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The previously mentioned warez mega dump contains disk images of SCO 286 XENIX 2.1.0.

The release appears to be from February 1986. It is the oldest SCO 286 XENIX release that I know of. But there’s a hitch.

The warez archive only contains the system disks, N1 to N4 (all in 360K format of course). To install the system, the Basic Utilities disks (B1 to B3, most likely) are also required. Attempting to use a newer B1 disk from XENIX 2.1.3 failed, presumably because the older 2.1.0 kernel lacks some required interfaces. So it’s possible to boot 286 XENIX 2.1.0, but not possible to properly install it.

Who has more XENIX 2.1.0 disks? The ‘B’ disks were almost certainly the same between XENIX 286 and XENIX 86.

On a more positive note, the warez archive also contains images of 386 XENIX 2.2.2f. An archive of 386 XENIX 2.2.2f disks does exist… but those are of the 386PS kind, designed to run on PS/2 machines.

The warez dump contains images (1.2MB floppies) of 386 XENIX 2.2.2f in the 386AT variant, obviously designed for standard PC/AT compatibles.

As of this writing, this is the oldest surviving 386 XENIX, released probably in November 1987 (just about the same time as OS/2 1.0). It is also one of the oldest 386 operating systems overall.

Now what else is hiding out there?

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Ha! Ha! It's a good thing this has never happened any time anyone has ever attempted to provide a monetary reward for rounding up invasive species.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My daughter has lost two jobs in one year

My 44-year-old daughter has been fired from two different employment agencies in the last 12 months. The first time, the company did not give a reason. The second time, the company said budget cuts were the reason.

I understand that it is entirely possible that the firings might have nothing to do with my daughter’s work performance or attitude. But how many times should this happen before it is reasonable to suspect that it is because of her work performance or attitude?

The reason I ask this is because she has appeared extremely stressed and tightly wound for at least three years. It is to the point where I spoke with her last year about seeing a therapist. I gave her examples of ways I see her stress affecting her husband and children. I wonder if her attitude at work is similar.

She has not gone to a therapist. I am concerned that if I speak to her about therapy again, she may react negatively or think I am blaming her for the these two job losses. Her husband has already spoken to her. Should I stay out of this?

Stay out of it. It’s possible that her behavior at work has contributed to the two job losses. But it’s also possible that it hasn’t, and there’s no way to know. (Twice in 12 months could simply be bad luck.) If you knew for sure — like if she told you she was fired because she had a screaming meltdown — well, even then you’d need to tread carefully unless you have a very close relationship. But in this case it would be pure speculation, and you’d be intruding into an area of her life (her career) that she hasn’t invited you into.

It’s natural to care because you’re her mom, but trying to guess at what happened at work when she hasn’t asked you for help carries a high risk of feeling invasive and boundary-crossing to her.

2. Are laundry products included in office fragrance bans?

Thankfully, this isn’t an issue at my workplace because most of us use laundry products that have little or no scent, but are the heavily fragranced detergents and fabric softeners that have become so popular included in office fragrance bans? The kind that are touted as leaving a “fresh” (read: huge amounts of chemicals) scent on your clothes for weeks? I’m asking because I went to a museum last week and ended up with a horrible headache and sore throat from being bombarded with laundry fragrances I could smell from 30 feet away. Even if I didn’t have a chronic respiratory disease, the odor would have been A Lot. At work, it would make it hard for several of us to function due to asthma and other issues. I’d love to know your thoughts on this.

Yes, typically offices with fragrance policies include heavily scented products of all kind, including laundry detergent.

Whenever this comes up, people ask how an employer can regulate what products you use in the privacy of your own home. You can use whatever products you want at home, but your employer does have the right to say you can’t come to work smelling heavily of fragrance.

People also tend to want to know what happens if you’re, say, using the one and only affordable laundry detergent that doesn’t make you break out in hives and it happens to be scented. If you have a coworker who can’t breathe because of the fragrance, then it’s handled like any other situation with dueling accommodations: your employer needs to look for solutions to accommodate both of you (which could be things like seating you far away from each other, having you meet with each other by phone rather than in-person, etc.).

3. I need to cunningly find out 40 names

I am terrible with names. I’ve always worked in small teams where it didn’t matter that I didn’t know the name of the person in some other wing of the building. Now I’m at a smaller company with 50-odd people — been here four whole years. To be honest, I’m supposed to know more names. Most people know mine! In fact, I have long kitchen convos with people whose names I still don’t know. But it’s been so long, I simply can’t ask them! And asking someone else to reintroduce me to 40 people who think I already know them doesn’t seem like an option either.

