Not totally vintage, but....

[Compumater]

After years of think about it, I've decided to restart my old WWIV 4.24 BBS that I took down back in 1997.

 

There are certainly lots of ways to go about doing this, one was to upgrade to 5.X and use modern equipment, another was to switch to another software all together to use modern software, but In the end, I decided to run legacy equipment to get the job done.

 

 

 

I bought a IBM ThinkPad A31 as It still has a legacy serial port and runs on a 1.6gig Pentium 4. I then bought a Lantronix serial to Ethernet converter, and finally a Ethernet to wireless adaptor so the WWIV software thinks its just a serial modem, but everyone will be able to telnet in.

 

So I'm tinkering with this 2001 tech, and got to thinking that this fairly usable laptop is 16 years old! Crazy to think that 16 year old tech can still load a web page, and surf the net. A little slower then a win 10 setup, but it's XP operating system, and 256 ram does the job.

 

Go back 16 years before it and we are looking at what? The IBM PC XT or maybe a 286? compare that to a 1.6 P4 and the change is night and day. I guess maybe time isn't racing by as quick as when the computer era began....

 

So in one way a 2001 laptop should be vintage, but then again it still does 90% of what a 2017 computer can do, just slower, so is it vintage??

 

 

Thoughts?

[+OLD CS1]

My though is that I completely forgot about WWIV. One of my favorite to call in to besides Wildcat. (Spitfire ran a close third.)

 

"Vintage" is a relative term, especially given its dictionary definition. To be sure, "vintage" relative to WWIV BBS software? No, that 2001 laptop definitely does not qualify. "Vintage" relative to the Windows XP or Windows 2000 era? Sure.

 

If you want to use the extended definition of "vintage," being obsolete would make it so, but then what is obsolete may be subjective, as well. Can that machine run anything relevant to the modern era, such as a Linux distro with a web broswer to access websites now encrypting with TLS1.2? If so it may not qualify as obsolete.

 

EDIT: I am impressed! http://www.wwivbbs.org/

[Compumater]

I guess that is a much better way of defining "vintage" If it can no longer do the things modern computers do, it is vintage. Therefore the ThinkPad is just old..

 

As for WWIV, hell yes! still in development, still supported, and WWIV-Net has been resurrected and now has some 10+ boards sharing messages.

 

 

My setup will still be good old 4.24, and will have my message base from 1996/97 still on it as well as everything else as it was. I made a clone of the old 450meg hard drive and imaged it over to the laptop. Its slow going to get it all up and running, but when its done I'll post the link here.

 

I've also decided since this old laptop will be running 24/7 that I will also use it as a radio streaming unit. I run a small part 15 AM radio station (about 1 mile range) and I am going to transfer all my music over to the laptop to run both the radio playlist, and to now simulcast a stream of it over the net.

I thought it was a good use for the old bird as if I'm going to pay to run it, I might as well get double duty out of it.

 

Any more useful ideas for a computer of that era to do when its stilling idle? Email server Seems like a waste of time now, but anything else I could do with it??

[FOX2600]

I guess that is a much better way of defining "vintage" If it can no longer do the things modern computers do, it is vintage. Therefore the ThinkPad is just old..

 

LOL

[Opry99er]

Is this up? Dial-up ready?