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IRC on Vintage Hardware

glitch

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2010
Messages
5,051
Location
Central VA
I've been going through more Sun stuff lately, and decided to get IRC up and going on a few things. First off, SPARCstation 10, Ross HyperSPARC 166 MHz, 128 MB RAM, OpenBSD 5.9, running EPIC4 (excuse the mess!):



EPIC4 was compiled from source *on* the SS10. Total configure and build time around 25 minutes! Console terminal is a DEC VT320 in 132 column mode. Took a bit to figure out that, when using a 132-column terminal as the system console, you have to set the width in NVRAM. Setting TERM=vt320-w is not sufficient.

Second, a SPARCstation IPX, 40 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM, SunOS 4.1.4, running ircII-2.2.9:





Works fine in a SunView console, too!



ircII was also compiled on the actual machine, I forgot to time it, but total build time was around 20 minutes or so. It's restricted to 8-char nicks. It's the oldest version I could find that would just build on SunOS 4 -- ircII-1.75 failed to build.
 
mIRC 5.91 on Windows for Workgroups 3.11 with Microsoft 32-bit TCP/IP. Running on Amy's IBM PS/ValuePoint 466DX/D. Connected to the DEChub 90 with 10base2 on a 3Com EtherLink III:



Forgot that Win31 doesn't really properly screenshot with Print Screen and paste in Paint. Found this nice little util, written in Delphi:

http://runtimeterror.com/pages/retro/shotu/
 
I used MIRC on a 386DX40 with WFW 3.11 many years ago. Had to quit using it because people were posting too many interesting website links and IE5 on a 386 was just too slow and buggy.
 
Fixed up a theme for irssi that uses terminal-native inverse video mode for the status bars:



Setting the foreground/background colors is not sufficient, the VT100 will just ignore them and use its normal, non-inverse colors. Pictured terminal is a VT320 in VT100 mode (for ESC key!), on ttyb on the SPARCstation 10, running NetBSD 7.1.2.

You can get the theme file here:

https://github.com/chapmajs/dotfiles/blob/master/irssi/vt100.theme

The SPARCstation 10 is still running over 10base5/thicknet, too :p
 
G7c758l.png


NetManage Chameleon 5.0 apparently has an IRC client! This is running on Windows 95, on a random Socket 5 motherboard in the workshop. Machine isn't even in a case at the moment.
 


mTCP's IRCjr on MS-DOS 5 on a Siig MiniSys S286 with 9" monochrome Point of Sale CRT and Siig MiniTouch keyboard.
 
PIRCH16 under Windows 3.1 on top of MS Dos 5.0a running on my Zenith Z286LP PLUS. The middle system in the second pic.
 

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Here is my Amiga 2000 (which is currently running a 68020) when it had an '060 running Grapevine IRC client on a CRT through the Picasso II graphics card (true color, high res, etc.). Shot was taken in August 2012.

7817836078_9369196797_b.jpg



bp
 
IRC running on the Epson PX-8 "Geneva," rather sloppily due to lack of terminal emulation on the bundled term program on the CP/M-driven PX-8. It's got a hacked together serial connection to a Mac mini (via USB to serial adapter), running the terminal-based IRC client, irssi.

2379118272_82b270a61b_b.jpg



bp
 
IRC running on my trusty Amiga 1000. The system is expanded with 512K CHIP RAM, 2MB FAST RAM, dual SCSI HD's, real time clock. It's running NComm which is tied via serial to a Mac across the room running irssi.

10195792816_1d0bc9b0ee_b.jpg



bp
 
IRC running on the Windows CE-based Jornada 720. This was released in '99/'00 so is less vintage than some... It's connected via WiFi (PCMCIA card) to the LAN. This unit is now running Linux (after this shot was taken). Click the image to zoom in.




bp
 
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