Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

Geek Culture / Pimp my Windows 3.11

Author
Message
Torrey
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Aug 2004
Location: New Jersey
Posted: 17th Nov 2006 09:54 Edited at: 17th Nov 2006 09:56
Link
I've been playing around with Windows 3.11 again and came across a program called Calmira XP. It creates an XP style interface with taskbar and all the extras. I changed my settings to look more like win 9x/2k. Take a look at the picture I attached.

Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Raven
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Mar 2005
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 17th Nov 2006 10:06
Link
cool ^_^
a while back someone was able to add the 32-bit interfaces from Windows 98 in to 3.11, mainly so that you could run DirectX games without using Win32S.

Pretty cool there's still bit of a following for this aging Windows.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400, 512MB DDR2 667MHz, ATi Radeon X1900 XT 256MB PCI-E, Windows Vista Business / XP Professional SP2
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Nicholas Thompson
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Sep 2004
Location: Bognor Regis, UK
Posted: 17th Nov 2006 10:23
Link
Apart from the challenge - what does this achieve?

[center]
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Phaelax
DBPro Master
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 16th Apr 2003
Location: Metropia
Posted: 17th Nov 2006 10:46
Link
3.11 was more stable the 9x, so now those users aren't limited to the usual 3.11 limitations. Who cares, its cool.

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
BatVink
Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Apr 2003
Location: Gods own County, UK
Posted: 17th Nov 2006 10:47
Link
What does any change to a user interface achieve? It improves the usability (theoretically). And there are still uses for Win 3.11.



Back to top
Profile PM Email
Torrey
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Aug 2004
Location: New Jersey
Posted: 17th Nov 2006 10:54
Link
There are tons of enhancements in Calmira that makes usability way better than the normal shell interface. My main problem with Windows 3.11 is the speed of processing. Windows 95 and later is so much faster, so any tweaks or programs that improve the 3.11 version is something great to experience.

Just like using old game console emulators there is a nostalgic feeling you get when use these old products. Even more so when coders out there keep developing and improving it.

Back to top
Profile PM Email
Pricey
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Feb 2003
Location:
Posted: 17th Nov 2006 11:14
Link
i love windows 3.1
i used to use the Windows Blind skins to make my windows XP pc look like 3.1, i'll find a pic somewheres...



:: 3Ghz Pentium 4 / Hyper Threading, 1024mb RAM, 250GB HDD, 256mb Radeon 9600XT Graphics ::


Back to top
Profile PM Email
Raven
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Mar 2005
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 17th Nov 2006 12:35
Link
Quote: "Apart from the challenge - what does this achieve?"


Not much, but who cares.
Only reason Win 3.11 isn't as high-performance as Win 95 is simply because of the interface.

3.11 was designed for the 16-bit Era; meaning it got no real performance enhancment when the 486 provided a true 32-bit processing solution.

I always liked 3.11, but it does certainly seem to show it's age now, eh? heh

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400, 512MB DDR2 667MHz, ATi Radeon X1900 XT 256MB PCI-E, Windows Vista Business / XP Professional SP2
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Kentaree
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 5th Oct 2002
Location: Clonmel, Ireland
Posted: 17th Nov 2006 15:54
Link
Windows 95 runs on a 32-bit version of DOS, doesnt it? Would it be possibly yo rip out the Win95 shell, and put Windows 3.1 on top of the resulting version of DOS to have a semi 32-bit system?

Nephin Games
Devhat Developer Network and IRC Channel
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Raven
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Mar 2005
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 17th Nov 2006 16:54
Link
Nope, Windows 95 and DOS 7 run seperate environments.
Honestly think that Microsoft should've kept their back-end kernel and built their visual interface on-top rather than having it all integrated. Might've made it more stable.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400, 512MB DDR2 667MHz, ATi Radeon X1900 XT 256MB PCI-E, Windows Vista Business / XP Professional SP2
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Apr 2002
Location: On the Jupiter Probe
Posted: 17th Nov 2006 20:57
Link
Quote: "I've been playing around with Windows 3.11 again and came across a program called Calmira XP. It creates an XP style interface with taskbar and all the extras. I changed my settings to look more like win 9x/2k. Take a look at the picture I attached."


No offence to you, but that's seriously fugly.

"Bite my shiny metal ass" (Futurama)
"Don't ping my cheese with your bandwidth" (Dilbert)
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
David R
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Sep 2003
Location: 3.14
Posted: 17th Nov 2006 21:02
Link
Quote: "3.11 was more stable the 9x,"


I wouldn't say so: 3.1 was essentially just a DOS app, and it doesn't insulate itself from its applications, so it can be brought down relatively easily. It isn't really a true OS

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Kentaree
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 5th Oct 2002
Location: Clonmel, Ireland
Posted: 17th Nov 2006 23:48
Link
@DavidR: Neither were Win95 or Windows98, and WindowsME to a certain extent

Nephin Games
Devhat Developer Network and IRC Channel
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Torrey
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Aug 2004
Location: New Jersey
Posted: 18th Nov 2006 03:33
Link
Quote: "No offence to you, but that's seriously fugly."


