On 09 Dec 2025 at 05:29p, Shurato pondered and said...

Thats why I don't understand all of the people going I can't run this my machine, on a vm, under win11, etc. Spend $40 for your hobby
and BOOM .. everything works with the OS that is close enough
to what it was supposed to be run on.

I live in a studio apt. My main PC and laptop take up too much room. I have to do this on mini-PCs.

What about a Raspberry Pi and full-system emulation via QEMU?
You could boot DOS, or OS/2, or whatever, and it'd probably be
fast enough.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?)
By: tenser to Shurato on Thu Dec 11 2025 02:39:59

What about a Raspberry Pi and full-system emulation via QEMU? You could boot DOS, or OS/2, or whatever, and it'd probably be fast enough.

that would be probably good enough, except..
raspberry is not very efficient to run DOS or other emulations due to its processor being a non x86 compatible one.

And you can replace 3 Raspberries with one MiniPC for the same price and energy comsumption (you might even save on energy with your MiniPC when you replace 3 Raspberries), but you have your OS on a nvme and most likely space for an extra sata SSD in your MiniPC.

MiniPC internal GPU is most likely also alot more capable in regards of video codecs in hardware. So you can have a media player, home server + BBS all on one MiniPC. =)

For myself at home i have replaced 3 Raspberries with an N100 MiniPC and are very happy with it.
It is running Proxmox (basicly a managed qemu platform), Synchronet BBS, Media Center, several Servarr Software, DNS Server, Quassel Core (IRC), PaperlessNGX. And i have 3 HDDs for mass storage and an external SSD attached, a NVME and SSD internal inside the MiniPC.

btw: in proxmox you can create VMs for OS2 or DOS or...

TRIGKEY Mini PC 12th Gen Intel Alder Lake-N100 Prozessor (up to 3,40GHz) Green G4 Mini Computer 11 Pro, 16G DDR4 3200Mhz 500G M.2 2280 SSD Mini Desktop PC, Dual HDMI, WiFi 6, BT 5.2, USB 3.2 Gen 2

and the base MiniPC above was 125,-EUR only (70EUR discount, wait for black friday or other discount days)

Mindsurfer
--- SBBSecho 3.32-Linux
* Origin: FuNToPiA BBS - telnet://funtopia.synchro.net:3023 (21:3/119)

On 10 Dec 2025 at 03:49p, Mindsurfer pondered and said...

Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?)
By: tenser to Shurato on Thu Dec 11 2025 02:39:59

What about a Raspberry Pi and full-system emulation via QEMU? You cou boot DOS, or OS/2, or whatever, and it'd probably be fast enough.

that would be probably good enough, except..
raspberry is not very efficient to run DOS or other emulations due to its processor being a non x86 compatible one.

I guess the idea is predicated on not needing stellar performance
for the BBS, which is mostly IO-bound, anyway.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?)
By: tenser to Mindsurfer on Thu Dec 11 2025 07:44:06

Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?) By: tenser to
Shurato on Thu Dec 11 2025 02:39:59

What about a Raspberry Pi and full-system emulation via QEMU? You
cou boot DOS, or OS/2, or whatever, and it'd probably be fast
enough.

that would be probably good enough, except.. raspberry is not very
efficient to run DOS or other emulations due to its processor being a non
x86 compatible one.

I guess the idea is predicated on not needing stellar performance for the BBS, which is mostly IO-bound, anyway.

You can run a bbs on a Raspberry Pi for sure. but buying a Raspberry + SD Card + usb power supply + storage (usb hdd/ssd) will not make a difference to a discounted MiniPC anymore. N100 runs on very low TDP when idle.

what is the advantage in getting the older or less compatible hardware?
i decided to buy a miniPC du to
performance + hardware interfaces + energy consumption + media capabilities + price.

And i had my BBS (MagickaBBS back then) on an Raspberry Pi 3 and 4 before and hell was the file access horrible (especially on the 3 with sd Card). I also tested around with an HP thin client. But i was able to end all experiments and run everything i had on Raspberries and Thinclient on just one MiniPC.

Its maybe not for everyone, but for me it works very well. If you have a raspberry or thin client already, use that. no objection. It will work with some limitations depending on what you plan to do with it.

Mindsurfer
--- SBBSecho 3.32-Linux
* Origin: FuNToPiA BBS - telnet://funtopia.synchro.net:3023 (21:3/119)

On 10 Dec 2025 at 08:28p, Mindsurfer pondered and said...

Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?)
By: tenser to Mindsurfer on Thu Dec 11 2025 07:44:06

Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?) By: tenser to
Shurato on Thu Dec 11 2025 02:39:59

What about a Raspberry Pi and full-system emulation via QEMU? Y
cou boot DOS, or OS/2, or whatever, and it'd probably be fast
enough.

that would be probably good enough, except.. raspberry is not very
efficient to run DOS or other emulations due to its processor being
x86 compatible one.

I guess the idea is predicated on not needing stellar performance for BBS, which is mostly IO-bound, anyway.

You can run a bbs on a Raspberry Pi for sure. but buying a Raspberry +
SD Card + usb power supply + storage (usb hdd/ssd) will not make a difference to a discounted MiniPC anymore. N100 runs on very low TDP
when idle.

what is the advantage in getting the older or less compatible hardware?

A Raspberry Pi 5 is quite capable, supports NVMe out of the box
(no SD required, except for bootstrapping), up to 16 GiB of RAM,
gigabit ethernet with a real PHY, not a USB bridge, but also
USB 3.0, HDMI output, including audio, and is physically quite
small, which was the goal for hosting in a studio apartment: note
the message subject, Small BBS Machines, as in size. Power
consumption and heat output is low, though of course other systems
are comparable. If you don't care about graphics, you can even
run it headless, with a UART for the console: this is a perennial
issue with most mini PCs, which either don't line out the SoC UART
or don't provide a (convenient) header for it.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

* In a message originally to Shurato, tenser said:

On 09 Dec 2025 at 05:29p, Shurato pondered and said...

Thats why I don't understand all of the people going I can't run

this

my machine, on a vm, under win11, etc. Spend $40 for your hobby a BOOM .. everything works with the OS that is close enough to what it was supposed to be run on.

I live in a studio apt. My main PC and laptop take up too much room.

I

have to do this on mini-PCs.

What about a Raspberry Pi and full-system emulation via QEMU? You
could boot DOS, or OS/2, or whatever, and it'd probably be fast
enough.

Could I boot Win 10 32 bit? That might be an option... I'd need 4 cores and
4 threads and 4GB of RAM and at least 128GB Gen 3 NvME SSD for it... My BBS
is Win32, and I run DOS doors. The Linux port never worked.

--
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp,
,wss) (Ports 22,23,110,21,119,999)


---
* Origin: Shurato's Heavenly Sphere telnet://shsbbs.net (21:2/148)

Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?)
By: tenser to Mindsurfer on Thu Dec 11 2025 09:38:55

that would be probably good enough, except.. raspberry is not very
efficient to run DOS or other emulations due to its processor being
x86 compatible one.

I guess the idea is predicated on not needing stellar performance
for BBS, which is mostly IO-bound, anyway.

You can run a bbs on a Raspberry Pi for sure. but buying a Raspberry + SD
Card + usb power supply + storage (usb hdd/ssd) will not make a
difference to a discounted MiniPC anymore. N100 runs on very low TDP when
idle.

what is the advantage in getting the older or less compatible hardware?

A Raspberry Pi 5 is quite capable, supports NVMe out of the box (no SD required, except for bootstrapping), up to 16 GiB of RAM, gigabit ethernet with a real PHY, not a USB bridge, but also USB 3.0, HDMI output, including audio, and is physically quite small, which was the goal for hosting in a studio apartment: note the message subject, Small BBS Machines, as in size. Power consumption and heat output is low, though of course other systems are comparable. If you don't care about graphics, you can even run it headless, with a UART for the console: this is a perennial issue with most mini PCs, which either don't line out the SoC UART or don't provide a (convenient) header for it.

Thats nice to have a dedicated UART for sure. I don't have any monitor attached to my MiniPC.
I access proxmox web interface from my other computer and the LXContainers inside proxmox via ssh.

i just looked up a raspberry pi 5 kit, 16gb Ram, 64gb sd card, power supply, case. then i then added a m2 hat extension and a 500GB NVME to the cart.
That are similar specs compared to the MiniPC i have. You could reduce ram and NVME size and remove the sd card in my example but for the sake of comparison.

Round about 290EUR (might be cheaper in the US) in comparison to my 125EUR for my MiniPC. More then twice the MiniPC price. just saying ;)
And be aware that you have to deal with an (capable but) ARM CPU. Every x86 instruction has to be translated into ARM instructions when you emulate x86 OS.

nuff said =) i made my point. Have a good day!

Mindsurfer
--- SBBSecho 3.32-Linux
* Origin: FuNToPiA BBS - telnet://funtopia.synchro.net:3023 (21:3/119)

Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?)
By: Mindsurfer to tenser on Thu Dec 11 2025 12:55 am

i just looked up a raspberry pi 5 kit, 16gb Ram, 64gb sd card, power supply, case. then i then added a m2 hat extension and a 500GB NVME to the cart. That are similar specs compared to the MiniPC i have. You could reduce ram and NVME size and remove the sd card in my example but for the sake of comparison.

