Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

[Jerome H. Fine]

I run Windows 98SE on a 14 year old Pentium III.  I have
replaced the power supply twice and all three hard disk drives.

It is a really good system to run the Ersatz-11 emulator for the
PDP-11, specifically RT-11.  Since Ersatz-11 has built-in VT100
emulation, I don't need a separate terminal emulator.  I also run
Netscape 7.2 for e-mail and newsgroups.  And that is all - no
surfing the internet or google of any sort.  Incidentally,  I use
Ghost 7.0 for backups to DVDs.

Aside from the daylight savings time changing 3 weeks too late
in the spring and a week early in the fall, I really like the system
and I would like to use it for another 20 years.  Since I am
77 years old now, I figure that will be just about satisfactory.

The Pentium III hardware is more than a bit of a concern.  I would
be very pleased to upgrade to 64-bit Windows 10, but the DOS
variant of Ersatz-11 is not supported and I really would prefer to
keep using Netscape 7.2 since I have over 100,000 e-mails
and posts to newsgroups that it is important to be able to keep.

QUESTION:  Is it even possible to run Win98SE on a current
Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard disk drives?  I realize that it might
be possible under a virtual machine, but I really want all of the
advantages that Win98SE provides.  One problem, of course,
is that there must be a patch to Win98SE when more than 1 GB
of actual physical RAM is present.  But I can't seem to find out
anything else.

What leads me to believe that there is a reasonable chance is
that the IDENTICAL 3.5" floppy media is able to boot DOS
from drive A: and run on both the Pentium III (with a 3.5" HD
floppy drive, of course) AND on a Q9550 Core 2 quad CPU
which also has a 3.5" HD floppy drive which currently runs
64-bit Windows 7 from the C: drive, of course, using three
SATA hard drives where the C: drive has an NTFS file
structure and all the other partitions on all of the SATA drives
have a FAT32 file structure.  So without really understanding
the details of the device drivers and the BIOS, it would seem
that the SATA drive hardware and software is compatible.

Ghost 7.0 is a file on the F: drive of the Q9550 CPU
(first extended partition of the 1st physical SATA hard drive).
Ghost is able to take a file produced as a backup image on
the Pentium III system (and copied over the router connecting
the Pentium III and the Q9500 systems - that also provides
internet access for both systems) and re-create the same files
on a specified partition on the Q9550 via the Ghost 7.0
program while the Q9550 is booted from the 3.5" floppy
media.

Since the SATA hard drives on the Q9550 system don't seem
to have a problem with DOS on the floppy, then I have some
hope that Win98SE could manage them as well.  Has anyone
experience or knowledge about being able to run Win98SE
using an Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard drives all of them using
a FAT32 file structure?

Alternatively, does it seem reasonable to attempt to keep a
system with a Pentium III CPU and associated hardware
running for another 20 years?

Jerome Fine

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

[ethan]

QUESTION:  Is it even possible to run Win98SE on a current
Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard disk drives?  I realize that it might
be possible under a virtual machine, but I really want all of the
advantages that Win98SE provides.  One problem, of course,
is that there must be a patch to Win98SE when more than 1 GB
of actual physical RAM is present.  But I can't seem to find out
anything else.


No idea on RAM, probably not.

Be careful on the internet, your stuff is probably highly vulnerable. Use 
a 2nd system for logging into any banking or other accounts and use 
different passwords.


There was a SATA emulation of IDE IIRC, this was an option in the bios and 
might work.


Bigger issues are going to be the drivers for the USB chipset, all of the 
system devices, lack of drivers for audio, etc. Your I7 probably won't 
have a PS2 port or mouse port, so you have to depend on the USB bus. The 
BIOS **MIGHT** emulate old school but I doubt it on that new of school.


Really a VM is probably the best way to go.


Alternatively, does it seem reasonable to attempt to keep a
system with a Pentium III CPU and associated hardware
running for another 20 years?


Sure why not? Amiga and Atari STs still work, 8088 PCs still work. The 
failure point will be the electrolytic capacitors on the main board used 
for noise filtering, it will be the same in the power supply. Since the 
power supplies are all basically the same voltages that isn't that big of 
a deal (+5/+12/-5/-12/+3.3v)


Back to running 98 on a I7. One thing you MGH be able to do is 
find a I7 PICMG sub board which would give you an I7 processor with a PCI 
bus computer. From here you could put in your Trident video card, a PCI 
card that supports Windows 98 on USB, and other chipset cards of the old 
school. Would it work? Not sure what 98 will do with all the modern 
devices maybe you could ignore them all.