It'd look a little more sexy if I actually installed it to a partition instead of running it through vmware. Also, vmware doesn't have any drivers for svga support in windows 3.11 so I'm running a patched version someone made. Here's a better example of what it should look like:



Quote: "3.11 was more stable the 9x"


I had less system crashes over the years using 3.11, but more random program crashes than with win 9x/me.

Back to top
Profile PM Email
David R
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Sep 2003
Location: 3.14
Posted: 18th Nov 2006 13:17
Link
Quote: "@DavidR: Neither were Win95 or Windows98, and WindowsME to a certain extent
"


Yeah, but 95 onwards run in protected memory, whereas 3.1 doesn't

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Benjamin
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Nov 2002
Location: France
Posted: 18th Nov 2006 14:07
Link
Quote: "Yeah, but 95 onwards run in protected memory, whereas 3.1 doesn't"

Actually I remember reading that 3.1 was the first to run in protected memory? Maybe I read it wrong.

Tempest - P2P UDP Multiplayer Plugin (DBP/DBCe)
Download the free version
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Lost in Thought
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Feb 2004
Location: U.S.A. : Douglas, Georgia
Posted: 18th Nov 2006 14:14
Link
I still use 3.11 at work for old machines. I do not miss it at all. On the plus side ... It has never crashed on me.

Back to top
Profile PM Email
David R
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Sep 2003
Location: 3.14
Posted: 18th Nov 2006 14:19 Edited at: 18th Nov 2006 14:19
Link
Actually Benjamin, you are in fact right; I was confusing the DOS underneath it with the actual Windows kernel - it was the DOS which 3.1 ran on top of that had no protected memory.

So DOS apps could trash each other, but not the Windows OS on top of it.

My bad

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Agent Dink
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Mar 2004
Location:
Posted: 18th Nov 2006 22:57
Link
Ahhh, 3.1 and Qbasic... lol. I like getting old computers out of the trash and putting 3.1 on them for awhile sometimes. Play all the old games and let all the memories flood back. Plus Win3.1's paintbrush is wwwwwaaaay awesomer than windows95 and up. Cardfile was a very cool program, you could attach images into each card, and make animations with it, however that's not what it was made for.

Sometimes the only way over a wall is to pile up enough bodies to climb over - Dave W.
Back to top
Profile PM
Kenjar
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Jun 2005
Location: TGC
Posted: 18th Nov 2006 23:53 Edited at: 19th Nov 2006 00:05
Link
I never found win 3.11 stable, quite the reverse, no MS system was remotely stable up until windows 2000 SP3. Windows 95 OSR 2.5 (until 2k) was the most stable, windows 98 was even less stable, SE improved it a bit, ME was a bloody nightmare to run. The only 100% stable operating system ever made by microsoft, was DOS, and even then I mean 5 and above. PC's should never have moved away from BIOS intergrated OS's like TOS for the Atari and AMOS for amiga. It's faster, means they have to streamline the code, and forced code to be smaller. Everything else can be bolted on as extentions.

I lay upon my bed one bright clear night, and gazed upon the distant stars far above, then I thought... where the hell is my roof?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Nexties
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 19th Nov 2006
Location:
Posted: 19th Nov 2006 18:49
Link
Nexties says, "Hello World." The quickly speedreads the thread. "Is there any mention here about Windows 3.11 being a
Real Time Operating System (RTOS)?" asks Nexties. "Windows 2000 and up are NOT realtime, and their time slice can not be less than 250 milliseconds" adds Nexties. "This means it cost $8,000 dollars for Kernel Mode programming using the Device Driver Kit (DDK, may cost about $299.00) to do what DOS, Win3x, Win9x, WinMe do for FREE. "So ROCK ON an do Pimp out your Win3x!" shouts Nexties.

Nexties concludes,"Everyone obviously needs the newest, latest and greatest Operating System. No dispute there. However, this thread is all about is a excellent, interesting experiment, to tap into the power of a working old computer built by dumpster diving components." Nexties got a 386 laptop with a crystal clear, beautiful bright active matrix 256 color 640x480 screen from ebay for just $13.00. "It is a fun hobby.", says Nexties.
Back to top
Profile PM
Grog Grueslayer
Valued Member
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th May 2005
Playing: Green Hell
Posted: 19th Nov 2006 22:28
Link
I'm not surprised that Windows 3.1 is still being used... people still make Atari 2600 games too.
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Back to top

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2024-11-17 21:49:00
Your offset time is: 2024-11-17 21:49:00