• My Retro Computing

    From Elf@21:1/194 to ALL on Sat Aug 7 09:34:00 2021
    So I have been having fun with revisiting old software that I use to run
    in the 1990's. I had the good fortune of inheriting a Dell Dimension
    3000 from my son-in-law. They had it lying around and were not using it
    any more. It was running Windows XP. After removing the photos from the
    hard drive and giving them to my son-in-law he said I could do whatever
    I wanted with the computer. So, I erased the hard drive and installed
    Windows 98SE.

    That was the beginning of my journey back to the 90's. :-) When all is
    said and done, I probably ended up installing Windows 98SE 20 or 30
    times. I had to figure out the right way to get it all running on a
    computer that was originally designed to run Windows XP and not 98. I
    was about to give up hope because I could not get the video and sound
    working properly because there were no standard Windows 98 drivers from
    Dell for this computer. Then I remembered . . . Back in the day in that scenario I would just REPLACE the video card with my own card that DID
    have drivers for Windows 98 and I would do the same for the sound card.
    So, I had on the shelf a Soundblaster 16 PCI card that I had purchased
    last year with the intent of building a retro PC. So, I installed that
    and the accompanying Windows 98 drivers. Sound is all good except for
    DOS games that seem to be missing some sound effects. I think the
    ultimate solution for that will be replacing this card with a different
    PCI card (there are no ISA slots in this PC, which would be ideal for
    DOS games). I have done some research online and it sounds like the best
    PCI card to get better DOS compatibility may be the Soundblaster Live
    5.1 PCI card. I'm in no rush and will investigate further on that matter
    over time.

    For the video card I purchased a GeForce FX 5500 with 256MB of memory on
    ebay after I first found the drivers for it online for Windows 98.
    Installed and working GREAT! It is a 3D card and has no problems with
    games - though I'll admit I'm not a heavy gamer.

    The main problem I had was trying to find motherboard drivers. I thought
    I found them in Intel's driver batch but they ended up causing more
    problems and so on my final installation I just did not install them and
    I see no difference. Everything seems fine so far.

    The other problem I had was conflicts between "the system" and the video
    and sound card. Through some troubleshooting I ended up finding out it
    was due to the way the system managed power - I think the ACPI settings
    were taking precendence and taking interrupts that were required by the
    video and/or sound card. The ultimate solution ended up being to install Windows 98 *without* power management - which is fine with me because it
    never did it well any way. Remember your Windows 98 computer going to
    sleep only to never wake up again? So the secret switch I found to run
    the Windows 98SE setup program was: setup /p i

    Now the system was stable . . . or so I thought. Weird problems started cropping up. Turned out the hard drive had a bad sector or two. It was
    failing. Solution? I had a 220GB SSD sitting on my desk begging for a
    purpose. I purchased a $20 IDE to SATA adapter and reinstalled Windows
    98SE yet again. Now we're done!! Doing great. Fast startups, of course
    I'm sure there is some bottleneck between the speed of the SSD and the
    speed at which the IDE controllers can operate, but it's still noticably
    faster than a HDD and more reliable. I split the SSD into two partitions
    (128GB is the max for Windows 98). So I do Ghost backups to the second partition. Yes, I know if the drive itself fails I'll lose my backup,
    but the point of the backup is to have a quick way to go back in time if
    I screw up the system too much. :-) If I lose the drive altogether,
    well, I can reinstall everything. I have notes on how to install and
    what to install and in what order.

    One last problem I had was with the network card. It would sometimes not connect upon reboot. I think I have it worked out by configuring the
    card to a set speed instead of "Auto". Seems to be more stable now. It's
    just an SMC ethernet card. I will probably buy a replacement to have on
    hand just in case. Will need to be PCI of course..

