Finally found the goddamned problem with this motherfucking win98 box. Iatrogenic, as usual. I had suspected (without googling) the mspclnt directory and .ini file as being part of one of the over 100 viruses that had infected this machine. So I had quarantined them, with a whole bunch of other stuff, and had not noticed when the problem started: ping, ipconfig, any web browser, would wait a full minute before attempting a connection. I had to download cygwin and get the use of gdb before finding it. But it's fixed now, and if nothing else crops up within the next few hours I'll be on my way home.
last updated 2013-01-10 20:31:19. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com