THE PINET ARMS

Free House & Virtual Public House • Est. 1999
“Where Bits Meet Bitter • Proper Draught • Dial-Up Banter • No Loud Mobiles in the Snug”
Landlord: Barry Higgins • Landlady: Dot • Host: pinet02.vs.mythic-beasts.com • Cellar OS: Debian 12
🍺 WELCOME TO THE PINET ARMS *** HAPPY HOUR ON PACKETS: 5PM - 7PM GMT *** TUESDAY NIGHT PUB QUIZ STARTS AT 8PM SHARP - FIRST PRIZE: BUTCHER'S MEAT RAFFLE & 3.5" FLOPPY DISK *** BARRY SAYS: DON'T TRIP OVER THE 10-BASE-T CABLES NEAR THE DARTBOARD *** NO LAGER SHANDIES BEFORE 11:00 UTC *** PICKLED EGGS 50p 🍺
Home & Welcome On Tap & Cask Bar Snacks Cellar Cam (Live) Virtual Jukebox Pub Rules 💾 Download App The Snug
PiNet Icon
PiNet Desktop Client
Windows 2000 Style App

🕒 Opening Hours

Mon - Thu: 11:00 - 23:00 GMT
Fri & Sat: 11:00 - 00:00 GMT
Sunday: 12:00 - 22:30 GMT
(Server daemon runs 24/7/365, bar staff need their kip though.)

🥚 Bar Snacks Today

  • Smith's Scampi Fries (60p)
  • Bacon Fries (55p)
  • Pork Scratchings (75p)
  • Pickled Egg in a bag of salt (50p)
  • Cheese & Onion Breville Toastie (£1.20)

🍿 Tuesday Quiz Night

Every Tuesday at 8:00 PM GMT
Round 1: British Rail Timetables 1997
Round 2: Dial-up Modem Handshake Noises
Round 3: Picture Round (Coronation Street Villains)
£1 entry per team. Max 4 to a team. No Google on yer mobile or Dot will bar you!

💻 Server Coordinates

Service: PiNet 2.0.0
Node: Debian 12 (bookworm)
Cloud: Mythic Beasts Ltd (UK)
HTTPS: Caddy TLS Auto
Port: 8443 (Reverse Proxied)

PATRON HIT COUNTER
004821

Visits since 14th November 1999

⚠ ATTENTION:
The fruit machine is strictly OUT OF ORDER. Barry lost the coin hopper key down the cellar drain in 2003.

🍺 A Warm Welcome from Landlord Barry Higgins

Right then! Wipe your boots on the coir mat and pull up a barstool. You've reached The PiNet Arms — Britain’s finest virtual local, hosted high in the cloud racks of Telehouse London on Mythic Beasts. Whether you’ve dialled in over an old 56k US Robotics modem or arrived via a 100-megabit fibre pipe, you’re among friends here.

Dot’s just put a fresh jar of pickled eggs on the bar counter, the radiators are clanking gently in the corner, and the jukebox has got Pulp and Oasis queued up. Mind the pub dog, Colin — he doesn't bite, he just sniffs your TCP packets to make sure you’re not running Windows ME.

🍻 What’s on Draught & Cask Handpumps

Ale / Draught ABV Pint Tasting Notes
Mythic Beasts Mild 3.8% £2.40 Served proper cellar temperature (warmish). Brewed directly inside the London Telehouse data centre. Hints of roasted malt, copper pipe, and gigabit ethernet.
Debian Bookworm Bitter 4.5% £2.60 Rock solid, reliable, zero nonsense. Keg hasn't been changed in two and a half years and that's precisely how the regulars like it.
Caddy Craft Fast-Pour Lager 5.0% £3.10 Instant TLS handshake, crisp fizz, zero configuration required. Very popular with the young lads visiting from Shoreditch.
Dial-Up Draught (56k Baud) 4.1% £1.99 Makes a terrible screeching and hissing noise when pulled from the pump. Takes 45 minutes to fill half a pint glass.
Null Pointer Stout 7.2% £3.50 Pitch black, heavy, and will completely crash your memory stack if you try and down more than two in an evening.
Tap Water 0.0% 10p Landlord Barry charges 10p for the glass washing fee. Don't push your luck.

📡 Live Cellar Monitoring & VPS Telemetry

Direct live feed from the digital thermometer and pressure gauges bolted onto the VPS in the cellar. Updates in real-time via the PiNet REST API:

[+] CONNECTING TO PINET CELLAR DAEMON (127.0.0.1:8443)...
• Status: POLLING...
• Cellar Uptime: Calculating...
• Cellar CPU Load: 0.0%
• Beer Keg Memory: Checking casks...
• Barrel Storage: Checking storage...
• Pint Flow Rate (Net I/O): 0 KB/s
• Active Pub Sockets: Checking patrons...

🎶 The Virtual Pub Jukebox

Put a 20p piece in the slot and select a tune. Strictly early 2000s and 90s Britpop/Big Beat. (Click a track to play a cheeky retro chiptune through your speakers!)

[Jukebox: Ready]

📜 House Rules (Strictly Enforced by Dot)

  1. No arguing about Linux distributions at the bar. Take arguments about systemd versus SysVinit out into the beer garden.
  2. Mind the wires. Anyone tripping over the server's kettle lead and dropping the pub's SSH connection buys a round for the entire house.
  3. No mobile phones on speaker. Anyone with a Crazy Frog polyphonic ringtone will be permanently barred without right of appeal.
  4. No lager shandies before 11:00 AM UTC. Landlord Barry finds them spiritually offensive.
  5. Dogs welcome. Spam bots, port scanners, and script kiddies will be chased down the alley by Colin the terrier.

🖊 The Snug Chalkboard & Noticeboard

~*~ OVERHEARD AT THE BAR COUNTER ~*~

• Dave: “Anyone seen my 3Com ethernet card? Left it on the dartboard ledge last Friday.”

• Alice: “Pint of Mythic Mild and a bag of Scampi Fries please Dot. Put it on Barry's slate.”

• Bob: “Heard they’re bringing out Windows XP next month. Rubbish if you ask me, Windows 2000 is all anyone will ever need.”

• Landlord Barry: “Last orders at 10:45 PM sharp lads, no drinking up time if you're holding up the nightly rsync backup!”

PiNet Pint Icon

🍺 Grab the Official PiNet Desktop App (v2.0.0)

Don’t stand out in the drizzle looking through the saloon window! Download the authentic Windows 2000 style desktop client. Complete with official pub pint icon, desktop menu launcher, secret chat rooms, retro mail, telegrams, and live cellar gauges.

Quick Run:
$ tar -xzf pinet-client-linux.tar.gz
$ cd pinet-client && ./pinet-client

System Install (Menu entry + Pint Icon):
$ ./install.sh

👑 Looking for the Private Snug Bar & Secret Chat Rooms?

The browser website is just the front bar! To join the private patrons' snug, send encrypted telegrams, participate in the social feed, check mail, and manage the cellar taps, launch the Windows 2000 PiNet Desktop Client above.

Installed command: pinet-client (or ./pinet-client)

Works on Linux, Windows & macOS • Authentic retro bevels • Built with GTK 3 & standard Python.

BEST VIEWED IN NETSCAPE 4.7 800x600 RESOLUTION NO COOKIES (JUST CRISPS) POWERED BY DEBIAN 12 HOSTED ON MYTHIC BEASTS
© 1999–2001 The PiNet Arms Ltd • 42 Telehouse Alley, London E14 • Webmaster: barry@pinet.local
PiNet Server v2.0.0 • Pure Python 3 • Zero External Dependencies