keenmaster486 wrote:

(quick tip: to keep this thread from becoming an image wall, and help older machines to load it, make your images smaller, like 200K-ish or less, and upload them as attachments instead of using external image hosting sites)

If I could also add: Don't quote pics unless absolutely necessary!

My Libretto 110CT, I have mIRC and Opera installed under Win98SE, connecting via 802.11g (WPA2) using a Linksys WPC54Gv3 tethered to my 4G phone, 🤣 I can browse most websites, including Facebook.

AlaricD wrote:

If I could also add: Don't quote pics unless absolutely necessary!

Yes, good idea.

wiretap wrote:

My Libretto 110CT, I have mIRC and Opera installed under Win98SE, connecting via 802.11g (WPA2) using a Linksys WPC54Gv3 tethered to my 4G phone, 🤣 I can browse most websites, including Facebook.

Do you find that the speed on a P233MMX is acceptable browsing very large websites such as Facebook? And what browser are you using that is capable of that? I can't run Firefox 2 on my Toshiba P166MMX; it acts like a snail and uses all the memory. (edit: I just noticed you're using Opera. What version?)

Here's another one, my Pentium MMX rig browsing around using Links 2.18 on DOS. Unfortunately it is inexplicably slow, much more so than my Pentium MMX laptop, on which it is quite snappy. Just typing this text takes forever due to there being a large delay between keystrokes and anything appearing on the screen. But hey, I was still able to email myself this picture and attach it!

Re-reading this thread and seeing the first post really got me missing the old VOGONS interface.

My Zenith 286/12 LP Plus running Aracne on MS Dos 5 back in 2014. Hackaday link- https://hackaday.com/2014/10/23/hackaday-retr … n-the-internet/

Wow! You got me with this Compaq Presario All in One. This is a computer from my childhood, I've been looking for the same for quite a bit, but the prices are high.

winuser_pl wrote on 2020-12-23, 16:18:

Wow! You got me with this Compaq Presario All in One. This is a computer from my childhood, I've been looking for the same for quite a bit, but the prices are high.

That 486 died but I do have the Pentium 75 variant and all the original installation disks and CD.

All my vintage systems have some level of network connectivity to the internet.

I use DOSLynx on my Tandy 1000 and GEM 286 systems for web browsing. The GEM 286 is quite fast with Lynx surprisingly, but use is limited. I also posted the video "286 internet" back in the 2000's running arachne on that same GEM 286, which worked great till TLS became a thing.

For the 386 and up stuff I prefer DOS and Links - www.links.twibright.com - which also comes with FreeDOS as a installable package. What's nice about Links is it works in text mode (faster), and graphical mode (more of what you're use to), and is capable of downloading and parsing a lot of stuff with limited CPU speed and RAM, it actually blazes by fast on my NEC Versa 486 DX2-40 system on mere 20MB of RAM. The only things it can't do

For e-mail, at least on 386 and up, I've started using FLMail in DOS as it does work with Gmail if you disable higher level security on your account (I have one account I'll do this with for this purpose). FLMail has an upside in being graphical, but that's also it's downside as it's rather slow on anything less than 75MHz pentium - that said, on my 75 MHz 486 DX4 laptop it was able to download 258 e-mails from my Gmail when I left it for an hour - kind of amazing when you think about it. I was also able to download the MP3's of my band's album from said e-mails and then play them in MPXPlay.

I use the mTCP suite for most other things in DOS. I do spend a lot of time telnetting to BBSes. I also occasionally join IRC using IRC Jr or LeetIRC by Mike Chambers. Probably FTP xfers and BBSes are what I use it for the most though.

I used to use Opera 3.62 in Windows 3.11 for Workgroups but it's barely usable now (Maybe Links should do a Win16 port), I have also used Retrozilla in Win9x but that's painful even on a Pentium 100. I use mIRC on those when chatting via IRC and use AIM using the iwarg.ddns servers (AIM Phoenix) to connect. It's surprising how much "modern" stuff these old machines can pull off, even if it's very slow sometimes.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2019-02-12, 19:27:

Many of us, myself included, like to try to get our old computers on the Internet in some capacity, whether they were intended t […]
Show full quote

Many of us, myself included, like to try to get our old computers on the Internet in some capacity, whether they were intended to or not, and sometimes we go to great lengths to cajole old OS's into working with the modern web, or sometimes we opt for an authentic experience of browsing old 90's era websites, etc.