    So, with that adventure, I am now typing this message on my Windows 98SE computer using BlueWave 2.3 for DOS and Procomm Plus 3.0 for great BBS connectivity with full ANSI support. I also have installed one of my
    favorite programs for building web sites back in the 90's - NetObjects
    Fusion. I went ahead and built two sites. One is my 1990's website with downloads to some Windows 98/DOS software I find useful as well as
    a little information on BBSing. The other kind of chronicles my journey
    in computing from my Apple IIe days through DOS, Windows, Mac and Linux.
    Both sites do not require SSL and are viewable the same from Windows 3.1
    with Internet Explorer 5.0 to today's modern browsers on modern OS's.

    This is fun and these sites are just meant for fun. Hope you enjoy them
    if you decide to visit.

    http://lifeseven.com/1990s
    http://lifeseven.com/retrointerests


    ... Klingon DOS 6.0- DEL.COM; ERASE.COM; WIPE.COM; TRASH.EXE; BURN.BAT;
    ___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30
    --- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
    * Origin: Diamond Mine Online BBS 21:1/194 bbs.dmine.net:24 (21:1/194)
  • From paulie420@21:2/150 to Elf on Sat Aug 7 16:51:06 2021
    This is fun and these sites are just meant for fun. Hope you enjoy them
    if you decide to visit.

    http://lifeseven.com/1990s
    http://lifeseven.com/retrointerests

    Hey, Elf... I had fun reading through your retro fun and appreciate that you wrote the article on our awesome BBS FTN. Thanks for sharing - I also have a few retro systems that I both <3 and [Grrr]!

    I'm enjoying moving thru the web pages you've designed... I use 68k.news to read my news every single day; I created a small webpage that displays it, amongst other information, in a way that both my Windows98 and DOS systems CAN view.

    Super glad you have your Dell hardware mostly working as of now; I do have a Windows 98 laptop thats giving me some grief. Mostly that theres no easy connection to the outside world without buying some new hardware to make it happen... I WILL get to it.

    Lately, I've been liking getting into C=Commodore hardware. My C=128 has some great solutions for files and networking.. soon to come I want to get its 80column mode working perfectly. Its a task, with new monitors not being compatible without crazy hardware work arounds. I still lust for a 1902 monitor that would just 'work'.

    Anyway, I would have dropped you a line thru your web sites, but I didnt see a contact me section. THANK YOU for making me smile on a Saturday... that I WASN'T pulling my hair out worrying about Win98 drivers, lol - TODAY, anyway.... last; if you need those Apogee games, I'm sure I have a ZIP round here somewhere with original disks/installers. Drop me a line anywhere in the BBS scene.

    w00t w00t!



    |07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
    |08.........

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/08/05 (Raspberry Pi/32)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From Elf@21:1/194 to PAULIE420 on Sun Aug 8 14:23:00 2021
    Quoting Paulie420 to Elf <=-

    Hey, Elf... I had fun reading through your retro fun and appreciate
    that you wrote the article on our awesome BBS FTN. Thanks for sharing
    - I also have a few retro systems that I both <3 and [Grrr]!
    I'm enjoying moving thru the web pages you've designed... I use
    68k.news to read my news every single day; I created a small webpage
    that displays it, amongst other information, in a way that both my Windows98 and DOS systems CAN view.

    I have not had a chance to go back and read an article on this, but I
    found one that is supposed to explain how to setup a proxy to allow
    systems like Windows 98 to visit web sites that require SSL. Likely by
    just pulling down the site to the proxy, then serving it to the Win98
    stripping out all https/ssl requirements.


    Super glad you have your Dell hardware mostly working as of now; I do
    have a Windows 98 laptop thats giving me some grief. Mostly that
    theres no easy connection to the outside world without buying some new hardware to make it happen... I WILL get to it.

    Yeah, lots of googling. :-)

    Lately, I've been liking getting into C=Commodore hardware. My C=128
    has some great solutions for files and networking.. soon to come I
    want to get its 80column mode working perfectly. Its a task, with new monitors not being compatible without crazy hardware work arounds. I
    still lust for a 1902 monitor that would just 'work'.

