:: Shell-Shocked :: Tutorial: Max Bang Per Buck by Alan Martin

Max Bang Per Buck
by Alan Martin

Why have an article about affordable computing on a site about shells?

Alternative shells can be useful to many types of user but I think low cost computing may be the area where freeware alternative shells can make their most valuable contribution.

Most geeks recommend Windows98SE as the best operating system for "older" machines (anything with less than 128 Megabytes of RAM or slower than a 300 Mhz Pentium II). That's because the core of Windows98SE is far more stable and efficient than Win95. It's faster and has better memory management.

Windows is a modular system. You can gradually replace parts made by Microsoft with parts made by other folk. This is particularly true of the shell.

One of the worst parts of Win98 is it's buggy wasteful shell. As described in my next article, it can easily be replaced with a better freeware alternative.

Or just replace it with the simpler and more stable Win95 shell; that would have the advantage of familiarity if you wish to share the computer. Even if you will be using an alternative shell, it might be wise to start by replacing the Win98 shell with that from Win95, then replace that with a non-Ms shell. My next article on Shell-Shocked describes a few ways to do all that too, and why.

In summary, alternative shells and Win98 are a natural and sensible combination for cost effective older PCs. For even older machines which can't run Win98, see the final section entitled Ancient Machines.

While the NT based systems (NT4, 2000, XP) have some further technical advances, they need expensive hardware with more ram, cpu speed and hard disk space.

I gather that alternative shells can also be a good thing in XP land. Much of this article focuses on Win98, however many of the concepts can be applied to other operating systems.

Briefly: In my limited experience, replacing the shell may be less essential for stability in XP than in Win98. For many XP users it may be less bothersome to retain the explorer shell, simplify it by removing some built in gimmicks like the active desktop, then enhance it with non-MS shell extensions.

This article is about suitable hardware and software for advanced but inexpensive computing. The next one will be about the Windows shell.

For almost all personal or small business computing needs, a seven year old machine (with a five year old operating system, a good selection of freeware and shareware, and some free support from the friendly trans-national online community of helpful geeks) can provide satisfaction. It will cost a tiny fraction of a brand new PC loaded with Windows XP and all the latest software.

I recommend you buy the latest products if:

you are too rich;
you enjoy a fresh crop of bugs;
you want to donate cash to poor Microsoft. (It seems Bill spends so much on lawyers, aggressive salesmen and crass designers, he has little money left to hire good programmers. So it's a good cause.)(Not really.)

Otherwise, it's wise to resist the clever ads tempting you to spend spend spend on the latest stuff. Instead you can be proud of assembling an excellent "third world" system. In the long run it will be far more satisfying.

You won't be missing out on anything much, except the brief pleasure of gloating over a new system which will soon fade into alleged obsolescence.

There are many advantages in strolling along behind the cutting edge. For "the rest of us", mature technologies will be more reliable with much more bang per buck.

Microsoft calls mature products "legacy" hardware and software; a put down which assumes we all live in western economies on high incomes and don't mind being told something which cost thousands of dollars a few years ago is now obsolete.

Of course a mature Operating System can do what it did in 1998 just as well in 2003; in fact much better because of all the MS bug fixes and non MS enhancements. It takes the user community a long time to develop ways of making each new OS work as it should.

A friendly online community (of which I am a part) has spent years developing ways to make Windows98 efficient, stable and customisable. Now, with their help, you can put together a system of much better quality than any out-of-the-box product rushed out by Microsoft. It will truly feel like "My" Computer rather than whatever gimmicky interface the Big Corporation thinks we all should use, and consider Cool, this year.

The delight (?) of a new system soon fades compared to a mature one you have hand crafted yourself. Anyway, most of what's new in XP is just cosmetic (mutton dressed as lamb) and has very few benefits over a well adjusted Win98 setup.

Seriously, I don't advise against installing XP, IF you can easily afford it. Otherwise, I would encourage you to enjoy Win98 on a modest machine without feeling you are missing out.

Need speed?
The time taken for most jobs depends not on the cost of the computer but on your typing speed, internet transfer rates, etc. Even on a 486 with Windows 3.11, about 99 percent of your cpu's cycles are spent waiting for you to read, think, and hit a key occasionally. Who needs a fast screen saver?

