• MS-DOS and Win 3.11 Admin

    From Warpslide@21:3/110 to All on Wed Jan 31 07:43:58 2024
    "MS-DOS and Windows 3.11 still run train dashboards at German railway - company listed admin job for 30-year-old operating system"

    A German railway firm posted a vacancy for a Windows 3.11 Administrator just before the weekend. In addition to skills in wrangling Windows for Workgroups on the 30-year-old operating system, the recruiter would look upon a candidate more fondly for possessing MS-DOS experience. The admin would purportedly oversee systems with 166MHz processors and a whopping 8MB of RAM. It might seem slightly worrying that modern railways are still running on such ancient systems, but mission-critical systems often adhere to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy.


    Via Tom's Hardware:
    http://tinyurl.com/mvsbn4zv

    Jay

    ... My friend's bakery burned down last night. Now his business is toast
    --- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20231112
    * Origin: Northern Realms (21:3/110)
  • From claw@21:1/210 to Warpslide on Wed Jan 31 07:58:32 2024
    On 31 Jan 2024, Warpslide said the following...

    "MS-DOS and Windows 3.11 still run train dashboards at German railway - company listed admin job for 30-year-old operating system"

    A German railway firm posted a vacancy for a Windows 3.11 Administrator just before the weekend. In addition to skills in wrangling Windows for Workgroups on the 30-year-old operating system, the recruiter would look upon a candidate more fondly for possessing MS-DOS experience. The admin would purportedly oversee systems with 166MHz processors and a whopping 8MB of RAM. It might seem slightly worrying that modern railways are
    still running on such ancient systems, but mission-critical systems
    often adhere to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy.


    Via Tom's Hardware:
    http://tinyurl.com/mvsbn4zv

    Jay

    Wow. I bet there is a ton or proprietary stuff to learn there. Would be neat to be a fly on the wall for that training.

    |23|04Dr|16|12Claw
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  • From SirRonmit@21:2/120 to Warpslide on Wed Jan 31 13:38:01 2024
    Man, that was what my BBS ran on way back in the 90s :(
    I should move and apply, LOL!

    --
    Timothy Norris aka SirRonmit
    admin@f4fbbs.com
    bbs.f4fbbs.com:2323 or :62323

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Files 4 Fun BBS (21:2/120)
  • From Ogg@21:4/106.21 to Warpslide on Wed Jan 31 18:08:00 2024
    Hello Warpslide!

    ** On Wednesday 31.01.24 - 07:43, Warpslide wrote to All:

    "MS-DOS and Windows 3.11 still run train dashboards at
    German railway -company listed admin job for 30-year-old
    operating system"

    A German railway firm posted a vacancy for a Windows 3.11
    Administrator...

    That seems a bit short-sighted even "it it ain't broke.."

    Perhaps the system could be better served with a linux port-
    over.

    But.. I suppose if those dashboards are not connected to the
    internet and independent, then what's the harm in sticking with
    Win3.11. However.. the hardware would surely be hard to
    maintain for too long as ram and capacitors blow out, etc.




    --- OpenXP 5.0.58
    * Origin: Ogg's WestCoast Point (21:4/106.21)
  • From fusion@21:1/616 to Ogg on Wed Jan 31 18:53:35 2024
    On 31 Jan 2024, Ogg said the following...

    Perhaps the system could be better served with a linux port-
    over.

    lmao this is an awful idea. linux doesn't need to be on everything.

    and likely the outcome would be a system that doesn't work as well, costs a significant amount more to maintain, etc. vs one that has had all it's bugs ironed out over 30 years.

    i was helping a restaurant keep an older dos point of sale software going.. every few years i'd replace some computer, tweak the hardware a bit, etc.. they didn't want to pay that anymore. they wanted to be fancy.

    now instead of maybe $500 every few years they rent a modern one for something like $500 a month or more (price usually per register, support, etc)

    so what.. $6k+ a year? lol. that shit adds up.. more than 60k since they switched. and that's some small-scale not-your-tax-money stuff.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)
  • From Mickey@21:1/159 to fusion on Wed Jan 31 19:30:39 2024
    On 31 Jan 2024, fusion said the following...

    lmao this is an awful idea. linux doesn't need to be on everything.

    and likely the outcome would be a system that doesn't work as well,
    costs a significant amount more to maintain, etc. vs one that has had
    all it's bugs ironed out over 30 years.


