[Jazz]
[clicking mouse sounds]
So, we've all seen the video, or the JIF of the video, or GIF or GJIF whereby an old man
sits at his desktop computer and proceeds to put the "My Computer" icon of Windows '95
into the Recycle Bin, whereby the physical machine itself pops! out of existence.
The confused old man then calls to his wife, or what I presume to be his wife, who is no
doubt furious that all her latest Quake saves are now gone for all eternity.
The question is, what would happen if we did this in real life?
We took the My Computer icon and put it in the Recycle bin.
Would the desktop machine disappear?!
Let's find out....
[grumbling sounds]
I can't believe I'm bloody doing this.
What a waste of time.
[FUNK]
[Computer startup beeps (soothing)]
[funky piano riff]
For this task, I'll be using a Packard Bell Club PC from 1998.
This actually has an Intel Celeron processor, one of the very first, and was donated to
me by Chris at Games You Loved.
Ultimately, it's perfect for the job in hand.
Here's the desktop, I know it's Windows '98 rather than '95, but for this test, it's exactly
the same.
I'll just re-position "My Computer" and the "Recycle bin" for easier visibility, and let's
move it across.
[TENSE DRAMATIC MUSIC]
MOTHER OF GOD!!!!!
Of course, what really happens is Windows prevents you from even performing the action.
I mean if you were to put "My Computer" in the recycle bin, you'd be telling Windows
to delete all the data from all your drives, and no one wants that do they?......
"now I wanna show you OS/2 Warp"
"this is errr.... a cup of tea?"
[ding!]
It's also not really feasible, it would be like a cat trying to consume itself starting
at the tail end, there would be a point when the cat would either get a grip of itself, or
just die.
So with Windows we get this little stop symbol, a bit like we're being told off.
It's not just "My Computer" Windows gets knarkey about either.
If you try and put The Microsoft Network in there it gets upset, or anything which Microsoft
has deemed essential to the Operating System.
It's clear they understand where Internet Explorer belongs however, as it not only let's
you delete it, it doesn't even allow it in the recycle bin.
Marvellous self awareness Microsoft, even back in 1998.
You can create shortcuts of all of these icons of course, and put them in the Recycle bin,
but then you're simply recycling a shortcut to the main event, a link if you will, which
has no effect on functionality.
But maybe there's another way?
Maybe we can access Recycle Bin by other means?
Well, first let's explore a bit about how his bin came to be.
After all it's prudent to know your enemy.
[synth music]
If we look back at Graphical User Interfaces we usually start with NLS developed in 1968
by Douglas Engelbart.
It was the first to make use of a mouse, linking, windowing and many features we associate with
modern Operating Systems.
This laid the foundations for Xerox's Alto system shown here, which took another stepping
stone and was indeed the inspiration for Steve Jobs to create the GUI for the Apple Lisa.
The first to incorporate what was known as the "Wastebasket", which carried over to the
Macintosh as "Trash".
Here, when a file is deleted it's sent to a .Trashes folder, which can then be cleared
out.
With Microsoft however, such functionality wouldn't appear - of course - until Windows
'95, launching in August 1995...
[advert music]
Wait a minute...
Who the hell takes a full blown desktop computer into a coffee shop?!
but Microsoft had already been building up to it under their previous Operating System, DOS.
Now, DOS is a command line driven interface, so things are a little different, but in MS-DOS
version 5 released in June 1991 we had the first steps using the Mirror command.
Using Mirror you could activate a memory resident program to track any files which have been
deleted, in the hope of recovering if needed.
Now, this isn't the same as the Recycle bin, because anything you delete is at risk of
annihilation if over-written by something else.
All we have instead is a copy of the disk's File Allocation Table, so that DOS can attempt
to recover data if required.
In DOS 6, this functionality was merged into the Undelete command, which also added a Sentry
option.
If this Terminate and Stay Resident portion is loaded, then any files deleted will be
moved to a hidden Sentry folder, allowing for full restore later if necessary.
Pretty much exactly like the Recycle bin, although with some limitations regarding directories.
If you had Windows 3.1 then DOS 6.22 also came with a set of tools, allowing you to
use utilities such as Undelete in the relative safety of Windows.
Here you can see, if I delete this bitmap file I created earlier, I can restore it - well
mostly, it appears everything can be recovered apart from the first letter of the file name,
which I presume was overwritten by some portion of the Windows swap file.
Given Windows 3.1 is simply running on DOS, I would still need the Sentry component of
Undelete loaded to recover it fully.
So back to Windows '95, or '98 in this instance.
Can we seek out the Recycle bin folder itself using the DOS command prompt?
Well, yes we can, it's a hidden folder, but just like the Sentry directory, there it sits,
plain as day in the root directory.
I can even copy files in and out of it using the DOS prompt, HOWEVER, they don't actually
show up in the graphical Recycle bin.
Even if I choose to empty the Recycle bin, they don't get deleted from the actual folder.
That's because Windows is a bit smarter than that, and actually tracks the files which
are sent there.
If I drop stuff in there outside of Windows, it'll be left alone.
So, we although we could manually move the entire contents of the drive into that Recycle
folder manually, I mean, ultimately, what the hell is the point?
Nothing amazing will happen, the PC won't disappear, all it will do is stop working.
Then we'll have to put everything back to where it was and wonder just what we're...
well, I'm doing with my life.
BUT, we could of course try moving the icon itself from the Desktop directory to the Recycle
bin and settle for that.
Oh, no, it doesn't exist as an actual file.
ALL THAT IS LEFT TO DO THEN IS ERASE ALL ICONS FROM THE DESKTOP ALTOGETHER.
ONLY THEN WILL I BE SATED.
So to summarise: You can't put the "My Computer" icon in the Recycle bin through conventional
means.
But you can move everything there through brute force and determination.
Fantastic.
[funk music intensifies]
So, here we are.
We all knew what was gonna happen.
We knew what this video was about.
You knew when you clicked on the icon.
I just hope I made it a little bit more worthwhile so you could stick around until the end.
So.
thanks for watching, have a great evening and hopefully I'll see you next time.
[music fades out]