Retro Markus 🇩🇰🇩🇪

#retrocomputing #sun #partbrowser Building the Ultimate Sun Microsystems Part & System Browser I have no idea if anyone else will find this useful or care, but it was driving me completely insane that there was no single, centralized place to easily search for historical Sun Microsystems part numbers, cross-reference them, or pull up a clean list of components by specific machine. So, I did what any self-respecting retrocomputing enthusiast and systems guy would do: I scraped a couple of vintage Field Service Manual (FEH) and handbook sources, normalized the messy data, and stuffed it all into a proper database. If you want to take a look (it's currently live in a testing phase), you can check it out over on osfom.org/collection/peripherals (scroll down to the bottom). What it does: Browse by Part Class: Explore components grouped by their classic FRU class codes (like 501, 370, 300, etc.). Browse by System: Find everything compatible with vintage workstations and servers—ranging from the early SPARCstation 1 and 2, up through the classic "pizza boxes" (SS4, SS5, SS10, SS20, LX), Ultra Series, all the way to massive enterprise hardware. It's been a fun little side project bringing some order to the chaotic legacy documentation of the Sun era. Feedback, edge cases, or extra data contributions are always welcome!

#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #search #searchengine #frogfind #ncsa #mosaic #ncsamosaic #sun #sparcstation #sgi #unix

Catch of the Day: The Forefather of the World Wide Web! 🏛️🕸️

Hey Retro Fans!

Hold your breath and bow in reverence. Today, our FrogFind radar didn't just catch an old browser; it caught the absolute foundation of the modern internet. Between all the Nintendos and dusty Windows PCs, this gigantic milestone appeared:

NCSA Mosaic 2.7b5 on UNIX (X11)!

For those who weren't online in the early 90s: Mosaic, developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), was the first web browser that could display images inline next to text (rather than in a separate window). Starting in 1993, it was the spark that made the World Wide Web appealing to the masses! The Mosaic team later went on to found Netscape, and even Microsoft's first Internet Explorer was based on licensed Mosaic code.

The fact that today, in 2026, someone boots up a UNIX machine (perhaps an old Sun SPARCstation or an SGI) and navigates our frog pond using the final beta version of NCSA Mosaic (from around 1996) is like operating a working time machine. It proves one thing: True HTML survives decades.

A reverent cheer to the pioneers of the internet!

Your FrogFind Team 🐸

#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #search #searchengine #frogFind #ibm #os2 #firefox #mozilla

Catch of the Day: The OS that tried to beat Windows! 🏢🔵

Hey Retro Fans!
Hold on to your floppy disks, because the FrogFind radar has caught a true piece of computing history today. Among all the Nintendos and old Macs, an operating system appeared that will make IT veterans immediately nod in respect: OS/2!

Our bouncer logged this fabulous guest:
Mozilla Firefox 48.0 running on OS/2

For the younger frogs in the pond: OS/2 was developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft in the late 80s and was intended to be the successor to DOS. It was technically superior, and its stable multitasking was a dream! But then Microsoft released Windows 3.1 and later Windows 95, the partnership shattered, and IBM's "better Windows" lost the great war for home computers.

The fact that today, in 2026, someone is browsing the web with OS/2 (probably via a modern continuation like ArcaOS or eComStation) and a specifically ported Firefox 48 is pure, unbridled love for the platform. OS/2 lives, and it uses FrogFind!

Cheers to the OS/2 Warp veterans!

Your FrogFind Team 🐸

#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #search #searchengine #frogFind #mac #macos #internetexplorer #internetexplorer5

Catch of the Day: A Beta Look Back! 🍏🔍

Hey Retro Fans!

Today, the FrogFind radar caught a true software fossil that will make Apple historians' eyes light up: Internet Explorer 5.0b1 on a Mac!

Wait... b1? Exactly! The "b1" stands for Beta 1. We are not talking about the regular Internet Explorer 5 for the Mac (which was released in 2000 and, with its revolutionary Tasman engine, was the best Mac browser for a long time). No, this is an unfinished, shaky test version (Beta 1) from the summer or fall of 1999!

Whoever is running this machine today probably popped in an old "Macworld" magazine CD, installed this pre-release version, and is happily surfing through the Frog pond. Such leaks and early beta builds are often full of amusing bugs, placeholder graphics, and unfinished rendering routines. But FrogFind is tough and serves up the finest, most digestible HTML even to this beta relic.

We love it when you dig deep into your software archives!

Your FrogFind Team 🐸

#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #search #searchengine #FrogFind #ebook #kindle #tolino #pocketbook

Catch of the Day: The Internet on Electronic Paper! 📖⚡

Hey Retro Fans!
Today, we are shining our spotlight on a class of devices you might not immediately associate with web browsing. Our logs today once again featured an E-Book Reader (disguised as Apple Safari 4.0).

Anyone who has ever tried to load a modern website using the "experimental browser" of an old Amazon Kindle, Tolino, or PocketBook knows the pain: These devices have extremely low RAM, very little processing power, and the e-ink display absolutely struggles with heavy animations or pop-ups. The result is usually a frozen screen or an endless, flickering refresh cycle.

This is exactly where FrogFind shines! By strictly stripping out JavaScript, CSS, and images, the Frog pond transforms the modern web into pure, lightweight text – perfectly formatted for electronic paper. Suddenly, that old e-reader becomes a fantastic tool for reading Wikipedia articles or news in bed without any distractions.

Save your eyes and keep on reading!
Your FrogFind Team 🐸

@flexion very cool!

#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #search #searchengine #frogFind #BeOS #NetPositive

FrogFind's "Catch of the Day": Greetings from an alternate timeline (BeOS & NetPositive!) 🚀💾
Hey Retro Fans!

Buckle up, because today we are taking a trip into an alternate computing timeline. Today’s Catch of the Day comes from an operating system that was miles ahead of its time in the late 90s and enjoys absolute cult status today.

This afternoon at 5:08 PM, this legendary entry appeared in our server logs:

🏆 NetPositive 2.2.1 on BeOS

Why this is so special:
BeOS was an incredible multimedia operating system. It was so advanced that in 1996, Apple was on the verge of buying the company (Be Inc.) to use it as the foundation for Mac OS X. At the very last second, Apple chose NeXT instead – and the rest is history.

Someone out there booted up a BeOS machine today and fired up its native, built-in browser called NetPositive (affectionately known by fans as Net+). This browser hails from an era where CSS and JavaScript were still in their absolute infancy. The fact that NetPositive can send a flawless search query to FrogFind today, almost 30 years later, and flawlessly render our text-based HTML results is exactly why we run this project!

Cheers to the BeOS community for keeping this piece of tech history alive! 🐝💻

Your FrogFind Team 🐸