the Dell that pleads for life

Created on November 26, 2016
Indexed on July 27, 2022 at 12:06 AM

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A Dell Dimension XPS D300 desperately clings on to life, attempting to resist its destiny lying with the dump. It gives itself power only long enough to run its batch program, designed in false hope that it will win the heart of someone walking by...

The tasks shown in this video are driven by a single batch file that launches several programs and VBScript files. I also wrote a couple of quick and dirty programs in Visual Basic 6.0 for the batch file. The batch file makes use of the GnuWin32 port of the UNIX sleep command to delay other commands.

The Windows Script Host component needs to be installed in Windows 98 Setup in order to make use of VBScript for automating tasks in Windows 98. The bundled version of Windows Script Host is very limited in functionality, but by updating Internet Explorer to version 6, Windows Script Host will be updated to version 5.6, thus allowing for greater scripting functionality, including the SendKeys command that is integral to this batch program.

Writing one large VBScript file that runs the whole way through would be more efficient than running many commands right in the batch file, as I have noticed short lags in between commands as they are run. I was under a time constraint to be able to record somewhere other than my usual plastic table and yellow wall setup, though. I just had to go with what I already knew or could learn quickly, so I'm sure there's a lot of missed potential with this demo-like script.

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Comments

I miss my Core 2 Duo system... (it has passed away years ago)

It would be super pro if this happened 24/7.

Blue Horizon - July 27, 2022 at 06:41 AM

This exact computer was eventually sent to me at the start of 2020, with all the sticker residue intact. The Dell will find salvation in this establishment o' mine, and Weber will guide me to prepare chili cheese nachos to go alongside it.

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