Ltning

@ltning@weirdr.net

He/him. This is one of my alter egos in the retro world. Read about this instance on front page. My goal is to be able to post here from a 286* running DOS. Might be a while..

and enthusiast with a craving for retro (mostly PC) hardware. Four kids and a wonderful patchwork family.

*Speaking of 286es: http://floppy.museum/

28 following, 65 followers

📌 29 ★ 11 ↺

[?]Ltning »
@ltning@weirdr.net

After a fair bit of fiddling, this instance is now .. operational, I think? And this is officially my first post here.

See also my main fediverse presence: @ltning@anduin.net

About this instance, at the time of writing:
- OS: 10
- Reverse proxy: nginx
- CPU: Dual Pentium Pro Overdrive, 333MHz
- RAM: 512MB EDO
- NIC: 3Com 100Mbit PCI NIC
- Storage: SATA 1.0 (CF and SSD)


    ...
    2 ★ 2 ↺
    Anders Gulden Olstad boosted

    [?]Ltning »
    @ltning@weirdr.net

    Posting and boosting this certainly put the box under some duress.. Changed ssl_ecdh_curve from secp521r1:secp384r1; to X25519:prime256v1; now; let's see if that helps.

    0 ★ 0 ↺

    [?]Ltning »
    @ltning@weirdr.net

    It's fun to run servers on old, slow computers. Posts that showed up on my big fat server a couple hours ago are only showing up now, simply because it's too busy to receive all relevant notifications at once. Other instances seem to be backing off for a while, and try again at random intervals so the load on this box remains low. Pretty cool, assuming that's actually how it works!

    Only when a post is boosted or replied to do I run the risk of my hot-babe CPU monitor turning nsfw. So better keep it boring, I guess.

      [?]Pawslut420 »
      @sendpaws@mitra.pawslut.party

      Linux at 50mhz is pain haha

      ...

      [?]fraggLe! »
      @fwaggle@moodoo.org

      @sendpaws Oof, flashbacks to it being like 1997 or something and I've got a bunch of machines laying around running JohnTheRipper because reasons, one of which is a 486. It was *pitifully* slow at anything, much less cracking, but it got a hit one time. :blobcathighfive:

        1 ★ 1 ↺
        Pawslut420 boosted

        [?]Ltning »
        @ltning@weirdr.net

        I have a server running under NetBSD on a 486, which also runs X. It's indeed painfully slow but it does work. And surprisingly well, too. An OS from 2025 on hardware from 1994.

        And if it wasn't for crypto being too slow to actually work I'd be doing the same on the 386SX-class machine that I also have running NetBSD. But with a hyper-optimized SSH handshake taking over a minute, I have no hopes for 2k RSA signatures or any kind of TLS handshakes with remote instances happening in anywhere near the timeframe they would need to..

          teacher ciat 🔅 // 🕛〰️🕛💫 boosted

          [?]i cast bnnuy »
          @linuxenjoyer@blahaj.zone

          it's always annoyed me how some people talk about hard stuff. like... i remember when i was first learning python all the resources i found were like "Write ADVANCED Python using CLASSES. This Complex Construct for managing your programs.". And for the longest time I put off learning about them, because oh nooo big scary thing. And like when I finally read the godforsaken car example I was so disappointed. Like I thought I was misunderstanding it. It can't just be some variables and functions tied together, can it? Yes it can ! That's basically all it is. And you give it a name so the types can yell at you if they want to.

          Same with polymorphism. po-ly-morph-ism. Big scary word. "Oh you don't know what polymorphism is? They should cover that soon in your courses haha." It's calling a method. youre calling a method. maybe it's because python is my first&favourite language but youre just calling a method.

          whenever anything is like "rahh this is hard and complex" i either click off and go look for a different article, or skip a paragraph and hope it gets better. /I/ want to decide if it sucks ​:neocat_scream:​​:neocat_scream:​

          i think usually i try to frame things like. "hey this is 👉👉my👈👈 experience with this thing, and maybe it sucked for me, but we can get through it 👍👍👍👍👍"

            ...
            1 ★ 0 ↺

            [?]Ltning »
            @ltning@weirdr.net

            My jaw literally dropped here when I read this. It's so, so familiar.