I picked up a Dolch Pac 64 which is a luggable and installed 98 on it. I 
use a PCI card for IDE made by Promise, and I use a PATA to SD card 
adapter and the whole thing runs on a SD card. I had to get a PCI USB card 
from MicroCenter, which I looked up the chipset in advance to confirm 98 
drivers existed. I use USB thumbdrive to get data to the system, and I use 
a USB mouse since I couldn't find a working mouse around my place that was 
PS/2 or that would work with the PS/2 to USB converters. I image it off a 
LOT using linux (dd) so that if I bork a driver I don't have to start from 
square one. It's cute but not practical for everyday use for me. My goals 
were to run an ISA card for laser show playback made by Pangolin 
(QuadMod32) and a Gravis Ultrasound. I wish it had room for a Sound 
Blaster also, for demos. Not sure if the LCD would work well.


There are some PICMG based luggables, that would be where I might go if I 
were you. You can swap the motherboard card between PII, PIII, P4, 
and higher and still retain the backplane. But some motherboard cards 
might require extra power connectors. There are also PATA to SATA bridges, 
so you might be able to run a SATA based SSD on an old computer.


Good luck!

--
Ethan O'Toole

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

[E. Groenenberg]

Jerome,

Well, you could use VirtualBox for example. It supports even windows 3.1
as a guest O.S. Also, it's free.

I would by an of the shell laptop, install you favourite modern O.S.
W7, W8,1, W10, or Linux  and on top of that
VirtualBox.

VirtualBox allows you to create VM's with SATA, PATA/IDE and SCSI disks
all being container file(s) on the host OS.

I have a W98 virtual machine I only keep for posterity, and is rarely
powered up, but it still does work.

Regards,

Ed
--
Ik email, dus ik besta.
BTC : 1J5fajt8ptyZ2V1YURj3YJZhe5j3fJVSHN
LTC : LP2WuEmYPbpWUBqMFGJfdm7pdHEW7fKvDz

On Thu, January 28, 2016 17:44, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
> I run Windows 98SE on a 14 year old Pentium III.  I have
> replaced the power supply twice and all three hard disk drives.
>
> It is a really good system to run the Ersatz-11 emulator for the
> PDP-11, specifically RT-11.  Since Ersatz-11 has built-in VT100
> emulation, I don't need a separate terminal emulator.  I also run
> Netscape 7.2 for e-mail and newsgroups.  And that is all - no
> surfing the internet or google of any sort.  Incidentally,  I use
> Ghost 7.0 for backups to DVDs.
>
> Aside from the daylight savings time changing 3 weeks too late
> in the spring and a week early in the fall, I really like the system
> and I would like to use it for another 20 years.  Since I am
> 77 years old now, I figure that will be just about satisfactory.
>
> The Pentium III hardware is more than a bit of a concern.  I would
> be very pleased to upgrade to 64-bit Windows 10, but the DOS
> variant of Ersatz-11 is not supported and I really would prefer to
> keep using Netscape 7.2 since I have over 100,000 e-mails
> and posts to newsgroups that it is important to be able to keep.
>
> QUESTION:  Is it even possible to run Win98SE on a current
> Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard disk drives?  I realize that it might
> be possible under a virtual machine, but I really want all of the
> advantages that Win98SE provides.  One problem, of course,
> is that there must be a patch to Win98SE when more than 1 GB
> of actual physical RAM is present.  But I can't seem to find out
> anything else.
>
> What leads me to believe that there is a reasonable chance is
> that the IDENTICAL 3.5" floppy media is able to boot DOS
> from drive A: and run on both the Pentium III (with a 3.5" HD
> floppy drive, of course) AND on a Q9550 Core 2 quad CPU
> which also has a 3.5" HD floppy drive which currently runs
> 64-bit Windows 7 from the C: drive, of course, using three
> SATA hard drives where the C: drive has an NTFS file
> structure and all the other partitions on all of the SATA drives
> have a FAT32 file structure.  So without really understanding
> the details of the device drivers and the BIOS, it would seem
> that the SATA drive hardware and software is compatible.
>
> Ghost 7.0 is a file on the F: drive of the Q9550 CPU
> (first extended partition of the 1st physical SATA hard drive).
> Ghost is able to take a file produced as a backup image on
> the Pentium III system (and copied over the router connecting
> the Pentium III and the Q9500 systems - that also provides
> internet access for both systems) and re-create the same files
> on a specified partition on the Q9550 via the Ghost 7.0
> program while the Q9550 is booted from the 3.5" floppy
> media.
>
> Since the SATA hard drives on the Q9550 system don't seem
> to have a problem with DOS on the floppy, then I have some
> hope that Win98SE could manage them as well.  Has anyone
> experience or knowledge about being able to run Win98SE
> using an Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard drives all of them using
> a FAT32 file structure?
>
> Alternatively, does it seem reasonable to attempt to keep a
> system with a Pentium III CPU and associated hardware
> running for another 20 years?
>
> Jerome Fine
>

