Coder
Experienced Member
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2023
- Messages
- 80
I recently picked up a Sony VAIO PVC-W20. It's a Windows XP era P4 all-in-one. This era of computer is currently not considered vintage-enough to merit a post on sites like this, but is also old enough that finding original software for them is getting difficult. There are no ISO's of the original recovery discs available on the web. Sony no longer sells them. Sony also wiped their site of any drivers/software from before Windows 7. Sure, you can get XP ISO's easily enough, but all of the specialized drivers and software are nowhere to be found. Software that controls the very functions that make it unique.
The keyboard folds up flat against the screen, leaving the top quarter exposed. When folded like this, the remaining portion of the screen becomes an animated clock or a music player utilizing Sony's SonicStage app. All of this is handled by a small application that runs in the system tray. If you don't have it, this feature won't work. There are also several programmable "action buttons" that need another small application. I have been unable to find either of these.
Is there a site like VCFed that caters to the Windows XP era machines? I haven't found a good fit yet. There's generalized forums like Tom's Hardware and gaming focused sites like VOGONS, but I'm looking for a place dedicated to preserving information and sharing resources for these machines before we lose it all. I feel like we've already lost a great deal from this time period. Just try googling anything XP related. Most of its gone. All those old forum posts we did 20 years ago have been wiped to save database space. Manufacturers, becoming more and more risk adverse, have started purging old drivers now that XP is a "security risk". I think that this era may become even harder to restore when they finally are old enough to be considered "vintage-enough". At least in the 80s and early 90s, things were on physical media. You didn't download software and drivers. You sent off for them or bought them in a store. So we constantly find long-lost disks hiding in someone's attic or storage area. Large warehouses of long defunct service centers suddenly reveal a cache of hard to find hardware and software. Once the internet age started, a lot of that vanished. Now we rely on someone making an effort to back up things they downloaded or hope the recovery partition works well enough to make a set of discs to image.
Anyway, that was supposed to be a quick "where can I go". I got a little off in the weeds there. Here's some pics of the computer, just because I think it's super cool and I want to show it off
The keyboard folds up flat against the screen, leaving the top quarter exposed. When folded like this, the remaining portion of the screen becomes an animated clock or a music player utilizing Sony's SonicStage app. All of this is handled by a small application that runs in the system tray. If you don't have it, this feature won't work. There are also several programmable "action buttons" that need another small application. I have been unable to find either of these.
Is there a site like VCFed that caters to the Windows XP era machines? I haven't found a good fit yet. There's generalized forums like Tom's Hardware and gaming focused sites like VOGONS, but I'm looking for a place dedicated to preserving information and sharing resources for these machines before we lose it all. I feel like we've already lost a great deal from this time period. Just try googling anything XP related. Most of its gone. All those old forum posts we did 20 years ago have been wiped to save database space. Manufacturers, becoming more and more risk adverse, have started purging old drivers now that XP is a "security risk". I think that this era may become even harder to restore when they finally are old enough to be considered "vintage-enough". At least in the 80s and early 90s, things were on physical media. You didn't download software and drivers. You sent off for them or bought them in a store. So we constantly find long-lost disks hiding in someone's attic or storage area. Large warehouses of long defunct service centers suddenly reveal a cache of hard to find hardware and software. Once the internet age started, a lot of that vanished. Now we rely on someone making an effort to back up things they downloaded or hope the recovery partition works well enough to make a set of discs to image.
Anyway, that was supposed to be a quick "where can I go". I got a little off in the weeds there. Here's some pics of the computer, just because I think it's super cool and I want to show it off
