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)

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!



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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)

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)
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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)
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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)

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.



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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.

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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)

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.



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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)

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.

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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)

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 ...

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