This is my own doing. Everyone has a fatal flaw that would kill them in a Greek tragedy, and this is mine. But I am now determined to stop the wheel of fate, and figure out who is who and remember who does what. Do you have any suggestions? Alas, we don’t have a website with handy mugshots.

You need a confidant! Pick someone who you like and trust, explain the situation, and ask them to discreetly help you learn people’s names. You could even take a walk around the building together with them muttering names in your ear as you pass people. (Although it will be way too overwhelming to remember 40 names all at once, so this will need to happen slowly over a period of weeks.) I would be delighted to do this for someone, and I bet you have some coworkers who would be too.

4. Requesting vacation time with a friend/coworker

A few months ago I started a job that I was referred for by my best friend. We now work together in the same department, but we haven’t let on how close we are because I’m a woman and he’s a man and we want to avoid gossip (I’m also gay but that probably wouldn’t stop their fun if word got out).

We were hoping to take a trip together at the end of the summer but our managers are likely to try to get whoever doesn’t ask for the time first to cover for the other if we don’t admit that we’re taking the time off to spend together. Is it better for us to go in to talk to our supervisor together or should my friend be the one to speak to him since he has seniority? I feel awkward talking about our personal relationship at this point and I’m not sure what the most professional way to go about this is.

The big question is whether you can take vacation at the same time. If you’re each other’s cover, vacationing together right now might be unrealistic. But if that’s not the case — if it’s more like you’d be the default coverage but something else could be arranged if your boss knew the situation — then one of you should just tell your boss point-blank what you want to do and ask if there’s a way to make it work. That should probably be your friend since he’s been there longer and has the more established relationship with your boss.

That said, once you do that, the cat is out of the bag — people are going to know you’re closer friends than they had realized since it’s not reasonable to ask the boss to hide that for you.

(Also, in some cases it might be odd if it comes out that your friend recommended you without disclosing that you’re a close friend. If it was more a referral than a recommendation, or if he stressed that he couldn’t vouch for your work, I’d worry less; it’s hard to say without knowing more details, but consider whether that’s something to factor in too.)

5. Can I apply with a new version of my resume soon after using the old version?

I have a question about sending different resume versions to the same company. A couple months ago, I applied for a job at a large company and sent my resume. A week later, they emailed me that they decided to cancel the job posting, but to please apply to any new ones that may come up. Since then, I have revamped my resume. Everything on there is accurate of course, but it looks very different and has some different details. So, my question: If I find another job that I want to apply to at this company, would it be weird to send the new version so soon? I imagine they have my old one on file.

Totally fine to send the new version. It’s unlikely that they’ll bother to compare it to the old one, but it’s not a problem if they do (assuming the job history and other key facts match); people change up their resumes periodically.

Scientists have confirmed the discovery of a cave on the moon not far from where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed 55 years ago, with potentially hundreds more that could house future astronauts. What do you think?

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WASHINGTON DC – With Joe Biden announcing his plans to drop out of the US presidential race, Donald Trump’s campaign has publicly asked the Democrats to nominate a similarly ineffectual octogenarian who will fit seamlessly into the GOP’s carefully crafted campaign messaging. “If you Democrats could do us one small favor, we’d really love it […]

The post Trump campaign desperately hoping Democrats replace Biden with a different frail 81-year-old appeared first on The Beaverton.

Thanks to the recent warez mega dump, another long lost gem has come to light: NetWare 386, also known as NetWare 3.0.

In September 1989, Novell released NetWare 386 V3.0, the first in a long line of 32-bit network operating systems. At the time, Novell’s mainstay was NetWare 2.15, a system designed to run on 286-based machines.

NetWare 386, as the name suggests, required at least a 386 processor. It was a major redesign of the NetWare OS intended to take advantage of (then) high end 32-bit hardware. Whereas NetWare 2.x was linked from object modules during installation (much like commercial UNIX implementations), NetWare 386 utilized modules (NLMs, or NetWare Loadable Modules) which could be loaded and unloaded at run-time.

Disk drivers, network drivers, protocols, and all sorts of added functionality were implemented as NLMs in NetWare 386. This made NetWare 3.0 installation and maintenance far simpler compared to NetWare 2.x. The NetWare 2.x kernel had to be linked during installation (a lengthy process), and any change of a disk or network driver required the OS to be re-generated again. In NetWare 3.0, all it took was copying a new driver and changing a configuration file.

