After having a few beers yesterday I finally had the time and inspiration to set up complete retro internet pc and thought to report here 😀

486 DX4/100 Mhz
VLB I/O card
Old HDD (1G seagate)
WFW3.11
Trumpet winsock 2.1
Netscape Navigator (Communicator) 4.x (have to check exact version)
USR Sportster 28800 ext modem

Sportster modem is my old device purchased in ~1995 (I still have even the receipt and box somewhere..). I repaired it (one transistor was shorted). Rest of HW is unfortunately not my old gear because they are either lost or defunct. But everything is genuine: there are no emulators etc.

Modem is directly connected to USR Courier v.everything that's connected to Linux laptop running pppd server. Linux NATs the connection to Internet. Because I dont have PBX (or similar) I need to manually dial the line open (at&f1, atx3dt / ata) before starting pppd. Pppd/modem cannot auto answer because lack of "ring" signal from phone line. No problem with this though.

Oh this retro feeling with v.34 handshake sound, modem lights flashing and waiting Netscape to download site content. Not many sites work with this browser though, but e.g. uncreativelabs.net does.

I may post photos and/or video at some point if I have time and you are interested.

It would be nice to hear your comments, questions etc