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Comment by CoastalCoder | Hacker News Reader

Any reason one couldn't connect that machine to a network-accessible KVM switch?

Assuming the KVM switch, and related infrastructure, are well-secured, I don't see how Windows 3.1 vulnerabilities would matter.

(Not sure if the job requires feeding floppies and/or CD's into the machine, which AFAIK isn't something solved by any off-the-shelf KVM switch.)

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Few are likely to be connected to the internet, I'd say after perusing https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibas (German, translation should work).

It seems you can actually order the hardware.

>SIEMENS Sibas 32, 6FH6035-1A + 4x 6FH 9543-3BY60 + 6FH 9533-3BY60 + 6FH 9550-3AY60 + 3x 6FH9485-3A + 6FH9484-3A + 6FH9498-3A + 6FH9481-3B Antriebssteuergerät

7500 EUR, 28 kg (found after a quick search).

I'm always amazed how much some of that Siemens stuff still goes for. My employer had a handful of Siemens PCs ranging from 486 Beetles to Pentium III Scenics in daily use until just a few years ago. They really were built to last.

> Few are likely to be connected to the internet

This is my point, actually.

You wouldn't be directly connecting the PC to the Internet. You'd connect the PC to the KVM switch's PS/2 and VGA connectors. The KVM switch present the corresponding virtual desktop to an appropriate user over the Internet using RDP or similar.

Again, I'm not sure such a product currently exists, but I assume it is, given the needs of data-center admins.

Sibas is the kind of thing you run in a locomotive, not on a PC in some stationary building.

The salespeople probably make jokes about high-speed computers.

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