Discovery: Vobis BBS Web Snapshot from 1996 [German]

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SoftWitch
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Location: Germany

Discovery: Vobis BBS Web Snapshot from 1996 [German]

Post by SoftWitch »

Hey Guys,

Vobis was a computer retailer in Germany, active from the 1980s till early 2000s. They were notoriously known for their attempts to break the Wintel monopoly with their line of Highscreen branded PCs. They comissioned Luigi Colani to design their cases, tried to replace Windows 95 with OS/2 3.0, offered "PCs" with Alpha CPU, preinstalled IBM PC-DOS 2000 (7.x) around the year 2000 and had BeOS in their software range.

I just needed a driver for my Highscreen laptop arriving soon, so what's more obvious than checking Wayback Machine for an archived version? What I found was a nice capture of their 1996/1997 website, notably featuring an almost 100% intact web interface to their BBS! Including the needed drivers, and lots of OS/2 and Alpha stuff, of course.

To those who can read German: Have fun :)

>>> www.vobis.de 1996/97 <<<

Navigation aid to contents

Inside these main categories the content should be self-explanatory: Many downloads are in English language.

The other categories cover the BBS itself and German computer manuals. Some are very useful and provide detailed troubleshooting hints for vintage DOS, Windows 3.x and OS/2 systems.
Last edited by SoftWitch on Mon Apr 23, 2018 11:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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BetaOS
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Re: Discovery: Vobis BBS Web Snapshot from 1996 [German]

Post by BetaOS »

About Vorbis... in Poland, we had Vorbis too...
active from the 1980s till early 2000s.
I remember watching an mid/late 2000's Vorbis ad, probrably Vorbis in Poland was there longer than your German Vorbis.
Offtopic Comment
When i was very little (i was 5 years old back them), i didn't said Windows word as "Windows", i said "Vorbis". That's... interesting?
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Also mods/admins, delete post if it doesn't really fit here, it's bit on a topic (about Vorbis).
I generally don't surf here anymore, but I might show up from time to time.

WwOS
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Re: Discovery: Vobis BBS Web Snapshot from 1996 [German]

Post by WwOS »

SoftWitch wrote:What I found was a nice capture of their 1996/1997 website, notably featuring an almost 100% intact web interface to their BBS! Including the needed drivers, and lots of OS/2 and Alpha stuff, of course.

To those who can read German: Have fun :)
Wow! Thanks! This site completely skipped my attention back in the days. My first two PCs were Highscreen Desktops, a 386SX and a 486DX. I used DR DOS instead of MS-DOS, but also Windows 3.0 and then later Windows 3.1.

I would have been very interested in the other stuff Vobis did, like OS/2 and Alpha, but I didn't have the time nor the money back then to really go for it... When I started with Linux, Vobis was already in a decline.

I think your discovery will help me alot with my vintage PCs, like the Highscreen 486 I still own. I tried the FreeDOS distribution on it, but it lacks a CD-ROM drive and the HDD capacity is very limited, so it was kind of no fun. I think I will try either my own DR DOS 5.0 or Novell DOS 7 if I can get my hands on a german version of it.

So thanks again! Great discovery!

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