Back in 1999, I was introduced to Linux and really wanted to get my hands on using it at home. I didn’t have a computer of my own at the time, but my parents did have a second computer thanks to my father bringing home a retired 486 PC from his work.

Naturally this was used to allow us to play DOS games whenever he would work on the family PC. Being that I was the one who was actually interested in computers, I spent a lot of time on it and eventually wondered about a way to get Linux on it so I can learn how to use it.

At some point, my mother was nice enough to gift me a book on Linux which brought to my attention the concept of things like UMSDOS and LOADLIN, which were options to then boot a distribution such as Pygmy Linux which is described as follows:

… Pygmy is UMSDOS based… co-exists peacefully with DOS/Win95, 98 on the same partition. …minimal configuration is i486, 8 MB RAM and approximately 25 MB of disk space… internet ready… supports connection via …modem and …LAN… allows installation of Slackware, Redhat and Debian packages.

The idea of doing this now is nightmarish for so many reasons, but back then it was a boon to me because Linux would coexist with Windows without me having to do anything with partitions. Here I had an installation of Linux I could learn on and then if I screwed it up, I could just unzip the original distribution and carry on.

Last week, I was speaking with a friend and I mentioned that Slackware was my first distribution but sort of–I did eventually install a pure distribution of it later on. It got me thinking: whatever happened to Pygmy Linux?

Title: Pygmy Linux
Version: 0.9
Entered-date: 23FEB2001 
Description: Pygmy Linux is small distribution of the Linux operating
             system, based on Slackware 7.1. Pygmy use UMSDOS filesystem,
             it allows an user to install a fully functional operating
             system, that co-exists peacefully with DOS/Win9x on the same
             partition. Pygmy is internet ready, it supports connection
             via modem and network card.
Keywords: UMSDOS minilinux
Author: pepso@penguin.cz (Peter Psota)
Maintained-by: pepso@penguin.cz (Peter Psota)
Primary-site: http://pygmy.penguin.cz
              ftp://ftp.penguin.cz/pub/Pygmy 
Alternate-site: 
Platforms: DOS, Win9x
Copying-policy: GPL 
End

It never got much of an update after I stopped using it in favour of Slackware (I later switched to Debian). In October 2002, Pygmy 0.92 was the last version to be released, based on Slackware 7.1.

The author, Peter Psota shut down the website for the project and besides a few websites lingering out there, details and availability of its download was scarce. Heck, even details about the man himself are scarce as it seems that he just disappeared from the Internet completely.

In any event, I decided to see if I could boot it again and the idea came to mind that it might work in DOSBox. I don’t have any 486 PCs kicking about and my main computer has an ARM-based Apple M1 Max (Mac Studio) which is thousands of times faster than the PC I ran Pygmy on in the first place, so emulation it is.

Sadly, no matter what I try, DOSBox and Pygmy cannot get along. I suspect it’s a very simple reason: once you run LOADLIN, a lot of things that make DOSBox seemingly work just won’t with it once gone. Perhaps with some tweaking of the sandbox’s configuration file I would get it to boot, but there are better ways to deal with this.

UTM is a really great implementation of QEMU for Apple Silicon computers. Honestly it’s good enough to use in lieu of VMware Fusion and it boots Windows 11 just great for me. However, what I am glad it does well is enabling relatively simple VMs with custom configurations to be created.

So I created a Pentium-class computer with no USB and a 2 GB IDE drive. Easy to get DOS on to it right? Well, sort of. Here’s a catch: I can get DOS and Windows 3.1 installed just fine using disk images, but how do I get files on to it? macOS hasn’t had useful support for FAT16 since forever so I had to find a way to get data on to the drive.

But of course, the answer was simple: Linux. I can just unzip the contents to the QCOW image for the DOS VM I created in another VM running Linux, which does support FAT16, and then run that QCOW image as a standalone machine. This worked and now I had a login prompt!

This is a -very- barebones operating system and uses a lot of relics from Linux’s past–think ipchains. But more importantly, I wasn’t sure if I could get it online. It doesn’t want to detect the network card I gave it!

