Semi-OT: Windows98 now truly obsolete thanks to Printers (helps encourage Linux)

[Jon Pruente]

On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 7:04 PM, Leo Mauler <webgiant at yahoo.com> wrote:
> At the time Windows95 came out, I was working for an ISP and Windows95 was like a gift from heaven.
>
> Those of you who remember back to the days when the web (according to Scott Adams of "Dilbert" fame) was composed entirely of some text files and 12 pictures of dinosaurs, may also recall that Windows 3.1 did not come with TCP/IP (NetBeui Rulz!...not).  If we wanted to sell an
Internet account with our ISP, we had to arrange for the customer to
get a copy of "Trumpet Winsock" so they could get on the Internet, and
it was hell to configure (especially over the phone).  Windows95 came
with TCP/IP standard and it was a lot easier to configure, and easier
to tell some computer illiterate customer over the phone how to
configure it.

Dino pics, hah!  One of the first things I did back after the day I
got my first modem was get a shell account (Grapevine or their
precursor, IIRC).  Then I heard about this new "surfing the web" thing
and decided I needed to try it "for real".  On a mostly stock Amiga
500.  Enter some sort of software that took a UNIX shell dial up on
one end and ran a server that tunnelled TCP/IP over the dial up serial
line to a custom client on the Amiga which then had to have it's own
TCP/IP capable browser to grab web pages.  This wasn't a regular
SLIP/CSLIP/PPP setup, for sure.  I had been running Lynx on the Sun
shell account for a bit before this.  The first actual image I ever
saw over the web was a green and orange T-Rex.  I was completely blown
away.  Of course that was back in the days when I though Gopher was
going to be the end-all-be-all of internet tech...