    I have never tried a Commodore computer before. I remember them, of
    course, just never used one! :-)

    Anyway, I would have dropped you a line thru your web sites, but I
    didnt see a contact me section. THANK YOU for making me smile on a Saturday... that I WASN'T pulling my hair out worrying about Win98 drivers, lol - TODAY, anyway.... last; if you need those Apogee games,
    I'm sure I have a ZIP round here somewhere with original
    disks/installers. Drop me a line anywhere in the BBS scene.
    w00t w00t!

    Thanks for visiting! Yeah, I was working on the contact form but didn't
    finish yet. I plan on adding one to each site soon. I need more hobby
    time! :-)

    ~Elf


    ... I don't have the time for a hobby. I have a computer.
    ___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30
    --- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
    * Origin: Diamond Mine Online BBS 21:1/194 bbs.dmine.net:24 (21:1/194)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Elf on Mon Aug 9 10:47:05 2021
    Retrocomputing is fun, but far and away the most efficient
    way to do it is via emulation. It's faster, cheaper, and
    uses less power (where reasonable emulators exist).

    My basement is full of VAX and Sun hardware, essentially
    none of which gets powered on. Instead, I've got a multicore
    64bit thing running emulators for a number of systems; a
    few Pr1me's, a couple of VAXen, an Interdata 7/32 (running
    Unix), a few IBM mainframes, a DPS8/m running Multics,
    a PDP-10 running TOPS-20, a few PDP-11s running RSTS/E and
    various Unix versions. About the only real hardware I have
    running (besides the simulator machine) is an Alpha running
    VMS. Right now, the "family timesharing machine" is a
    RISC-V board running OpenBSD. It's all tied together with
    services running running on a Plan 9 network.

    It's fun, but it's also useful professionally to see how older
    systems worked.

    I guess there are a couple of 8 bit micros down there, too,
    but again most of that stuff works better under emulation than
    in real life.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Jeff@21:1/180 to tenser on Sun Aug 8 18:01:51 2021
    On 09 Aug 2021, tenser said the following...
    none of which gets powered on. Instead, I've got a multicore
    64bit thing running emulators for a number of systems; a
    few Pr1me's, a couple of VAXen, an Interdata 7/32 (running

    Just out of curiosity, what are your plans for keeping the VAXen emulations running since HP has cancelled the hobbyist license program? In there an alternative?

    Jeff.

    "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken, who indeed was a racist thereby proving himself right.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
    * Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Jeff on Mon Aug 9 12:45:11 2021

    On 08 Aug 2021 at 06:01p, Jeff pondered and said...

    Just out of curiosity, what are your plans for keeping the VAXen emulations running since HP has cancelled the hobbyist license program?
    In there an alternative?

    Not really, but the VAXen are running Unix, not VMS. For VMS
    emulation, I'm looking strongly at AXPBox.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From paulie420@21:2/150 to Elf on Sun Aug 8 19:01:09 2021
    I have not had a chance to go back and read an article on this, but I found one that is supposed to explain how to setup a proxy to allow systems like Windows 98 to visit web sites that require SSL. Likely by just pulling down the site to the proxy, then serving it to the Win98 stripping out all https/ssl requirements.

    While I don't know the specifics, I know thats the way frogfind.com works, by stripping away the SSL stuff using a Google service.



    |07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
    |08.........

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/08/08 (Raspberry Pi/32)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From Oli@21:3/102 to tenser on Mon Aug 9 17:37:06 2021
    tenser wrote (2021-08-09):

    It's all tied together with
    services running running on a Plan 9 network.

    Does Plan 9 count as retro? ;)

    And what does Plan 9 network mean?

    I tried a Plan 9 image for the Raspberry. It booted, but then I had no idea how to proceed. I found another Plan 9 image, but haven't tried it yet.

    ---
    * Origin: . (21:3/102)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Oli on Tue Aug 10 06:17:47 2021
    On 09 Aug 2021 at 05:37p, Oli pondered and said...

    tenser wrote (2021-08-09):

    It's all tied together with
    services running running on a Plan 9 network.