C-64 Time delay code?

[Mike]

I am still working on the Choose your own adventure game and I was
wondering it there a
code line to let the player have a few minuets to read the text before
the "make your choice " pops up under the opening text.
I know to most of you think this is a dumb question but I just can nopt
find the correct dose  for this?

Re: CDC Sabre 8" SMD blues

[Guy Sotomayor]

On 1/28/16 12:52 PM, Ian Finder wrote:

Hi folks,
  
I recently picked up a Symbolics system built around an 8" Control Data Corp. Sabre hard drive.

Some files read when I show the FEP directory listing but many show as 
"Error reading file header, wrong pkid read" which I assume is some sort of FEP 
FS integrity check.
In short, the drive becomes ready and much of the data appears still 
there, but I have some brand of consistent read errors that preclude the 
machine from booting.
It's not a software issue as the machine was deinstalled in a working 
condition.
Anyone familiar with these terrible drives? Am I totally up the creek? 
I tried a couple different orientations.
I just realized, that I have 2 8" SMD drives that are bolted together 
(along with their power supplies).  I have *no* idea of their 
operational condition (but physically they're in good shape). If you 
want to come down and collect them, they're yours.  They are way too 
heavy to ship.


TTFN - Guy

Re: IBM 3101-12 ASCII terminal - need fuse holder

[Tothwolf]

On Thu, 28 Jan 2016, Ethan Dicks wrote:

I was just gifted with an IBM 3101-12 ASCII terminal that happens to be 
missing the fuse and fuse holder.  Unlike a lot of 1960s and 1970s gear, 
it's not round.  It's square.  Is this a standard IBM thing from the 
70s/80s?  Anyone know where I could get one?  It seems to snap in and 
probably fell out at some point under its previous owner.


Also, I found only a little info on it from Googling.  Later IBM ASCII 
terminals emulated ANSI command or Wyse-50 or something.  I couldn't 
find anything on the 3101.  Is it a glass TTY or does it respond to any 
cursor positioning, etc. commands?


Thanks for any tips and info.  Worst case, I can bodge in a fuse on the 
inside, but if I can find a replacement holder, I'd like that more.


There aren't too many US made square panel mount fuse holders. It sounds 
like it might be a Littelfuse 348 series.


http://www.littelfuse.com/products/fuse-blocks-fuseholders-and-fuse-accessories/fuseholders/348/348870.aspx

Littelfuse 348007 (03480007) fuse holder cap, black
Littelfuse 348001 (03480001) fuse holder cap, red

Re: CDC Sabre 8" SMD blues

[Pete Lancashire]

>I have experience with only 2 different types of SMD drives: Fujitsu
Eagles and CDC-9766.



Both good drives. Eagles had one issue .. NOISE !!!