    As a little sidenote here, Windows 11 has a VM program coming (if it's not already there) and the last Windows 11 on my desktop is screwing with my VMWare Workstation Pro. The Windows 11 machine kept crashing to the green screen, and after a smaller update it removed all the Network adapters used by by beloved VMWare forcing me to do a reinstall. Microsoft, I don't want your frickin' software.

    Sorry for my outburst :-)

    Mick Manning
    https://centralontarioremote.com
    telnet centralontarioremote.com:2300

    ... Just another prisoner of gravity!

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/04/30 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Central Ontario Remote Systems (21:1/159)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Warpslide on Wed Jan 31 17:01:23 2024
    Re: MS-DOS and Win 3.11 Admin
    By: Warpslide to All on Wed Jan 31 2024 07:43 am

    A German railway firm posted a vacancy for a Windows 3.11 Administrator just before the weekend. In addition to skills in wrangling Windows for Workgroups on the 30-year-old operating system, the recruiter would look upon a candidate more fondly for possessing MS-DOS experience. The admin would purportedly oversee systems with 166MHz processors and a whopping 8MB of RAM. It might seem slightly worrying that modern railways are still running on such ancient systems, but mission-critical systems often adhere to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy.

    I might be tempted to apply for such a job; however, I fear any systems administrator job would mean being on call 24/7 and possibly having to work any time of the day or night, including on the weekends..

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From niter3@21:1/199 to Warpslide on Wed Jan 31 21:26:01 2024
    On 31 Jan 2024, Warpslide said the following...

    "MS-DOS and Windows 3.11 still run train dashboards at German railway - company listed admin job for 30-year-old operating system"

    A German railway firm posted a vacancy for a Windows 3.11 Administrator just before the weekend. In addition to skills in wrangling Windows for Workgroups on the 30-year-old operating system, the recruiter would look upon a candidate more fondly for possessing MS-DOS experience. The admin would purportedly oversee systems with 166MHz processors and a whopping 8MB of RAM. It might seem slightly worrying that modern railways are
    still running on such ancient systems, but mission-critical systems
    often adhere to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy.


    I find this kind of awesome. :)

    ... Top secret! Burn before reading!

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    * Origin: Clutch BBS * telnet://clutchbbs.com (21:1/199)
  • From paulie420@21:2/150 to Ogg on Wed Jan 31 19:00:40 2024
    But.. I suppose if those dashboards are not connected to the
    internet and independent, then what's the harm in sticking with
    Win3.11. However.. the hardware would surely be hard to
    maintain for too long as ram and capacitors blow out, etc.

    While I have no idea about this rail, many commercial MS-DOS/Win 3.11 applications run hardware that you can still purchase new today. What is it, the PC-100 board - or something-100... you can still buy 486, Pentium, etc. single board computers today that aren't old consumer grade hardware.

    I would bet [hope] that they have new replacements for machines that they run - most of the time the actual reason they don't port over to some current OS is the SOFTWARE; it's not just converting .bat files to .sh scripts, but some large software that was bought and paid for decades ago... and they don't want to INVEST to update that code.

    At any rate, I'd look at one of these jobs if my knowledge sufficed and it paid a decent salary; I'm happy that MS-DOS / Win 3.11 lives on today so long as the infrastructure it runs isn't hampered by the shortcomings of the OS'.



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

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From tenser@21:1/101 to fusion on Fri Feb 2 07:43:38 2024
    On 31 Jan 2024 at 06:53p, fusion pondered and said...

    On 31 Jan 2024, Ogg said the following...

    Perhaps the system could be better served with a linux port-
    over.

    lmao this is an awful idea. linux doesn't need to be on everything.

    No, it doesn't. But staying on a dead platform is also
    an awful idea. A better idea would be moving to a proper
    (and properly supportable) embedded platform.

    and likely the outcome would be a system that doesn't work as well,
    costs a significant amount more to maintain, etc. vs one that has had
    all it's bugs ironed out over 30 years.

