Ahh the Librettos... I had a couple of 50s at one point, one of those looks cool unusable thing and the brittle plastic damn, I opened it and the hinge snapped lmao my heart my soul
Unusuable because of how small the keys are
Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs
61–70 of 112 posts
Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs
#62A pre-build floppy disk image would be great, so I could run it on my IBM PS/1 from a floppy.
For PS/1 you'll need the 16-bit version from https://github.com/luke8086/gentleos . A floppy image is provided in releases. Note you only need to copy the first 64KB, the rest is just padding for emulators.
Ah, even though the 386SX-25 is 32bit in my PS/1? Will try it eventually.
Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Vintage” 64 bit PC’s aren’t a thing. > Edit: I understand a motivation if it is on simplicity choosing one or the other, but other than that I don't see why that should ever be a goal worthy to be pursued. Software should really "just work" no matter the number of bits and bytes. Not really how software works.
The DEC 3000 would like to have a word with you.
Yeah, DEC Alpha was the first thing to come to my mind. I guess some might argue it wasn't a "PC" - if you don't include what used to be called "workstations". This is largely because PC meant "personal computer", and very few people could afford their own DEC Alpha - they were very pricey ($20k at some point in the 90's, I believe).
Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs
#64Kind of an odd statement I think, but I really like the aesthetic of early OS GUIs where you could tell half the tools were pretty much there as developer tools.
Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs
#65There weren't too many GUIs that used the PC-BIOS font. Most of them wanted to get away from that.
Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs
#66I think this is fantastic! I love that the code is so clean my dumb ass can understand it despite not using C much.
The code is cleaner that what I was expecting from a C repo. Also, it's quite a feat to fit this into 4 MB on a 386.
> it's quite a feat to fit this into 4 MB on a 386.
I had 2 different Librex 386SX laptops, with 4MB of RAM, on long-term loan from work around 1992. One was quite chunky, the 2nd was a slimline thing with an off-centre hinge.
I ran OS/2 2.0 on them both.
So I could run multiple DOS apps, and a WinOS2 VM containing Windows 3.0, meaning I could run Win16 apps as well. And native OS/2 apps, although I didn't have many.
Here's a pic of the original Librex:
https://books.google.im/books?id=tDwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA27&redir_...
And the 2nd model:
https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/10gepdd/l...
TL;DR
A 386 with 4MB is small now but at the time this was a fairly serious workstation-level PC. At the time my work desktop was a 386DX but it had only 1MB of RAM.
In its time a 4MB 386 could run any one of multiple multitasking 32-bit protected-mode OSes, including OS/2 2.x, SCO Xenix, Coherent 3 or 4, DR Concurrent DOS/386, and so on.
This was a high-end bit of kit and with one of these OSes, or even with Quarterdeck DESQview, it could multitask half a dozen large and demanding DOS apps, or maybe a couple of the still fairly new Windows apps such as WinWord 1, or Excel 2.
Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs
#67Made me think of Breadbox Ensemble, which is GEOS, and was really lovely.
FWIW, still around and now FOSS.
Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
That video's bullshit. People prefer old UIs because modern ui is shit, not because they're not creative. Computer programs are tools. It doesnt do anyone any good if they're unusable in the name of chasing moronic trends.
I have a theory that corporations make new UIs to entertain people through them. First, to create the feeling that something is happening, and second, to increase screen time. Old interfaces were far more practical for getting work done, and therefore obviously boring. For me, as someone who is supposed to use technology as a tool and not as a source of amusement, the new interfaces of the major OSes feel unacceptabl…
That’s one reason corporations make new UIs, yes, but the other is users demanding them for the sake of novelty. Reddit (but not only) is filled with people with no design sense complaining about how something which works (because it was relentlessly iterated on) looks “stale” and “old”. They’re the same users who jump from app to app willy nilly just chasing novelty. Any turd, if hyped enough, is ailed as “the future”, “modern”, “innovative”, which is repeated drivel from what the corporations tell you when they introduce their next thing.
Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
For PS/1 you'll need the 16-bit version from https://github.com/luke8086/gentleos . A floppy image is provided in releases. Note you only need to copy the first 64KB, the rest is just padding for emulators.
Ah, even though the 386SX-25 is 32bit in my PS/1? Will try it eventually.
Yes, the CPU is full 32-bits, but the bus in a 386 SX is only 16 bit. Those PS/1's are such a cool piece of computing history!
Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs
#70[flagged]
That video's bullshit. People prefer old UIs because modern ui is shit, not because they're not creative. Computer programs are tools. It doesnt do anyone any good if they're unusable in the name of chasing moronic trends.
I generally agree with you about UIs (if by shit you mean they've thrown away a ton of utility), but I don't think his video was bs, maybe just moved too far from it's original context.