On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Guy Sotomayor  wrote:

>
> > On Jan 28, 2016, at 12:52 PM, Ian Finder  wrote:
> >
> > Hi folks,
> >
> >   I recently picked up a Symbolics system built around an 8" Control
> Data Corp. Sabre hard drive.
> >   Some files read when I show the FEP directory listing but many
> show as "Error reading file header, wrong pkid read" which I assume is some
> sort of FEP FS integrity check.
> >   In short, the drive becomes ready and much of the data appears
> still there, but I have some brand of consistent read errors that preclude
> the machine from booting.
> >   It's not a software issue as the machine was deinstalled in a
> working condition.
> >   Anyone familiar with these terrible drives? Am I totally up the
> creek? I tried a couple different orientations.
>
> Too bad.  They were the only other option on the G-Machines vs ST-506.
>
> I have experience with only 2 different types of SMD drives: Fujitsu
> Eagles and CDC-9766.
>
> TTFN - Guy
>
>
>

IBM 3101-12 ASCII terminal - need fuse holder

[Ethan Dicks]

Hello, all,

I was just gifted with an IBM 3101-12 ASCII terminal that happens to
be missing the fuse and fuse holder.  Unlike a lot of 1960s and 1970s
gear, it's not round.  It's square.  Is this a standard IBM thing from
the 70s/80s?  Anyone know where I could get one?  It seems to snap in
and probably fell out at some point under its previous owner.

Also, I found only a little info on it from Googling.  Later IBM ASCII
terminals emulated ANSI command or Wyse-50 or something.  I couldn't
find anything on the 3101.  Is it a glass TTY or does it respond to
any cursor positioning, etc. commands?

Thanks for any tips and info.  Worst case, I can bodge in a fuse on
the inside, but if I can find a replacement holder, I'd like that
more.

Thanks,

-ethan

Re: C-64 Time delay code?

[Jacob Ritorto]

On Jan 28, 2016, at 8:11 AM, Mike  wrote:
> 
> I am still working on the Choose your own adventure game and I was
> wondering it there a
> code line to let the player have a few minuets to read the text before
> the "make your choice " pops up under the opening text.
> I know to most of you think this is a dumb question but I just can nopt
> find the correct dose  for this?

Sadly, Microsoft Basic v2.0 didn’t have much in that regard.  Most people just 
burned a cpu loop.

for de = 1 to 1000: next de

Re: C-64 Time delay code?

[drlegendre .]

You can also watch the RTC..

https://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/TIME

https://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/TIME$

On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 11:14 AM, Jacob Ritorto 
wrote:

> On Jan 28, 2016, at 8:11 AM, Mike  wrote:
> >
> > I am still working on the Choose your own adventure game and I was
> > wondering it there a
> > code line to let the player have a few minuets to read the text before
> > the "make your choice " pops up under the opening text.
> > I know to most of you think this is a dumb question but I just can nopt
> > find the correct dose  for this?
>
> Sadly, Microsoft Basic v2.0 didn’t have much in that regard.  Most people
> just burned a cpu loop.
>
> for de = 1 to 1000: next de
>
>

Re: C-64 Time delay code?

[Ethan Dicks]

On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 12:40 PM, Kelly Fergason  wrote:
> The C64 had TI$.  Its been a while... but you could do something like this:
>
> 10 TI$="00"
> insert lots of program...
> 100 if TI$="30" then print "30 seconds have passed! "

Using "equals" there can cause issues if somehow 31 seconds pass then
you check (perhaps the user hit RUN/STOP, waited, then CONTINUE...)

What's safer is

100 TI$="00"
110 IF (TI < 1800) GOTO 110

Just reset TI/TI$ like line 100 every time you want to wait (you can't
set TI, only TI$), then loop until enough "jiffies" (1/60 sec) have
passed.  You could make it fancier with a subroutine that uses a
variable (in seconds) and does the math for you.

Many ways to do it.

-ethan

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

[Chuck Guzis]

On 01/28/2016 10:45 AM, Liam Proven wrote:


Well yes, but you need a host OS, and there is no reason not to
_use_ that host OS and work on it.


You've got a point, unless of course there are aspects of the Win9x API 
that aren't supported by the more modern OS for a given application.


I've wondered for some time how long it will be before the only mainline 
OSs will employ 64 bit architecture, leaving older 16-bit code in the 
dustbin (unless, of course, there are add-on packages that support 
16-bit PM).


--Chuck

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

[Liam Proven]

On 28 January 2016 at 19:40, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
> The latest rig that I've run 98SE on is a  Intel P3 (440GX) with 2GB of
> memory.  I can do it, but it took the "unofficial final service pack" to
> reduce the amount of memory to something reasonable.

Exactly. I think it can't handle >512MB and it *definitely* can't do
multicore. It's pointless. It's buying a new car and putting
roller-skate wheels on it... because you're used to skates.

> Drivers, I think would be the stumbling block on modern hardware.

Definitely.