            I don't know what your native language is, but imagine how this exact same thing feels for someone whose first language is not English .. All the same scariness plus we may not even know what the words mean! And looking them up in a dictionary leads to a whole other kind of rabbit hole, and even if you understand the definitions and use in normal human language, it does very nearly jack shit to help understand wtf it means in the programming context.

            I know this, I've tried to learn programming since I was, what, 8? In a vacuum too, since I lived in the middle of fucking nowhere in Norway for the first 17 years of my life. Imagine only having the MS-DOS or PC-DOS handbooks and some GWBASIC code written by Bill Gates to start out with. And the vocabulary of a 8 year old kid whose grasp of the English language is limited to what he learned during 6 months of school in Australia when he was 5...

            I'm almost creeping up on 48 now and still can't code for shit.

              ...

              [?][tj] - knows what your packets are thinking »
              @tj@altelectron.org.uk

              @ltning @linuxenjoyer a friend a uni did an Erasmus year in France and the hardest thing she said was all the acronyms being very obscure French.

              I was thinking about this yesterday with my gsoc student. If English isn’t your first language the understanding that top is calculating percentages from procpct is an incredible achievement

                ...
                0 ★ 0 ↺

                [?]Ltning »
                @ltning@weirdr.net

                I'd like to say that is an achievement no matter what your first language is ;)

                CC: @linuxenjoyer@blahaj.zone

                  [?]Parade du Grotesque 💀 »
                  @ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org

                  Got spam today from LinkedIn saying: "You are the best candidate! [large hotel chain] is looking for cleaning maids".

                  I mean, nothing against cleaning maids, because they do a fantastic job*, but I have the feeling LinkedIn AI is completely b0rked.

                  Current, official work title: "Cloud Architect".

                  (* And, by the way, I make sure to always leave a bit of change for them when I leave a hotel, and so should you!)

                  ...

                  [?]Uilebheist »
                  @Uilebheist@polyglot.city

                  @ParadeGrotesque That's probably just because if you search for "cleaning maid" on any LLM-infected search engine, you are just as likely to get results for "cleaning maid" as for "cloud architect" (or even "used lawnmower salesperson").

                    ...

                    [?]Parade du Grotesque 💀 »
                    @ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org

                    @Uilebheist

                    Top search result is probably "purple rhinoceroses kernel experts", but hey, I'd rather work with a couple of competent rhinoceros than most LLM engineers...

                      [?]jack »
                      @jack@mastodon.sdf.org

                      @ParadeGrotesque Regarding the cleaning maids, I'm completely with you.

                      I'm also happy to hear that I'm not the only one with a questionable job title ("DevOps Engineer").

                        1 ★ 0 ↺

                        [?]Ltning »
                        @ltning@weirdr.net

                        Reminds me of all those times we were hiring sysadmins for our "hosting organization". And the majority of applicants came from the hospitality industry, despite our ads very clearly using words like FreeBSD and MySQL and titles like Command Line Warrior and stuff..

                          4 ★ 3 ↺
                          jollyrogue boosted

                          [?]Ltning »
                          @ltning@weirdr.net

                          I'm having the weirdest problem on this machine .. Trying to use on to profile , sometimes it works sometimes it will not actually give me any data (just print the headers). I'm using the hotuser script from the OpenDTrace toolkit.

                          Another issue is that the only way to stop dtrace is to kill -9 it, which takes the watched process with it in the fall..

                          Halp? :)

                            [?]Quester 🌤️🌈:heart_pan: :enb: »
                            @quester@mstdn.games

                            We’re finishing Babylon 5, and a couple of episodes ago I was thinking… I really want a coat like G’Kar’s!

