Define "online"

Errius wrote:

Define "online"

Silly.... 😊 Browsing the Internet of course.

Windows XP will be going the way of the dinosaur before too long. Fortunately Firefox still runs on it. As for Win3.11, my idea is that due to it's advanced age being old enough to classify as abandonware, I think I could browse the net and be immune to modern viruses and malware!

Win3x are pretty much useless for online use since most websites have been rewritten (many have even become bloated) with technologies like flash, html5, js/ajax, developed years after the death of those operating systems. That is, of course, unless you solely use FTP or telnet or some other protocol which hasn't changed over the years.

Modern TCP/IP internet is only supported in WfW3.11 and with installing the TCP/IP stack from here:
http://www.conradshome.com/win31/ (great site BTW)
The "best" web browser is the Opera 3.62 available here:
http://arc.opera.com/pub/opera/win/362/english/
There's also IE5 (not IE5.5) available from the same site as before.

The usage is pretty much limited to very basic HTML4 and not much JavaScript.
Using Total Commander 16-bit version you can do FTP pretty much fine, and I'm sure there's a good Telnet client for WfW3.11.

There's also the problem of finding the network drivers for your network card, DOS drivers might work(?)

I keep thinking the easiest way to get Internet going on a Windows 3.1 machine these days is to use Twinsock in conjunction with another machine running tshost; there's an example of that in http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/2 … internet-usage/ . That way, all you need to do is persuade Windows 3.1 to make one telnet connection. (In theory, it could work in DOSBox too.)

computergeek92 wrote:

Is Win3.11 less buggy than Windows 95?

Oh HELL no. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

computergeek92 wrote:

old enough to classify as abandonware

Of course, anyone will tell you there's no such thing.

Jorpho wrote:

I keep thinking the easiest way to get Internet going on a Windows 3.1 machine these days is to use Twinsock in conjunction with […]
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I keep thinking the easiest way to get Internet going on a Windows 3.1 machine these days is to use Twinsock in conjunction with another machine running tshost; there's an example of that in http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/2 … internet-usage/ . That way, all you need to do is persuade Windows 3.1 to make one telnet connection. (In theory, it could work in DOSBox too.)

computergeek92 wrote:

Is Win3.11 less buggy than Windows 95?

Oh HELL no. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

computergeek92 wrote:

old enough to classify as abandonware

Of course, anyone will tell you there's no such thing.

I thought Windows 3.11 was the first OS version to support networking, not 3.1.

Windows 3.1 can get online. Still, networking in 3.x is useful for FTP and IRC alone. This site here has some random files for networking, including stacks, old versions of WS_FTP and Eudora, and here you have mIRC 5.91 16-bit!

In case you get TCP/IP working on Windows 3.11 you can play CivNet online. It does peer to peer IP address gaming.

computergeek92 wrote:

I thought Windows 3.11 was the first OS version to support networking, not 3.1.

Just to be clear: Windows 3.11 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 are two different things. Windows 3.11 is not substantially different from Windows 3.1.

Windows for Workgroups did provide support for TCP/IP networking, but there were tons of people using the Internet on ordinary Windows 3.11 (or 3.1) – just consider AOL, if nothing else. All you needed was the appropriate Winsock implementation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winsock

Afaik, there were four main versions of Windows 3.1:

Windows 3.1 (3.10)
Windows 3.11 (free update for 3.1)

Windows for Workgroups 3.1 (3.10, +286, aka "Windows for Warehouses")
Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (+386)

Other versions were Windows for PenComputing, Windows 3.2 (for chinese market), Win-OS/2, IBM embOS and
maybe a few more for special purposes.

It's also worth noting that the original WfW version did work on 286 machines, but only in client mode.
Sharing resources was only possible on +386 machines enhanced mode.
It also had a different network stack and used an older NDIS architecture. Network drivers for 3.11 didn't work on 3.1.
Both can use an existing DOS network, though.

Just sign up for Compuserve or Prodigy. 🤣.

I connected my 486DX 33 to the internet once last year. But it was very very slow, and while the few websites that I browsed were more or less fine under explorer 5.5 (old/simple websites), that was way too slow. However, it is "fast" enough on my pentium MMX 200MHz and on my Pentium 2 400MHz, both running windows 98, so if I installed windows for workgroups 3.11 on these, it would probably be "usable" (if you don't go on modern websites ^^)

On Windows 3.1 and 3.11 you can irc, as well as use the Wfw 3.11 telnet and ftp clients. Just copy them over.
Trumpet Winsork is what I use on my 286 along with the nics packet driver and winpkt shim(comes with Trumpet Winsock) loaded in dos prior to firing up Windows.