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Running Windows 98 in the Browser

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Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#151

Post by galangalalgol »

deaddodo wrote: post #111
galangalalgol wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The memory footprint of workbench was incredibly low. A base alpine image with no support for any graphics is several times that size. What are we doing?

Workbench had a very limited hardware it supported. Linux Kernel supports 1000x as many pieces of hardware from different CPU configurations, all the way to the most random USB/Firewire devices. Like, software bloat is totally a thing, but comparing Workbench to the Linux Kernel (let alone the entire GNU/Linux environment) is ridiculously naive.

An alpine docker container doesn't have the kernel, so all that hardware support, and the kernel itself are still on top of that ~8MB GUI-less image. Part of it is elf header size vs hulk. Part of it is that no one bothers stripping symbols. But the reason for both of those reasons is simply that memory isn't scarce so we are lazy/efficient.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#153

Post by gattilorenz »

M95D wrote: post #68
gattilorenz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah! I remember watching the first Matrix as DivX on a P200MMX with a 14” Compaq CRT. I had to use a Dos movie player (without starting Windows), as in Windows 98 it was way too slow.

QVPro? It's still on the internet! http://www.multimediaware.com/qv/

Possibly, it seems to ring a bell but I should launch it to confirm. I’m pretty sure teenager me didn’t actually buy the pro version :)

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#154

Post by deaddodo »

galangalalgol wrote: post #151
deaddodo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Workbench had a very limited hardware it supported. Linux Kernel supports 1000x as many pieces of hardware from different CPU configurations, all the way to the most random USB/Firewire devices. Like, software bloat is totally a thing, but comparing Workbench to the Linux Kernel (let alone the entire GNU/Linux environment) is ridiculously naive.

An alpine docker container doesn't have the kernel, so all that hardware support, and the kernel itself are still on top of that ~8MB GUI-less image. Part of it is elf header size vs hulk. Part of it is that no one bothers stripping symbols. But the reason for both of those reasons is simply that memory isn't scarce so we are lazy/efficient.

> An alpine docker container doesn't have the kernel, so all that hardware support

Only if you run it on Linux through para virtualization; in which case it's using the host's kernel. Potato/potato.

The fact that it supports virtualizing an entire other OS in a safe and privileged manner should just further reinforce why the kernel is larger. But ok, got me.

> 8MB GUI-less image

Sure, and you can see all of the contents of that here:

https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-baseimage-alpine/blob/...

Let's just pick a few things from that:

  curl - a library that can handle full bidirectional HTTP communication in Unicode, including via SSL/TLS and arbitrarily manage file streams *or* utilize linux's built-in piping/redirection functionality
  ssl - a full suite of cryptographic libraries and keys to allow secure communications and integration into other libraries/code (the aforementioned curl, for instance)
  onigurama - a full regular expression library for use in other programs (language VMs like Ruby, for instance)
  musl - a libc runtime and it's standard library
  zlib - in-built compression functionality utilized by gzip, png and others
Can you point to a base install of workbench being able to do all of that? About the only thing in the alpine base layout that it is directly comparable to is BusyBox+bash.

> Part of it is elf header size vs hulk. Part of it is that no one bothers stripping symbols. But the reason for both of those reasons is simply that memory isn't scarce so we are lazy/efficient.

This is just some old guy "bah humbug" rant/conspiracy. Your Amiga with workbench is nowhere comparable to modern hardware+OSes. It can do somethings similarly, if you squint appropriately. At a much degraded image fidelity, color quality, insecure, primitively multitasking and non-networked manner with heavy RAM and CPU constraints.

I fully acknowledged software bloat is a thing. But we're not comparing some half-ass coded Electron app to some sleek handcoded C/C++/Rust desktop app. You're comparing base software built by decently-well educated engineers that does inordinately more than the comparison set, by so much moreso that it's ridiculous on its face. And then going on a rant about debug symbols and ELF headers (which brings a ton of benefits itself).

