Subj : Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?)
To   : tenser
From : Mindsurfer
Date : Wed Dec 10 2025 20:28:32

  Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?)
  By: tenser to Mindsurfer on Thu Dec 11 2025 07:44:06

 Mi>> Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?) By: tenser to
 Mi>> Shurato on Thu Dec 11 2025 02:39:59

 Mi>  te>> What about a Raspberry Pi and full-system emulation via QEMU? You
 Mi>  te>> cou boot DOS, or OS/2, or whatever, and it'd probably be fast
 Mi>  te>> enough.

 Mi>> that would be probably good enough, except.. raspberry is not very
 Mi>> efficient to run DOS or other emulations due to its processor being a non
 Mi>> x86 compatible one.

 te> I guess the idea is predicated on not needing stellar performance for the
 te> BBS, which is mostly IO-bound, anyway.

You can run a bbs on a Raspberry Pi for sure. but buying a Raspberry + SD Card + usb power supply + storage (usb hdd/ssd) will not make a difference to a discounted MiniPC anymore. N100 runs on very low TDP when idle.

what is the advantage in getting the older or less compatible hardware?  
i decided to buy a miniPC du to
performance + hardware interfaces + energy consumption + media capabilities + price.

And i had my BBS (MagickaBBS back then) on an Raspberry Pi 3 and 4 before and hell was the file access horrible (especially on the 3 with sd Card). I also tested around with an HP thin client. But i was able to end all experiments and run everything i had on Raspberries and Thinclient on just one MiniPC. 

Its maybe not for everyone, but for me it works very well. If you have a raspberry or thin client already, use that. no objection. It will work with some limitations depending on what you plan to do with it.

Mindsurfer
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