Builder Creates Virtual Ethernet Hub For Browser-Based Windows 3.11 LAN

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Here's how LAN parties looked :D which is what I'm trying to recreate in the browser on http://pieter.com slowly...

🛜 Remember LAN parties? I do

LAN means "local area network" and it was essentially the internet but locally only in your home or company in the late 90s and early 2000s

So you could connect to other computers to play games or share files, kinda like Airdrop but via a cable and 30 years ago, people would even meet up at some person's house and bring their entire computer (back then a big PC tower, CRT monitor, keyboard and mouse) and everyone would connect to each other

Which is were you'd get all the WaReZ games, MP3 music, etc. cause nobody had internet yet, or if you did it was super slow, so LAN was much faster to transfer files

I know Windows 3.11 did have support for LAN networking via NetBEUI and it "should" work, but of course on http://pieter.com I don't have a network cable that goes to an Ethernet network hub to other computers

But...we could just act like we do?

I asked AI to build a virtual Ethernet hub (a hub routes traffic) that acts like a local LAN, but instead of connecting physical computers in a home, it connects other browser sessions on the internet that have http://pieter.com running Windows 3.11 open at any time, and with DHCP it can assign an IP to every browser session dynamically, so they literally all become part of a local LAN on the internet!

It runs on a virtual NE2000 network card that sends its network data not to a network cable but via Websockets to wss://pieter.com

And it works, well kinda, I just started and its' not perfect, but I'm able to PING in MS-DOS from one tab to the other!

Next is setting it up inside Windows 3.11!

2h5K281

@levelsio@levelsio

@ronaldlangeveld Damn my brother q @pixelprotest_ was big on DC++

1h1161

Ronald@ronaldlangeveld

@levelsio A little after LAN parties when internet got a bit faster, we'd have virtual LAN parties via Hamachi. And also DC++ for file sharing. Such good memories!

1h611

Jerome Dahdah @ 🇳🇱@parasight

@levelsio You explaining LAN to Gen Z is making me feel way older than I like. 😬

1h21

Serg@serglotz

@levelsio I miss lan parties and will do one soon irl with a couple of friends from 20 years ago; same games, wc3 etc, via lan old versions of those games

2h641

Sebastian Bugal@nullnameguy

@levelsio Man lan parties were the shit everyone rocked up with their beefy pc and just played games till your eyes crusted shut

2h541

Thomas Gray@ThomasGrayX

@levelsio having ran a sponsored LAN and attended to quakecon for several years I know there’s about to be terabytes of porn going through there.

1h84

@levelsio@levelsio

@cruizba Yessss, that's my goal, http://pieter.com/3d is a draft but it's quite bad, it'd be sick indeed if more computers automatically show up when more people enter the room and they get cabled up!

1h80

Drew Miko@xdrewmiko

@levelsio I am young, so only had Minecaft via LAN kinda parties.

2h74

Mehdi Nabhani@NabhaniMehdi

@levelsio Asking parents to drive you with your massive 486er brand new super computer to the party 🎉 What a memory

2h46

Ben van Hartingsveldt@ben221199

@levelsio I organized them on my 'middelbare school' until 7 years ago. 🥹

1h121

Lukas Caha@lukas_caha

@levelsio I actually got into coding via LAN parties. When the games starts to get boring you pull out game development and from that it's just one step into the web and entire computer science.

2h35

Michael Nicks@michaelnicks0

@levelsio blast from the past. i remember lugging my shit around to my friends houses. also went to a few big lan events (UVALAN, etc). great times

1h31

Andriy Zhuk@azpwnz

@levelsio We had a city level LAN around 2005 in my small city in Ukraine

We had used DC++ to chat and share files, netspeakphone app to chat too, we played games like CS 1.6, later one of the admins setup torrents. It was cool time. Later came internet and social..

1h24