https://blog.karthikkumar.org/usability-of-old-computers-f06a7f00f72e?gi=ce330599bc0f Open in app Sign up Sign In [ ] Write Sign up Sign In [1] Usability of Old Computers Karthik Kumar Viswanathan Karthik Kumar Viswanathan * Follow 10 min read * 2 days ago -- Listen Share I set up a Retro PC recently. One of the reasons I did this is because I was inspired by this thread: The idea behind this exercise is simple: * Take an old processor/hardware from the 90s/2000s, get it to run today. See Hardware Bill of Materials * Take software from the 90s/2000s, get it to run today. See Software Bill of Materials * Find Modern Software that just works * Find out What doesn't work -- and how to solve it * Document this exercise with Concluding Remarks ... and use this computer for a while. Create software for it. Do something useful with it. Hardware Bill of Materials Here is what I got: * A Pentium 4 from the 2000s era, with Socket 478. This seems to be one of the many i686 compatible processors - a Pentium 4 Prescott RK80546PG0881M that I sourced for cheap from Amazon. A Pentium 4 processor and a Socket 478 slot. * A Socket 478 motherboard that supports both SATA, IDE disks, PCIe 1.0 port, PCI ports and working USB boot. I ended up getting an ASRock P4VM900-SATA2 on eBay. * I could run a P4 1.6 GHz computer back in 2001 with Java and Eclipse, only with 512MB of RAM. I considered that setup bloated at that time. This time around, I ended up acquiring 2 x 1GB Kingston KVR400X64C3A DDRAM modules. It should be able to run something way better! * A graphics card that is decently low power (19W TDP), can run on newer OSes somewhat decently, has decent VRAM, has a HDMI port if possible. I ended up getting a Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 1GB with a passive heat sink. It cost me $3 + $12 Shipping. Sapphire Radeon 5450 1GB Graphics Card * A SATA III SSD. They are so cheap now, ended up getting a Patriot Burst Elite SATA 3 480GB for ~$15. * I intend to rack this as a CI/CD server eventually. The motherboard was mATX, so ended up getting an iStarUSA D-214-MATX 2U case. * I bought a Semi-Modular Apevia ATX-ES600-WH Essence 600W ATX PSU. I can very well run this setup on a much lower wattage, yet PSUs are re-usable even if other things break, so ended up getting this. Apevia ATX ES600 White. Semi-Modular PSUs like this one are overkill but future-proof. * 2 x 80mm fans repurposed from another build. They are non PWM, powered by typical IDE drive MOLEX connectors. Software Bill of Materials At this point, my choices are: * Use Debian Bookworm 12.1 -- The best thing you should run if you care about stability, security and running a 32-bit Linux Server. It requires a fair bit of computer knowledge to ensure you do not end up shooting yourself with a footgun. * Windows 98 SE -- A popular option for people who wish to run stuff from the 90s but does a moderate bit of computer knowledge to work, in order to prevent frustrations from crashing drivers and/ or working DOS knowledge, and the patience to use a Boot Disk and an Optical drive. * Windows XP SP3 -- Something that lets most people run stuff from the 90s and 2000s and does not require a fair bit of computer knowledge to work. You can download it from the Internet Archive but if you have a physical copy with a license, even better. I decided to go with the last one. This is a good enough choice for Modern Day Retro-Computing esp. given one can also run DOSBox on it and get anything to work, really. Windows XP shown with Start Menu and Classic Control Panel * Legacy Update: This is the first thing you need to install, which allows you to update your Windows and all other Microsoft software and provides helpful links to runtimes that need to be in place before everything else works. They have gone back and done this for multiple old versions of Windows, stuff that would have stopped working two decades ago. Amazing Job! Legacy Update helps you get updates for installations in a way that wouldn't normally work. * AMD Device Drivers -- These are called the Catalyst Control Center drivers. Nowadays, AMD calls these the Adrenalin Drivers. They require .NET and you should probably install that first before you attempt this. Catalyst Control Center What sucks about the supported legacy version, 14.4 is that it improves Screen Resolution but removes OpenCL functionality. Bad, bad AMD! I opted to get 12.1 instead and finally settled after verifying the functionality. Here are the GPU-Z images confirming this very