
Is there a modern browser that runs on Windows 3.1? - ivoflipse
http://superuser.com/questions/423061/is-there-a-modern-browser-that-runs-on-windows-3-1
======
muppetman
Why does no one want to actually _answer his question_? It's one of my major
gripes with tech forums these days: Someone asks a question about "How can I
do X?" and instead of providing an answer, everyone piles up to say "HAHAH X
is so stupid, you should be doing Y".

I actually preface some of my questions these days with "I realise X might
sound silly, but I'd like to do it so please answer the question instead of
telling my why I shouldn't be doing it"

Stop it already. Or at least ANSWER THE QUESTION and then politely suggest why
you think it might be a bad idea.

~~~
ricardobeat
What kind of knife should I use to behead a 5.8' average-build man?

~~~
Jimmie
Equating killing someone to using an old OS is a terrible straw-man argument.

~~~
ricardobeat
It's not a comparison. Maybe I went a bit too far, but I think it answers "why
does no one want to actually answer his question?". Sometimes the subject at
hand or the content raises flags/concerns that overshadow the question. It's
human nature.

~~~
statictype
In which case, _don't answer the question at all_.

If a person is completely new and this is obvious from the question, then you
might be helping by saying "don't do that", otherwise, you're just adding
noise.

~~~
sukuriant
No, I'm sorry. When you believe that someone is going to harm themselves or
others with their decisions, and no one else has mentioned the dangerous of
their intentions, it is the kind thing to do to warn them. This is especially
the case here. This person wanted to do something clearly dangerous and with a
critical system (see critical systems testing) that could potentially
encourage it to fail and cause lives to be lost. They needed to be warned. Not
answering when there is great danger is just as cruel as answering with the
help to make it happen because yes, someone will help.

~~~
yew
It's completely reasonable to warn them. It's _not_ reasonable to post yet
another warning in a thread consisting entirely of warnings and _no answers_.

It's possible that they don't know what they are doing. It's also possible
that _you_ don't know what they are doing. In this case, for example, it looks
like the time clock software actually interfaces with the saw controller.

If you feel this level of risk aversion is unacceptable - well, I hope you
have a better argument than what's been posted so far.

~~~
sukuriant
I don't, which is why I didn't add anything. Actually, the accepted, official
answer was more than perfect. People rambling the same things isn't helpful,
you're right; however, had no one said anything as useful as the accepted
answer, then it would have been helpful to warn them. We were speaking on
different wavelengths, I hope that clears it up

------
Lagged2Death
I find it a little hard to believe that anyone would try to build a band-saw
controller on a Windows box in the way suggested by the post and assumed by so
many of the comments.

It seems likely that the Windows PC is just a job manager and GUI for a
simpler embedded controller that actually controls the band-saw. A standard PC
doesn't have, as standard equipment, any I/O capabilities suitable for machine
control, after all. When I did software for industrial controls, most of the
controls that had PC interfaces were built that way; an embedded controller in
the machine, running a real-time OS, actually actuated all the relays and
optos and was responsible for all the safety interlocks. The PC would talk to
that controller through a serial port and put a pretty face on the front of
things. If the PC crashed, the operator wouldn't be able to run the machine,
but the machine wouldn't go berserk.

I understand why someone would say that running a browser on the Win 3.1
machine is a bad idea, but it may not really be that bad.

~~~
mbell
This likely the case but I'll also add that we have no idea what "bandsaw"
this is. I think everyone is picturing a massively complex machine with
automated feed mechanisms, computer controlled adjustments, lasers measuring
blade sharpness, etc. That may be the case or more likely (in my opinion), its
a much simpler device. Like on/off and a maybe a couple sensors.

As for the real time nature of this system, find it doubtful its that
critical. Your not worried about micro-seconds when your talking about big
3-phase motors that take minutes to speed up or slow down.

~~~
benmccann
It's the saw you'd most commonly use to cut irregular or curved shapes.
[http://metalworkingmachine.net/wp-
content/uploads/2011/05/ba...](http://metalworkingmachine.net/wp-
content/uploads/2011/05/bandsaw.jpg)

~~~
mbell
Is that the actual saw in question or just an example?

