You know you have the necessary
training, knowledge and experience to make it work. The only limitations
are the financial restrictions and the available equipment ....
we want to give you some resources to overcome them !
TBSC - CONSULTING is a partner of ...
A good starting point is the link: Resources on this site !
On this page we are dealing with operating system issues (esp. if only older equipment is available). We will go deeper into the newer developments of LINUX etc. in the near future because these systems allow to re-use and utilize also older hardware.
See our LINUX page (under construction)
At this very first stage we just deal with the DOS issue. If you have only a box without operating system at all, not complete, version too old etc. you can download an DOS system from the following web site.
As far as we understand it - this web site allows you to download for personal use a complete DOS system which works properly. We have installed it on one of our older computers and then MS-Windows on top of it - no problems.
However - we have no contact to the authors of this web site and NO legal responsibility is taken for the contents on their web site, nor for the funtionality of the operating system(s) offered for download.
What we liked most in this
version of the operating systemn is the file : DOSBOOK.EXE
- an excellent reference for DOS.
See also our page with DOS Tutorials: dos_tutorials.html
All Microsoft operating systems (even the oldest DOS version) are the property of MICROSOFT Corporation. So we can't bring you here any version of MS-DOS for download, nor can be bring you any of the previous MS-Windows versions: 3.1, 3.11 for Workgroups etc.
Sorry folks - there might be illegal copies around somewhere on the Internet; but this is not the way to go.
We will ask MICROSOFT to provide us with legal copies of older MS-DOS and MS-Windows versions for those in our target group who really need it - how successful we will be we don't know at this stage. We will keep you posted !
One of our arguments is, that there is for older Windows versions no market anymore therefore they could be put into the public domain. However I cannot expect MICROSOFT to agree with me ...
But maybe we have the chance to talk to the right people at MICROSOFT who see what we are trying to achieve.
What a difference this would make to educational institutions somewhere in the world who have older equipment (386 machines for example), but not enough legal copies of older MS-DOS or MS-Windows operating systems. Or worse: their disksets are incomplete, damaged etc.
As a software developer myself I think these are future customers and if we are serious about overcoming the "digital divide" then a little bit understanding by the bigger computer software manufacturers would be very welcome.
Let's take our own example: of course we want to sell our products for a reasonable price; on the other hand: giving them away for FREE to those who could not afford to buy them at this stage not only makes me feel good - this might be a future customer.
In the meantime we hope that many people will donate their older original MS-DOS and/or MS-Windows disks or CDs together with the license no. etc. to someone who could make good use of it for educational purposes.
Apart from this we cannot help with original copies of MS-DOS or MS-Windows disksets or CDs at this stage.
However if you have some damaged files on an original disk we might be able to help you to fix this problem - see also our Software Testing page. Or let us know which files are damaged on your disks, not readable etc. We will see what we can do for you.
We might also be able to help you with the repair of damaged files if you have original disk sets of:
Word for Windows Version 2.0
Excel 4.0
Powerpoint 3.0
( to be continued )
( These pages are permanently under development
) Printer friendly !