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Comment by RyanMcGreal | Hacker News Reader

> "Please Insert Disk 13" OH GOD WHERE IS DISK 13, I CAN'T FIND DISK 13. - Jeff 16 hours ago

I have exactly this memory as well.

My first computer was a Compaq Deskpro Portable. It had a 5.25" floppy drive and a 40 MB hard disk. It was an embarrassment of riches - how could you ever fill up 40 whole megabytes? Between that and my custom AUTOEXEC.BAT file, I was set.

As it happens, I still have most of the files I created on that original computer, and can even run my old BASIC programs using DOSBox on Ubuntu. I had to copy the files via 5.25" floppies to another computer that had a 5.25" and a 3.5" floppy drive; and from there on 3.5" floppies to yet another computer that had a 3.5" floppy drive and a CD drive.

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When I was a kid, we used to go dumpster diving; looking for software, discarded hardware, information, whatever.

Once, I found a few 3.5" Microsoft Office disks (I think it was Office 4.0), and decided to try and complete the set.

I think it took me like three months of digging through garbage to get the full set of disks (it was something ridiculous like 30 disks).

I found a set of Windows 3.1 disks at home back in high school once and actually managed to get them installed on my brand new gaming rig that I bought. I was unreasonably proud of that feat.

I still remember my dad installing windows 3.1 from a set of windows 3.1 disks. My job was to change the disks when it asks :)

Goes to show how much we've come to embrace change in the last couple of decades. Software was coming on ~50 floppies before we ditched them for CDs. Nowadays, things never get that bad before a replacement is phased in.

Unreal Tournament 2004 got up to 5 CDs and Half Life 2 I'm sure had seven. Apart from that, I've never seen anything even approaching what you guys are saying about old windows OS installs.

A couple of months ago, my siblings and I were cleaning out our parents' house. In the attic, I came across my original Compaq sewing-machine luggable. I'd given it to my dad when I upgraded to something newer. If memory serves, the Compaq came with two 5.25" floppy drives and 256K RAM. When I was using it myself, I upgraded to 640K RAM, swapped the B: drive for a 10-MB hard disk, and eventually swapped the A: drive for a 3.5" drive. I thought I was pretty cutting-edge (for a non-techie, that is).

I hauled the luggable down from the attic and plugged it in. The only things that worked were the fan and the power indicator light. I guess 25-plus years of San Antonio summers weren't exactly the best thing for the electronics. Off to Goodwill it went.

What the heck is Goodwill going to do with it? They'll have to pay a disposal fee to get rid of the thing.

Last time I fired mine up (a couple of years ago), it still booted. However, an alarming amount of smoke came out of the fan vent so I didn't keep it running for long.

Science compels you!

And in case of installing Windows 3.11, this was even more hilarious because of the fact that installer did not want all the disks in order, but only first five or so and then proceeded to demand disks in essentially random order, and in some cases the numbering on disks themselves did not match installers idea. I vaguely remember that printer drivers that installer expected on disk 7 or 8 (depending on whenever you used "Standard install" or "Expert install") were actually on disk 9.

Well windows 1.0 were only [1] 5 5.25" floppies and [2] 2 for MS-DOS and another one for write (the grandfather of word). I think i need a drive to try them again ;-) .

[1] http://twitpic.com/39kbjz [2] http://twitpic.com/39kaxd

I recall Slackware Linux requiring 13 disks

My younger brother typed format c: instead of format a: once on my Dad’s laptop that he was borrowing to do homework - he was up all night reinstalling Windows 95 from 26 floppys.

My older brother, when learning assembly, needed a memory address to write to on the hard disk of my Dad's business computer. Sadly he chose the first one as he hadn't discovered the File Allocation Table at that point. My Dad wasn't best pleased, even though technically the data was still on the disk!

Well, that was for a full install. A trimmed-down system required only a few.

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