Here's a thread where we can post pictures of our vintage rigs browsing the internet, tips, tricks, methods we use to connect things, links to web pages that load correctly on old browsers, etc.

Some of this information is already contained in the "List of Web Browsers" thread. That thread focuses on getting old web browsers to work with the modern web, i.e. latest browsers for each OS, hacks to get newer browsers to work, etc. If it's already there, no need to post it here. This thread is more of a general "Look what I did with my old Deskpro" etc. thread, and less of a raw information dump.

Bonus points if you are actually making your post from the machine(s) in question!

To start off, something not very impressive but fun all the same. My IBM Thinkpad A20m running Windows 98 and RetroZilla 2.1, making this very post with no issues. I emailed myself the picture from my phone and downloaded it on said machine (I love backwards compatibility).

img_6882.jpg
(quick tip: to keep this thread from becoming an image wall, and help older machines to load it, make your images smaller, like 200K-ish or less, and upload them as attachments instead of using external image hosting sites)

I love the rotary phone just in frame 😁.

Sometimes when I feel like going on the net with my old PCs, I'll boot up a live CD of lubuntu. It runs ok on late windows 9x era machines and I feel better about the potential security implications.

creepingnet wrote on 2020-12-23, 17:56:

All my vintage systems have some level of network connectivity to the internet.

Same here. I've significantly refined my vintage connectivity skills, though, over the last year, getting into proxies and custom servers etc.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-12-23, 18:27:

I love the rotary phone just in frame 😁.

Haha, thanks. It's pretty fun to play around with. Still works great. I have a Bluetooth adapter for it that lets me connect it to my iPhone.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-12-23, 08:52:

My Zenith 286/12 LP Plus running Aracne on MS Dos 5 back in 2014.

Nice.

I should post more in this thread, I guess.

It's much harder to make posts on Vogons from old systems nowadays with the new interface, though.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-12-23, 17:13:

winuser_pl wrote on 2020-12-23, 16:18:

Wow! You got me with this Compaq Presario All in One. This is a computer from my childhood, I've been looking for the same for quite a bit, but the prices are high.

That 486 died but I do have the Pentium 75 variant and all the original installation disks and CD.

Hmm, that's sad news, what happened? I got one leftover from my original Compaq Presario CDS in the basement and it is a motherboard (probably working condition).

winuser_pl wrote on 2020-12-23, 18:38:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-12-23, 17:13:

winuser_pl wrote on 2020-12-23, 16:18:

Wow! You got me with this Compaq Presario All in One. This is a computer from my childhood, I've been looking for the same for quite a bit, but the prices are high.

That 486 died but I do have the Pentium 75 variant and all the original installation disks and CD.

Hmm, that's sad news, what happened? I got one leftover from my original Compaq Presario CDS in the basement and it is a motherboard (probably working condition).

Onboard ram went haywire about 4 years after I had it then one simm slot was toast. Initially I was running 64 megs of ram plus the onboard 4megs . After a few years it completely refused to boot true 32-bit OSs like Red Hat 6.0/6.2, OS/2v3 or NT 3.51/4. Tried also sorts of ram configurations, cleaning etc but no luck getting it sorted. Stripped as much as I could for spares for the P75 set up which was sold later in the same year as the CDS524.

These all in ones Compaqs are quite expensive. Sad anyway.

Handy compact systems. I paid $50 for each about 10 years apart. Most of my systems were free, cheap or around $nz30-$nz80 mark. I'm willing to pay $nz150 for a system I really want like fully kitted out Acorn RiscPCs/A400/x, A4000s or A3000s. Both of my Amiga A600s were reasonable too at $nz90 for one which was a bit yellowed with just psu, system unit and mouse. The second on which was immaculate with software, psu, system unit and mouse was $nz130. I bought all my systems at the right time well before this "retro" thing happened. I still pick up reasonably priced stuff on our local auction site every now and again. The last one was a high density floppy disk controller and EGA/VGA card for XT class systems. $nz30 including postage all up. My Mac Se which is a bit yellowed cost $nz80 and it was delivered free of charge from 100 miles away as the seller was passing through 3 weeks after the auction finished.. Right place at the right time so to speak. I don't get all excited like some folk. The deal is good or I don't bother trying to get a system or parts.