The Tulip option logically would make the most sense, as the RTL8139 might be just too new for this distribution right? But nope. No dice. Neither works. NE2K? No luck there either. It seems that this distribution is destined to be an island. I could probably PPP my way out, but then it occurred to me that I have gotten way too comfortable with things as this is the year 2000 and the idea of plug and play in Linux was out of the question.

Of course NE2K would be supported and then scrolling past lines telling me that if you use this driver then you should just get a new network card, I see an option for RTL8139 support too. Being that then I actually used a DEC Tulip-based card on that old 486, I opted to enable that card to be supported. I changed the card to be a Tulip and booted it back up–but did it work?

Nope. The module is listed in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules as an option, but it is not actually there. Sigh. What options do I have left?

Oh good. NE2000 is an option after all. Thankfully it is an option for QEMU so let’s do this!

I booted it up and then immediately probed for it. No error. Using ifconfig shows a network device! Hooray! dhclient had a hiccup but it then got an IP address!

So it has an IP address, but does it mean that it is online?

It is! My first Linux distribution running atop of a weird disk configuration is alive and online again! It can even do DNS without any struggle. I added configuration lines to /etc/rc.d and then rebooted the system for it all to stick.

So now that this is Internet-enabled, what is left? Well, sadly there isn’t much else I can do with this distribution as it is a regular CLI Linux that is over two decades old. I tried in vain to find the XFree86 distribution made for it, which literally unzipped itself into the appropriate directly under DOS and just worked.

The original site its download was hosted at has nothing left of the distribution itself and while the Wayback Machine has an archive of it, it does not appear that I can download any files nor find the XFree86 I would need to make this any interesting.

I could go down the rabbit hole of grabbing Slackware packages and installing those once more, but honestly that is a lot of effort for a lark. This is probably as good as this post will get I guess!

If you want to download the 0.9 release, you can grab it here. Maybe if people are interested, I’ll zip up the QCOW and post it on the Internet Archive when I get a chance!

As taken from this article:

Jagmeet Singh said he’s hearing from families who call the rise in interest rates “sharp and rapid” — resulting in “mortgage misery.”

“There are so many families that are wondering how to afford to keep their homes,” he said.

The federal NDP leader addressed ongoing concerns with Canada’s high cost of mortgages and interest rates in front of a Windsor, Ont., home Wednesday morning.

[…]

He said adding to the problem is Canada is in the midst of a housing shortage and needs to build more faster than ever before.

“We also need to build more homes, rapidly. More homes that are affordable to rent or to buy. We need to make massive investments and make those investments as quickly as possible … And we need to make sure we’re taking measures to save people money, to put money back in their pockets.”

Singh said the government should be exploring incentives to encourage developers to build privately.

All of this had my incensed so I opted to write a letter to my MP who is also in the same party.

Mr. Davies,

I am writing you today to express my displeasure at your leader, Jagmeet Singh’s decision to put the plight of mortgage-holders above the plight of renters. For him when speaking with reporters to use “mortgage misery” and then not discuss what renters are facing such as “eviction atrocity”, “rent increase melancholy”, and “displacement agony” is counter to the values I expect from the NDP and its leader.

Why must we rely on the private sector to provide housing as he proposed in this media show he made on July 20th, 2023? What are you, your leader, and your party proposing to do that doesn’t require housing to turn a profit?

We have seen over the past 40-years that relying on the private sector to build adequate housing stock has simply not worked. I’ve watched many rental properties in your leader’s own riding of Burnaby South be turned into luxury condos at price-points none of the former residents of the area could ever afford. We’re now seeing this play out in our own riding and as a renter, it doesn’t help my anxiety.

Where is his demand for the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation to return to funding new development of cooperative housing? Why are we sticking to the binary of either renting or owning? The building of cooperative housing should be front and centre as an alternative to ownership.

If we must stick to the binary of renting and owning, why are we then not having the CMHC or some similar body be the landlord? What is the problem with having the government compete with the private sector to depress rental prices and make it less compelling to rent homes that aren’t purpose-rental to begin with?

Let’s stop making housing a problem for the private sector to resolve.

I’ve had to deal with the messaging that housing is an investment throughout my life, yet somehow it is overlooked that investments come with risk. I invest my retirement savings as a way to increase its worth for me, but I watched in 2021 my loss of tens of thousands of my hard-earned dollars because of market conditions. Where was my relief? I never expected it because I knew that my investments were a risk, yet somehow housing is too sacred?

