Leonard Erickson wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:



 RJT> Aha.  Sounds like a bit of norton utilities were used there,  or
 RJT> something of that sort. 

 LE> Yep, it was an old version of Norton. Probably version 2.

I'd like to get my hands on some earlier versions,  probably have some
remnants of bits here and there.  I do have version 8 (?) on hand and don't
like it,  won't use it.  The thing created some sort of huge pile of hidden
files,  and when I moved it from one place to another it stopped working. 
I don't need that kind of nonsense.

 LE> The big ATX case I'm going to build the Win2k system in has several
 LE> of the internal bays set up so you can throw a lever to unlock
 LE> them, and they will then pivot out and can be removed by lifting
 LE> them off the pivots.

 RJT> No screws,  even.  Hm.

 LE> Well, there are a couple of screws to hold the side of the case on.
 LE> I replaced them with thumbscrews. :-)

Hm.  Seems to me that's the way a lot of it is headed,  except that screws
are still cheaper.



 LE> But unless a customer asked for it to be done differently, we'd 
 LE> always have 1 25-pin port and one 9-pin port when we put a system 
 LE> together. That helped folks keep straight which was COM1 and which 
 LE> was COM2.

 RJT> Which was which the way you did it?  I used 9 for com1 because maybe I
 RJT> was gonna use a serial mouse,  and 25 for com2,  which is where the
 RJT> modem plugs in.  I can't remember why it was I decided it had to go
 RJT> that way,  but I've been running it that way for ages.  Probably some
 RJT> early software issue or something. 

 LE> I don't recall. I think we went for 25 pin as COM 1 since that was
 LE> more apt to be the modem default, and the systems *had* PS/2 mouse
 LE> ports.

I'm talking earlier stuff,  though.



 LE> windows CD (so the drivers are part of the "base" install set).

 RJT> Hm.  More space wasting on stuff that I don't use,  but that's
 RJT> typical. 

 LE> Well, it makes a lot of sense given that so many systems come with
 LE> USB keyboards now.

Do they?  I guess it simplifies the manufacture to have to only have one
kind of port on there,  if that's where they're headed with this stuff...



 LE> But since (as far as I know) there are no USB drivers for DOS
 LE> itself, you can use them without Windows. 

And yet another way they're gonna force the issue,  or keep DOS on older
hardware.  Oh well.

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