Category Archives: Virtualization

1989 Networking: OS/2 NetWare Requester 1.1

Posted on May 7, 2022 by Michal Necasek

When I wrote about the pre-release NetWare Requester for OS/2, the oldest archived officially released NetWare OS/2 Requester was version 1.2 from 1990. In the meantime, version 1.1 of the requester showed up, although I only became aware of that … Continue reading →

Posted in NetWare, Networking, OS/2, PC history, Virtualization | 11 Comments

Installing IBM OS/2 1.0 in a VirtualBox VM

Posted on April 30, 2021 by Michal Necasek

Some time ago I wrote that IBM OS/2 1.0 and 1.1 cannot be installed in a VM due to the way it switches between real and protected mode. At the time I did not realize that there was another obstacle, … Continue reading →

Posted in OS/2, VirtualBox, Virtualization | 18 Comments

Emulating EtherLink

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Michal Necasek

Spurred by the discovery of a pre-release OS/2 NetWare Requester from early 1988 with a very thin selection of drivers, several months ago I decided to write emulation of the classic 3Com 10Mbps Ethernet 3C501 card, also known as EtherLink. … Continue reading →

Posted in 3Com, Networking, PC hardware, PC history, Virtualization | 33 Comments

SCO UNIX 3.2.0f, Limping Along

Posted on July 17, 2019 by Michal Necasek

For the purposes of ancient TCP/IP and NFS research, I wanted to run old SCO UNIX in a VM. I was able to run XENIX with TCP/IP earlier, but SCO’s NFS (provided, like the TCP/IP stack, by Lachman Associates Inc.) … Continue reading →

Posted in NFS, SCO, Software Hacks, TCP/IP, UNIX, VirtualBox, Virtualization | 14 Comments

Same Old Disk Bug

Posted on June 24, 2019 by Michal Necasek

After I Kryofluxed my MS OS/2 SDK 1.01 disks, I once again tried installing the OS in a VM. While the system booted up fine, it stubbornly refused to get past FORMAT. At the end, after going through all the … Continue reading →

Posted in Bugs, Microsoft, OS/2, Virtualization | 2 Comments

1988 Networking: 386 XENIX

Posted on June 20, 2019 by Michal Necasek

With the 3Com 3C501 EtherLink emulation in hand, I thought I’d see if it works with the SCO TCP/IP stack for SCO XENIX/UNIX. That particular stack, which actually consists of separate STREAMS and a TCP/IP packages, comes with whopping two … Continue reading →

Posted in 3Com, Networking, PC hardware, SCO, TCP/IP, Virtualization | 11 Comments

1988 Networking: NetWare OS/2 Requester

Posted on May 10, 2019 by Michal Necasek

A while ago, the question of antique NetWare OS/2 requesters came up. The oldest known surviving NetWare OS/2 Requester is version 1.2, which is designed to work with OS/2 1.2. There are clear mentions of older requesters supporting OS/2 1.1 … Continue reading →

Posted in NetWare, Networking, OS/2, PC history, Virtualization | 16 Comments

Frequently Given Misleading Answers

Posted on February 21, 2018 by Michal Necasek

The other day I came across this FGA item describing how to detect virtualized environments. It includes interesting comments which make Microsoft, Intel, and AMD sound stupid, but perhaps only reflect on the author being either deliberately misleading, or trying … Continue reading →

Posted in Corrections, Documentation, Virtualization | 9 Comments

Alt Insanity

Posted on November 17, 2016 by Michal Necasek

Several times, a question came up how to synthesize keyboard input to a remote system given a text string. The remote system is typically but not necessarily a VM. That sounds like something which should be trivial, yet it is anything but. … Continue reading →

Posted in Virtualization, Windows | 14 Comments

Semantic Differences, Microsoft v. Microsoft

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Michal Necasek

While comparing the behavior of various versions of old Microsoft C compilers, I tried building a trivial hello-world type program with CL.EXE from Microsoft C/C++ 7.0 (March 1992) running on top of a 32-bit Windows Server 2003. This seemingly trivial … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, Microsoft, Virtualization | 14 Comments