                            A fuzzy closeup of G’Kar speaking to his fellow Narn on Babylon 5. The focus of the image is his cool coat

                            Alt...A fuzzy closeup of G’Kar speaking to his fellow Narn on Babylon 5. The focus of the image is his cool coat

                            ...

                            [?]SuperIlu »
                            @dec_hl@mastodon.social

                            @quester ok, you get the coat and I the mind reading lyta alexander thing 🤣

                              ...
                              3 ★ 1 ↺
                              G Wade Johnson boosted

                              [?]Ltning »
                              @ltning@weirdr.net

                              It's so sad when it's over ... I envy anyone who's able to see it for the first time in this day and age.


                                [?]ltning »
                                @ltning@larry.weirdr.net

                                So tell us about your experience! 🙂

                                  ...

                                  [?]Quester 🌤️🌈:heart_pan: :enb: »
                                  @quester@mstdn.games

                                  @ltning Well, it was great! It started a bit slow but by the time the foreshadowing things started to make sense I didn’t want to stop watching!

                                    ...

                                    [?]ltning »
                                    @ltning@larry.weirdr.net

                                    I've watched the whole show many times, with a few years between each re-watch. And yet it always feels disturbingly relevant.

                                    Fave character? (Yes, this is a trick question ;) )

                                      ...

                                      [?]Quester 🌤️🌈:heart_pan: :enb: »
                                      @quester@mstdn.games

                                      @ltning Ooh, now that’s a tough one, because they’re all really well written. But I did really like G’Kar and Londo (despite his flaws) instantly.

                                        ...

                                        [?]ltning »
                                        @ltning@larry.weirdr.net

                                        Yeah, the dynamic between them is brilliant. And as far as character development goes, it's pretty unique - especially for that TV era.

                                        The scene you shared a screengrab from is among my favorites. :)

                                        But then it's also unfair to not mention Lennier and Vir, Marcus, Ivanova, Delenn - or even Sheridan. Or Garibaldi! Also Walter Koenig as Bester leaves a mark..

                                          ...

                                          [?]Quester 🌤️🌈:heart_pan: :enb: »
                                          @quester@mstdn.games

                                          @ltning Vir I enjoyed a lot, too, he showed a lot of maturity and growth for being what felt like a comic relief at first. And Lennier, although I do feel a bit bad about how his story ended.

                                          I will say I did like Sinclair a bit better than Sheridan, but only as how his storyline developed towards the end. But knowing about the actor’s later years it’s understandable why the story went the way it did. Still, it would had been very interesting to have had a few episodes looking back on the past of Minbar. How Sinclair was written into that was brilliant. Exactly the sort of storytelling I enjoy.

                                          Garibaldi was great. And his friendship with Zack. I really liked Zack, too!

                                          There really were no badly written characters. Even the most loathesome antagonists were really good. I don’t know if I can see Chekov on Star Trek the same way anymore 😂

                                            ...

                                            [?]ltning »
                                            @ltning@larry.weirdr.net

                                            This is when the fanboi in me just has to mention that there's a movie (In the Beginning) which you absolutely must see (the others are nice but kinda optional). There is actually a point during season 4 that would have been the perfect moment to see this movie, but I guess you're past that point now :D But do not delay, go see it, it is absolutely fantastic.

                                            And there are three trilogies and two standalone novels that fill in a lot of blanks in the universe (and tells really, really good stories about some of your favourite characters!) - you may want to look them up:
                                            - "The Shadow Within" by Jeanne Cavelos; covers the Icarus expedition
                                            - "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" by Kathryn M. Drennan; Sinclair on Minbar, need I say more?

                                            And the trilogies:
                                            - "The Psi Corps Trilogy" by J. Gregory Keyes; the origin story of the Psi Corps and Bester
                                            - "Legions of Fire" by Peter David; picks up where Season 5 ended on Centauri Prime
                                            - "The Passing of the Techno-Mages" by Jeanne Cavelos; more relevant than it sounds, and perhaps my favourite

                                            All of these are considered canon, and are written with JMS's input and approval.

