I found a nice web page documenting WfW3.11 network features:

https://casadevall.pro/articles/2020/05/exploring-windows-for-workgroups-3.11-early-90s-networking/

or https://shorturl.at/ovNZ6 if you prefer.

Back in 1994, I worked in a software shop. We ran BSD servers, POP3 mail service and used Eudora for email. We ran Novell servers for file and
print sharing.

I had a tech support team who had their own workgroup server and were
all running WfW 3.11, we needed the built-in networking stack. What I
didn't realize until I visited with them one day was that they had
turned on every feature in WfW, and it was pretty impressive. They had a
shared calendar, their own Microsoft mail post-office for
inter-department mail, file and print sharing and messaging set up.

It was a very impressive show, especially since it was all included in
the price of the desktop PCs.



... THE HEXAGONS OF AIM
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Back when I had purchased my 1st windows PC (386SX-20), I quickly upgrade to WfW3.11 and found it TREMENDOUS for running my Spitfire BBS in DOS on that platform. Love it!

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

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Re: Re: Windows for Workgroups Networking
By: SirRonmit to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Dec 12 2023 11:49 am

Back when I had purchased my 1st windows PC (386SX-20), I quickly upgrade to WfW3.11 and found it TREMENDOUS for running my Spitfire BBS in DOS on that platform. Love it!

Those 386SXes were everywhere! I had one as my desktop, and later had a caller donate a mobo for the BBS. Underpowered for Windows, but ran GEOWorks wonderfully.
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
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Re: Re: Windows for Workgroups Networking
By: poindexter FORTRAN to SirRonmit on Tue Dec 12 2023 03:16 pm

Back when I had purchased my 1st windows PC (386SX-20), I quickly upgrade
to WfW3.11 and found it TREMENDOUS for running my Spitfire BBS in DOS on
that platform. Love it!

Those 386SXes were everywhere! I had one as my desktop, and later had a caller donate a mobo for the BBS. Underpowered for Windows, but ran GEOWorks wonderfully.

In the mid-90s, I had read about GeoWorks but never saw it personally (except I think in AOL software - I think I read AOL used GeoWorks for their AOL desktop environment). I thought GeoWorks sounded fairly interesting, and was another example of why I thought it was a bit disappointing that Windows took off as much as it did.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
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Re: Re: Windows for Workgroups Networking
By: SirRonmit to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Dec 12 2023 11:49 am

Back when I had purchased my 1st windows PC (386SX-20), I quickly upgrade to WfW3.11 and found it TREMENDOUS for running my Spitfire BBS in DOS on that platform. Love it!

For a few years, I had a hand-me-down 386SX-16. I got it to run Microsoft Flight Simulator 5, which required a 386 (I previously had a 286), and although the 386SX-16 could run it, Flight Simulator 5 ran very slowly on it.

After I had that PC for a few years, I got my first job, and the first thing I bought when I got my first paycheck or two was to buy parts to build a new PC (with an AMD 5x86-133 - which was a 486DX4-133).

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

After I had that PC for a few years, I got my first job, and the first thing I bought when I got my first paycheck or two was to buy parts to build a new PC (with an AMD 5x86-133 - which was a 486DX4-133).

I believe I kept that old 386SX-20 up until the Pentium 1s came out. It was an awesome machine and we worked the heck outta it!

--
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)

Nightfox wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

In the mid-90s, I had read about GeoWorks but never saw it personally (except I think in AOL software - I think I read AOL used GeoWorks for their AOL desktop environment). I thought GeoWorks sounded fairly interesting, and was another example of why I thought it was a bit disappointing that Windows took off as much as it did.

It was interesting -- used Motif as a window manager, and it looked like
the very expensive UNIXWare servers we had at work.

(aside: My boss was an idiot, and bought UNIXWare because it was
designed to work with Netware -- except we used it in a DMZ, separate
from our Netware network. Internally, we used BSD (which couldn't talk
to Netware) as he'd run out of budget buying UNIXware.)

They built some neat hooks into DR-DOS, and included Quattro Pro
(Borland's answer to Lotus 1-2-3) with the system, making it a decent
little system.

I used it on a 386sx-20 with 2 MB of RAM, it wasn't enough to run
Windows 3.1 well. Geoworks ran just fine.



... Abandon normal instruments
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Nightfox wrote to SirRonmit <=-

For a few years, I had a hand-me-down 386SX-16. I got it to run
Microsoft Flight Simulator 5, which required a 386 (I previously had a 286), and although the 386SX-16 could run it, Flight Simulator 5 ran
very slowly on it.

We used to have DOOM LAN parties in 1994-1995. We'd do a 6 person
deathmatch over IPX in the office and use a 6-party conference call for
vox during the game.[1]

Most of the users at the time had at least a 486SX25, most had full
blown 486DXes. I saw one of the customer service people playing, and the
screen size was shrunk down to what seemed like postage-stamp size. I
asked him why, and he said his computer was too slow. I looked at it and realized he had an old 386sx-16 that was lying around when he was hired
and they gave it to him instead of requesting a new one.

I got him a decent 486DX system and he proceeded to kick my ass
in-game. Serves me right.


[1] "a shameless use of technology", as my boss put it.


... Discover your formulas and abandon them
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SirRonmit wrote to Nightfox <=-

I believe I kept that old 386SX-20 up until the Pentium 1s came out. It was an awesome machine and we worked the heck outta it!

There are a handful of machines that surprise you like that.

I had a 386DX40 that felt like it kept up with 486es for some time. I
used it as my home desktop for way too long, skipped the 486es
completely and replaced it with a Pentium Pro system.

