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- Windows ME Museum
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- \ \/\/ / | | | ' \ / _` | / _ \ \ V V / (_-<
- \_/\_/ |_| |_||_| \__,_| \___/ \_/\_/ /__/
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- | |\/| | | || | (_-< / -_) | || | | ' \
- |_| |_| \_,_| /__/ \___| \_,_| |_|_|_|
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- ╔─*──*──*──*──*──*──*──*──*──*──*──*──*──*──*──*─╗
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- ║2* ........................................ *2║
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- ║1 ...........Posted: 2026-01-15........... 1║
- ║2* Tags: sysadmin linux archival my_servs . *2║
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- ╚────────────────────────────────────────────────╝
-
- Introducing the ME Museum. Play around with Windows ME from The Internet Gopher
- Protocol (you can also use my gopher proxy).
-
- gopher://gopher.someodd.zip/1/gateway/me_museum/screen
-
- Screenshot from the Windows ME Museum in Dillo
-
- ## Why?
-
- I wanted to play around and let others play around with weird operating systems
- I like, by setting up a virtual machine server on my Debian server. Why not try
- out various whacky operating systems and have them networked. Some things I'd
- like to do are DOS 4.0 (now that it's open source) and an extremely streamlined
- NetBSD.
-
- # How I did it (rough sketch)
-
- I'll try to open source the scripts. These are the notes I did save. Who knows
- if this is actually what I did or not, however.
-
- Running to install (this process was so long):
-
- ```
- sudo qemu-system-i386 \
- -m 256M \
- -cpu pentium2 \
- -hda winme.qcow2 \
- -cdrom 'floppies/Microsoft Windows ME - Millennium Edition (2000).iso' \
- -boot d \
- -vga cirrus \
- -device rtl8139,netdev=net0 \
- -netdev user,id=net0 \
- -display vnc=0.0.0.0:1 \
- -daemonize
- ```
-
- I was able to use Remmina to VNC into my server like `serverip:5901`. Of course
- don't forget ufw (since there's no password, I made sure to just restrict it to
- a specific IP):
-
- ```
- sudo ufw allow from 10.1.0.2 to any port 5901 proto tcp comment 'VNC for qemu'
- sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.211 to any port 5901 proto tcp comment 'VNC for qemu'
- ```
-
- You can also use this tool to get snapshots:
-
- ```
- /usr/bin/vncsnapshot localhost:1 output.png
- ```
-
- Then just to run the OS:
-
- ```
- sudo qemu-system-i386 \
- -m 256M \
- -cpu pentium2 \
- -hda winme.qcow2 \
- -boot d \
- -boot order=dc \
- -vga cirrus \
- -device rtl8139,netdev=net0 \
- -netdev user,id=net0 \
- -display vnc=0.0.0.0:1 \
- -daemonize
- ```
-
- Now I had to grab the realtek drivers for LAN[1] floppy and mount it.
-
- ```
- sudo qemu-system-i386 \
- -m 256M \
- -cpu pentium2 \
- -hda winme.qcow2 \
- -fda 'floppies/PCI_100M_ethernet_drivers.img' \
- -boot d \
- -boot order=dc \
- -vga cirrus \
- -device rtl8139,netdev=net0 \
- -netdev user,id=net0 \
- -display vnc=0.0.0.0:1 \
- -daemonize
- ```
-
- Now I had to go to control panel then add new hardware, select hardware type
- from list (network) and then open the windows me dir on the floppy. Do not pick
- `RTL8139C+`, QEMU’s device rtl8139 emulates the plain 8139, not the C+ variant.
- Restart. You might have to pkill qemu.
-
- Actually, fuck all that regarding the realtek shit let's just use amdpcnet built
- into winme:
-
- ```
- qemu-system-i386 \
- -m 256M -cpu pentium2 \
- -hda winme.qcow2 \
- -boot order=c \
- -vga cirrus \
- -nic user,model=pcnet \
- -display vnc=0.0.0.0:1 \
- -daemonize
- ```
-
- You'll need to control panel add new hardware,
-
- ## Footnotes
-
- [1]: the realtek drivers for LAN: https://archive.org/details/rtl-8139-full-drivers