NetWare 3.0 was in some ways a limited release, although at the same time it was a fully functioning file server which could support up to 250 users (compared to the 100 user maximum of NetWare 2.x). That was reflected in the pricing—$7,995. NetWare 3.0 was Novell’s flagship product, even though it didn’t fully realize the NetWare 386 vision. Only the IPX protocol was supported, the set of available disk and network drivers was quite limited, and third-party NLMs were more or less nonexistent.

When NetWare 3.0 was released, the NLM development kit was not yet available. That is likely also the reason why NetWare 3.0 did not ship with CLIB.NLM, MATHLIB.NLM, and a few other NLMs. These NLMs became available a few months after the NetWare 3.0 release though, together with the development kit.

Installing NetWare 3.0 is not fundamentally different from installing later 3.x releases. The installation procedure is completely different from installing NetWare 2.x. Rather than configuring and linking the OS kernel first, it is initiated by booting the NetWare 3.0 OS, and all requisite drivers are dynamically loaded as separate modules.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, NetWare 2.x could boot directly from hard disk (using so called “cold boot loader”) but NetWare 3.x cannot. NetWare 3.x requires DOS to be loaded first, and then SERVER.EXE must be run. Unlike NetWare 2.x, it is possible to completely shut down NetWare 3.x and return back to DOS. For that reason, NetWare 3.x requires either a small bootable DOS partition or a bootable DOS floppy.

To install NetWare 3.0, one simply runs SERVER.EXE, loads the appropriate disk driver, and then loads INSTALL.NLM. While NetWare 2.x required a separate external installer, NetWare 3.0 is installed from a running NetWare system.

NetWare 3.0 is old enough that it didn’t ship with ODI-based client drivers and used the old monolithic shell. It’s also of course old enough that it only supports DOS 3.x and 4.0 clients. But it has no trouble talking to newer clients running ODI and PC DOS 2000, for example.

Original NetWare 3.0 disks are yet to be found. It is possible that only a few thousand copies were ever sold, and since they would have been sold primarily to large corporations (given the eight thousand dollar price tag), the vast majority of the extant copies were no doubt destroyed.

And yet, thanks to software pirates of 1990, NetWare 3.0 can run again after 35 years.

The Houston Democrat announced earlier this year that she had cancer.

Read the full text of President Biden's letter withdrawing from the race to be the Democratic nominee and his endorsement of Vice President Harris to represent the party instead.

(Image credit: Tom Brenner)

The Texas Department of Transportation held a federally mandated meeting to update the public on the I-45 expansion project on Thursday. Construction kicks off in October with a drainage project.

Jackson Lee was in the midst of running for her 16th term when she announced in June she had pancreatic cancer.

The president — intent on serving out the remainder of his term in office — quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take on Trump and encouraged his party to unite behind her, making her the party’s instant favorite for the nomination at its August convention in Chicago.

Jackson Lee, who represented Texas’ 18th Congressional District for nearly 30 years, announced in June she had pancreatic cancer.

In brief: We are issuing a Stage 1 flood alert for the entire Houston metro area, through Thursday, to account for the potential of street flooding. Much of the Houston area should pick up 2 to 6 inches of rainfall through Thursday, with a few areas seeing higher bullseyes. This post describes what to expect, when to expect it, and explains why this is happening.

A setup for rainfall, some of it heavy

In the big picture for the coming week, the upper Texas coast will lie between two high pressure systems. As anyone who has lived in Houston for any time knows, high pressure during the height of summer means sunshine and hot temperatures. And it also means sinking air, which precludes the development of showers and thunderstorms.

Conversely, when Houston lies beneath a trough of lower pressure—as we will this week—the opposite occurs. This environment promotes rising air, and thus all of the moisture at the surface can ascend into the atmosphere, cool and condense into clouds, and lead to showers and thunderstorms. Thus we will see a wet pattern this week, beginning on Monday. Showers and thunderstorms are likely on the daily, with heavy rain definitely possible as we are open to moisture streaming in from the Gulf of Mexico. We cannot rule out severe weather, but it seems unlikely with the heavy rains.

To account for this rainfall, we are issuing a Stage 1 flood alert on our scale (read more about our flood scale here). Generally, this means you can expect the potential for nuisance street flooding during the heaviest rains, the kind you typically see on some frontage roads or the like. However, we do not expect this to be a widely disruptive event. Overall, I expect much of the Houston area to pick up 2 to 6 inches of rainfall through Thursday, with a few areas seeing higher bullseyes.