If it is just an example there are many kinds of bandsaws at many different
scales, anything from cutting irregular shapes to turning tree trunks into
boards.

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rmATinnovafy
Yikes!

Reminds me of my last programming job.

I was working on a commercial printing company. It did a lot of products for
the banking industry. The print machines were pretty old, and made by Xerox.
So old, in fact, that most of the wiring/sensors were one-off replacements
done by the technician in charge.

It was (still is) a mess. A computer running Windows 98 (this on 2011) talked
to a Linux box. The Linux box then sent the job to the board on the machine.
It was all done in Java, except the low level stuff that ran C.

The machines broke constantly, and they required some Oracle certified dev to
come down and "fix it" (which cost thousands of dollars).

One day, I asked my boss "Why don't they just buy new machines? It costs more
to keep these running than to buy a new ones."

His answer opened up my eyes to the corporate/bureocratric culture of
mediocrity:

"This works."

And to to top it all off, the production manager wanted me to write him a
"little" program for the Windows 98 machine. The program would be used to keep
track of prodcution for the whole department.

Unbelievable.

~~~
Duff
There's probably some corruption in there as well. Management doesn't give a
crap about the work function, and only one vendor is qualified to respond to
the maintenance RFP. So some old-timer is probably making a mint "maintaining"
the system.

~~~
rmATinnovafy
You are totally right.

I forgot to mention that they are locked in to Oracle and Microsoft. My job
was to develop a C# based system, but they made me use VS 2005 Express
(!@#$%), because they would not buy the latest version/license.

That job taught me a lot about how not to treat your programmers.

~~~
darklajid
"Would not buy the latest version/license" is .. misleading.

I don't want to offend you and cannot judge the motivations of your employer
at that time, but .. You don't need a license to develop C#. Even if you
_need_ VisualStudio (which you don't..), there's a free version available.
Otherwise SharpDevelop/MonoDevelop (yes, the latter is available and
applicable for Windows as well!) would've done the job. I'd probably have
prefered to drop to a notepad/vim based setup before touching 2005 and looking
at .Net 1.1/2.0 stuff again.

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omgtehlion
Oh crap. Why on earth all this should be on the same computer?

I would not trust running timeclock software on a bandsaw controller even if
it would be latest core-i7/xeon/whatever and QNX or VxWorks.

~~~
moylan
i wonder if the dust created by the bandsaw wouldn't make it difficult to
replace it with a more modern system. we used to use standard office pcs to
run a pos system for video shops around ireland. as the systems moved from
been shipped with win 3.1 to win xp the processors got faster and the dust in
the shops used to clog up the fans. machines pre pentium iii with passive
cooling worked fine but anything with a cpu fan could be easily clogged with
average dust levels in a pos location.

we also had a few pcs in engineering locations and even the power supply fans
on 386s had problems with the dust in those locations. you have to wonder what
the dust was doing to staffs lungs. after one particular location killed 1 pc
a week for a month we ended up putting the pc in a pair of tights as this
filtered out the dust. looked weird but far cheaper than a industrial pc.

but opera 3.62 seems to have support for css and works on win 3.1

haven't touched a win 3.1 system since around 2004 or so.

~~~
thaumaturgy
One of our clients is an electric motor shop. They're a pretty great little
shop, they do work for elevator companies and PG&E and the like.

Anyway, they have a dust problem -- a carbon / metallic dust compound that
permeates and settles on _everything_ in the shop. It's pretty ugly.

There are pretty much two strategies for that kind of an environment,
computer-wise: construct a cheap acrylic enclosure with a HEPA filter and
maybe a fan or two; or, buy a cheap computer and expect to replace it every 1
to 2 years.

~~~
andreasvc
How about a completely fanless computer? Or does the metallic dust also cause
shorts etc.?

Either way it also sounds like an unhealthy environment for humans to work in.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Fanless would have been better, but the case will still have some kind of
vents for air cooling, and the dust tends to have a static charge -- so
eventually it'll still kill the system.