    There's a concept in software engineering called the bathtub
    curve. Actually, it's in a lot of things, but the point is
    that that applies here. The idea is that, if one charts a
    system's failures over time there are a lot up front, while
    bugs are worked out, then a long period of relative stability,
    and then bug rates start trending up again as hardware failures
    and institutional knowledge is lost and external support
    channels disappear; kludges pile up to keep the system running
    but that has its own cost that leads to lower reliability.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Warpslide@21:3/110 to paulie420 on Thu Feb 1 17:33:26 2024
    On Wednesday January 31 2024, paulie420 said the following...

    While I have no idea about this rail, many commercial MS-DOS/Win 3.11 applications run hardware that you can still purchase new today. What
    is it, the PC-100 board - or something-100... you can still buy 486, Pentium, etc. single board computers today that aren't old consumer
    grade hardware.

    I remember watching a Linus Tech Tips video awhile back where they bought a brand new Windows 98 PC...

    [time passes]

    Found it:
    https://youtu.be/CTIpNtHWVtQ

    A company named Nixsys still sells new legacy PCs starting at $850. Adding a copy of Windows 98 will run you an extra $125 while Windows 2000 Pro will run you an extra $195.

    I would imagine (hope) that this railroad is using something like this.


    Jay

    ... What do you call an owl magician? Hoodini
    --- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20231112
    * Origin: Northern Realms (21:3/110)
  • From niter3@21:1/199 to Warpslide on Fri Feb 2 16:32:43 2024
    I remember watching a Linus Tech Tips video awhile back where they
    bought a brand new Windows 98 PC...

    That's crazy. $1000 for that thing?

    Must be nice to just blow money on crap. :D

    ... Old computers make great boat anchors

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/04/30 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Clutch BBS * telnet://clutchbbs.com (21:1/199)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to SirRonmit on Fri Feb 2 06:38:00 2024
    SirRonmit wrote to Warpslide <=-

    Man, that was what my BBS ran on way back in the 90s :(
    I should move and apply, LOL!

    Really? DOS timeslicing was so bad and there wasn't a decent windows
    FOSSIL back then, must have been challenging.

    I ran OS/2, and it multitasked so well that it took until much later
    when they had windows FOSSILs and you could throw lots of computing
    power at the problem. My 486/66 with OS/2 ran the BBS about as well as
    a Windows 95 box with a Pentium/166.




    ... SURELY NOT EVERYONE WAS KUNG FU FIGHTING
    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Ogg on Fri Feb 2 06:43:00 2024
    Ogg wrote to Warpslide <=-

    But.. I suppose if those dashboards are not connected to the
    internet and independent, then what's the harm in sticking with
    Win3.11. However.. the hardware would surely be hard to
    maintain for too long as ram and capacitors blow out, etc.

    There's a company I see advertised that sells new equipment,
    supposedly with BIOSes, peripherals and CPUs compatible with legacy
    OSes. There's a lot of embedded equipment out there running old Oses
    that is just fine in environment where it's not exposed to the
    internet.

    I used to run PBXes that still ran NT 3.51 embedded in 2012. It was
    physically separated from the internet (even from our LAN) and did the
    job. Same with Octel voicemail systems running on OS/2 3.0.




    ... "The swift blade penetrates the salad."
    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to fusion on Fri Feb 2 06:45:00 2024
    fusion wrote to Ogg <=-

    On 31 Jan 2024, Ogg said the following...

    Perhaps the system could be better served with a linux port-
    over.

    lmao this is an awful idea. linux doesn't need to be on everything.

    A hardened Linux distro running DOSBOX, now that might work...


    ... DELIVERY - CONTESTABILITY - IMPROVULENCE - UPSOAR - YESNESS
    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Mickey on Fri Feb 2 06:47:00 2024
    Mickey wrote to fusion <=-

    As a little sidenote here, Windows 11 has a VM program coming (if it's
    not already there) and the last Windows 11 on my desktop is screwing
    with my VMWare Workstation Pro. The Windows 11 machine kept crashing to the green screen, and after a smaller update it removed all the Network adapters used by by beloved VMWare forcing me to do a reinstall. Microsoft, I don't want your frickin' software.

    Broadcom is messing even more with your VM Workstation install. :(

    We're starting to use a virtualization platform at work that uses
    Hyper-V, I'm starting to play with it here. We're Nutanix and VMWare
    mostly, moving off of the latter for most of our sites. I'm scared to
    be a small VMWare shop now.



