Transferring Files through Parallel and Infrared Ports, and a Makeshift LAN

Created on August 21, 2015
Indexed on November 25, 2022 at 11:47 AM

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Today, I demonstrate two ways of transferring files between two computers running Windows 95:

• LapLink parallel cable with the Direct Cable Connection program.
• IrDA infrared transmission with Microsoft's Infrared Transfer software.
• w95ir.exe
• w95irxfer.exe

In this special edition, I also show how to create a real network of multiple computers instantly using any off-the-shelf network switch and the simplistic NetBEUI protocol. All you really have to do on each computer is enable file sharing, and you're all set.

Hardcore Windows 95 is a series of seven videos which attempt to entertain people interested in retro computing by covering largely ignored features and demonstrating the power of Windows 95 against the modern world of computing. This series was made in recognition of the 20th anniversary of Windows 95 since its retail release.

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Comments

Dis iz da retrocomputing masterpiece! I just watched the whole thing and it's cool!

One of my first computer experiences was Windows 95.

Win95 was not a memorable OS to most people here in Vietnam since by the time PCs reached the masses XP was the main OS of choice. I was somewhat lucky (?) for having Win2000 as my first OS. It has good I/O support for our language thanks to their support for Unicode in NT kernel since day 1. 9x OSes is very finnicky on our local IME of choice Unikey to the point that the IME has to rely on clipboard to hackily put our letters with diacritics. Still I think Win95 is an influential OS for lots of its features. I am an avocadate for FOSS and I still wish for something like what the video demonstrates.

Blue Horizon: Your comment reminded me about The Matrix ASCII. Even before YouTube existed, sharing videos via BitTorrent was and is still a thing. The video was published on the protocol since home servers were not capable of sharing videos to the masses (or at least that is what I think). I wonder what the world would look like if there were PeerTube before year 2005.

And this also happens to be the 200th video indexed on this site. I'm really enjoying the extra footage on top of what was established in this series back when it first debuted on YouTube, though these are debatably the definitive versions right here since now there's no arbitrary 30FPS cap for videos in 480p and lower.

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