Being a computer geek, I've always been interested in computer servers.
[BORING BLOCK OF TEXT]
I remember in my uni days how I setup a Quake server with my flat mates on a Pentium 120 Mhz with 24 MBs of RAM, using as OS some Linux distro (Red Hat, I think) that we got off a CD cover magazine. The machine ran countless deathmatches with up to 7 players at once on LAN flawlessly using a 8 ports switch.
Later, I installed a FTP server so we can exchange stuff on our LAN without floppies.
In those times a CD-Recorder was too expensive to a poor student for afford, maybe around 300 euros (1997) and our only Internet connection was a 28.8Kbs modem.
One of my flat mates installed then a web server, where he updated the results of our recent matches manually, editing the web pages with some HTML editor that again we got off a CD cover.
That computer raised my interest in computer servers, their hardware, their OSs, their configs.
[/BORING BLOCK OF TEXT]
In this post I will try to show you some "servers" running on retrocomputers, that I found around Internet, specially web servers (since they are the most popular).
I won't talk about the typical semi-modern PC/MAC with 512 MBs of RAM that some guy is using for hosting some blogs/webs, a Pentium 4/PowerPC G3/G4 is not exactly retrocomputing to me.
Well, let's begin.
A server that probably most of you know already:
*A Commodore 64 web server. 6510@1 Mhz and 64 KBs of RAM. Serving web pages like a boss.
http://www.c64web.com/
Now one of my favorites:
*A modified Sinclair ZX81 webserver. I couldn't believe the first time I saw it.
http://zx81-siggi.endoftheinternet.org/index.html
MACs servers. There are looots of them! (just check http://servers.ld8.org)
*Motorola 68030@25 Mhz and well...128 MBs of RAM running NetBSD.
http://littledork.err0neous.org/
*A Newton!!! serving web pages:
http://newton.splorp.com:8080/
*A Lisa running MacOS 7.5.5 and serving pages with MacHTTP 2.6
http://www.lisa2.com
Now for something completely different, a PlayStation 2 running Linux
http://crumby.err0neous.org
Some really old PCs:
*A 80286 with 4 MBs of RAM, with a really nice interface. Some content is in spanish.
http://www.mundoviejuno.com
*Another 80286. You can even download a video showing the server running!
http://gargnas.net/
Of course there are also some Amigas:
*An A1200 with 1240 and 16 MBs of RAM running THHTPd under AmigaOs 3.1
http://www.shingu.yann-gael.gueheneuc.net
*An A2000 with Blizzard 2060 and 64 MBs of RAM running Arexx Webserver
http://www.amigau.com/
There are actually lots of retroservers out there, unfortunately many of them are most of the time offline (being hosted on a home connection, hardware failures, etc).
Some semi-related interesting links:
http://www.cray-cyber.org [You can login and mess with some awesome systems]
http://www.telnetbbsguide.com [A list of BBS, some of them accessible via telnet]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ28gdV7UQc [The C64 server I posted getting slashdotted
]
http://www.pdp8.net/ [Run a real PDP-8 through a web interface]
Time for some random thought:
I've found that there are Ethernet adapters for every retrosystem you can think of: C64, MSX, ZX Spectrum, Atari 16 bits, Atari 8 bits, Sam Coupe, all of them with reasonable prices.
On Amiga we can use a cheap PCMCIA card on A600/A1200, or get an ultraexpensive zorro card for Amigas with zorro slots. I myself used an Ariadne on an A500 with a z2 adaptor for some time. Or a PCI card with a Mediator/Grex etc.
It would be great if we can get our hands on some Ethernet card for A500/A1000 fitted in the expansion port. Something like the old Hydra 500.
Why would you want to network an A500/A1000?
1. Because it's cool
2. Much faster and elegant than using serial/parallel through another computer acting as bridge.
3. File sharing. Run an FTP client on you A500 an download your stuff from your local FTP server, rather tan messing around with floppies/CF cards/whatever
4. Internet. Sure, you can't surf the web with an A500 with 3 MBs of RAM, but you still could use IRC, FTP, Telnet. Or setup a webserver on an A1000
I'm not by any means a hardware guru but I like to think that such device can be done.
Well, that was really long. I hope you are not bored to death now.
If you know of some interesting retroserver, please post it!