> I'd use
> VirtualBox in any case to deal with that issue.  I've certainly done with
> other old systems.

Well yes, but you need a host OS, and there is no reason not to _use_
that host OS and work on it.



-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: C-64 Time delay code?

[Kelly Fergason]

The C64 had TI$.  Its been a while... but you could do something like this:

10 TI$="00"
insert lots of program...
100 if TI$="30" then print "30 seconds have passed! "

I'm sure I've forgotten some details, but you should be able to make that
work.

kelly


On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 11:14 AM, Jacob Ritorto 
wrote:

> On Jan 28, 2016, at 8:11 AM, Mike  wrote:
> >
> > I am still working on the Choose your own adventure game and I was
> > wondering it there a
> > code line to let the player have a few minuets to read the text before
> > the "make your choice " pops up under the opening text.
> > I know to most of you think this is a dumb question but I just can nopt
> > find the correct dose  for this?
>
> Sadly, Microsoft Basic v2.0 didn’t have much in that regard.  Most people
> just burned a cpu loop.
>
> for de = 1 to 1000: next de
>
>

Re: Jacques Laporte's HP-35 webpage

[Al Kossow]

On 1/28/16 10:48 AM, Kyle Owen wrote:

I'm mostly interested in his work on reverse engineering the HP-35
hardware.
Talk to Eric Smith. He is easier to communicate with, since he is still 
alive.

Free Apple ImageWriter I (A9M0303)

[Paul McJones]

I bought it new in 1984 or 1985, and used it for six or seven years 
until I bought a laser printer. It’s been in its original packing box 
ever since.  I just powered it up and verified that the line feed and 
form feed buttons seem to trigger appropriate movements, and the print 
head seeks over to the left margin.


First priority to someone who will pick it up in Mountain View, 
California; otherwise to someone who will pay for shipping.



Paul McJones

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

[Fred Cisin]

On Thu, 28 Jan 2016, Liam Proven wrote:

Exactly. I think it can't handle >512MB and it *definitely* can't do
multicore. It's pointless. It's buying a new car and putting
roller-skate wheels on it... because you're used to skates.


"Modern" car wheels look like wagon wheels to me.


Want some skates?
Why struggle with getting 98 going on "modern" hardware, when I would love 
to give my mother's Win98SE e-machines with monitor, etc. to anybody who 
will take it away.Berkeley, CA

Please do NOT ask me to ship it!  (OK, I will ship it for $200)
Owned since new by a little old lady (recently deceased) who didn't go to 
church on Sundays, but, other than taking my internet class, never liked 
computers.466MHz Celeron,5X DVD,8.4G drive,64M RAM, 56K modem!
It still has all of the original marketing stickers on its face, including 
the one claiming "This computer is NEVER OBSOLETE" (pushing their internet 
access, and a replacement machine every 2 years for $99 "Some restrictions 
apply")



--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Mark Moulding

> Win-98 SE ... it would have been nice if it recognized USB storage
> devices natively.

There is that package you can add (my copy is in a self-extracting archive,
called "nusb23e.exe") that recognizes USB drives, etc. I run a number of USB
devices (memory sticks, mice, etc) on my 98SE's and they all work fine.

My approach to keeping my 98SE machines running is _lots_ of spares of all
kinds. They were easy and cheap to acquire a while back - they're a lot
harder to find now, those machines are all totally obsolete.

Noel

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[John Wallace]

[massive snippage, sorry]

Several folks have mentioned Dave Cutler.

There's a book called "Inside Windows NT", by Helen Custer at Microsoft Press. 
The aforementioned Dave Cutler (architect of software including RSX11, VAX/VMS, 
VAXELN, and WNT) wrote a foreword for it. There, he says the goals of NT were 
"portability, security, POSIX compliance, compatibility, scalable performance, 
multiprocessor support, extensibility, and ease of internationalisation" (p 
xviii in my copy). Obviously some of that list has fallen away during the 
NT/Gates years (portability? security? POSIX?)

