledge is still knowledge, grab it while you can 😉