                                              ...

                                              [?]Quester 🌤️🌈:heart_pan: :enb: »
                                              @quester@mstdn.games

                                              @ltning We did already watch the movie you mentioned 😊 I do wish they’d included more of the episode it’s linked to into the movie, but yeah, should had rented it during the season it belongs to. There are other movies available for later.
                                              My partner has seen Babylon 5 before me so I’m in good hands here 😄

                                                ...

                                                [?]ltning »
                                                @ltning@larry.weirdr.net

                                                Haha okay then, I approve of the guidance that has clearly been given. :D

                                                If you ever get to read the books, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. I have not met a lot of people who did.

                                                  Parade du Grotesque 💀 boosted

                                                  [?]𝐿𝒶𝓃𝒶 "not yet begun to fight" »
                                                  @Lana@beige.party

                                                  I'd like to take a moment to congratulate all Americans for now legally being defined as women.

                                                  According to Executive Order 14168 (federalregister.gov/documents/), the "biological truth" of the genders has been legally defined:

                                                  (d) “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
                                                  (e) “Male” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.

                                                  Here's the problem, turns out that the universe isn't taking attendance at the time of conception and handing out little pink and blue genderino badges before your gonads even exist. At the moment of conception, EVERY embryo's default state is set to produce, eventually, the larger reproductive cell (the ova). It's not until 6-8 weeks AFTER conception that the Y chromosome, if present and activated, decides to show up to the party and begin the process of differentiation into a body that will, eventually, produce the smaller reproductive cell (the sperm).

                                                  So, once again, I'd like to congratulate literally everybody in America for, at this moment, being legally AFAB.

                                                  ...

                                                  [?]Parade du Grotesque 💀 »
                                                  @ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org

                                                  @Lana

                                                  Well, first of all, I, for one, welcome this unexpected change to my gender.

                                                  I have to say I don't really mind, as long as I can dress fabulously! Does that sex change means I can wear a skirt now?

                                                    ...

                                                    [?]𝐿𝒶𝓃𝒶 "not yet begun to fight" »
                                                    @Lana@beige.party

                                                    @ParadeGrotesque Put On A Pink Princess Dress As God Intended

                                                      ...

                                                      [?]Parade du Grotesque 💀 »
                                                      @ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org

                                                      @Lana

                                                      Let's goooooooooooo! 👘

                                                        1 ★ 0 ↺

                                                        [?]Ltning »
                                                        @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                        Larry Laffer approves this message!

                                                          11 ★ 4 ↺
                                                          Jay 🚩 :runbsd: boosted

                                                          [?]Ltning »
                                                          @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                          I haven't obsessed this much with my desktop since I was .. much younger. Trying to make it functional and purrty on 30 year old hardware is challenging but fun. Thanks to and the fact that most old X and tools are still around and do all the things they always did - and haven't bloated much in those 30 years - helps a lot.

                                                          I'll take Wayland when it comes my way without me having to lift a finger, but until then I'm glad the X Window System is still around. Keeps this old hardware useful.

                                                            ...
                                                            3 ★ 2 ↺

                                                            [?]Ltning »
                                                            @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                            Running the hot-babe CPU monitor. [SENSITIVE CONTENT]And the obligatory screenshot .. maybe a bit nsfw due to the ancient CPU monitor ;)

                                                            Since this screenshot was taken after posting the previous message, the box is quite busy, so Ms. Cynthia is a bit underdressed for the occasion..

                                                            Screenshot of a NetBSD desktop showing HexChat IRC client, a couple xrootconsole instances tailing logs, WindowMaker WM, GKrellM and Hot-Babe system/CPU monitors.

                                                            Alt...Screenshot of a NetBSD desktop showing HexChat IRC client, a couple xrootconsole instances tailing logs, WindowMaker WM, GKrellM and Hot-Babe system/CPU monitors.