WNT's kernel stuff, process architecture, etc has some VAXELN heritage. VAXELN 
was a not particularly well known (even inside DEC) Cutler project for a 
distributable realtime OS which would feel comfortable for VMS programmers 
without being VMS, and allow distributed RT applications to be developed 
without need to understand low level hardware specifics and OS kernel interface 
details. VAXELN incorporated early examples of a process model which also 
incorporated threads, and a nice approach to interprocess data sharing (a 
distributed naming service, transparent messaging between apps whether on the 
same node or separate, etc). Marvellous stuff, some of which  duly made its way 
into NT, though many writers understandably missed the VAXELN connection (it is 
briefly mentioned in Custer's book).

Those who are moderately familiar with the internals of NT, VMS, and VAXELN 
(which probably isn't that many people) will recognise some of the VMSisms that 
VAXELN didn't have and which are also not present in NT. At a detail level, 
where are WNT's ASTs, where are logical names? And at a big-picture level - VMS 
is a mostly monolithic setup (one single kernel address space), WNT originally 
wasn't, though over time Gates forced changes towards the monolithic approach, 
e.g. moving assorted drivers and subsystems into the kernel for performance 
reasons that for security and robustness reasons should have been isolated from 
each other. Neither VAXELN nor NT have quotas or privileges as such. There is 
no meaningful security architecture on WNT; on VMS there is. And so on.

But fewer people will know VAXELN, and so the Cutler project that gets the 
publicity in the "where does WNT come from" context is VMS (it is, after all, 
still pretty close even if VAXELN is closer).

And the WNT name? Who knows. 

The magic words PRISM and MICA perhaps come into this discussion somewhere too, 
but I know nothing about them.

Have a lot of fun.

John Wallace (not to be confused with John Willis!)

[Repurposed with minor edits from some of my occasional WNT/VAXELN/VMS 
ramblings on comp.os.vms]

Re: M. Minsky - AI & Classic Computing

[Chuck Guzis]

On 01/27/2016 07:07 PM, Jon Elson wrote:

On 01/27/2016 11:24 AM, Murray McCullough wrote:

I learned today of the passing of a true computing visionary,
Marvin Minsky He of artificial intelligence fame. We in the classic
computing fraternity, and computing in general, can enjoy our
‘hobby’ because of his work.



I recall Minsky's text "Computation:  Finite and Infinite Machines" was 
very entertaining--unlike most college texts.  The introduction of 
McCullogh-Pitts cell analogies was my first exposure to the idea of 
neural networks.


--Chuck

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

[mark]

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2016 11:44:44 -0500
From: "Jerome H. Fine" 
Subject: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

I run Windows 98SE on a 14 year old Pentium III.  I have
replaced the power supply twice and all three hard disk drives.

<...>

Aside from the daylight savings time changing 3 weeks too late
in the spring and a week early in the fall, I really like the system
and I would like to use it for another 20 years.  Since I am
77 years old now, I figure that will be just about satisfactory.


Win-98 SE was definitely one of the higher points of the Windows lineage. 
For most of what I did (and do, for that matter), it worked very well; it 
would have been nice if it recognized USB storage devices natively.



The Pentium III hardware is more than a bit of a concern.  I would
be very pleased to upgrade to 64-bit Windows 10, but the DOS
variant of Ersatz-11 is not supported and I really would prefer to
keep using Netscape 7.2 since I have over 100,000 e-mails
and posts to newsgroups that it is important to be able to keep.


The hardware is worth worrying about.  Replacement power supplies will 
probably continue to be available, but those disks are likely to be 
unobtanium, and are practically guaranteed to fail at some point.  My 
personal "sweet spot" for operating systems was Windows XP, and it was with 
with quite a bit of trepidation that I eventually moved on to Win7-32. 
Eventually, I needed a new laptop, and moved to Win8.1-64, which took a 
great deal of massaging to make comfortable (the "Classic Shell" product is 
very nicely-done, and free, and went a long way towards making things 
usable).  However, there were still a lot of problems:


- 64 bits absolutely breaks any 16-bit code, whether it be a DOS program or 
a Windows 3.1 application.  Unfortunately, I have a large industrial 
application that I've maintained for the last 20 years (things last a long 
time in industry), written in Visual Basic 3.  Maintaining it under XP was 
easy, because XP would just magically fire up ntvdm (NT Virtual DOS 
Machine), then run a Windows compatibility layer (wowexec) on top of that; 
this all made everything work just fine, and with almost complete 
transparency.  For DOS programs, it would capture any physical I/O calls 
(for example, to the com port addresses) and do a fantastic job of emulating 
them - again, completely transparent to the application program.  Win7 
(Vista, actually, but nobody cares about that) broke all of that.


