Trying to optimise http://floppy.museum for (even) older browsers. Some of the issues I'm trying to solve include utf8-to-latin1 translation (the original HTML has some silly double- and triple-byte characters), and variations of JPEG that simply aren't understood.

Turns out Netscape 2.02 is too easy, so in this picture is IBM WebExplorer v1.1h running on OS/2 Warp Connect. Using the magic "work area" feature of folders (mark a folder as a work area to have the OS manage objects within it as a kind of unit), I can open several windows at once. True multi-process browsing 😉

#retrocomputing #browsers #floppy #museum #html #BrowserWars

The sound of a 486SLC doing a SSH handshake.

Well .. that went sideways. Despite many attempts, I have yet to find a 286 - or a 386sx for that matter - that will boot the NetBSD floppies without failing in some way or other. I'm not yet certain (perhaps someone here knows?), but there may be instructions missing from the various 486SLC and 486DLC CPU variants that my ugprade modules have. Or there are other bugs that I have not been able to figure out.

Anyway, I've reduced my ambitions ever so slightly, and am now in the process of installing NetBSD (-CURRENT) on what is essentially a 386SX-class machine: 16-bit bus, 24-bit addressing, 16MB RAM, and nearly as unpleasantly slow as the 286 I had planned to use. It is however equipped with an IBM-branded 486SLC, which is from the Blue Lightning series. This one definitely has a full 486 instruction set. More hardware details will follow when I've completed the build (and installation).

Meanwhile, the obligatory screenshot from the installer. Note the ETA for simply unpacking base.tgz ..
#RunBSD #Retrocomputing #Slowcomputing

Herewith, the actual machine. Some specs ..
- Motherboard: Zida TD60C
- CPU: Harris 286 28MHz
- RAM: 16MB "RainbowRAM", 55ns (check out the LEDs!)
- Graphics: Cirrus Logic CL-GD5422, 1MB
- Network: 3com EtherLink III (3c509)
- Floppy: 2-in-1 90mm (3.5") and 1.2" floppy drive
- Storage: Promise DC200M caching IDE controller, 2.5MB cache
- SCSI: Sound Blaster 16 SCSI :D

#sfw #hardware

I had #Minix on another 286 for a while, and there's some 16-bit "port" of Linux that is not as old as it should be. And of course the venerable OS/2 1.x, and a few actual #Unix variants as you point out. I didn't know about V6on286, that's a beautiful little nugget, thank you!

All of those things are absolutely wonderful and make many of todays software developers look ... spoiled? What I want, however - and what I love doing - is making this old hardware do stuff its makers never dreamt of, things that are as far removed from their time as possible. That's why I will, if #NetBSD permits, run bleeding edge BSD on a 286-on-486steroids, and why I run web+ftp+irc servers (yes, multitaskign) on one 286 and multiple BBS nodes on a 386 - like one used to do, of course.

I cannot state often enough how amazing it is that there's still software developed today that will work under such constraints.

#RunBSD #EndOfRant

And it lives! Apparently I'm officially operating a Motherboard Bakery! :)
Now I need to get it properly configured and tested with DOS, then I can move on to the next steps - which involve the CPU upgrade, and assuming that works, creating actual, physical floppies.

(In other news, the #snac instance on this poor Pentium Pro server is sweating hard whenever I post something. So let me know at @ltning@anduin.net if you have problems receiving/reading my posts. I've made some tweaks but it will be unavoidably detained for a while following each post, my apologies for that..)

#BIOS #POST #Retrocomputing

And I know one should not apply regular water to electronics, but I'm trusting Oslo Waterworks to supply me with nice, clean water from the tap. It comes at high pressure to boot, so I can quickly get rid of all the vinegar to prevent it from slowly eating through everything. As long as I dry it properly and quickly, it should be fine, I'm told.

I said I was baking - It was not a randomly chosen term.

I'm a bit of a n00b at this, but I have salvaged a couple of boards before using vinegar and a toothbrush, so I'm trying my luck with that. After applying the vinegar and watching, hearing and smelling it sizzling, I dunk the affected part thoroughly for a few minutes...