All of this stinks and hurts everyone. I do not want to see mortgage holders suffer as I can make arguments to why owning is better than renting, but to see this sort of messaging and then be tone deaf to everyone else all in the same speech goes to show how out of touch Mr. Singh is with the public. Mortgage-holders who do not have the means to pay as interest rates rise definitely need assistance where reasonable, but renters are once again being forgotten.

Jagmeet’s desire to stick to this binary speaks volumes about the lack of imagination coming from the NDP during a housing crisis created by the Liberals and Conservatives since I was born. To seemingly want to stick to messaging to assuage the status quo instead of proposing something as radical as what other countries have done tells me that your leader and party are out of touch with actual solutions that hard-working people in this country need.

Regards,

Cariad Heather Keigher

Reminder: if you ever want to write your Member of Parliament, it’s free provided you’re sending a letter to their Ottawa office.

Details can be found here!

Mail may be sent postage-free to any Member of Parliament at the following address:

[Name of Member of Parliament]

House of Commons

Ottawa, Ontario

Canada

K1A 0A6

After SkyTrain was extended to Scott Road in 1991 and plans were put in place to extend it to the Expo Line’s current terminus, King George, there was a lot of talk by BC Transit and the then ruling Social Credit (Socred) government of the time on where to take Metro Vancouver’s transit network next. With more service means more trains and BC Transit made it a point to investigate its options.

Test Vehicle 06 or “TV06” was brought over from Urban Transportation Development Corporation’s facility in Kingston, Ontario. UTDC were the creators of the original SkyTrain technology and vehicles, so it was a natural fit for them to be involved with the creation of a successor vehicle.

UTDC’s approach was simple: take an existing Mark I vehicle and extend it. What was interesting about their approach was that the vehicle they chose was used on the SkyTrain demonstration line in 1983.

The vehicles used for the demonstration were the property of UTDC and had been used for testing and sales purposes after they returned home. UTDC decided that one of the vehicles would be better served as a test platform for a longer version of the vehicle with an additional door.

BC Transit continued to investigate options for the future of SkyTrain including hiring a film production crew to build a mockup train. This train was made of wood and while I cannot confirm, I have read that it was put on display at the 1991 Pacific National Exhibition (PNE).

These trains may look familiar despite never having made any revenue service appearance, as this version of the Mark II was eventually used for Kuala Lumpur’s metro system. They were sold as cheaper than existing SkyTrain vehicles, could hold twice as many people per car, and were of course still compatible with the existing system.

However, plans were about to briefly change with an upcoming election. The sitting Socred government lost handily to the New Democratic Party (NDP) in the 1991 fall election. This new government had long been skeptical of SkyTrain and wanted to implement light rail (LRT) as opposed to advanced light rail (ALRT).

The story around the Millennium Line potentially becoming LRT too deserves its own article, but suffice to say, after a few years, this idea was abandoned sometime after Premier Mike Harcourt resigned and Glen Clark took his place.

He favoured going back to SkyTrain and in 1998, his government had BC Transit partner with Bombardier, UTDC’s successor to not only use ALRT technology for the new line, but to also build the trains right next to SkyTrain’s maintenance facility in Burnaby.

A “dummy” train was made and tested on the Expo Line during the planning stages for the new vehicles. It had no powertrain and thus had to be pushed around, but it was used to provide data to BC Transit and Bombardier for the development of a new train.

In 2000, the Mark II test vehicle started to venture on the now Expo Line. For the most part, tests were flawless and minus a few tweaks to the line itself such as changes to switches or placement of track indicators, they eventually entered revenue service in 2001 just in time for 2002’s opening of the Millennium Line.

The Mark IIs and Mark Is were a common sight on both lines. However, the Mark IIs were more popular as they had features such as air conditioning and were considerably quieter in operation. Exiting a Mark II train during the morning or afternoon rush was also much easier thanks to having three doors and more space when standing.

While the Mark I is still a common sight on the Expo Line, they are approaching nearly four decades in use for the original train sets and despite a refurbishment programme starting in 2013, they are due to be retired.