    ... alnal nathrak uth vaas bethud dothiel dienve
    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to paulie420 on Fri Feb 2 06:52:00 2024
    paulie420 wrote to Ogg <=-

    While I have no idea about this rail, many commercial MS-DOS/Win 3.11 applications run hardware that you can still purchase new today. What
    is it, the PC-100 board - or something-100... you can still buy 486, Pentium, etc. single board computers today that aren't old consumer
    grade hardware.


    I see a lot of people on YouTube turning thin clients into Windows 3.11
    PCs for gaming. Seems like a platform designed for swapping out
    hardware would be perfect for running a legacy server. Take out the SD
    card, pop it into another $30 box and you're back.

    At any rate, I'd look at one of these jobs if my knowledge sufficed and
    it paid a decent salary; I'm happy that MS-DOS / Win 3.11 lives on
    today so long as the infrastructure it runs isn't hampered by the shortcomings of the OS'.

    I supported Windows 3.x for 4 years, first for a retailer, then later
    for a software company, and have fond memories of supporting it. It
    felt small enough to get your head around, and having .ini files
    instead of registries made it more supportable, IMO.

    Norton Desktop was a nice desktop environment, I really liked it. Rumor
    had it that IBM had ported Presentation Manager over to Windows, but I
    never saw it in action.









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

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

    ... UNPRISON YOUR THINK RHINO
    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From paulie420@21:2/150 to poindexter FORTRAN on Sat Feb 3 10:40:56 2024
    Norton Desktop was a nice desktop environment, I really liked it. Rumor
    had it that IBM had ported Presentation Manager over to Windows, but I
    never saw it in action.

    I still have it installed on a 486 laying around here somewhere. :P



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

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to paulie420 on Sun Feb 4 09:44:00 2024
    paulie420 wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    I still have it installed on a 486 laying around here somewhere. :P

    I tossed out so many computers that I'm now sad that I did.

    An IBM XT with a hard drive, an IBM Store Controller (basically an
    industrial AT) a Compaq Portable II, an AT&T 6300, and a VLB 486/50 are
    all sorely missed.


    ... Trust in the you of now
    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to paulie420 on Tue Feb 6 11:29:00 2024
    But.. I suppose if those dashboards are not connected to the
    internet and independent, then what's the harm in sticking with
    Win3.11. However.. the hardware would surely be hard to maintain
    for too long as ram and capacitors blow out, etc.

    While I have no idea about this rail, many commercial MS-DOS/Win 3.11 applications run hardware that you can still purchase new today. What is it, the PC-100 board - or something-100... you can still buy 486, Pentium, etc. single board computers today that aren't old consumer grade hardware.

    Don't know about recently, but used to be a time, a large number of stocktake systems, with barcode scanners used to run on DOS... sans windows... nothing pointy or clicky in the little LCD status screen. Last time I saw one, I
    think the POS was still at ~Win98 and this was well after XP was flying...
    sigh even that was a long time ago now... chuckle.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (21:3/101)
  • From SirRonmit@21:2/120 to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Feb 6 08:27:23 2024
    Really? DOS timeslicing was so bad and there wasn't a decent windows
    FOSSIL back then, must have been challenging.

    Yeah - Spitfire was DOS only and I (totally just forgot that name of the program I was using to run 2 nodes - local and dialup). But that program ran great! I'll have to see if I have it around here, I know I made a virtual desktop in vmware to plat around with it again.

    I think it was QEMM?

    --
    Timothy Norris aka SirRonmit
    admin@f4fbbs.com
    bbs.f4fbbs.com:2323 or :62323

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Files 4 Fun BBS (21:2/120)
  • From paulie420@21:2/150 to SirRonmit on Tue Feb 6 19:36:40 2024
    Really? DOS timeslicing was so bad and there wasn't a decent windows
    FOSSIL back then, must have been challenging.

    Yeah - Spitfire was DOS only and I (totally just forgot that name of the program I was using to run 2 nodes - local and dialup). But that program ran great! I'll have to see if I have it around here, I know I made a virtual desktop in vmware to plat around with it again.

    I think it was QEMM?

    Desqview?? :P



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

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From SirRonmit@21:2/120 to paulie420 on Wed Feb 7 10:02:18 2024
    I think it was QEMM?

