vogon

the evil "Website Boy"

member of @staff, lapsed linguist and drummer, electronics hobbyist

zip's bf

no supervisor but ludd means the threads any good


twitter (inactive)
twitter.com/vogon
bluesky
if bluesky has a million haters I am one of them, if bluesky has one hater that's me, if bluesky has no haters then I am no more on the earth (more details: https://cohost.org/vogon/post/1845751-bonus-pure-speculati)
irl
seattle, WA

notes:

  • I recommend using 86box; there's something broken with PCem's ES1371 emulation, and I've historically had exactly zero luck with virtualization software for modern OSes.
  • WinWorld's BeOS 5 image comes in CloneCD format, which you can't load natively in 86box, but just loading the .img as an ISO causes the CD boot to fail because the install media is a multitrack CD; adafruit, of all places, has a tutorial with a CUE file you can use if you don't have access to a CloneCD image reader.
  • your choice of 3D accelerators is dire; the emulated S3 Virge in 86box seems to disagree with BeOS and causes an unusable amount of graphical artifacting. I ended up going with the Voodoo3 3000, which isn't 3D-accelerated at all, but at least gives you a usable desktop.
  • despite working, it is still very unstable, and apps will crash/the file open/save dialogs will close/the emulator will exit completely at random. even getting NetPositive, MediaPlayer, and GLTeapot on screen at once for this screenshot was an uphill battle.
  • 86box's mouse settings default to a two-button, wheel-less mouse; make sure to turn the mouse wheel on before starting the emulator because BeOS supports wheel mice and I can't emphasize enough how much you will miss having a mouse wheel.
  • this is the superior version of virtual (void), not the one in /optional/sound/MP3.

full settings for the machine I used:

  • ASUS KN97 motherboard (Slot 1, i440FX chipset), Pentium II 166 -- this is about the fastest my computer is able to emulate at 100% real time;
  • 128 megs of RAM;
  • video: 3dfx Voodoo3 3000;
  • audio: Ensoniq AudioPCI (ES1371);
  • network: Realtek RTL8029AS.

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