Network devices table of contents have been archived here and again we can see similarities to "Upgrading and repairing PCs". The similar theory chapters can be seen in "Upgrading and repairing PCs". Looking in this archived site we can see that it was in few volumes. They released a book called "Micro House PC Hardware Reference Library" by Scott Mueller - the same one who made famous "Upgrading and Repairing PCs" handbook. What do we know about Micro House Company? Looking at "D:\Micro House Documents" and "\\ MHI_NT1\" we can see that the company was Micro House company. Some editors used different OSes ("X:\Users" is Windows NT's directory) but in general it was Windows 9x (Program Files). TH99 is a work of well-organized, probably company team who used local network with SMB.Ģ. What we can deduce from template names?ġ. Listing pages have been made in ordinary HTML. Note that only hardware pages have been made using word processor. J:\USERS\ROBERTL\WORD\TEMPLATE\mytemp.dot \\RESEARCH\SYS\shared\template\CONTROLR.DOTĬ:\Micro House\Micro House Work Stuff\Micro House Documents\Mainboard Template.dotĬ:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE\OFFICE\html.dotĬ:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\IO.dotĬ:\Program Files\MSOffice\Templates\IO.dotĬ:\WINDOWS\Desktop\Mainboard Template.dotĬ:\WINNT\Profiles\Administrator\Desktop\Mainboard Template.dotĬ:\WINNT\Profiles\davidm.000\Desktop\Mainboard Template.dotĭ:\Micro House Documents\Mainboard Template.dot \\MHI_NT1\SHARED\Template\Research\CD-ROM.dot I decided to extract "Template" values from all files and make unique list of their paths, because in one path there were templates for video card, mainboard, hard disk etc. In many HTML files, I found a "Template" tag which points to path of template the document was made. In some versions it added its own Meta-tags to make editing easier. The "GENERATOR" Meta tag points to "Microsoft Word 97" which was able to generate HTML. Before software geeks realized that creating web pages must be difficult to make them earn more money, it was possible to use text editor to do it WYSIWYG way. I quickly found that they are HTMLs generated by early version of Microsoft Word. Listing pages are generated even without proper HTML header, but device pages are different. So I decided to dive into HTML files from original TH99. There was a free and full version, but no contact to purchase the full one which is strange for a free version. We're still not closer to discover the author of TH99. Well, with mr Haning, although he tweaked the versions to make them browsable easier, still has no idea who made it. This is awesome! If we can find whoever owns the copyright on it, we could potentially never have to worry about looking over our shoulders with this collection (not that I am, anymore.as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty old, and they haven't come forth yet, so, bleh). He says that they would like to know some of the copyright information so that they can maybe license the Total Hardware 1999 collection for redistribution. I've been contacted by the General Manager (!) of a company that is hosting a mirror of the collection on their servers. In 2003, he wrote in his "Old News" page: 160MB) and full one without thumbnails (ca. 2004), mr Haning offered a full version (ca. First mirrors of a "full version" started to appear in 2002, like. Haning wrote about version of "a little under 15000 PC board settings" (see the "Original" link) so he was speaking about smaller one. archived here contained 14876 devices and the full one has 18655 devices. So there was a free and full version and what we usually see with pictures is a full one. DISTRIBUTION OF THIS PACKAGE IS UNLIMITEDįULL VERSION (630MB) HAS PRINTER-FRIENDLY HTML WITH LAYOUT GIF'S FOR EVERY CARDĪND THUMBNAIL PAGES FOR EASY IDENTIFICATION OF UNKNOWN CARDS. This file is dated May 2001 and its internals are from March 2000. The file, 2 or, is about 10MB and contains text-only version of TotalHardware 99. from here but I don't know how long it'll last. Haning" ( archived copy) who, as he wrote in his History page, found a free version of TotalHardware 99 without images. Let's see the history of TH99 in the Internet. Some group or individual had to work with documentation and even real hardware, as some parts are named "UNKNOWN", usually the manufacturer and type is designated in documentation. But who made it? Discovering, describing and documenting so much hardware required lots of time and resources (personally, for me this can be a really big fun). It is a website, now mirrored in many copies, which contains jumper settings for 18655 PC-related devices, from 8088-based XTs to Pentium II systems, the best ones in 1999. TotalHardware 99 is a great help for all of those who want to configure unknown PC component, board or drive. Popular tags: Electronics (11), Linux (11), Hack (8), DIY (6), Other (6), Retrocomputing (6), Debian (5), Curiosities (4)
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