    Does Plan 9 count as retro? ;)

    That's an interesting question. Very few of us are left
    running it, but in many ways, it's _still_ very futuristic
    compared to Unix/Linux.

    And what does Plan 9 network mean?

    Plan 9 was designed to be network-centric. You were kind
    of meant to have an auth server, a CPU server, and a file
    server, all running on separate machines, and then terminals
    that users used. Users could connect from their terminal
    to a CPU server when they needed a little extra computational
    power or RAM.

    I wrote about this a few years ago here: http://pub.gajendra.net/2016/05/plan9part1

    (I haven't gotten around to writing parts two and three yet).

    I tried a Plan 9 image for the Raspberry. It booted, but then I had no idea how to proceed. I found another Plan 9 image, but haven't tried it yet.

    Plan 9 was built as a programmer's system; the idea was that,
    instead of a network of loosely federated Unix systems, you'd
    build a more tightly coupled Unix from a network of machines.
    There's not a lot to do with it unless you're a C programmer.

    That said, Richard's Raspberry Pi image is definitely the
    way to go with respect to playing around with it.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From paulie420@21:2/150 to tenser on Mon Aug 9 12:55:01 2021
    http://pub.gajendra.net/2016/05/plan9part1

    Plan 9 was built as a programmer's system; the idea was that,
    instead of a network of loosely federated Unix systems, you'd
    build a more tightly coupled Unix from a network of machines.
    There's not a lot to do with it unless you're a C programmer.

    That said, Richard's Raspberry Pi image is definitely the
    way to go with respect to playing around with it.

    I also played around with Plan9 basically just to SEE what it was, on a Pi... thanks for posting your article - I'll be sure to read, and your insight to what Plan9 is and how it was intended to be used...

    I'm not a [heavy/good] C programmer - but I love learning, touching and [trying to] use as many different systems as I can.



    |07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
    |08.........

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/08/08 (Raspberry Pi/32)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to paulie420 on Tue Aug 10 10:38:36 2021
    On 09 Aug 2021 at 12:55p, paulie420 pondered and said...

    I also played around with Plan9 basically just to SEE what it was, on a Pi... thanks for posting your article - I'll be sure to read, and your insight to what Plan9 is and how it was intended to be used...

    No problem. It was a heady trip to use as my primary
    environment for a few years. I've kind of dropped off
    of the technical advisory committee, but I keep an eye
    on what's going on. The Plan 9 foundation is planning
    on a new release sometime soonish.

    I guess I should go to a meeting to see what's up.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Oli@21:3/102 to tenser on Thu Aug 12 09:01:24 2021
    tenser wrote (2021-08-10):

    Does Plan 9 count as retro? ;)

    That's an interesting question. Very few of us are left
    running it, but in many ways, it's _still_ very futuristic
    compared to Unix/Linux.

    That's true. Linux is still very old-school (apart from systemd and wayland and sound servers and ZFS (which they don't like)).

    Using Plan 9 is kind of retrofuturistic ...

    And what does Plan 9 network mean?

    Plan 9 was designed to be network-centric. You were kind
    of meant to have an auth server, a CPU server, and a file
    server, all running on separate machines, and then terminals
    that users used. Users could connect from their terminal
    to a CPU server when they needed a little extra computational
    power or RAM.

    I guess it's time to connect all the old unused Raspis ;).

    I wrote about this a few years ago here: http://pub.gajendra.net/2016/05/plan9part1

    Nice. Best introduction to Plan 9 I've ever read.

    There's not a lot to do with it unless you're a C programmer.

    Have you tried Go on Plan 9?

    That said, Richard's Raspberry Pi image is definitely the
    way to go with respect to playing around with it.

    That's the one I have downloaded, but haven't tried yet.

    Until recently I thought Plan 9 development has stopped. Then there was Inferno. And now we have Harvey OS. It's kind of confusing for anyone who is interested in Plan 9, but hasn't followed the development over the years (decades). But I guess this is part of retro computing.