I had a Mac IIci with a cache card at work, 12 MB of RAM, and it kept
going the whole time I was there. I replaced it with a Quadra 700, and
when I needed to repurpose it for a creative hire who needed to run
graphics apps, pulled my old IIci out and it worked like a charm.

One company had worked with Intel, and we had a dev box of theirs that
was a Pentium 90. This was 1996, when Quake was big. That system kept
up with much faster Pentiums in-game, and ended up being passed around
the department when people needed a second system for way longer than it
should have.

Later, when Pentium IIs were becoming popular, a crappy little IBM
Aptiva consumer-grade Pentium 233 MMX system I had at my desk would not
quit. I'd play Quake II in it with an add-on 3dfx card and it placed
nicely.

A couple of years later when Celerons and Pentium IIIs were commonplace,
I kept a couple of early Pentium II Dell Dimension G1s running way
longer than they should have - as long as you defragged the drives
regularly, they were just fine for admin work. They outlasted the
company.






... Distorting time
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
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Re: Re: Windows for Workgroups Networking
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Wed Dec 13 2023 09:43 am

For a few years, I had a hand-me-down 386SX-16. I got it to run

We used to have DOOM LAN parties in 1994-1995. We'd do a 6 person deathmatch over IPX in the office and use a 6-party conference call for vox during the game.[1]

Most of the users at the time had at least a 486SX25, most had full blown 486DXes. I saw one of the customer service people playing, and the screen size was shrunk down to what seemed like postage-stamp size. I asked him why, and he said his computer was too slow. I looked at it and realized he had an old 386sx-16 that was lying around when he was hired and they gave it to him instead of requesting a new one.

I got him a decent 486DX system and he proceeded to kick my ass in-game. Serves me right.

:) That's always fun. In the mid 90s, I had played LAN games with my older brother & a co-worker where they worked a couple times. I rememebr playing Hexen or Heretic that way once.

There was a BBS user I had around 1995, and we ended up playing Doom over the modem a lot that summer. I also had to shrink the image size down as small as it would go to make it more playable. I'm pretty sure that was on my 386SX-16.

In my last post, I forgot I had a 386DX-40 in between my SX-16 and the AMD 5x86-133.. The 386DX-40 was quite an improvement and helped play some games until I bought the 5x86.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Re: Re: Windows for Workgroups Networking
By: Nightfox to SirRonmit on Tue Dec 12 2023 07:51 pm

For a few years, I had a hand-me-down 386SX-16. I got it to run Microsoft

After I had that PC for a few years, I got my first job, and the first thing I bought when I got my first paycheck or two was to buy parts to build a new PC (with an AMD 5x86-133 - which was a 486DX4-133).

I just realized, I forgot I had a 386DX-40 for a little while after my SX-16, before I built the AMD 5x86 PC. The 386DX-40 definitely helped run a lot of games better than the SX-16. The 90s were interesting times, when it seemed like almost every new PC upgrade and new PC component was a very significant upgrade.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

I had a tech support team who had their own workgroup server and were
all running WfW 3.11, we needed the built-in networking stack. What I didn't realize until I visited with them one day was that they had
turned on every feature in WfW, and it was pretty impressive. They had a shared calendar, their own Microsoft mail post-office for
inter-department mail, file and print sharing and messaging set up.

Yep, and it continued through the NT era and Windows Server and even now in the cloud. If you can go all Microsoft then internally it's super consistent and works just fine. problems start when you mix clouds or solutions that are not native to MSFT. A perfect vendor lock that is way too expensive for family business to fully enjoy (although MSFT still tries to segment its offering to that market).. way too.. narrow for enterprises (although MSFT is the new IBM of products) and the sweat point is.. in Small and Medium Businesses that get the enterprise feeling without unnecessary burden and over paying.

-h1

... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a mere copy.

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

I had a 386DX40 that felt like it kept up with 486es for some time. I
used it as my home desktop for way too long, skipped the 486es
completely and replaced it with a Pentium Pro system.

The home servers we ran tended to be the last retired desktop at home. The GF of the time and I had his'n'hers plus the file server/router.. The 386DX40 continued to run that right up until it decided it couldn't handle back to
back reads on a fast ethernet card.. I forget what, probably an NE2000...
it'd lock the system solid when it did, and it was pretty easy to manage if
you were copying bulk files around.

There was meant to be some work around for the back to back reads, but I
never got it stable and fully functional.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
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We used to have DOOM LAN parties in 1994-1995. We'd do a 6 person deathmatch over IPX in the office and use a 6-party conference call for
vox during the game.[1]

That is ingenuity, not a shameless use of technology. Pre-Discord days.
You wanted to play a game AND communicate and talk trash to the other
players. Hell yeah, 6-way conference call using the phone system.
BRILLIANT! The technology and bandwidth back in those days was not
anywhere near ready for what we do now. Hats off to you.
--Mat

--- RATSoft/FIDO v09.14.95 [JetMail 1.01]
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Mhansel739 wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

That is ingenuity, not a shameless use of technology. Pre-Discord days. You wanted to play a game AND communicate and talk trash to the other players. Hell yeah, 6-way conference call using the phone system. BRILLIANT! The technology and bandwidth back in those days was not anywhere near ready for what we do now. Hats off to you.

I'm surprised how we got by. We had a 56K leased line to the internet,
and a network with shared hubs connected to a 4-port switch. We had each department in their own collision domain, so you wouldn't have to cross
domains to talk to your department servers. 10 megabit.

But, back then mail was mostly text, and the web wasn't popular (yet).
Most of our internet traffic was gopher, news, and mail.




... Faced with a choice, do both.
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