Round about 290EUR (might be cheaper in the US) in comparison to my 125EUR for my MiniPC. More then twice the MiniPC price. just saying ;) And be aware that you have to deal with an (capable but) ARM CPU. Every x86 instruction has to be translated into ARM instructions when you emulate x86 OS.

nuff said =) i made my point. Have a good day!

I think some people like the 'coolness factor' of running a BBS on a Raspberry Pi, or the newness of it, so it's less about the money spent. I think it's interesting, but for running a BBS, I'd still choose x86 hardware for the price and compatibility.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.32-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?)
By: Nightfox to Mindsurfer on Wed Dec 10 2025 16:27:02

I think some people like the 'coolness factor' of running a BBS on a Raspberry Pi, or the newness of it, so it's less about the money spent. I think it's interesting, but for running a BBS, I'd still choose x86 hardware for the price and compatibility.

yep, its a cool little machine. I have 1,3 and 4. I even have a laser etched wooden case for the 1.
But it ended for me with the 4 for the reason of cheap MiniPCs with a 15W TDP (even much lower on idle) :) You still can have a Raspberry Pi 1 and just learn coding in C++ or something on it. Or you can take it with you and power it from a power-bank. Whats also cool about the Raspberries in comparison to other SBCs is the huge and creative community around it.

So everbody who wants to run a bbs on one of those, go ahead. Do it. Have fun and learn some new stuff. =)

Mindsurfer
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* Origin: FuNToPiA BBS - telnet://funtopia.synchro.net:3023 (21:3/119)

On 10 Dec 2025 at 01:41p, Shurato pondered and said...

* In a message originally to Shurato, tenser said:

Could I boot Win 10 32 bit? That might be an option... I'd need 4
cores and 4 threads and 4GB of RAM and at least 128GB Gen 3 NvME SSD for it... My BBS is Win32, and I run DOS doors. The Linux port never
worked.

Yeah, those specs sound like about what you could get out
of a 8 or 16G Pi5.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 11 Dec 2025 at 12:55a, Mindsurfer pondered and said...

i just looked up a raspberry pi 5 kit, 16gb Ram, 64gb sd card, power supply, case. then i then added a m2 hat extension and a 500GB NVME to
the cart. That are similar specs compared to the MiniPC i have. You
could reduce ram and NVME size and remove the sd card in my example but for the sake of comparison.

Or get the cheapest SD card you can just to install the OS.

The Raspberry Pi 500+ might be another option; for USD 200
it comes with a 256GB SSD with the OS pre-installed and is
embedded in a decent-looking mechanical keyboard. Very
Commodore 64 vibe-ish.

Round about 290EUR (might be cheaper in the US) in comparison to my
125EUR for my MiniPC. More then twice the MiniPC price. just saying ;)
And be aware that you have to deal with an (capable but) ARM CPU. Every x86 instruction has to be translated into ARM instructions when you emulate x86 OS.

Well, that's why you JIT the binary. But yes, the cost of
emulation is ... emulation.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 10 Dec 2025 at 01:41p, Shurato pondered and said...

* In a message originally to Shurato, tenser said:

Could I boot Win 10 32 bit? That might be an option... I'd need 4 cores and 4 threads and 4GB of RAM and at least 128GB Gen 3 NvME SSD

for

it... My BBS is Win32, and I run DOS doors. The Linux port never worked.

Yeah, those specs sound like about what you could get out of a 8 or
16G Pi5.

That would need to be including being inside a VM. I just order a SFF PC
that should work pretty well, though have more power consumption. It
wouldn't have the issue of being ARM based, though.

--
Shurato, Sysop Shurato's Heavenly Sphere (ssh, telnet, pop3, ftp,nntp,
,wss) (Ports 22,23,110,21,119,999)


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
---
* Origin: Shurato's Heavenly Sphere telnet://shsbbs.net (21:2/148)

On 11 Dec 2025 at 01:03a, Shurato pondered and said...

On 10 Dec 2025 at 01:41p, Shurato pondered and said...

* In a message originally to Shurato, tenser said:

Could I boot Win 10 32 bit? That might be an option... I'd need cores and 4 threads and 4GB of RAM and at least 128GB Gen 3 NvME

for

it... My BBS is Win32, and I run DOS doors. The Linux port neve worked.

Yeah, those specs sound like about what you could get out of a 8 or 16G Pi5.

That would need to be including being inside a VM. I just order a SFF PC that should work pretty well, though have more power consumption. It wouldn't have the issue of being ARM based, though.