Greetings.
[BORING BLOCK OF TEXT]
I remember in my uni days how I setup a Quake server with my flat mates on a Pentium 120 Mhz with 24 MBs of RAM, using as OS some Linux distro (Red Hat, I think) that we got off a CD cover magazine. The machine ran countless deathmatches with up to 7 players at once on LAN flawlessly using a 8 ports switch.
Later, I installed a FTP server so we can exchange stuff on our LAN without floppies.
In those times a CD-Recorder was too expensive to a poor student for afford, maybe around 300 euros (1997) and our only Internet connection was a 28.8Kbs modem.
One of my flat mates installed then a web server, where he updated the results of our recent matches manually, editing the web pages with some HTML editor that again we got off a CD cover.
That computer raised my interest in computer servers, their hardware, their OSs, their configs.
[/BORING BLOCK OF TEXT]
In this post I will try to show you some "servers" running on retrocomputers, that I found around Internet, specially web servers (since they are the most popular).
I won't talk about the typical semi-modern PC/MAC with 512 MBs of RAM that some guy is using for hosting some blogs/webs, a Pentium 4/PowerPC G3/G4 is not exactly retrocomputing to me.
Well, let's begin.
A server that probably most of you know already:
*A Commodore 64 web server. 6510@1 Mhz and 64 KBs of RAM. Serving web pages like a boss.
http://www.c64web.com/
Now one of my favorites:
*A modified Sinclair ZX81 webserver. I couldn't believe the first time I saw it.
http://zx81-siggi.endoftheinternet.org/index.html
MACs servers. There are looots of them! (just check http://servers.ld8.org)
*Motorola 68030@25 Mhz and well...128 MBs of RAM running NetBSD.
http://littledork.err0neous.org/
*A Newton!!! serving web pages:
http://newton.splorp.com:8080/
*A Lisa running MacOS 7.5.5 and serving pages with MacHTTP 2.6
http://www.lisa2.com
Now for something completely different, a PlayStation 2 running Linux
http://crumby.err0neous.org
Some really old PCs:
*A 80286 with 4 MBs of RAM, with a really nice interface. Some content is in spanish.
http://www.mundoviejuno.com
*Another 80286. You can even download a video showing the server running!
http://gargnas.net/
Of course there are also some Amigas:
*An A1200 with 1240 and 16 MBs of RAM running THHTPd under AmigaOs 3.1
http://www.shingu.yann-gael.gueheneuc.net
*An A2000 with Blizzard 2060 and 64 MBs of RAM running Arexx Webserver
http://www.amigau.com/
There are actually lots of retroservers out there, unfortunately many of them are most of the time offline (being hosted on a home connection, hardware failures, etc).
Some semi-related interesting links:
http://www.cray-cyber.org [You can login and mess with some awesome systems]
http://www.telnetbbsguide.com [A list of BBS, some of them accessible via telnet]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ28gdV7UQc [The C64 server I posted getting slashdotted
]http://www.pdp8.net/ [Run a real PDP-8 through a web interface]
Time for some random thought:
I've found that there are Ethernet adapters for every retrosystem you can think of: C64, MSX, ZX Spectrum, Atari 16 bits, Atari 8 bits, Sam Coupe, all of them with reasonable prices.
On Amiga we can use a cheap PCMCIA card on A600/A1200, or get an ultraexpensive zorro card for Amigas with zorro slots. I myself used an Ariadne on an A500 with a z2 adaptor for some time. Or a PCI card with a Mediator/Grex etc.
It would be great if we can get our hands on some Ethernet card for A500/A1000 fitted in the expansion port. Something like the old Hydra 500.
Why would you want to network an A500/A1000?
1. Because it's cool
2. Much faster and elegant than using serial/parallel through another computer acting as bridge.
3. File sharing. Run an FTP client on you A500 an download your stuff from your local FTP server, rather tan messing around with floppies/CF cards/whatever
4. Internet. Sure, you can't surf the web with an A500 with 3 MBs of RAM, but you still could use IRC, FTP, Telnet. Or setup a webserver on an A1000
I'm not by any means a hardware guru but I like to think that such device can be done.
Well, that was really long. I hope you are not bored to death now.
If you know of some interesting retroserver, please post it!
Greetings.
