U can run some pps files (powerpoint slide show) and play winamp for some background music with the systems.
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Demo ideas needed
The nonprofit organization where I work gets corporate donations of PCs to local charities. While I'm mainly getting P2 systems and starting to get P3 systems, I still have almost 300 P1 systems in my inventory. Most of the smaller organizations just want to do light word processing, printing, and email for which a P1 will work perfectly. Unfortunately all too many people have fallen for Intel's marketing campaign that a new P4 is needed for these tasks and I can't unload these P1 systems taking up space in my storage.
I've put together a P1 with three Matrox Millenium video cards and can really show off what a "lowly" P1 can do as long as it isn't the latest 3D game. When people come in and see me use the three screens at once they are duly impressed. We are having a large fair kind of thing next week with a lot of little charities coming by and getting stuff and I want to put out this demo machine (and can build more if you have an idea).
What I want to do is not to have to sit in front of the demo system and work it since I have my other duties at the same time as this fair. Note that there is no internet connection in the warehouse where the fair is taking place although I can have a server set up. In fact, I just might set up a whole little demo LAN with several P1 workstations and a P1 server. Note that everything has to be Windows based. Also note that memory is not a problem; I have buckets of it. All the P1 boxes are topped out at 128MB.
I've googled for demo scripts but can't find anything. Anyone have any ideas so I can set up something to show off itself? Obviously, there has to be things going on because just sitting there with open windows doesn't impress as much as crap flying around the three screens. While I thought about letting something like Doom 1 or 2 run in demo mode, the point is to show off that office type apps are perfectly happy on a P1, not old games.
I've got plenty of points stored up and the new point splitter makes it easy to divvy them up, so put in your 2 cents and I'll be splitting amoung all the good ideas.
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Answers
Hm...... If it's fine with u downloading Sega Emulators, what would be good as u can load in Sega roms and run the software whereby u can set it to run in full screen mode. It would make the computer sound like a sega system. Moreover, I'll tried running Sega Emulator on P1 system and it works just fine. Able to play it like the console itself.
Well, thanks for trying. I hadn't tought of winamp with its bouncy equalizer lights and powerpoint does a slideshow by itself so that's two good ones. I guess some of you missed the bit about no games and also mulitmonitor can get all screwed up with fullscreen modes. A vcd is a good idea if I can get it to play in endless repeat mode but it excludes Winamp unless I want the sound really messed up. What software plays vcd... mediaplayer? my choices of software are rather limited to microsoft offerings.
You could run 3D mark 99 or 2000 in the demo loop on one of the screens. They have some cool graphics in them. It should run ok on a P1.
http://www.futuremark.com/
If your trying to show that it works fine for Office Apps I would create a simple slideshow in Powerpoint and let it continuously run on one screen. Then you can open Excel on another screen and Word and the final screen. For Excel and word you can either just have some large data file open (the demo files that come with it would be fine) or you can get agresive and in Word create some Macros the just repeat some simple steps (same with Excel). That would MORE than show it works great for office apps.
Very insghtful of you to say Windows only - if you hadn't I bet you'd have 100 responses about how much better Linux would do on a P1. :)
Mike
Last option:
http://www.tucows.com/prev
use a program like the above to record some macros in word and excel (while having powerpoint run on another monitor) and then have the macros played back so that all three monitors actaully have mvement.
Hope one of those options helps.
Mike
I would recommend you to run some office apps, and let the audience write some texts on word and play in excel to be convinced that everything runs fine. P1 systems are ideal for programming,office work and general learning. You may add some older versions of 3d studio (you have a lot of ram) for newbies to learn the basics of 3d.
Also do you have any pentium 3 cpu to sell because I search one for my pc. It's just a poor celeron.:-)
I forgot about Excel and Word macros, that's another excellent suggestion, thanks.
"let the audience write some texts on word and play in excel"
Not good at all; since I won't be sitting there babysitting the thing it will be set back where no one can get at it. The idea here is for any and all demos to be completely autonomous.
The main point of this fair is not technology; my computer business is only a moderate segment of our operation. The point of the fair is to blow out the huge influx of office paper, children's clothing, and costmetics we got by tractor trailer loadfulls over the last month. I looked in the overflow warehouse and there's more than a dozen full pallets of copier paper. So just to remind everyone that we do computers as well and P1s are perfectly useful, I've requested to set up a demo machine somewhere along the dole line. While it runs, I have to be back in my office doing my regular thing.
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by: patrickabPosted on 2003-06-07 at 13:55:14ID: 8673810
How about running Myst as the screen savers with sound as its erie to say the least. Behind that why not run a multi user game on a Wifi network with WP, Db, Spreadsheet stuff all available as well for the more serious users - Open Office for example.