"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)

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
|16|14Sysop |12Noverdu |14BBS |20|15Radio|10@|14HTTP://Noverdu.com:88
|16|10 Standard ports for SSH/Telnet |04 WEB|14@|12HTTP://noverdu.com:808 |20|15Global Chat, Global Messaging and Games! |16|10Ditch the Unsocial Media

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Noverdu BBS (21:1/210)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/04/30 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Clutch BBS * telnet://clutchbbs.com (21:1/199)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

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

--- RATSoft/FIDO v09.14.95 [JetMail 1.01]
* Origin: STar Fleet HQ - Real Atari! bbs.sfhqbbs.org:5983 (21:3/171.0)

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)

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

--- RATSoft/FIDO v09.14.95 [JetMail 1.01]
* Origin: STar Fleet HQ - Real Atari! bbs.sfhqbbs.org:5983 (21:3/171.0)

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*?
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

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

I'd start from w3.11 in a virtual machine on a modern computer at least, with all the networking proxied to whatever legacy connection interfaces they have.

-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)