- I have an application that I like and use a lot (CircuitMaker-2000) which 
runs fine on every version of Windows from 98SE on up to at least Win8.1-64 
bit, and presumably Win10, though I haven't tried it.  However, printing has 
been broken on everything since Win98SE.


- The versions of Office and QuickBooks I was using started exhibiting 
numerous problems; Word continued to work "OK", sort of, but QB was 
completely unstable, and I depend upon it to run my business.


- The security implementation of pretty much everything, starting with Win7, 
makes a lot of things difficult; registry writes are now tightly controlled, 
registering DLLs and OCXs requires elevated privileges, network firewall 
functions are highly complex, convoluted, and depending upon the version 
(Premium, Pro, Ultimate, etc.) the tools may not even be provided to 
completely manage all of this.


My solution to most of this (except some of the network issues) has been to 
use VirtualBox.  It's free, and does a great job of handling XP as a guest 
operating system.  With XP, mouse movements, virtual disks, networking, and 
even the clipboard are all nicely integrated into the host operating system, 
so my XP machine is always just a keyboard shortcut away.


I also have a virtual Win98SE machine, to handle the printing issues with 
CircuitMaker.  This is less well integrated, in that the mouse capture is 
clumsy, and the file system integration features aren't there, but that was 
easy enough to get around by just creating shared folders on the host, and 
setting them up as network drives on the Win98 VM.


It took a solid week of tinkering to get everything set up to my 
satisfaction (I have a lot of disparate interests, and their associated 
applications), but now I have a setup that I'm very happy with.  (I broke 
down and advanced a single version - to 2003 - for both Office and 
Quickbooks, so those both run happily in native mode now.)



QUESTION:  Is it even possible to run Win98SE on a current
Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard disk drives?  I realize that it might
be possible under a virtual machine, but I really want all of the
advantages that Win98SE provides.  One problem, of course,


Almost certainly not, at least practically.  Even if you can get it to boot 
and install, it will have no idea how to handle any of the modern 
peripherals, and drivers certainly won't be available.  So sound won't work, 
the screen will be limited to VGA-16, and 

Unidentified DEC gear available, NSW-AU

[Jay West]

DEC Gear available. Unlike most dec gear, I must admit that I can't identify
exactly what this is. Several racks, I was guessing AFT or Instrumentation
Testing. Looks like one or more cpu or expansion cabinets in some of the
racks, and some DEC AD/DA interface stuff. I was left with the impression
that there may be one or more racks that are not shown in the pictures
provided. I was told that racks are in "several different buildings on the
estate" (residential). The first rack looks to be in very bad shape (perhaps
a power supply), but the other racks don't look so bad.

I am not sure that I can get more pictures from the owner, but will try. I
think that in order to get pictures of the fronts (what we all probably want
to see), the owner would have to move stuff (and them) and would rather not.
The equipment is located in NSW, Australia. It sound like they just want it
to go to a good home.

If someone is local to NSW Australia and wants to spearhead going onsite to
take a closer look for others and/or pick up the gear themselves, let me
know offlist and I'll give you the contact info.

To those on the list that aren't down under - any ideas what this is?

Pics are temporarily at http://www.ezwind.net/nsw-au

Best,

J

CDC Sabre 8" SMD blues

[Ian Finder]

Hi folks,
 
   I recently picked up a Symbolics system built around an 8" Control Data 
Corp. Sabre hard drive.   
   Some files read when I show the FEP directory listing but many show as 
"Error reading file header, wrong pkid read" which I assume is some sort of FEP 
FS integrity check.   
   In short, the drive becomes ready and much of the data appears still 
there, but I have some brand of consistent read errors that preclude the 
machine from booting.   
   It's not a software issue as the machine was deinstalled in a working 
condition.   
   Anyone familiar with these terrible drives? Am I totally up the creek? I 
tried a couple different orientations.   
   Thanks,   
   - Ian   
   Sent from Outlook Mobile  
   


  

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

[Tothwolf]

On Thu, 28 Jan 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote:

The latest rig that I've run 98SE on is a Intel P3 (440GX) with 2GB of 
memory.  I can do it, but it took the "unofficial final service pack" to 
reduce the amount of memory to something reasonable.


