Found these clearing out my loft #2

Posted by JohnLef@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 17 comments

After posting the 5.25" floppies I thought I'd let you enjoy these.

A full set of Novell NetWare 3.11 install floppies, 20 user licence, with some extras inc. a 25 user upgrade to v3.12

Being 3.5" I can still access these so have saved them.

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freeworld15@reddit

Neat! I remember these times... Makes me feel old though...!!

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Darwin_Always_Wins@reddit

Cut my teeth on Novell running on Arcnet.

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canthearu_ack@reddit

Novell must have seen the 15 disk OS/2 2.11 install disk set and said "hold my beer!"

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cchaven1965@reddit

That was always fun to do that install! Newtek Videotoaster was something like 24 floppies as well.

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😂 I got into Windows developing while managing Novell in 1990-91. Remember IBM charging for OS/2 development tools, and a huge stack of floppies to install. Microsoft made the Windows SDK free. Your post is the first time I have seen "OS/2" in years.

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cchaven1965@reddit

That's cool...I still have a Mac VirtualPC VM of NetWare I did in the 3.11 days, as well as a big NetWare CNE course book

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DeepDayze@reddit

See if these disks are still readable and if so save them somewhere!

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JohnLef@reddit (OP)

Yes, planning to image them all.

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NorCalFrances@reddit

Funny, I just yesterday came across a box of ISA Netware NICs in storage!

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satsugene@reddit

Yeah, some of the stuff Novell accomplished on extremely low spec (for a server) was impressive.

Don’t miss IPX/SPX though.

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JohnLef@reddit (OP)

NetWare 4 mixed IP with IPX/SPX was better and the pure IP NetWare 5 was better again, but NetWare was on a death spiral due to Windows Server taking control by then.

As a testament to stability on low spec hardware, I visited a small satellite office in Dublin once. It had a server running NetWare 2.x (4Mb RAM and a 500Mb mirrored hard disk) which had been running 4 or 5 diskless workstations for 11 years without a reboot.

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NorCalFrances@reddit

Me neither. Although I have read that some bits and pieces of it made it into IPv6. I've been curious about which features, just...never enough to go down the rabbit hole. Not even right now when I'm typing about it.

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JohnLef@reddit (OP)

It was super stable, and damn quick too. It used inherited rights, so changing rights on folders was instant. Windows server you could take your lunch break and it would still be processing all the individual files.

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