    ---
    * Origin: . (21:3/102)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to Oli on Fri Aug 13 01:56:33 2021
    On 12 Aug 2021 at 09:01a, Oli pondered and said...

    That's true. Linux is still very old-school (apart from systemd and wayland and sound servers and ZFS (which they don't like)).

    It's a matter of focus. Linux is basically a clone of Unix, and
    has stayed true to those roots. As such, they haven't pushed the
    envelope in the same ways that plan9 did.

    The flip side was that plan9 was a research system, and never
    interested in filling the niche that Linux occupies. I got into
    this tytso a few months ago when he asserted that plan9 "failed"
    as an open source project: that was a strawman, because plan9
    wasn't trying to _succeed_ as an open source project. But they
    wrote a lot of cool papers and many of the ideas have made it
    into mainstream systems (namespaces in Linux, albeit in a
    diminished form): in that sense, it was a wild success.

    Using Plan 9 is kind of retrofuturistic ...

    I gave a demonstration of plan9 a few years ago to my team at
    Google, as we'd taken a lot of the namespace code into Akaros.
    A senior Linux engineer was there (the author of epoll). His
    only comment was that the UI looked like it was from 1991.

    Sigh.

    I wrote about this a few years ago here: http://pub.gajendra.net/2016/05/plan9part1

    Nice. Best introduction to Plan 9 I've ever read.

    Thank you!

    There's not a lot to do with it unless you're a C programmer.

    Have you tried Go on Plan 9?

    Yes, but it's not a great fit. Plan 9 doesn't have a lot of
    tools for a process to manipulate it's own virtual address
    space (no `mmap`), and Go really wants to be able to manipulate
    the virtual address space of processes running Go programs.

    I'm good friends with many of the Go developers, and they keep
    making noises about removing support. This is one of the things
    we want to address in Harvey.

    Until recently I thought Plan 9 development has stopped. Then there was Inferno. And now we have Harvey OS. It's kind of confusing for anyone
    who is interested in Plan 9, but hasn't followed the development over
    the years (decades). But I guess this is part of retro computing.

    It basically did stop. 9front has been carrying the torch,
    but there are big personality conflicts in the community.

    Inferno was a separate thing: it was an attempt to create a
    system commercializing the ideas in plan9; Lucent created a
    whole business unit to support it, and it nominally competed
    with Java for e.g., set-top boxes and the like, but it didn't
    succeed in the market.

    Harvey is trying to stretch plan9 in new directions: a major
    goal is to replace large chunks of the userspace with Go
    programs, and I'll probably start integrating Rust into the
    kernel. I had done a major overhaul of the MMU support and
    the way we lay out the kernel in virtual memory, but we just
    rebased back to 4th Ed + 9legacy and I haven't ported the
    changes over yet; I probably have to modify the compilers to
    make it all work. Ugh.

    Right now, there's work happening in private trees, but the
    p9f is debating how to get that out in the open. For
    someone wanting to use plan9, the best way forward is to
    run Richard's 9pi distribution on a Raspberry Pi. If you want
    to install on x86, either 9legacy or 9front. 9front is
    probably more reliable, but the community is kinda hostile.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Oli@21:3/102 to tenser on Tue Aug 17 11:56:51 2021
    tenser wrote (2021-08-10):

    I tried a Plan 9 image for the Raspberry. It booted, but then I had
    no idea how to proceed. I found another Plan 9 image, but haven't
    tried it yet.

    Plan 9 was built as a programmer's system; the idea was that,
    instead of a network of loosely federated Unix systems, you'd
    build a more tightly coupled Unix from a network of machines.
    There's not a lot to do with it unless you're a C programmer.

    That said, Richard's Raspberry Pi image is definitely the
    way to go with respect to playing around with it.

    Richard's image boots fine with some help text and terminal window. Now I have to figure out what to do with it (and go through some old boxes, maybe I find a three button mouse) ;).

    Maybe trying Lua ...

    ---
    * Origin: . (21:3/102)