issue. Shown are GPU-Z Configurations on 12.1, 13.12 and 14.4 Catalyst Drivers. OpenCL only works on 12.1. Also shown is the CPU-Z. And once the correct version is in place, OpenCL does indeed work, as seen by running a Marlin miner benchmark. Marlin 1.1.0 Miner Benchmark What this means is that one can now try running some machine learning and image processing with this if they so want. There is no reason one needn't write newer codecs that make use of GPGPU functionality in old computers. * Microsoft Office XP with Frontpage -- A version of Office that works on Windows 9X all the way till Windows 11. Sadly, this is abandonware, can't be activated easily, but there's a version on the Internet Archive with working Volume Licensing Key. Only for testing. Office XP works Snappy! * ImgBurn -- Disc Burning/ISO making program without Complexity. It was never updated for a very long time, but it is literally one of the most usable programs out there. It's still usable on Windows 11. * Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions: This is the version Microsoft decided to release their compilers for free, and everyone were taken aback. This edition can compile executables that work on Windows 9X as well. It has an IDE and people who use these tools (knowing their limitations) can be productive with it. * PowerShell 2.0: Contrary to belief, one can actually run PowerShell 2.0 on XP. You can even use it for remote administration work. Good job, Microsoft! PowerShell 2.0 on Windows XP Modern Software that just works There are very few things that work in XP, and here are some gems of computing that run quite well: * VLC Media Player 3.0.18 -- Opens up all the codecs, adds browser support for Internet Explorer and Mozilla browsers, literally works on every file, assuming you have enough compute to do stuff. You guys are the MVP! VLC -- Sample MP4 for Testing playing from a NAS Device * Total Commander 11 -- A classic L-R split file explorer, a very personal choice. * foobar2000 -- A music player that is lightweight, plays almost every music format, has Music Conversion/Ripping and non-intrusive. foobar2000 -- Like Winamp, but even lighter * WinRAR -- Windows XP does support opening ZIP files out of the box. But I'm also interested in opening TAR, 7Z, RAR and ISO files if required. * Seamonkey -- A browser that works with most websites without everything breaking. It bundles an e-mail client and browser, and the last known working version 2.49.5 was released in 2019. I tried Firefox ESR 52.9.0 as well but YouTube hangs with it. I tried Opera 36 too: causes my System to Swap. Then I settled down with Seamonkey. My modern day website rant is after testing with this. YouTube shown on Seamonkey: YouTube works on Seamonkey. Not responsible for the content, it came in my feed. * LibreOffice -- For this, 5.4.72 works. -- Supports all the Up-to-date document formats. Has a working PDF export option. Free! LibreOffice 5 works quite well * BitVise SSH Client and Server: The Win32-OpenSSH sadly requires one to use Windows 7 and above. But kudos to BitVise for making it work well and giving it free for personal use. This allows me to trigger jobs for CI/CD and make this a box for easy testing. What doesn't work I think that I've already talked about many things that do work. Here I am to talk about what doesn't work, and what should be done to address this. * Problem: After installing the OS, I was absolutely unable to open any website to search for drivers or updates. Mostly because the HTTPS protocols are getting outdated/changed and nothing working is kept on websites today for old computers. * What should be done: Disable SSL/TLS on websites that provide software updates. Rely on checksums and signed GPG/ASC files so that users can verify them at their end. This is what Debian does, and that's the reason why many of their dist updates have worked for over 2 decades -- the rest of the world didn't get this right. SSL/TLS versions over the years have been the bane of Internet Updates. * Problem: TLSv1.2 has a protocol negotiation security issue. Most websites do not work with TLS v1.2 anymore. One should not expect security nor compatibility on really old devices. * What should be done: Disable re-negotiation in your TLS server code when in 1.2 mode. Disable algorithms with weak ciphers. There are still many good forward secrecy algorithms that work in 1.2. Don't force people into using a protocol unless you give them client code that works. This is not a technical problem, it