It's not a great environment for people, no. I'd be wearing a dust mask for
sure if I worked there. But, a lot of shop guys aren't like that, especially
the older ones. They just do their job and don't mind the dust.

~~~
mikepurvis
FitPC is what you want—sealed, passively cooled enclosure. We use their
second-generation Atom machine for robots and it works great. <http://www.fit-
pc.com/>

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treetrouble
Total hypothesizing and speculation here but...

I work with audio and music software (in which timing accuracy is a major
component). Timing accuracy 20 years ago was generally far, far better than a
modern PC. The Atari ST is still the gold standard -- with regard to timing it
makes Ableton Live 8 running on OSX look/sound like garbage. Without
multitasking, whatever program you were using could prioritize timing over the
GUI and other components in a way that a modern name brand OS won't allow

Again, pure speculation here but this may be the case at least to some degree
for Win 3.1 because there aren't as many network services and other bells and
whistles running in the background. It may even be the case that Win 3.1
doesn't have real multitasking. Maybe someone can chime in on that

~~~
baddox
That's interesting. I've also done a lot of music production (just amateur
stuff, as a hobby) with software like Reason, Ableton Live, and Cubase, and
I've never noticed any shortcomings regarding timing accuracy. Latency is
always an issue, so a good audio interface if imperative, but that's the only
performance issues I've encountered. What exactly are the shortcomings of
modern systems regarding timing accuracy?

~~~
treetrouble
It's not something that's easily perceptible unto itself unless you get into
very radical inconsistencies. As an example using arbitrary numbers, a quarter
note would be 500 ticks one time and 493 ticks the next and so on...

It can be measured by recording the audio on a (timing accurate!) dedicated
system and analyzing the waveform

Subtle as it may be, timing accuracy has an essential impact on how we
perceive music as a whole. This is one contributor among a few as to why
vintage drum machines and sequencers have become so sought after as software-
baed music production has become more prevalent. The Akai MPC series (at least
the 2000XL and previous) models have been found to have the most consistent
timing of any machine with the Atari ST being the strongest computer
sequencer.

Sorry, I don't have time to cite this stuff (breaking my own rule) but it
should be easy to google

As an aside, poor timing accuracy can be a reason why in pulse-based music
that some human musicians "just suck" even if they're otherwise proficient. Or
some musicians are "just have it" even though they're playing something
unremarkable

------
ericabiz
1) Buy a more modern computer with Windows 7, etc.

2) Set up a virtual machine with Windows 3.1 on it to run the bandsaw
controller.

3) Now you can get any modern browser, still have the bandsaw software
running, and not have to deal with multiple computers.

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aswanson
I love the top ranked comment on that site: This is a _bandsaw_...you're using
dos with a gui...this is a _bandsaw_...

~~~
mgkimsal
Yeah...

What's odd about this is that, 20 years ago, that would have been 'state of
the art'. Assuming the bandsaw hasn't changed, and the computer's still
working, there's nothing inherently wrong or bad about having Win 3.1 control
the bandsaw.

What's bad is trying to use that machine for other purposes - I'd suppose the
manufacturer wouldn't support the software if they found out anything else was
being run on the machine.

Look at the number of man hours wasted on everyone commenting on this
question/topic! :) I'd imagine they could have got a $300 laptop to log in to
the timesystem, put it next to the bandsaw computer, and have been done with
it. But for some reason(?) they'd prefer to spend time dicking around trying
to reuse 20 year old systems to save a few bucks.

Did I miss the reason why they're trying to run both on one system?

~~~
aswanson
The main reason I garnered was that the boss didnt understand the
danger/inanity in doing so.

------
gouranga
VNC client and VNC server on another PC.

~~~
jcurbo
next question, VNC clients for Windows 3.1?

~~~
gouranga
Install IE4, Java and use the Java VNC Client.

------
tatsuke95
Sounds like the bandsaw industry, from sharpening to operating, could use some
disruption.

I'm only half kidding. There are tons of niche commercial/industrial processes
that can use 21st century solutions. They're just hard to see unless you're in
them, which is why non-technical people sometimes have brilliant ideas.

