RM Net LM

[cst101]

Hi, Does anyone still have a RM Net LM server sitting under a desk or in a cupboard collecting dust that they dont require anymore?

 

Thanks

[kmount]

Wow, not heard that mentioned in a long time!

 

Sadly not though!

[cst101]

,,,,,,

[tonyd]

That scares me! I vaguely remember managing this many many moons back, pre-NT4... It was OS/2 based if I recall correctly, and had some big advantages over it predecesor Net 3.1 - the network OS that needed a reboot to change a users password - that really was nasty! Most of these servers should have been decommisioned around a decade ago...

[russdev]

You be surprised up until about 3/4 years ago where schools still running them not a main network but had piece of software that couldn't replace.

 

Russ

[cst101]

I know its a very odd thing to ask for a product thats been out of production for over 15 years. I have a server that was fully functioning but thanks to OS/2 the HD partition became corrupt. Some of the kids at my partners school are interested to see how old networks and OS worked.

 

If any one can help please PM me.

 

Thanks

[Oops_my_bad]

Wow indeed, good luck in your findings!

 

I remember at my old school this "mysterious" net LM server in the cupboard with the black dos screen, which curiously at the time, was able to power a whole network of "diskless" WFW 3.1.1 machines with a GUI!

 

Pretty nifty for it's time I suppose Have to feel sorry for the sysadmins of that era! What with no google etc..

[john]

Pretty nifty for it's time I suppose Have to feel sorry for the sysadmins of that era! What with no google etc..

AARGH What would we do without Geoff, oh and of course there would have been no Edugeek either!!!!! ARGH!

[kmount]

Now that I think about it, there might (small chances mind..) still be that plastic case lying around which held the 800MB hdd from the old Net LM Server here. I held onto it being a hoarder but may have got shot now.

 

Will look on Mon.

[maniac]

The school I used to goto as a student used RM netLM from about 1993 until I left in 1999. About 80 386 and 486 computers all run by two servers, great big floor standing things they were. I remember when they upgraded one of them when I was in Year 11 to a pentium based server, and we got given the old 486 based machine to mess around with - 486 66MHz, 32MB ram (which was loads in those days)and a 300mb hard drive.

 

That was in the days when they let students mess around with this stuff, we had a room at the back of the ICT room that we'd pretty much been given free reign of where we had set up our own windows 3.11 network using old RM AX admin workstations and various other kit that was lingering around. I remember the day when the school decided to chuck it all out, so I took it all home!

 

I also remember writing a messaging/e-mail program in VB3 for that nework. Because the workstations were diskless there there was a share on the server that was used for temporary files which was read/write for everyone meaning I could stick a database on it. Most of the students at the school were using my program before the staff found it and disapproved, and I had to explain to the head of ICT how I'd written it as he had tried to write a simelar program himself some months previous and failed to get it to work.

 

Mike.

Edited February 14, 2009 by maniac

[Richard_L_James]

Tonyd, correct NetLM ran OS/2 on the server with Windows 3.1 clients "RPL booting" which basically involved bootcode on NIC (Network Interface Card) which loaded a DOS image off the server with a basic config.sys and then a custom very large MTSL (Machine Transparent Software Loading) script which basically waited for several machines to reach the same boot point before then proceeding with loading Windows. From memory pressing CTRL + E on boot on a client workstation provided a different NIC boot menu in the same way that pressing F8 does under Windows - I think it allowed booting from harddisk/floppy but after 15 years I can't remember exactly! P.S Ask any old admins if they ever tried logging onto a NetLM OS/2 server with CTRL-ALT-DEL .... ! :-)

[srochford]

I'm sure I started getting grey hair because of RM Net LM. The school I was working at bought it in the summer of 1992; installation and testing over the summer appeared to go well but once term started we spotted a number of "issues" (as RM called them) - it could take a room of 20 or so machines at least 20 minutes to boot; not good when your lessons are only 35 or 40 minutes long!

 

The NIC boot menu wasn't really like F8 in Windows - it's well before the OS loads. What it did allow you to do was to boot from a Netware server or a Lan Manager server (and I think there was a third option - could have been RM Net but it's all too long ago)

 

The system wasn't thin client because the processing was all done locally but because the workstations were discless you got some of the benefits - update the software once on the server and all the machines get it at next boot.

 

Eventually I migrated that domain to Windows NT 3.5; I think RM didn't have a supported migration route or it was too expensive so we then had vanilla NT on the workstations but with a domain called RMNet because we couldn't change it :-)