                                                              ...

                                                              [?]ltning »
                                                              @ltning@larry.weirdr.net

                                                              Damn, my old 286 can't ever look this good!

                                                              CC: @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                7 ★ 5 ↺

                                                                [?]Ltning »
                                                                @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                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 😉


                                                                OS/2 Warp Connect with four browser windows, a text mode editor editing config.sys, the parent "work area" folder and the launch pad.

                                                                Alt...OS/2 Warp Connect with four browser windows, a text mode editor editing config.sys, the parent "work area" folder and the launch pad.

                                                                  Ltning boosted

                                                                  [?]ltning »
                                                                  @ltning@larry.weirdr.net

                                                                  "You find armed women in swimsuit sexy."
                                                                  (But then again, you find all women sexy!)

                                                                  This is a game I think would like (A short thread).

                                                                  Picture of screen showing an ex-girlfriend of Larry's wearing a swimsuit and pointing a gun at him.

                                                                  Alt...Picture of screen showing an ex-girlfriend of Larry's wearing a swimsuit and pointing a gun at him.

                                                                    ...
                                                                    2 ★ 1 ↺
                                                                    Anders Gulden Olstad boosted

                                                                    [?]Ltning »
                                                                    @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                    The sound of a 486SLC doing a SSH handshake.

                                                                    Alt...Electronic noise from the CPU/RAM while handshaking.

                                                                    8 ★ 5 ↺

                                                                    [?]Ltning »
                                                                    @ltning@weirdr.net

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

                                                                    I've said somewhere I want to run NetBSD on a . 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!

                                                                    otherboard with a soldered 20MHz 286 CPU and a Citygate chipset.

                                                                    Alt...otherboard with a soldered 20MHz 286 CPU and a Citygate chipset.

                                                                      ...
                                                                      3 ★ 0 ↺

                                                                      [?]Ltning »
                                                                      @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                      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.

                                                                      Zoomed-in picture of the new mainboard, showing green gunk on the board itself and in the RAM sockets. Yuck!

                                                                      Alt...Zoomed-in picture of the new mainboard, showing green gunk on the board itself and in the RAM sockets. Yuck!

                                                                        ...
                                                                        1 ★ 0 ↺

                                                                        [?]Ltning »
                                                                        @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                        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...

                                                                        Kitchen paper dunked in 12% vinegar, placed on the affected part of the motherboard to allow the vinegar to do its magic without disappearing into thin air.

                                                                        Alt...Kitchen paper dunked in 12% vinegar, placed on the affected part of the motherboard to allow the vinegar to do its magic without disappearing into thin air.

                                                                          ...
                                                                          4 ★ 1 ↺
                                                                          Network == Abstraction Layer boosted

                                                                          [?]Ltning »
                                                                          @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                          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.

                                                                          The mainboard is literally in the oven! 60 degrees Celcius in hot air-mode for, say, an hour or so should do, I guess.

                                                                          Alt...The mainboard is literally in the oven! 60 degrees Celcius in hot air-mode for, say, an hour or so should do, I guess.

                                                                            ...
                                                                            3 ★ 1 ↺
                                                                            Network == Abstraction Layer boosted

                                                                            [?]Ltning »
                                                                            @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                            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 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..)


                                                                            Picture of BIOS during boot. It's a 1990 American Megatrends BIOS, for the TD60C board, BIOS version 2.42B. It shows a 20MHz CPU clock and 15872 KB RAM tested OK.

                                                                            Alt...Picture of BIOS during boot. It's a 1990 American Megatrends BIOS, for the TD60C board, BIOS version 2.42B. It shows a 20MHz CPU clock and 15872 KB RAM tested OK.

                                                                              ...
                                                                              2 ★ 1 ↺
                                                                              Headbanger75 boosted

                                                                              [?]Ltning »
                                                                              @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                              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


                                                                              Dark-ish picture showing motherboard mounted horizontally on a transparent acrylic surface. Underneath a combined 5.25 inch and 90mm floppy drive. The installed RAM lights up in different colours, four sticks with blue, purpole organge and yellow LEDs, respectively. VGA, network and sound cards are also visible.

