NetBSD 11.0(blog.netbsd.org) |
NetBSD 11.0(blog.netbsd.org) |
Anyone know why they are still on such an old version? The latest version is 16.1.
Wow, I just learned that I can still buy a pack of new CD-RW discs. This is an almost 30 year old format that is still published for!
Long live ATAPI!
Seriously though, why still publish CD formats when a usb-stick is far more ubiquitous and much easier to actually write. Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still?
CD-RW/DVD+RW on the other hand are also even worse than flash in that regard and decay very quickly in my experience.
New x64 systems? Probably not. But since it still supports x86 and a whole slew of other architectures[1] still that don't always, it probably wouldn't make sense to stop.
My CD backups lasted about 10-12 years before the silver started peeling off the discs :(
Old Systems. I have one such system that will is in line to move to 11.0 from 9.3. To do that I will boot from CDROM. It does not have any USB ports.
NetBSD is probably the only UN*X Type OS that can run on many of these 32 bit systems. Plus the NetBSD team is doing their best to support these old systems.
That saves me $ and helps the environment a little bit :)
Seems like a tradeoff with power though. Even emulating hardware from that era is more power efficient than actually running it. Of course, if you have custom ISA cards or something then you are likely stuck :)
I have done that in the past but there are already .img files specifically for USB. Seems redundant.
I was running the R/Cs without any issues, so I am sure 11.0 will be very stable.
For starters, on the old BSDs there was no Almquist shell, unless you went to Usenet, grabbed the shar, and built it. The TENEX C shell was the hot new thing, as were BIND and Sendmail. And we got genuine Joy+Horton vi.
Whereas modern NetBSD does not have Sendmail any more, has nvi2, and supports access control lists. And of course under the covers has lots of things that the old BSDs didn't have, like UFS for TiB disc volumes and kqueue.
I've heard tell that they're even thinking of finally doing away with BIND in base.
Other commenter is correct, there are some late 486 boards with PCI support that would allow USB 1.0 or even 2.0 cards to be installed and used. Probably slow, but should work.
On the topic of modernizing a 486-class machine, there also exist a few with native PS/2 mouse support, and certain Matrox PCI cards have digital out, so it'd be possible to build a 486-class machine with USB 1.1, DVI/HDMI, and PS/2.
Since some Logitech wireless mice support PS/2, one could connect a 486 rig to a crisp digital LCD, use a wireless mouse, and plug in USB flash drives, sound, 10/100 network, NT 4.0, etc. -- all supported. Can make a fairly "modern" machine out of a pre-Pentium chip.