is a grunt work problem. * Problem: Many websites fail to render in old computers. It's not easy to support them at all. * What should be done: Actually test your JavaScript code and website runtimes using tools like Browserstack. If you don't want to, just run a Virtualbox VM and run a test automation with Selenium or something else. Test for really slow networks (imagine 56 Kbps modems and 10 Mbps -- in bits) and see how your website performs on such speeds. Figure out what a meaningful content paint looks like. Figure out why your Polyfill library isn't working and file bugs! With so much effort, technology and money being invested on the frontend side, why do we still have so many websites that fail to work? * Problem: Many installers rely on runtimes that are not immediately available, and need OS updates. Such as .NET dependency by Catalyst Control Center. * What should be done: Stop shipping installers that you do not test on an actual OS. Ensure you ship all the dependencies with the installation package, and ship documentation on what needs to be done first to run. * Problem: Windows file sharing does not work, unable to get data from a local NAS device on some old versions of Windows. * What should be done: Enable SMBv1 and *sadly* NTLMv1 until you can get stuff installed. Then disable it. If you really want to do better, read this article. In retrospect, HTTP/1.0 is the best protocol to provide bootstrap data access for a whole lot of computers. Before that, it was FTP with Guest Access. As of today, start using SSH/SFTP whenever clients and servers are available. Concluding Remarks It was a good learning exercise for me, I thoroughly enjoyed setting this up -- and I learnt a few things from this exercise -- even after I have written software for ~25 years now. I'm concluding this article with these remarks: * Focus on simple, replaceable software: Do not complicate things with Online Activations and Irreplacable DRM. The best way to preserve any software today is Piracy [?] given how Game Studios aren't immune to this. Give people a way to get their purchases back. This is the one reason I prefer to buy from GOG first and then Steam. Software should plug and play. * Data Interoperability is key: You may be a company providing newer, better features/versions of data. But ensure you have a fallback and allow people to upgrade seamlessly. Let us say you really wish to push a new radically amazing Image format. Give people a working version of the webpage with ye olde Image format , then provide alternate versions to people with updated versions . That way, you end up not breaking things for everyone. Sidecars and Versioning are the way to go. * Specifications help: Writing and using specifications is the most important thing one can do. Without x86, ATX, USB, HDMI, Serial ATA, Boot Specification Standard, TCP/IP and Ethernet -- this whole exercise would have been futile. Some companies want the world to burn. Engage with them, tell them they can do better. Tell them you are using them for continuity and compatibility, and mean that with your money. USB has helped hardware for the last 25 years. Hopefully USB-C for the next 25 as well. * Old Systems are Snappy -- and Functional: The most important thing I learned was that old computers are still fast -- and quite usable as a daily driver. User percieved latency has not improved with much faster hardware (throughput). We need to start paying attention here when writing software. * IO bottlenecks die with time: As chips keep getting faster, I/O systems will keep getting faster as well -- over time. In retrospect, if they had faster hard disks and NIC cards many years ago, they'd all be snappier back then. * Invest in CI/CD: Set up old systems for CI/CD. Even if it means running more VMs. That way, not only are you making software work for many, many years -- but you are actually investing in sustainability and helping people overcome obsolescence issues. * Preserve what works: Do not throw things that work. Preserve them, Repurpose them -- and if you do not need them, give them to people who would benefit from it. That includes Software, Hardware and Knowledge. This is a mindset. This is contrary to what many people are asked to do at work. We could all benefit from this! Usability Sustainability Computers Retro Software -- -- Karthik Kumar Viswanathan Follow Written by Karthik Kumar Viswanathan 84 Followers Loves to Build Things. Less is More. 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