                                                                              Alt...Dark-ish picture showing motherboard mounted horizontally on a transparent acrylic surface. Underneath a combined 5.25 inch and 90mm floppy drive. The installed RAM lights up in different colours, four sticks with blue, purpole organge and yellow LEDs, respectively. VGA, network and sound cards are also visible.

                                                                                ...
                                                                                2 ★ 0 ↺

                                                                                [?]Ltning »
                                                                                @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                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 ..

                                                                                Screenshot from installer. Shows base.txz being extracted, at a speed of 110 KB/s. ETA given is about 30 minutes, which turned out to be relatively accurate.

                                                                                Alt...Screenshot from installer. Shows base.txz being extracted, at a speed of 110 KB/s. ETA given is about 30 minutes, which turned out to be relatively accurate.

                                                                                  2 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                                  in reply to »

                                                                                  [?]Ltning »
                                                                                  @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                  I had 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 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 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.


                                                                                    ...
                                                                                    Ltning boosted

                                                                                    [?]ltning »
                                                                                    @ltning@larry.weirdr.net

                                                                                    for the win: Using ctwm (window manager), urxvt (terminal emulator), mrxvt (tabbed terminal emulator), pload (network monitor) and, in the spirit of the 90s, hot-babe (CPU monitor), I have a nice and borderline usable "desktop" on this 486.

                                                                                    Until starts doing work of course. Then I just sit back and wait.

                                                                                      ...
                                                                                      5 ★ 2 ↺
                                                                                      in reply to »

                                                                                      [?]Ltning »
                                                                                      @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                      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

                                                                                        1 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                                        in reply to »

                                                                                        [?]Ltning »
                                                                                        @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                        Yes, been doing some hardware work. :)

                                                                                          0 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                                          in reply to »

                                                                                          [?]Ltning »
                                                                                          @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                          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

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                                                                                            2 ★ 1 ↺
                                                                                            ClaudioM boosted
                                                                                            in reply to »

                                                                                            [?]Ltning »
                                                                                            @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                            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

                                                                                              4 ★ 1 ↺
                                                                                              Network == Abstraction Layer boosted
                                                                                              in reply to »

                                                                                              [?]Ltning »
                                                                                              @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                              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.

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                                                                                                2 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                                                in reply to »

                                                                                                [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                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

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                                                                                                  2 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                                                  in reply to »

                                                                                                  [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                  @ltning@weirdr.net

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

                                                                                                  CC: @grunfink@comam.es

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                                                                                                    Ltning boosted

                                                                                                    [?]ltning »
                                                                                                    @ltning@larry.weirdr.net

                                                                                                    About to be dumped.

                                                                                                    ...
                                                                                                    Older...
                                                                                                    Ltning boosted

                                                                                                    [?]ltning »
                                                                                                    @ltning@larry.weirdr.net

                                                                                                    This is beauty.

                                                                                                    Ltning boosted

                                                                                                    [?]mbbrutman »
                                                                                                    @mbbrutman@mastodon.sdf.org

                                                                                                    The latest mTCP for DOS is available!

                                                                                                    This version includes some changes to improve TCP reliability on long running (but idle) connections, black & white Sixel graphics in Telnet, a Telnet emulation bug fix, and other small fixes sprinkled around.

                                                                                                    The source code to NetDrive (network attached storage) is also published now - enjoy reading an unholy mix of x86 assembly code talking to Golang over UDP!

                                                                                                    Spread the word! Friends don't let friends run old code ...

                                                                                                      ...
                                                                                                      Ltning boosted

                                                                                                      [?]mbbrutman »
                                                                                                      @mbbrutman@mastodon.sdf.org

                                                                                                      I hate this ...