Tempted to upgrade the hardware?
In most cases (pun intended) the only upgrades worth your money might be a bigger hard drive and some more ram. With Windows98, up to 64Mb is plenty if you mainly do wordprocessing, accounts, email, etc. Get more than 64Mb only if you need to edit huge images [Ed: Or play the latest games :)]. Enough RAM is more rewarding than a faster processor.
A 56k modem can be nice but will make little difference if your ISP, and the net beyond, can only feed it at the usual crawl.
Other folk will get sucked in to frequent upgrades, so you can use hand-me-down parts; in most situations a dusty old 28k modem will surf almost as fast as a new 56k one, assuming you're not a heavy downloader.

Tempted to buy expensive software?
It would be illegal for me to suggest that you duplicate a friend's software or borrow a copy from work. Don't do that. Not even if you know the FBI has better things to do than visit your humble village demanding to see everyone's software receipts.

Nor should you visit http://astalavista.box.sk (preferably with images turned off in your browser) to search for serial numbers. In my humble opinion, if you do that to affordable shareware then it's unethical as well as illegal.

Anyway, older second hand software is much cheaper and may be more useful than the latest version: You can buy an original Win98 CD from a friend who has upgraded to XP, or from a total stranger on Ebay. Or a local company's office may have a copy at the back of a cupboard. It's legal if they have removed Win98 from their hard drives. It will cost a fraction of a legal copy of XP and will probably suit you better. If you take the time to customise it, it can be a more interesting and satisfying process than installing XP which is less well understood.

Look for a new install (not a Windows upgrade) of Windows 98 SE. (SE means Second Edition). If you can't get 98SE, get 98 and apply all the Service Packs.

Similarly many users regretted upgrading to Office 2000. The broken MDI is a pain. That can be fixed for some parts of Office 2000 but it won't work for Word 2000. Office XP's document windows can also behave unpredictably on the taskbar in SDI or MDI mode. Many new Office features are simply annoying. It's like the difference between a good manual gearbox and a sloppy automatic.

NB If you have Office2000 or OfficeXP and must send Word documents to friends or colleagues, it's kinder to save it as an earlier version of doc. (On the Tools menu > Options > the Save tab > check "Disable features introduced after:") Then they won't have to upgrade to a newer version, just to keep up with you.

Better still, try .rtf instead of .doc.
RTF can be read by more software than Word docs, even on MACs, and the documents' file structure doesn't keep changing with new versions (which forces Word users to buy expensive MS Office upgrades).

RTF has more features than most users realise. The loveable word processor "Atlantis Ocean Mind" can use style sheets, insert simply placed images, etc, all in RTF files. Wordpad can read more RTF features (style sheets, images) than it can write. So you can send your fancy Atlantis RTF files to friends who don't have Atlantis or Word.

Why buy the whole MS Office if you only need Word? Recent versions of Atlantis can even read and save as Word .doc files. You can register it for a fraction of Office.

Great as it is already, Atlantis is under rapid development; free upgrades; tables coming soon. No, I don't have shares in it. :-) Available in many languages, you can get an uncrippled shareware trial from http://www.rssol.com/

Pass the Word about RTF :-)

Memory economies:

In a car with a small engine and a heavy load, you can't drive like a slob :-)

So the less RAM you have, the more care you must take to manage it well. Otherwise your system will slow down from overuse of virtual memory, the swap file. With care, you can easily run Win98 with a small shell in 32 MB.

The clipboard is handy but if you Cut or Copy an image or a big chunk of document it stays in memory after Pasting. There are utilities to clear the clipboard but you can simply Copy a character or two when the huge clip is no longer needed.

Don't keep too many apps open. Only allow essentials in your Startup folder and the Run sections in the registry. [Ed: There are several apps tomake this task easier, one of which can be found here.]

The main thing is to use memory efficient software. Bigger isn't necessarily better.

It's hard to judge memory usage just from the exe file size. Some exes are compressed and expand when in ram. Some use more system dlls than others. Avoid Visual Basic programs. If you really want to get scientific, put a memory guage such as Infoman2 in Startup. Then test each contender immediately after a reboot and note how much free ram it leaves.

When testing memory loads, you will need to set the min and max cache values equal (not a good permanent setting) else with an elastic cache the memory comparisons will be meaningless. In system.ini under [386enh] type two lines:
mincachesize=4096
maxcachesize=4096
and then reboot so it takes effect. Those numbers are KB so you will get a 4 MB cache. Don't forget to delete or ;rem the new lines when you've finished comparing the programs.

