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Full Discussion: Vintage unix
Special Forums UNIX Desktop Questions & Answers Vintage unix Post 302485266 by cjcox on Tuesday 4th of January 2011 06:13:12 PM
Old 01-04-2011
I tried to install Linux onto an old 486sx box. Needed as much memory as possible, so I upgraded it to 20M (the max) and had to purchase EXPENSIVE cache chips as well.

$800 later (yes.... $800!!!!).... I had a machine that was slow and practically worthless.

Remember that the REASON why Linux (and even Unix) became doable was when Windows 95 came on the scene and we started seeing machines with 8M of memory. So... not saying you can't use an old machine... just don't go REALLY old.

Also, as others pointed out you pretty much have to match the machine/architecture for the "vintage" Unix. Sometimes it has to be a VERY precise match. Old version of SCO Unixware for example only worked on VERY specific pieces of hardware.

In general... IMHO... it's not worth the effort. Now... if you want to take an old machine and experiment with writing your own OS from scratch... knock yourself out... it can be great fun.

Oh... and lastly... people are THROWING away good old equipment that is actually useful... so I wouldn't pay anything for old hardware. For example, you should be able to snag a Pentium III host for nothing. And some of the servers there had at 2G or more of memory even. I wouldn't pay more than $50 USD for a Pentium IV based system (and those are also getting thrown out for free everywhere).

If you're in the Dallas area... I'll give you a 2cpu Opteron 246 workstation with 4G. That's a VERY powerful host. I'll even throw in 2 10K rpm SCSI drives. You can pick up the same for $100-200 easily on ebay.

Also.. (back on topic)... remember that 80's Unix (real Unix, be it BSD or SysV) was tty focused and NOT network focused. So ethernet controllers, esp, before 1985, if present, were often times AUI or 10Base2 (token ring at 4mbit was probably more popular). A lot of the parts on equipment that old, e.g. the disks, are likely to be in very bad shape.
 

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FINDSMB(1)							   User Commands							FINDSMB(1)

NAME
findsmb - list info about machines that respond to SMB name queries on a subnet SYNOPSIS
findsmb [subnet broadcast address] DESCRIPTION
This perl script is part of the samba(7) suite. findsmb is a perl script that prints out several pieces of information about machines on a subnet that respond to SMB name query requests. It uses nmblookup(1) and smbclient(1) to obtain this information. OPTIONS
-r Controls whether findsmb takes bugs in Windows95 into account when trying to find a Netbios name registered of the remote machine. This option is disabled by default because it is specific to Windows 95 and Windows 95 machines only. If set, nmblookup(1) will be called with -B option. subnet broadcast address Without this option, findsmb will probe the subnet of the machine where findsmb(1) is run. This value is passed to nmblookup(1) as part of the -B option. EXAMPLES
The output of findsmb lists the following information for all machines that respond to the initial nmblookup for any name: IP address, NetBIOS name, Workgroup name, operating system, and SMB server version. There will be a '+' in front of the workgroup name for machines that are local master browsers for that workgroup. There will be an '*' in front of the workgroup name for machines that are the domain master browser for that workgroup. Machines that are running Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95 or Windows 98 will not show any information about the operating system or server version. The command with -r option must be run on a system without nmbd(8) running. If nmbd is running on the system, you will only get the IP address and the DNS name of the machine. To get proper responses from Windows 95 and Windows 98 machines, the command must be run as root and with -r option on a machine without nmbd running. For example, running findsmb without -r option set would yield output similar to the following IP ADDR NETBIOS NAME WORKGROUP/OS/VERSION --------------------------------------------------------------------- 192.168.35.10 MINESET-TEST1 [DMVENGR] 192.168.35.55 LINUXBOX *[MYGROUP] [Unix] [Samba 2.0.6] 192.168.35.56 HERBNT2 [HERB-NT] 192.168.35.63 GANDALF [MVENGR] [Unix] [Samba 2.0.5a for IRIX] 192.168.35.65 SAUNA [WORKGROUP] [Unix] [Samba 1.9.18p10] 192.168.35.71 FROGSTAR [ENGR] [Unix] [Samba 2.0.0 for IRIX] 192.168.35.78 HERBDHCP1 +[HERB] 192.168.35.88 SCNT2 +[MVENGR] [Windows NT 4.0] [NT LAN Manager 4.0] 192.168.35.93 FROGSTAR-PC [MVENGR] [Windows 5.0] [Windows 2000 LAN Manager] 192.168.35.97 HERBNT1 *[HERB-NT] [Windows NT 4.0] [NT LAN Manager 4.0] VERSION
This man page is correct for version 3 of the Samba suite. SEE ALSO
nmbd(8), smbclient(1), and nmblookup(1) AUTHOR
The original Samba software and related utilities were created by Andrew Tridgell. Samba is now developed by the Samba Team as an Open Source project similar to the way the Linux kernel is developed. The original Samba man pages were written by Karl Auer. The man page sources were converted to YODL format (another excellent piece of Open Source software, available at ftp://ftp.icce.rug.nl/pub/unix/) and updated for the Samba 2.0 release by Jeremy Allison. The conversion to DocBook for Samba 2.2 was done by Gerald Carter. The conversion to DocBook XML 4.2 for Samba 3.0 was done by Alexander Bokovoy. Samba 3.5 06/18/2010 FINDSMB(1)
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