~~~
DanBC
There are a lot of vertical markets that could do with innovation.

Match up industrial chassis, with low power PCs, really good electrical noise
filtering, really good air filtering, a locked down environment and good
firewalls etc, and then offer to quote for interfacing it to existing
machines. (Which is mostly just finding the right interface boards and
connectors and software.)

------
exim
Oh, how I'd love to have DOS/Win3.1 or OS/2 programmer job these days... :)

~~~
groovy2shoes
Those were simpler times, weren't they? Back then you could practically feel
the electrons coursing through the metal, and you were their master! You felt
so powerful when you could orchestrate every action of those machines. These
modern systems with their _virtual memory_ and their _context switching_...
they're taking away our rights!

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cstross
Hmm. If the server-side app requires CSS/HTML4 and the client has to run on
Win3.1, how about writing a proxy? The proxy would present a simplified
HTML3.2 interface, and handle interpreting Javascript events and managing
cookies to support a session talking to the server?

(It's a horrible kludge, but if it saves $150,000 ...)

~~~
cynwoody
Any idea what a $150,000 bandsaw can do to a man?

My brother's a lawyer. He just dropped about 20 times that amount on a
penthouse in downtown Chicago.

He doesn't yet have a boat, although Lake Michigan beckons. Maybe when he buys
his boat, he can christen it the _Horrible Kludge_!

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Lednakashim
<http://www.fdisk.com/doslynx/lynxport.htm>

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zandorg
Perhaps they could reverse-engineer the Windows 3.1 software and get it to run
on XP?

Can't tell from the details why the software won't do Windows XP.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Why would you think that someone whose day job is running a shop with a
$150,000 bandsaw would have either the experience, tools, or inclination to
reverse-engineer complex industrial control software?

It's likely they don't have installation media or any other reasonable way of
transferring the software to a Windows XP system, even if it would possibly
run in that environment.

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thatsiebguy
This is kind of pointless. NComputing already does this over ethernet.

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bashzor
It's just sad to be required to run Windows 3.1 in 2012.

~~~
davepm
Im still running 3.1 on 4 machines at work (slightly related to OP, we sharpen
the bandsaws!). The thing is that the company that makes the machines is well
known for their extortionate prices, so for us to update is not feasible. We
just installed newer machines for everything else so the crappy old 3.1 boxes
run only what they must to keep the machines running. I would love to try
setting up a newer pc to run these machines, but there is so much propriety
hardware and software in there that I keep putting it off for another day!

~~~
artursapek
It's weird to think anything exists anymore running such old software. It
feels like it just wouldn't even work now. I know that's absurd, but that's
how it feels.

My friend sent me a video today of some guys hacking on Mac OS 9 at a
hackathon he went to and it just felt odd to even look at it. It's been a
solid decade since I've seen OS 9 alive and breathing, it feels like a friend
who died long ago or something. And as far as Windows goes I don't think I
ever saw anything before '98.

It's a peculiar feeling.

~~~
LarryMade
At my last work I was just finishing rewriting a database to get out of OS9.

Another person I help is in the newspaper business and does his layout with
PageMaker on OS9, Iv'e been trying to get him over to InDesign but Adobe left
behind a lot of the keyboard shortcuts he relies upon and its been a
unsuccessful venture so far... As each year goes by its getting harder to find
compatible hardware and currently the internet needs to be done on OSX...
Would do it in classic mode on OSX but some of Adobe's rendering routines
don't particularly like OS9. Talking with him about it many other papers still
use OS9, mainly because like the OP said - "it just works" and I can
understand their dilemma, when we have tried transitioning things, stuff
doesn't "just work" anymore.

~~~
artursapek
That's really interesting. Are any of the papers you know to use OS 9 national
ones?

I have a Blackberry from about 7 years ago that won't even connect to my
computer, but it's reliable. The battery lasts me 2 or 3 days, the software is
perfectly stable and responsive, and I'm just used to it. I imagine the
software it runs is insanely old and out of date, but I have no desire to
replace it. It just works. So I understand the sentiment. Although as a
developer I try to keep pretty up to date on my computer :P

