Just swapped a nasty webcam for an old DTK laptop, leet mana hehe :) Runs DOS and Windows quite nicely, greyscale 10" VGA screen is no problem, machine is very small, new monster laptops won't fit my bag but this does! (VERY quiet and cool running too when the power management knocks the HD off) Anyway... it's come with Office and a couple other utils... all it's missing is an image editor and a database. What would you guys recommend, particularly as free downloads? (i really don't fancy spending much cash on this :) Hard disk space isn't a problem as it's got a comparitively huge 540mb seagate noise beast under the hood... and i may even be able to connect an ATAPI cd-rom if I leave the keyboard off and make it external, seems to have the capability. Thinking of using Works 3 for it's database besides word and excel for WP and SS, but problem is where to get it and whether it's still under some kind of evil extended copyright lockdown by MS :( did have it once, legally (i think!) but the disks are long gone as my family stopped using 3.1 ages ago. Far be it from me to ask or advocate warez... but are there any "abandoned software" sites that may help? Also if anyone knows how to get hold of a win95 general SVGA driver (640x480 256 colours) that'd be a boon, the machine is 256 colour capable, not much help on a mono screen but increases software compatibility (eg paint programs) and it does have VGA out after all. Somewhere in my house there are buried 3.11 discs but i'm 200 miles away at college! Hardware hackers plz speak up too, I have questions: I'd like to know why my homemade battery doesn't work (copied the dead original's design exactly - 6xC ni-cads, three split-off contacts and a couple of thermistors in electrical tape-like material) or where a replacement can be got for under 70 dollars... lugging a PSU around really hampers the portability - it's this or getting my palmpilot repaired, also pricey. I know I may be playing with fire a bit, but as it's low voltage and storage (7.2v and ~2Ah) and a 'toy' machine with thermal cutouts not too worried. Wrap it in tons of insulation anyway.. Replacement keyboards...? Are they available at all? (it's got a.. 83key? US layout but i'm in the UK and a british layout randomly loads in windows - some days i can't write a backslash, others i can't write a pound sign - needs an extra key, or even if i can slave the missing one to Scroll Lock which I have never used on any computer, -ever-). And any way to add some audio chipset, or at least replace the built in buzzer thimble thing with a small speaker, it's useless even for beeps at a different frequency to the BIOS startup one... and the win3.1 beeper driver doesnt work worth a damn with it, though it gave nice output on the last old lappy i used it with :-( Thats about it I think... oh yeah.. wonder if there's some way to fake serial port output as USB? Had a (now dead) mouse come with a USB-Serial converter, hoping it may work the other way round to make printing with my USB-only printer a bit simpler, rather than having to transport everything over floppies or buy an expensive parallel-USB converter. [sudden memory] Doh, it's a 33mhz not a 25... hehe... does that still de-turbo down to 8mhz like a 25 does, or a different speed? So many questions, and not many of them win3.1, sorry..!

any money you spend on that crocodile is a waste. too many lappers on ebay for a right price that would serve you better

Well yeah that's why I'm looking for free stuff... I got it by trading a £20 webcamera after all, if it all comes to nothing then no big loss, can spend that much on a night out after all :) The hardware mods are just flights of fancy, tho it would be nice to have an external CDROM and a decent speaker... oh and that extra key ;) Found a shareware of psp3.1, the svga drivers so far... still at a bit of a loss for databases, batteries etc. I rather think any laptop i may pay for that's less than the price of a new battery may also come with a dead one though. The design of the (totally useless) battery that came with appears very simple, like I say six standard cells and a couple of safety cut outs, in a wrapper that makes it look like some expensive and solidly engineered lump, just confused as to why my replacement doesn't work. The power/HD LEDs flash on for a fraction of a second then go out :( Batteries properly charged, right voltage, right way round and everything.

dont know how much this helps but it is posible to run excel 5.0 in 5.4MB.All you need to run Excel is the Excel.exe and sdm.dll vba.dll vbaen.dll xlintl.dllComes to 5.4mb.Save alot of disk space over 25+ MB.I can send these to you if you e-mail me.Of corse things like the help files and such wont work but it is in every outher way a full funcitioning Excel

I have a complete copy of both Excel 5 and Word 6, both for 3.1, and somewhere I actually have Works 1.0 or 2.0, which also works. email me if you need any files from them.

Sir, Good morning Please provide me with the copy of the following file: Windows 3.1, Excel 5, Word 6, Works 1.0 or 2.0.I have all this in my computer but unfortunately one month ago I have problem in trobleshoting all data was lost. Nchon

Wha? (scratches head) um... ok... i have excel 5, word 6 and everything already.. just need works 3.. maybe publisher v3 too, though considering how godawful primitive that now looks in comparison to pub2000, maybe a competitor such as serif pageplus would be better. (ah the days of serif DTP on a house-sized DX25 in VGA at school) oh yeah, and a 'fixed' svga driver, i've got the official ones and everything now (well, as close as possible) and there's -wierd- problems with the icons and mouse pointers still. need to de-accelerate those bits somehow, so far as the _linux_ sites say! Jeez. oh yeah.. and software that can read/convert Progressive-format JPGs, esp to load into psp v3.. and some way of soldering in a co-processor, the SX chip gets MIGHTY slow suddenly if you face it with a post-93 game or a complex picture to save :) Funny to think that in a few months time we'll be able to buy P4s that are 100x faster, and some people will buy those just to do WP on. Wonder how long til 4Gb of RAM, though? (that's the pentium limit, if i remember right)