    Desqview?? :P

    YES!!!!! Thank you!!!

    Man my brain was hurting on that one LOL

    I remember having 2 of the 4 "windows" using. Man the early 90's dialup days were THE best!!!

    --
    Timothy Norris aka SirRonmit
    admin@f4fbbs.com
    bbs.f4fbbs.com:2323 or :62323

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Files 4 Fun BBS (21:2/120)
  • From paulie420@21:2/150 to SirRonmit on Wed Feb 7 19:58:51 2024
    I think it was QEMM?

    Desqview?? :P

    YES!!!!! Thank you!!!

    I used Desqview a lot back in the day... and still continue using Desqview/X through today - yes, I still have a few MS-DOS machines in service. :P



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

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From SirRonmit@21:2/120 to paulie420 on Thu Feb 8 09:34:23 2024
    I used Desqview a lot back in the day... and still continue using Desqview/X through today - yes, I still have a few MS-DOS machines in

    I did locate a copy of DV/X, but hadn't heard of it until recently.

    --
    Timothy Norris aka SirRonmit
    admin@f4fbbs.com
    bbs.f4fbbs.com:2323 or :62323

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Files 4 Fun BBS (21:2/120)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to paulie420 on Thu Feb 8 08:14:00 2024
    paulie420 wrote to SirRonmit <=-

    I used Desqview a lot back in the day... and still continue using Desqview/X through today - yes, I still have a few MS-DOS machines in service. :P


    I always wanted to use DV/X, thought it was a great client for when I
    had old *nix boxes I managed. The idea of displaying an X app on another
    client would have been cool.



    ... Towards the insignificant
    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From paulie420@21:2/150 to poindexter FORTRAN on Thu Feb 8 19:37:52 2024
    I always wanted to use DV/X, thought it was a great client for when I
    had old *nix boxes I managed. The idea of displaying an X app on another client would have been cool.

    I didso back in the day, and still play with it now... I can run simple programs on old machines, connected to my home network - its one of the best 'OSes' that was in the background.



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

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to SirRonmit on Mon Feb 12 09:56:01 2024
    Re: Re: MS-DOS and Win 3.11 Admin
    By: SirRonmit to paulie420 on Wed Feb 07 2024 10:02 am

    Desqview?? :P

    YES!!!!! Thank you!!!

    Man my brain was hurting on that one LOL

    When I ran my RemoteAccess BBS in the 90s, I only had one phone line for it, so I just ran the 2-node (registered) version of RemoteAccess. At one point, I wanted to be able to log in locally (as the sysop) when a user was online, so I figured out how to properly do a multi-node setup, and I started running it in DesqView. I was able to open another DesqView window and run RemoteAccess in local mode so I could log in locally, even when a user was logged in. It ran great, and I thought that was pretty cool.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to paulie420 on Mon Feb 12 09:57:06 2024
    Re: Re: MS-DOS and Win 3.11 Admin
    By: paulie420 to SirRonmit on Wed Feb 07 2024 07:58 pm

    I used Desqview a lot back in the day... and still continue using Desqview/X through today - yes, I still have a few MS-DOS machines in service. :P

    DesqView was awesome. I learned about it from my dad (who was always into computers), and I remember him also trying a similar program called DoubleDOS, but I remember DoubleDOS not working very well.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From paulie420@21:2/150 to Nightfox on Wed Feb 14 19:27:58 2024
    I used Desqview a lot back in the day... and still continue using Desqview/X through today - yes, I still have a few MS-DOS machines in service. :P

    DesqView was awesome. I learned about it from my dad (who was always
    into computers), and I remember him also trying a similar program called DoubleDOS, but I remember DoubleDOS not working very well.

    So I legit used Desqview first on MS-DOS 3.33 with my Telegard BBS - I couldn't believe that I could use my computer again, while having callers!!! Most of the time, it worked OK.

    Fast forward to Desqview/X, that was a SOLID release - I started thinking of it AS an OS... and it served me well as I 'upgraded' to Renegade.

    This was right around the time I was drooling over Synchronet... I still remember the $299 adverts in the BBS magazines and thinking that I might just be able to get on 'corporate quality' BBS softwarez. :P

    I downloaded Sync the next month... at 2400 bps. UGH.



