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Windows 98 Disk Defrag Simulator

33 points by butz 2y ago

ohadron 2y ago
Took a bit to run but now my iPhone feels much faster. Thanks!
sparrish 2y ago
I have spend so many hours in decades past running that on clients', co-workers', and family members' computers. Big hit of nostalgia watching that in my browser tab. Thanks.
atum47 2y ago
The sound is a bit high, but other than that really cool project.
- earth-adventure 2y ago
  Different drives which you can choose trough the settings button, have different sounds. Try the E drive.
  - atum47 2y ago
    Nice. Thanks
sebazzz 2y ago
I haven’t found any site, including this one, quite nailing the Windows 9x GUI. It is always a bit off, especially font rendering, but I can’t quite tell why.
- dist-epoch 2y ago
  It's difficult to disable font anti-aliasing in the browser.
- fallingsquirrel 2y ago
  It's nitpicky, but I'm the same way. In this version there's too much padding above/below the ? and X buttons in the title bar. If I ever win the lottery I'm going to live out my days building a GUI framework that looks like Windows 95, including unit tests that make sure the widget rendering is pixel-perfect.
- o11c 2y ago
  One factor might be screen size. In 1998 it was typical to have 1024x768 monitors at about 72 DPI. Shortly afterwards, the whole world switched to a 96 DPI standard, at higher resolutions.
holoduke 2y ago
I miss the time of spinning, clicking disks. The time of bluescreens, reinstalling windows every few weeks, broken drivers, lan parties, heavy small screens, noisy keyboards and useless custom windows UI stuff.
marshray 2y ago
the thrills
doe_eyes 2y ago
I don't think this is quite right. The reads were not sequential - the whole point was that the tool was coalescing and reordering files for optimal layout and access times. Plus, you usually had some gaps in the drive layout - a mix of used and empty sectors / blocks. There are some YouTube videos showing the real thing.
- throwaway89201 2y ago
  Indeed. This 3-hour long "ASMR" version including hard drive sounds is one of the better ones [1]. It seems oddly satisfying to watch a couple of single sectors getting written into the holes and reshuffled, after which an enormous block of sectors gets dark blue at once. All while listening to the hard drive sounds that are in symphony with the graphics. When defragging my own computer in the past, I could look at this for an embarrassingly long time, but I've also just watched this YouTube video up to timestamp 00:08:50. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFbkujZ0OuI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFbkujZ0OuI
helph67 2y ago
Vopt921.exe is an excellent defragment utility (for Win 7/10, Vista & Xp) made freely available by its author. https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/vopt.html https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/vopt.html
M95D 2y ago
Norton SpeedDisk was far better even for visuals, not just the defrag capabilities.
uhjk 2y ago
[flagged]

33 points by butz 2y ago

Took a bit to run but now my iPhone feels much faster. Thanks!

I have spend so many hours in decades past running that on clients', co-workers', and family members' computers. Big hit of nostalgia watching that in my browser tab. Thanks.

atum47 2y ago

The sound is a bit high, but other than that really cool project.

earth-adventure 2y ago
Different drives which you can choose trough the settings button, have different sounds. Try the E drive.
- atum47 2y ago
  Nice. Thanks

sebazzz 2y ago

I haven’t found any site, including this one, quite nailing the Windows 9x GUI. It is always a bit off, especially font rendering, but I can’t quite tell why.

dist-epoch 2y ago
It's difficult to disable font anti-aliasing in the browser.
fallingsquirrel 2y ago
It's nitpicky, but I'm the same way. In this version there's too much padding above/below the ? and X buttons in the title bar. If I ever win the lottery I'm going to live out my days building a GUI framework that looks like Windows 95, including unit tests that make sure the widget rendering is pixel-perfect.
o11c 2y ago
One factor might be screen size. In 1998 it was typical to have 1024x768 monitors at about 72 DPI. Shortly afterwards, the whole world switched to a 96 DPI standard, at higher resolutions.

holoduke 2y ago

I miss the time of spinning, clicking disks. The time of bluescreens, reinstalling windows every few weeks, broken drivers, lan parties, heavy small screens, noisy keyboards and useless custom windows UI stuff.

marshray 2y ago

the thrills

doe_eyes 2y ago

I don't think this is quite right. The reads were not sequential - the whole point was that the tool was coalescing and reordering files for optimal layout and access times. Plus, you usually had some gaps in the drive layout - a mix of used and empty sectors / blocks. There are some YouTube videos showing the real thing.

throwaway89201 2y ago
Indeed. This 3-hour long "ASMR" version including hard drive sounds is one of the better ones [1]. It seems oddly satisfying to watch a couple of single sectors getting written into the holes and reshuffled, after which an enormous block of sectors gets dark blue at once. All while listening to the hard drive sounds that are in symphony with the graphics. When defragging my own computer in the past, I could look at this for an embarrassingly long time, but I've also just watched this YouTube video up to timestamp 00:08:50. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFbkujZ0OuI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFbkujZ0OuI

helph67 2y ago

Vopt921.exe is an excellent defragment utility (for Win 7/10, Vista & Xp) made freely available by its author. https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/vopt.html https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/vopt.html

M95D 2y ago

Norton SpeedDisk was far better even for visuals, not just the defrag capabilities.

uhjk 2y ago

[flagged]