{
 "id": 69800,
 "slug": "modern-development-on-windows-98-using-putty-and-ssh",
 "url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/snippets/modern-development-on-windows-98-using-putty-and-ssh/",
 "language": "en",
 "title": "Modern development on Windows 98 using PuTTY and SSH",
 "subtitle": "SSH into a cloud Linux machine turns old hardware into a terminal.",
 "summary": "Yes, indirectly: I found a PuTTY build compatible with Windows 98 and used it to log into a modern Debian Linux virtual machine in the cloud. The 20-year old laptop became a window into a modern development environment.",
 "topics": [
  "MacBook",
  "SSH",
  "ThinkPad",
  "Windows",
  "cloud",
  "experiment",
  "hacking",
  "laptop",
  "linux",
  "networking",
  "programming",
  "repair",
  "retro",
  "vim",
  "webdesign"
 ],
 "date": "2016-06-23",
 "published": "2016-06-23T00:00:00+02:00",
 "created": "2026-08-30T07:13:32.971000+02:00",
 "updated": "2026-08-30T07:16:56.990000+02:00",
 "full_article_url": "https://willem.com/en/2016-06-23_building-the-blog-in-style/",
 "author": {
  "name": "Willem L. Middelkoop",
  "url": "https://willem.com"
 },
 "note": "A short distillation of a longer willem.com post. Not currently published on willem.com itself.",
 "answers_question": "Can you use Windows 98 for modern software development?",
 "text": "Forget a modern IDE or web browser on Windows 98, and a single crashing program can freeze the whole machine. But Notepad and the file Explorer are there, and I found a compatible copy of PuTTY.\nWith PuTTY the laptop, a 1995 Toshiba with a 75MHz 486DX4 processor, 16MB RAM and a 640x480 display, logs into a modern Debian Linux virtual machine in the cloud. All real work happens on the remote machine; the laptop is just a window into it. That was enough to program this weblog.\nNetworking was the easy part: the internet protocol is much the same today as in the 90s, so a 10-megabit 3COM PCMCIA adapter and an ordinary network cable got it onto my local network. Do not connect such an old machine directly to the public internet; old computers are interesting targets.",
 "markdown_url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/snippets/modern-development-on-windows-98-using-putty-and-ssh/snippet.md"
}