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

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to paulie420 on Thu Feb 15 13:51:55 2024
    Re: Re: MS-DOS and Win 3.11 Admin
    By: paulie420 to Nightfox on Wed Feb 14 2024 07:27 pm

    So I legit used Desqview first on MS-DOS 3.33 with my Telegard BBS - I couldn't believe that I could use my computer again, while having callers!!! Most of the time, it worked OK.

    Fast forward to Desqview/X, that was a SOLID release - I started thinking of it AS an OS... and it served me well as I 'upgraded' to Renegade.

    This was right around the time I was drooling over Synchronet... I still remember the $299 adverts in the BBS magazines and thinking that I might just be able to get on 'corporate quality' BBS softwarez. :P

    I downloaded Sync the next month... at 2400 bps. UGH.

    Good memories. :)

    Funny thing, I don't remember hearing about Synchronet in the 90s.. The first time I'd heard about Synchronet was in 2007 when I was looking for new BBS software to run a BBS again. I don't think there were any BBSes in my area using Synchronet in the 90s (that I saw, anyway). I don't remember seeing the ads either, though I probably didn't look where it was advertised.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
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  • From Mhansel739@21:3/171 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Feb 19 05:53:04 2024
    Broadcom is messing even more with your VM Workstation install. :(

    We're starting to use a virtualization platform at work that uses
    Hyper-V, I'm starting to play with it here. We're Nutanix and VMWare
    mostly, moving off of the latter for most of our sites. I'm scared to
    be a small VMWare shop now.

    May I inquire as to what is happening with VMWare? Most of our customers
    that we setup servers for, we use ESXI. I work for a small MSP in
    Michigan. I am a Hyper-V fan (good, bad, or otherwise). I am getting
    exposed to ESXI a little bit. Back to my "question". Our environments are
    small - 1-4 servers typically (1 host, 2-3 VMs). How is Broadcom (they
    own VMWare, right?) messing with it?
    --Matt

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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Mhansel739 on Mon Feb 19 06:58:00 2024
    Mhansel739 wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    May I inquire as to what is happening with VMWare? Most of our
    customers that we setup servers for, we use ESXI. I work for a small
    MSP in Michigan. I am a Hyper-V fan (good, bad, or otherwise). I am getting exposed to ESXI a little bit. Back to my "question". Our environments are small - 1-4 servers typically (1 host, 2-3 VMs). How
    is Broadcom (they own VMWare, right?) messing with it?

    There's a ton of information around the 'net, but it started with
    Broadcom's CEO noting that the majority of their revenues come from
    a fraction of their customer base, their largest customers.

    They removed perpetual licensing, jacked up support pricing, removed
    some of the licensing most beneficial to smaller companies and removed
    the free version of ESXi, which a lot of people used to learn VMWare in homelabs. They're trying to extract as much money out of it as they can,
    while they can.





    ... It's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it plays out for 'em...
    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From Mhansel739@21:3/171 to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Feb 21 06:18:42 2024
    They removed perpetual licensing, jacked up support pricing, removed
    some of the licensing most beneficial to smaller companies and removed
    the free version of ESXi, which a lot of people used to learn VMWare in homelabs. They're trying to extract as much money out of it as they can while they can.

    That is HORRIBLE! I understand trying to maximize profits out of a
    product line, but to take away from the small businesses is stupid. You
    are ruining your customer base. The perpetual licensing thing -
    double-edged sword there - most companies are moving to subscriptions,
    but come on, these are freaking servers. You set them up, enable the virtualization piece, and that is it. From there it is licensing for the
    VMs that are running inside of that. I am not trying to oversimplify
    things, but come on.
    Thanks for the info.
    --Matt

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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Mhansel739 on Wed Feb 21 06:56:00 2024
    Mhansel739 wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    That is HORRIBLE! I understand trying to maximize profits out of a
    product line, but to take away from the small businesses is stupid.

    It feels like draining as much money as possible as quickly as
    possible, especially getting rid of the free ESXi licensing. So many of
    their customers' admins started out playing with ESXi in home or lab
    environments, and that built their market recognition. Those techs
    probably went to VMWare certification, adding to brand momentum.

    None of this is needed if your plan is to bleed the company dry. I'm
    not familiar with their other purchases, but the sentiment isn't far
    off.





    ... Wait, this is a *scene*?
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