Later this year, Mark V trains will be delivered from Alstom, who has since acquired Bombardier. A total of 41 new train sets have been ordered to replace the aging Mark I fleet and to allow for the extension of the Millennium Line to Arbutus to meet expected capacity needs. By 2026, these new trains will completely replace the Mark Is.

I personally hope someone acquires one of the Mark I pairs and opens a coffee shop inside of one called the “Expresso Line”. If you like that idea and want to run with it, it’s free.

Portions of this article were sourced from this Buzzer piece written back in April 2019. This was also originally posted to cohost.org/VancouverTransit.

Shopping centre with a disused railway going through

Map showing its old path

If you find yourself wandering in and around Chinatown and Gastown, you might notice an alleyway that there is an alleyway that goes on an angle from the port to International Village shopping centre, with its entrance continuing this path towards about where Stadium-Chinatown station stands today.

This is what is left of a railway that connected the Canadian National Railway’s (CNR) yard in what is today Yaletown plus other railway services to the Canadian Pacific (CPR) yard near the Port of Vancouver.

Prior to 1932, the CPR’s only option to reach Burrard Inlet was a pathway that crossed through a cut in Vancouver’s busy city centre. The railway intersected with the busy streets of Pender and Hastings and passed the BC Electric Railway’s downtown terminus at Carrall.

This unsurprising produced a great deal of congestion for the city and railway. The railway needed to get mail, freight, and passengers around quickly and the city wanted fewer accidents. At a cost of CA$1.6 million (or about CA$33 million in 2023), a tunnel was built under Dunsmuir street to then s-curve to an exit at about Burrard Street.

CPR trains could now quickly loop around to their station at what is now Waterfront and no longer have to find themselves at odds with other railway traffic or people.

This tunnel would keep its importance until passenger and freight services to the area ceased in 1982. It would then eventually become the underground portion of the Expo Line we have on the SkyTrain system today.

As for the former surface railway, it had become disused and over time development in the area turned it into a parking lot, a beautified alley, and the main hall of a shopping centre. It seems that both the tunnel and the cut it replaced have survived in their own ways.

This was originally posted to cohost.org/VancouverTransit.

A comment came up in my direction this past week that I felt like I need to refute: “you need to stream on Twitch to do well at speedrunning”. This response was troubling as it came from someone that the speedrunning community needs more of: women.

Women and non-men are less common participants in the speedrunning world. There are a lot of reasons for this, but a reason is that streaming can be daunting. This may be due to concerns about safety, the cost of streaming itself, or just having little to no desire to have a public face when engaging in the hobby. However, this should not be a limiting factor and there are a lot of options to get in on speedrunning and I want to write about them here.

Firstly, you can speedrun a video game even if you have a loose interest in it. Getting a world record should never be your goal. I enjoy speedrunning Super Mario World when I can and I am only somewhere in the 700-800th place range in the category I like to run. My goal is to beat my last best time and keep getting better than what I did before. Everyone else is just people I am passing on my own journey.

This attitude I feel is healthy and important. Nobody should have solely “compete” with other speedrunners, but instead just best themselves. It’s no different than picking up an exercise routine and besting your 10 KM runs.

Secondly, streaming gear is expensive but you don’t have to go all out on recording your runs. If you’re streaming a game that is emulated or running on your personal computer, you don’t have to do much other than record your game locally using just OBS. And yeah. You only have to record your speedrun if you want to track it on a website like [Speedrun.com](https://web.archive.org/web/20250102001603mp_/https://www.speedrun.com–most if not all of the leaderboards require you to record the run in its entirety. If you just want to use a tool like LiveSplit to just time it and never record it, then so be it!

If you’re dealing with a console that you wish to record, you have the option to just use your laptop’s webcam or your cell phone! Pointing a camera at a screen and playing the game the most kick butt way you know how is perfectly valid. Should you wish to make a better recording than whatever your camera outputs, capture options are out there that won’t break US$50. It doesn’t need to be expensive or high-quality to make it useful.

I have one argument against streaming speedrunning: it’s distracting to interact with anyone watching you. When you stream on Twitch, you are for a lack of a better way of describing it an entertainer–that is what the Canada Revenue Agency claims I am at least. Speedrunning offline is perfectly fine and I want to encourage you to do it even if you want to keep it low-key!

Speedrunning is for all.