• Dragnmn@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    You can’t virtualize it because you need to physically plug in the hardware, and backups are useless if you can’t read the files without the Win95 software.

    • VoxX@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      You can connect VMs to physical ports. We use a Win XP VM to connect through a USB to serial converter to get data from devices 30+ years old. You can make and use backups because the VM can run the original software.

      • Pulptastic@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Some lab equip has proprietary ports that would need reverse engineering to make and use a USB adapter.

      • Dragnmn@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        That’s fair, I read virtualize as “cloud/hardware far away” and not “local physical machine with a VM on it”.