                                                                                                      I found a really small bug in Telnet, but it's irritating. I don't want to go through the hassle of spinning an entire new update so I just patched the Zip files that I have posted at my site.

                                                                                                      If you downloaded mTCP recently (more than 20 minutes ago) please grab it again. Otherwise, live with my terrible bug that throws the Telnet session into Sixel graphics mode without reason. ;-0 (Pressing a key gets past it, but like I said it is annoying.)

                                                                                                      My apologies ...
                                                                                                      -Mike

                                                                                                      0 ★ 0 ↺

                                                                                                      [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                      @ltning@weirdr.net

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

                                                                                                        Ltning boosted

                                                                                                        [?]ltning »
                                                                                                        @ltning@larry.weirdr.net

                                                                                                        Ken sent me.

                                                                                                        54 ★ 20 ↺

                                                                                                        [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                        @ltning@weirdr.net

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

                                                                                                        pfetch output on larry.weirdr.net, showing it runs NetBSD 10.1 on a 486-class computer.

                                                                                                        Alt...pfetch output on larry.weirdr.net, showing it runs NetBSD 10.1 on a 486-class computer.

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                                                                                                        Older...
                                                                                                        7 ★ 2 ↺
                                                                                                        Jay 🚩 :runbsd: boosted

                                                                                                        [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                        @ltning@weirdr.net

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

                                                                                                        https://github.com/ltning/sshbench


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                                                                                                          0 ★ 0 ↺

                                                                                                          [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                          @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                          @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? :)

                                                                                                            ...
                                                                                                            1 ★ 0 ↺

                                                                                                            [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                            @ltning@weirdr.net

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

                                                                                                            CC: @grunfink@comam.es

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                                                                                                              1 ★ 2 ↺
                                                                                                              in reply to »

                                                                                                              [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                              @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                              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.


                                                                                                              Picture of NetBSD X11 desktop with htop(1) and hot-babe CPU monitor.

                                                                                                              Alt...Picture of NetBSD X11 desktop with htop(1) and hot-babe CPU monitor.

                                                                                                                7 ★ 3 ↺

                                                                                                                [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                                @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                                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

                                                                                                                Kernel messages from NetBSD 10.1 on an AMD 486. Panics due to low memory after showing interesting sound cards detected. No correlation I'm sure - only including to brag.

                                                                                                                Alt...Kernel messages from NetBSD 10.1 on an AMD 486. Panics due to low memory after showing interesting sound cards detected. No correlation I'm sure - only including to brag.

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                                                                                                                  2 ★ 0 ↺

                                                                                                                  [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                                  @ltning@weirdr.net

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

                                                                                                                  Screenshot from NetBSD installer unpacking base.tgz at a whopping 600KB per second.

                                                                                                                  Alt...Screenshot from NetBSD installer unpacking base.tgz at a whopping 600KB per second.

                                                                                                                  ...
                                                                                                                  30 ★ 9 ↺

                                                                                                                  [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                                  @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                                  And here we are. is simply amazing.


                                                                                                                  Console screenshot. Plaintext 80x50 mode, with screen(1) running htop(1) and neofetch(1), split horizontally.

                                                                                                                  Alt...Console screenshot. Plaintext 80x50 mode, with screen(1) running htop(1) and neofetch(1), split horizontally.

                                                                                                                    ...
                                                                                                                    Older...
                                                                                                                    0 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                                                                    in reply to »

                                                                                                                    [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                                    @ltning@weirdr.net

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

                                                                                                                      ...
                                                                                                                      1 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                                                                      in reply to »

                                                                                                                      [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                                      @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                                      @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. :)

                                                                                                                        0 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                                                                        in reply to »

                                                                                                                        [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                                        @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                                        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..

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                                                                                                                          0 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                                                                          in reply to »

                                                                                                                          [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                                          @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                                          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?

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                                                                                                                            3 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                                                                            in reply to »

                                                                                                                            [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                                            @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                                            @gyptazy@gyptazy.com Still runs circles around a 1998 chip though. But it shows what good code can get out of questionable hardware.

