Looking for stuff that you forgot to throw out

[Bill Freeman]

> On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Bill Freeman <f at ke1g.mv.com> wrote:
> > USB, of course, would solve many
> > problems, but 3.11 drivers may be exciting.
> 
>   Don't forget that prior to Win 95 also means MS-DOS.[1]

Win 95 (and 98 and ME) was DOS too (as I now see that you've mentioned
below).  It was just better hidden.

> 
>   While it wouldn't surprise me to learn that someone, somewhere has
> crafted a USB stack for DOS/Win 3.x, I've never seen one.  I don't
> think you'd find much third-party software that could use such a
> stack, either.  You'd prolly get the standard USB classes (serial
> port, HID, etc.) but Ethernet is not a standard USB class -- you need
> card-specific drivers.  Good luck finding that!  :)

Granted.  And expected.  But if I can reverse engineer the weather
station protocol, or run that software under Wine, then it won't be
running 3.11 for very long.

But I'll be groping for stuff during install.  I guess that I can probably
pop out the hard drive and write it on another system, but that's a whole
other pain.

I'll bet the BIOS can't boot over ethernet either.  But I seem to recall
using floppies for such things.   --   My memory hurts.

My first Linux box had only 4M.  Maybe my Yggdrasil disc is still readable.
Though it's not going to have USB drivers either, I think.

I don't think that X is in this laptop's future.

> 
>   Even getting a network stack running under Miss DOS can be
> interesting.  Whose TCP/IP API did you want -- Novell's, Microsoft's,
> or FTP Software's ("packet driver")?
> 
>   I used to know that stuff; I'm glad to have forgotten most of it.

You and me, brother.

> 
>   Keep in mind that you can buy a well-equipped netbook for cheap.  I
> got an Asus 900A (9" LCD, 4 GB SSD, 1 GB RAM) at BestBuy for $200
> about 8 months ago.  You can also buy various special form factors,
> such as something the size of a matchbox with USB and Ethernet ports.
> That would certainly be more space and power efficient.  I realize
> that saving money is always good, and recycling old hardware is nice
> to do, and the technical challenge of resurrecting old hardware can be
> enjoyable.  But Mess DOS was rarely enjoyable, and that 486 will only
> be "free" if your time is worthless.

Yeah, but as stated before, I have need of a legacy serial port.  Even
the new Latitudes don't have them anymore.

> 
>   Any which way, good luck!  ("You're gonna need it.")

Only if I want to succeed.

> 
> [1] = Technically, Win 95 is really just Windows 4.0[2] bundled with
> MS-DOS 7.0, but Win 4.0 provided much more useful stuff itself (such
> as something like a proper network API), which 3.x did not.
> [2] = We're talking the "classic" line of Windows here, not Windows
> NT, which is a completely different OS.