Once you factor in the overhead of the host system, you should
still have enough resources to emulate an x86 machine with 4GiB
or RAM. Disk space is probably the easiest to negotiate, as
the overhead required to emulate a fixed-size disk is surprisingly
small, as a percentage of storage required for a (say) 128GB
virtual disk device.

But it'll be much easier to do all this on x86 natively, of course,
so sounds like you've come up with a fantastic compromise solution.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?)
By: Mindsurfer to Nightfox on Thu Dec 11 2025 03:22 am

I think some people like the 'coolness factor' of running a BBS on a
Raspberry Pi, or the newness of it, so it's less about the money spent.

yep, its a cool little machine. I have 1,3 and 4. I even have a laser etched wooden case for the 1.
But it ended for me with the 4 for the reason of cheap MiniPCs with a 15W TDP (even much lower on idle) :) You still can have a Raspberry Pi 1 and just learn coding in C++ or something on it. Or you can take it with you and power it from a power-bank. Whats also cool about the Raspberries in comparison to other SBCs is the huge and creative community around it.

Yeah, they're cool machines. One of the devices I have at home is a Zynthian V5, which is a music synthesizer & effects unit built around a Raspberry Pi 4. You can buy the Zynthian hardware kit online; this is the page for the Zynthian V5:

https://blog.zynthian.org/2023/07/zynthian-kit-v5-is-here/

They have a V5.1 now too, which uses a Raspberry Pi 5 rather than a 4. I saw that it can be possible to get a Raspberry Pi 5 to fit into the Zynthian V5 kit I have, but it would involve modifying the Zynthian case. I previously had an earlier Zynthian kit too, which I sold on eBay.. I think the Zynthian stuff is pretty cool, as an open-source music synthesizer. The Zynthian kit hardware is fairly well-built, and I think the Zynthian software is good, too. From what I recall, the Zynthian kits ship from Europe, so they may be more affordable to you than for me.. Also with Trump's tarriffs in the US now, I'd wonder if they'd be even more expensive for me now (thanks Trump), but that's another topic.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.32-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?)
By: Nightfox to Mindsurfer on Thu Dec 11 2025 10:58:07

Yeah, they're cool machines. One of the devices I have at home is a Zynthian V5, which is a music synthesizer & effects unit built around a Raspberry Pi 4. You can buy the Zynthian hardware kit online; this is the page for the Zynthian V5:

https://blog.zynthian.org/2023/07/zynthian-kit-v5-is-here/

They have a V5.1 now too, which uses a Raspberry Pi 5 rather than a 4. I saw that it can be possible to get a Raspberry Pi 5 to fit into the Zynthian V5 kit I have, but it would involve modifying the Zynthian case. I previously had an earlier Zynthian kit too, which I sold on eBay.. I think the Zynthian stuff is pretty cool, as an open-source music synthesizer. The Zynthian kit hardware is fairly well-built, and I think the Zynthian software is good, too. From what I recall, the Zynthian kits ship from Europe, so they may be more affordable to you than for me..
Also with Trump's tarriffs in the US now, I'd wonder if they'd be even more expensive for me now (thanks Trump), but that's another topic.

Thats an interesting project. Looks quite professional already. I would consider it, but i am currently not making much music. An when i was i did it all in the box, FLStudio and VSTs. I wish image line would consider a Linux version of FLStudio, but they always said that will not happen, ever.
But sure, i gonna keep an eye on Zynthian. I guess you can do alot with it for a relatively low price of an build it yourself kit, in comparison to what else is out there as external music gear hardware.

Mindsurfer
--- SBBSecho 3.32-Linux
* Origin: FuNToPiA BBS - telnet://funtopia.synchro.net:3023 (21:3/119)

Re: Re: Small BBS Machines (was: Re: NTVDMx64 issues?)
By: Mindsurfer to Nightfox on Thu Dec 11 2025 11:13 pm

https://blog.zynthian.org/2023/07/zynthian-kit-v5-is-here/

Thats an interesting project. Looks quite professional already. I would consider it, but i am currently not making much music. An when i was i did it all in the box, FLStudio and VSTs. I wish image line would consider a Linux version of FLStudio, but they always said that will not happen, ever. But sure, i gonna keep an eye on Zynthian. I guess you can do alot with it for a relatively low price of an build it yourself kit, in comparison to what else is out there as external music gear hardware.

There are synthesizers on the market that cost less than that Zynthian kit + Raspberry Pi (I think Roland makes some good ones, among others), but I think some of the fun of the Zynthian is that it's something you can assemble yourself. It's also open-source, so the source for the software is freely available.

Nightfox
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