As a bonus, beginning Monday, we are likely to see cooler daytime temperatures, with clouds and rain-cooled air limiting highs in the 80s. That’s a rare treat in July, and definitely a silver lining amongst the cloudy skies for the coming week. As for the humidity, well, bless your heart for expecting anything but the usual Houston steaminess in July.

What follows is not so much a daily forecast, but a guide to which days are likely to see the heaviest rains.

Sunday

Showers will be of a more scattered nature today, although areas near the coast are probably more likely to see rainfall than not. Overall conditions should not be particularly disruptive so go about your plans as usual. Have an umbrella handy this afternoon, however.

Monday and Tuesday

Both of these days will see widespread showers and thunderstorms. These should be nuisance showers for the most part, although a few storms should bring heavy rainfall. I do not recommend any outdoor plans, but in terms of traveling around Houston I don’t anticipate any major impacts.

Wednesday and Thursday

The potential for heavy rainfall looks to be highest on Wednesday through at least Thursday morning. For these days there could be some delays in getting to work, and traveling around the city. Again, we don’t anticipate major, sustained flooding. But you know how Houston thunderstorms can be. They can drop a deluge of rain in a short time, so some areas will see some fairly gnarly conditions over shorter periods of time. Basically, you’ll need to be weather aware these days.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

Rain chances lessen by Thursday night or so, which is why we’re presently planning to end our Stage 1 flood alert on Thursday night. But the possibility of rain is definitely not going away this weekend. Expect the rainy pattern to continue, albeit with less intensity and perhaps better odds to see some sunshine. Next week, however, does look hotter and sunnier.

A note of thanks

I want to thank Matt for covering the site all last week while I attended a family reunion in Michigan. I don’t want to brag too much, but it felt amazing to go running with temperatures of 60 degrees and low humidity. It offered a reminder that, in just a couple of months, we can look forward to some of the same here. Speaking of which, when we stepped off the plane at Hobby Airport and felt that first flush of Houston air, my family immediately knew we were home. We should come up with a word for what it’s like to experience that first taste of Houston humidity when landing here. Suggestions?

Donald Trump formally accepted the 2024 Republican nomination for president, the announcement coming days after an attempted assassination on the former president’s life. What do you think?

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WASHINGTON—In what was widely regarded as a misfire by the 81-year-old as he formally bowed out of the 2024 election, President Joe Biden repeatedly flubbed his exit speech today, saying he would “rule the country with an iron fist for one thousand years.” “Tonight, I, Joseph R. Biden, vow to take back my rightful…

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WASHINGTON—In a significant setback for the already-reeling Democratic Party, Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly turned down the presidential nomination today in order to take a job on an Alaskan fishing vessel. “It’s a nice offer, but I already lined up this whole seasonal fishing gig out of Anchorage that…

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OTTAWA – As a global tech outage disrupts operations in multiple industries, including airlines, banks, and health care, citizens across Canada have reported assuming that the poor service was merely business as usual. “My flight was suddenly cancelled and I was given no notice which one I would be bumped to, but that happens every […]

The post Canadians fail to notice difference as global IT outage disrupts airlines, banks, health care appeared first on The Beaverton.

WASHINGTON DC — In a move that has shocked employees around the world, Joe Biden announced today that he would be stepping out of the presidential race, making it the first time in recorded history that an ageing boomer has ever retired in order to let a younger person take their job. “Folks, I’ve had […]

The post UNPRECEDENTED: Aging boomer retires to free up job for someone younger appeared first on The Beaverton.

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

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It suddenly became intersection of sex and technology week?

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KENOSHA, WI—Stunned at the act’s failure to benefit his mood in any discernible way, completely alone 37-year-old Doug Kaczmarek told reporters Friday that he had really thought blowing out a birthday candle in his dark apartment would cheer him up. “Huh. I expected sitting by myself in the shadows and blowing out a…

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CORAL GABLES, FL—Calling the project “a labor of love,” plastic surgeon Dr. Alexander Ruttenberg reportedly tore his new wife, Natalia Barova, down to the studs this week. “She’s not perfect, but she’s got good bones,” said Ruttenberg, who boasted that he was spending “a small fortune” on cosmetic updates and…

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CHICAGO—With the franchise on track to have what may be the single worst season in the modern history of the sport, Major League Baseball sought to remind the Chicago White Sox on Friday that the team’s games were televised. “Based on the way you’re playing, we just wanted to make sure you understand that there are…

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