                                                                                                                            Cc @grunfink@comam.es @gumnos@bsd.cafe @rubenerd@bsd.network

                                                                                                                              1 ★ 0 ↺
                                                                                                                              in reply to »

                                                                                                                              [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                                              @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                                              Happy to please :D Now would it be considered cheating if I ran snac on a 486 but with TLS handled elsewhere (simply for lack of CPU instructions to do EC TLS)? :)

                                                                                                                              CC: @gumnos@bsd.cafe @rubenerd@bsd.network @grunfink@comam.es

                                                                                                                                3 ★ 3 ↺
                                                                                                                                Anders Gulden Olstad boosted

                                                                                                                                [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                                                @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                                                Since nobody asked, here are a couple of pictures of the rig. It's not posing for the picture (I didn't tell it what was going on), so it's as messy as usual.

                                                                                                                                I'll post each picture as a reply to this post, as snac doesn't like multiple attachments..

                                                                                                                                Enjoy. And wish the poor box luck serving this.


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                                                                                                                                  1 ★ 0 ↺

                                                                                                                                  [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                                                  @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                                                  This is the "aquarium case", as it has become known around the office. It has a nearly-invisible batman-symbol embossed on the front, and a similar cutout in the back. Beats me why, but it's kinda cool.

                                                                                                                                  Server seen from the front. Black base with CD-ROM drive and power button in the front. The mainboard is mounted horizontally in the upper half, which is transparent. Seen are various expansion cards and the back of the CPU card itself.

                                                                                                                                  Alt...Server seen from the front. Black base with CD-ROM drive and power button in the front. The mainboard is mounted horizontally in the upper half, which is transparent. Seen are various expansion cards and the back of the CPU card itself.

                                                                                                                                  3 ★ 0 ↺

                                                                                                                                  [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                                                  @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                                                  And here's the innards. Curious eyes might spot some old and dear sound cards, other than that the highlight is of course the mainboard and the CPU board, which is replaceable. And the CPUs, obviously.

                                                                                                                                  Inside of machine, showing two CPUs with fans on the CPU board, some RAM, a SCSI card, network card, SATA controller card and GPU - all 32-bit PCI. Next up are two sound cards - a Gravis Ultrasound and a Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold.

                                                                                                                                  Alt...Inside of machine, showing two CPUs with fans on the CPU board, some RAM, a SCSI card, network card, SATA controller card and GPU - all 32-bit PCI. Next up are two sound cards - a Gravis Ultrasound and a Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold.

                                                                                                                                  1 ★ 0 ↺

                                                                                                                                  [?]Ltning »
                                                                                                                                  @ltning@weirdr.net

                                                                                                                                  And finally, the screenfetch output. Full text in description.

                                                                                                                                  OS: NetBSD, Kernel: i386 NetBSD 10.0_STABLE, Uptime: 3d 2h 55m, Packages: 393, Shell: bash, Resolution: 1600x1200, WM: WindowMaker, GTK Theme: Arc-Dark [GTK2/3], Icon Theme: Adwaita, Font: Sans 9, Disk: 7.3G / 241G (3%), CPU: Intel 686-class @ 2x 333MHz, GPU: Mesa DRI R200 (RV280 5964) x86/MMX DRI2, RAM: 351MiB / 486MiB

                                                                                                                                  Alt... OS: NetBSD, Kernel: i386 NetBSD 10.0_STABLE, Uptime: 3d 2h 55m, Packages: 393, Shell: bash, Resolution: 1600x1200, WM: WindowMaker, GTK Theme: Arc-Dark [GTK2/3], Icon Theme: Adwaita, Font: Sans 9, Disk: 7.3G / 241G (3%), CPU: Intel 686-class @ 2x 333MHz, GPU: Mesa DRI R200 (RV280 5964) x86/MMX DRI2, RAM: 351MiB / 486MiB

                                                                                                                                  ...

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