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#155

Post by bzzzt »

dspillett wrote: post #126
bzzzt wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was also the awful amount of indirection of X(Free86/org) which made sure you had to jump through hoops to get anything on the screen. Even with accelerated hardware X doesn't feel as fast as Windows/macOS due to the insane amount of round-trips for perceived 'network transparency' which doesn't work that great and almost nobody uses. I find it very disappointing some people are still fighting Wayland which, while…

> 'network transparency' which doesn't work that great and almost nobody uses. Works fine enough, and I use it occasionally to this day (though it is replaced by other things for many tasks these days).

Most clients using client side rendering which uses an awful amount of bandwidth and performs bad compared to VNC/RDP is not my idea of 'fine'. Especially not if it's used to justify opposing a better solution.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#156

Post by pjmlp »

rafram wrote: post #137
pjmlp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I watch many people using their UNIX like computers, as if time has stood still in 1980's terminals, I would say it that 2023 Emacs would do just fine. Really, entering in some coffe shop coding sessions, is hardly any different from an IBM X Windows terminal into a DG/UX session in the university computer lab, now they are using a laptop and something else instead of twm or an ambar based text terminal.

My point is that the software we run now is significantly more resource intensive, even if its name hasn't changed. Emacs is slow on 2023 hardware. It would likely be unusable on 90s hardware.

Emacs means eight megabytes and constantly swapping for a reason.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#157

Post by M95D »

nightski wrote: post #88
M95D wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. Or it's true because of software bloat and resource waste these days. When I was a teenager, I wanted to see what was the maximum resolution my monitor supported. It was a Samsung Syncmaster 14" entirely analog, no OSD, with analog adjustment knobs on the bottom. The video card was a Matrox Millennium II 8MB VRAM and the OS was Windows 3.10. The maximum resolution that I could get was 1600x1200 @ 41Hz inter…

There's a lot more to it than just increasing the resolution. Graphics, animations, font rendering quality, huge images, the list goes on.

Graphics: Win3.10 had just the right amount.

Animations: NO, THANK YOU!

Font rendering quality: It increases with font size, which is needed for high res displays. Besides, current font authors don't waste any time doing manual font hinting like the old fonts had. Good luck having crisp font rendering without manual hinting! It's all just a blur since antialiasing was introduced.

Huge images: How huge? Win95 without any patches can allocate 500MB to a single program (image viewer). That's 170 megapixels @ 24bit-color.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#158

Post by dspillett »

bzzzt wrote: post #155
dspillett wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'network transparency' which doesn't work that great and almost nobody uses. Works fine enough, and I use it occasionally to this day (though it is replaced by other things for many tasks these days).

Most clients using client side rendering which uses an awful amount of bandwidth and performs bad compared to VNC/RDP is not my idea of 'fine'. Especially not if it's used to justify opposing a better solution.

For distant remote access with particularly animated or graphically detailed applications, perhaps. Though I'd not argue VNC as being lower bandwidth except where you've got it tuned to massively compress to the point where things that are bad through X are bad in different ways through VNC. RDP usually does better in this respect, as do some less common protocols.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#159

Post by AshamedCaptain »

M95D wrote: post #71
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would anyone expect that not to be much faster on a modern quad+ core, 4GHz system with 8GB+ RAM? It's not a given. For example, Windows XP may boot faster than 98 or 2K on the same hardware, because XP parallelizes and shortens some hardware initialization steps. (e.g. anything related to the network). Win98 with file sharing spends almost a minute during boot (even from an SSD) just squeaking netbios frames.

> Win98 with file sharing spends almost a minute during boot (even from an SSD) just squeaking netbios frames. You have a config error in TCP/IP.

It has been a long time since you last sniffed 9x Windows, right? It will speak NBFs even if you _don't have TCP/IP whatsoever_, NBTs otherwise, but they will delay the boot process by about a minute or so.

Re: Running Windows 98 in the Browser

#160

Post by darksim905 »

M95D wrote: post #67
darksim905 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call bullshit. Windows 95/98/2000 did not have any bloatware....

My first "This is bloatware!" moment was when Win98 integrated Internet Explorer into the desktop shell. I didn't knew what bloatware was until then.

Were there even other browsers back in '98 other than I think Netscape? How else would you have been expected to download, or utilize, the Internet? If a core component is considered bloatware, something is wrong.
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