Monday, March 8th, 2021
          	
          	With the weather starting to break, I have been wanting to 
          get back into the office and get back to my various new and 
          unfinished projects. There are quite a few on the docket now, but 
          lately I'm tinkering around with my Windows 98SE machine, 
          specifically with connecting it up to the home lab and indirectly 
          to the internet via various means. 
          
          	Currently, this machine has access to the internet by 
          telnetting into a Raspberry Pi 4, and from there I can access SSH 
          or Lynx like any other terminal without worrying so much about 
          the security implications of using the telnet protocol in the 
          modern day. The Pi is also set up with Browservice proxy 
          capabilities, meaning I can connect to it via the old version 
          (5.5) of Internet Explorer on this machine and access https 
          websites in relative security as well, just like any modern PC 
          except a lot slower, haha. I have been using it primarily to 
          install older Win98 programs without needing to first write them 
          to 3.5" disks or CDs and to access Discord. The Pi only accepts 
          telnet requests from the local network with Browservice going a 
          step further and only accepting requests via Ethernet, and is 
          wired directly into the Win98 machine. It accesses the outside 
          internet through WiFi.
          
          	The Raspberry Pi 4 definitely seems to struggle with 
          Browservice, which is no surprise since it seems to struggle just 
          running an Xserver and a browser tab on its own, haha. It is a 
          nice tool for prototyping though - I will likely replace it with 
          an X86-based miniPC I salvaged from a digital signage unit a few 
          months back (did I write about that one? If not, I will soon) 
          once I get a few more parts to ensure I can get some decent 
          uptime out of it. Getting that unit going would be a big step up 
          towards some of the other big projects I want to try to tackle 
          this year as well.
          
          Next time, I'll go into more detail on this Win98SE machine 
          itself. It was a pretty neat find, very capable for its time, and 
          I haven't actually done much to it yet, haha.
          
          -Prokyonid