Category Archives: NetWare

Unlocking NetWare 2.0a

A few months ago, the OS/2 Museum obtained a seemingly complete and error-free set of floppies with SFT NetWare 286 Level II version 2.0a. And just recently, a disk set of Advanced NetWare 86 2.0a turned up, though sadly incomplete. … Continue reading

Posted in NetWare, Software Hacks | 15 Comments

1989 Networking: OS/2 NetWare Requester 1.1

When I wrote about the pre-release NetWare Requester for OS/2, the oldest archived officially released NetWare OS/2 Requester was version 1.2 from 1990. In the meantime, version 1.1 of the requester showed up, although I only became aware of that … Continue reading

Posted in NetWare, Networking, OS/2, PC history, Virtualization | 11 Comments

Learn Something Old Every Day, Part IV: Ctrl+Scroll Lock is Ctrl+Break

The other day I tried running NSNIPES, a multiplayer networked game that came with old versions of NetWare. The game worked fine, but I couldn’t get out of it. Esc did nothing, any “usual” combinations like Alt+X, Alt+Q or similar … Continue reading

Posted in NetWare, PC architecture, PC history | 3 Comments

Another Trip to Drive Geometry Hell

Recently I took another close look at the IDE.DSK driver in NetWare 3.12. Among other things, I wanted to know how it differs from ISADISK.DSK. On some systems, the two drivers are interchangeable and either will work. But there are … Continue reading

Posted in IDE, NetWare, PC history | 8 Comments

Diskette Puzzle

Last week the OS/2 Museum received a classic red NetWare box with all sorts of junk inside: PCI and ISA network cards (most Ethernet, one ArcNET), BNC cabling, one or two manuals, and over a 100 floppies, mostly NetWare but … Continue reading

Posted in Archiving, Floppies, NetWare | 20 Comments

A Brief Visit to Disk Geometry Hell

Several weeks ago I thought I’d install NetWare 3.12 in a virtual machine using the BusLogic SCSI controller emulation. While configuring a 1.5 GB virtual drive, I thought I should be safe and not run into any trouble with a … Continue reading

Posted in BusLogic, IBM, NetWare, PC architecture, Storage | 32 Comments

1987 Networking: ELS NetWare 286 Level I 2.0a

A rare find recently turned up: NetWare from 1987, specifically the low-end ELS variant of NetWare 286 version 2.0a (ELS may be claimed to mean Entry Level System or maybe Entry Level Server, but at least originally it stood for … Continue reading

Posted in 286, 3Com, Kryoflux, NetWare, Networking | 29 Comments

1988 Networking: NetWare OS/2 Requester

A while ago, the question of antique NetWare OS/2 requesters came up. The oldest known surviving NetWare OS/2 Requester is version 1.2, which is designed to work with OS/2 1.2. There are clear mentions of older requesters supporting OS/2 1.1 … Continue reading

Posted in NetWare, Networking, OS/2, PC history, Virtualization | 15 Comments

NetWare 2.x Notes

Novell NetWare has quite a long history, but the older parts of it are now almost completely lost. In the mid-1980s, Novell offered Advanced NetWare, NetWare ELS, NetWare SFT, and other members of the NetWare 286 family. With the partial … Continue reading

Posted in NetWare, Networking, PC history | 13 Comments

Ancient NetWare OS/2 Requesters?

Quite a while ago there was a discussion on this site about NetWare support for OS/2 versions prior to 1.3. Finding reliable information is difficult, especially when one doesn’t know exactly what to look for. Spurred by the discovery of … Continue reading

Posted in NetWare, OS/2, PC history | 13 Comments