So as usual, its eBay to the rescue. Found a board just like it, except there's good news and bad news: the good news is the CPU is socketed on this one, making the upgrade job a lot easier.

The bad news? See picture.

Baking my next #NetBSD project, a thread...
[Edit - fixed attachment]

I've said somewhere I want to run NetBSD on a #286. Now obviously that's not actually possible, but I should be able to do the next best thing - run it on a 286 upgraded to a 486SLC!

But wait, most 286es only support 4MB RAM, although the ol' chum of a chip supports a whopping 16MB. So I have to find a motherboard that can do this.

Thing is, I already have one. See picture. But it's currently occupied doing very important Enterprisy stuff - it runs IBM OS/2 1.3 Extended Edition..but at least I know what I need!

For the server hosting this instance (Pentium Pro machine):
- https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?do=view&id=8170
- https://bsd-hardware.info/?probe=f6feb27f87

For the 486 running larry.weirdr.net:
- https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?do=view&id=8169
- https://bsd-hardware.info/?probe=2ec3f61bc7

Enjoy. :)

CC: @jaypatelani@bsd.network

Yes, been doing some hardware work. :)

Nah, it's the same size (roughly) as the regular kernel, the main difference is it allows ISA/VLB VGA for the console driver, afaik.

CC: @dch@bsd.network

See attached. This is a different motherboard but same CPU, with a PCI NIC, a second ISA NIC, and a completely unrelated Gravis Ultrasound PnP :D

CC: @grunfink@comam.es @stefano@bsd.cafe

I had to build my own kernel since the default kernel simply needs too much RAM. But once USB and a couple of other niceties were removed, it ran fine with the binaries from the i386 release.

Most of them can do more than they announce. It's like OS/2 2.11.. IBM said it can SMP across 64 CPUs but they could only test with 32 as that was the best hardware they had at the time :D

Yesterday I found a 486 board in my collection that boots and happily deals with 256MB of EDO RAM! The speed is hare-raising :D

You must let me know when you do. All modern Unixes I know dropped 386 support a while ago :(

CC: @grunfink@comam.es

Is the telnet emulation issue related to "cls" from some BBSes just giving a weird character instead of actually clearing the screen? :)

I did it. Be gentle. https://larry.weirdr.net/

I did a thing so I don't have to wait 20+ seconds to SSH into (or out of) my #486 running #NetBSD.

https://github.com/ltning/sshbench

#unix #ssh #benchmark #shellscript #bourne #runbsd

Ah. Makefile.NetBSD is missing sandbox.o. Consider this a bug report.. ;)

CC: @grunfink@comam.es

@grunfink@comam.es Building snac is failing :( Checked out 2.68, but linker step fails with ld: data.o: in function srv_open':
data.c:(.text+0x8b0): undefined reference to sbox_enter'.. With make -f Makefile.NetBSD. Halp? :)

There are only hot girls here. See proof in attachment.
Note that the compiler process is running with nice so as not to make the poor lady freeze too much.

#unix #NetBSD

And here we are. #NetBSD is simply amazing.

#unix #runbsd #retrocomputing #486

After making myself a new, smaller kernel and install floppies - only needed two, as opposed to six for the stock kernel..

Attempting to install #NetBSD on this 486.. gonna need some more work before that works I'm afraid.

(Read the alt text for more info)
#retrocomputing #moreram

@tom@epsom.social Mind sharing the tls config? Key lengths, curves, ciphers and protocols?

@tom@epsom.social fully expect I have to build a bunch of stuff myself. Including netbsd. But I expect snac to build nicely and not require any special gymnastics. :)

I'm thinking of running it on a 120/133MHz AMD 5x86 or something like that. It should (at least) have 64MB RAM, possibly 128 if I can get it to cache the whole range.

A bigger challenge will be the Nintendo WII - it has, I believe, 24MB or something like that? But at least the CPU should be vastly superior to any 486..

How much memory does Apache use then? It sounds like unnecessary bloat even with modules disabled. But maybe that's just me still clinging to 20+ year old impressions of Apache being bloated by definition.

Do you do TLS in Apache too? On a K6-II?