We all have different tastes but here are a few suggestions for enjoyable, low cost, efficient software. [Ed: Feel free to leave other suggestions in the comment sections.]

metapad (free) is a notepad replacement. It packs many features into a tiny exe. Unlike notepad there's no limit on file size. No MDI but several instances of metapad use less ram than one instance of a big editor. Instead of changing all those file associations, it's easier to rename metapad.exe to notepad.exe and put it in Windows.
a small file manager is handy because you often use it while other programs are open. Of those I've tested, the classic Servant Salamander 1.52 (freeware) uses least memory; much less than Salamander 2 (shareware). The freeware 2xExplorer is good and it has a tree pane.
Atlantis is a very efficient word processor. It can even fit on a floppy; so you can travel with it and use it on a friend's PC without installing it there; your options settings fit on the floppy too. Of course at home you install it to the hard drive.
MS Office is a memory hog so if you need more than a word processor check the free and shareware office alternatives.
XnView (free) is a great image viewer. Like the much bigger shareware AcdSee it has two modes: a single image mode and a browser mode which can manage files. Put a link to it in Sendto.

Some naughty apps leave stuff in memory after closing. This can build up until you need a reboot. A small memory indicator like Infoman2 will help you find the culprits; compare before and after. I found that with some versions of IE, the machine would bog down after browsing the web and would need a reboot.

Be wary of shareware which claims to manage or compress memory.

In summary, if you resist the sales pitch, you can be proud that you have assembled a likeable computer which is just as useable as a geewiz hyperbox.

I'm not against true technical progress. I just reject the propaganda that I shall be a lesser person (less capable, less efficient or less happy) if I don't buy it all immediately.

Ancient Machines:
An even older machine like a 486 or 386 can still be useful; nearly as good for wordprocessing your novel as a Pentium 4.

For a PC which is too slow to run Windows 98, the best system would be Windows 3.11 (called Windows for Workgroups; even if you won't be networking it was the last and best of the 16 bit Windows). Install it on top of DOS 6.2.

Axcel Performance Site is a goldmine of expertise on older systems, with recommendations and links to suitable software, from DOS and Win3.x right up to XP. Axcel 216

He won't put you down for having ancient hardware, just tell you how to get the most out of it.

You can download the lot as text files in a 1 MB zip, which is easier than browsing his site online. One zip for all the Win3.x stuff and one for all of Win95 to XP. It's a wonderful reference on taming MS operating systems for PCs, from someone who really knows his stuff and shares it all for free.

Finally:
In my experience it's too easy to get obsessed with all this tech stuff, so let me share a few personal tips:

I suggest you leave the tweaking for a period when you aren't busy. Then you can enjoy the process and deal with any problems arising. When you have a deadline for that Ph.D. thesis, the best philosophy is: "if it ain't broke don't fix it".
An efficient system with an alternative shell and all the tweaks is nice to have but it isn't essential or urgent. Windows 98SE isn't too bad straight out of the box...
It can never be perfect so it's wise to stop when it looks ok and works well enough.
Accept your own limits. We each have a different mix of skills. I hope that doesn't sound patronising. I just mean don't give yourself a hard time.
Don't worry be happy :-)

Next:
Replacing the Windows 98 shell is not essential but it has many advantages. My next article on Shell-Shocked, called "Deconstructing the Shell", could help you make a more informed choice about that and avoid getting lost if you do.

After that:
My third article on this site will describe how the freeware "Windows PowerPro" can help shellers get better results with less learning.

PowerPro is not a shell replacement; it's the most comprehensive shell extension.
It's a great tool for shellers because: each shell has different methods of customising, so much to learn!!! PowerPro works with all of them - the default explorer shells from 95 to XP and the non-Ms shells too. It can replace most shell plugins, utilities and extensions. So what you learn about PowerPro can be carried forward to your next setup. Toolbars I created with PowerPro 5 years ago work in XP today, and it's all done with a multi-tabbed gui config dialog, instead of editing step or ini files.

In my experience PowerPro, with a minimal litestep or purels shell, makes the best interface of all. Coming soon to Shell-Shocked! :-). Watch this space!

Alan Martin

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