Drivers, I think would be the stumbling block on modern hardware.  I'd 
use VirtualBox in any case to deal with that issue.  I've certainly done 
with other old systems.


Windows 98 worked fine with a 1.4GHz Tualatin Pentium III (socket 370) and 
i815e chipset. It also worked just fine on a Pentium 4 and I suspect would 
work with a Pentium D or Core Duo using only one CPU core.


Windows 98 was supposed to support a maximum of 2GB of memory, however it 
has a bug in the Vcache driver which causes problems unless you limit the 
memory it can use to 1 or 1.5GB.

Re: [SPAM key] - Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

[Jerome H. Fine]

>m...@markesystems.com wrote:


Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2016 11:44:44 -0500
From: "Jerome H. Fine" 
Subject: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

I run Windows 98SE on a 14 year old Pentium III.  I have
replaced the power supply twice and all three hard disk drives. 



QUESTION:  Is it even possible to run Win98SE on a current
Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard disk drives?  I realize that it might
be possible under a virtual machine, but I really want all of the
advantages that Win98SE provides.  One problem, of course, 


Almost certainly not, at least practically.  Even if you can get it to 
boot and install, it will have no idea how to handle any of the modern 
peripherals, and drivers certainly won't be available.  So sound won't 
work, the screen will be limited to VGA-16, and I'm not sure about the 
keyboard and mouse (there's a reasonable chance that the BIOS will 
emulate the legacy PS-2 devices, just as it's abstracting the details 
of the SATA disks).


Then I am really confused.  I have two older systems that
are able to run 64-bit Windows 7, an E8400 and a Q9550.
Both take SATA drives which are still available.  The mother
boards are ASUS5B.  I would guess they are both about
7 years old and I would hope that some of that old hardware
might be a bit easier to find.

I can also still boot from both system using an old DOS 3.5"
floppy media and run Ghost 7.0 with these old SATA drives,
but as far as I can understand, using the device drivers on the
floppy drive.

Is it likely that either of these two systems be able to run
Win98SE with the SATA hard drives, in one case 500 GB
each and the other system has 1 TB drives.  In that case, it
would still be possible to use current SATA drives, but the
1 GB limit on physical memory for Win98SE would need
to be patched.  By the way, the Pentium III that is 12 years
old has 768 MB of memory, so it is possible to run Win98SE
with more than 500 MB of physical memory.

As I mentioned, the only two applications I would run would
be the DOS variant of Ersatz-11 and Netscape 7.2 for e-mail
and newsgroups.

Jerome Fine

Decimal Adjust Accumulator on the 4004

[Kyle Owen]

I'm currently writing a bit of code for the 4004 at the moment, and playing
with it in the online Javascript emulator found here:
http://e4004.szyc.org/emu/

According to http://e4004.szyc.org/iset.html (which I believe is copied
straight from the MCS-4 Users Manual), the DAA instruction should increment
the accumulator by 6 if carry is set or if the accumulator is greater than
9. Carry should be set following the instruction if the resulting addition
generated a carry; otherwise it's unaffected.

Let's say the accumulator is currently 9, carry is not set. I add another
9. Accumulator is now 2 with a carry. Running DAA should turn this into 8
with carry set, indicating that 9+9=(1)8. Am I thinking through this
correctly?

I ask, because according to the simulator's source code, DAA won't do that,
if I'm following it correctly:

function opDAA() { //DAA Decimal Adjust Accumulator
  if(A_reg > 9) A_reg += 6;
  C_flag=0; if (A_reg & 0xf0) {A_reg&=0xf; C_flag=1;}
  incPC();
}

It says that it'll only add 6 if the accumulator is greater than 9, not if
a carry is already set. It will then reset carry and set it if and only if
there was a carry.

Have I found a bug in the simulator? Am I misreading the MCS-4 Users
Manual?

In any event, this is my proposed fix to better match what the instruction
description says:

function opDAA() { //DAA Decimal Adjust Accumulator
  if((A_reg > 9) | (C_flag)) A_reg += 6;
  if (A_reg & 0xf0) {A_reg&=0xf; C_flag=1;}
  incPC();
}

Seems to work as I would expect it to.

Thanks,

Kyle

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

[Fred Cisin]

On Thu, 28 Jan 2016, Noel Chiappa wrote:

My approach to keeping my 98SE machines running is _lots_ of spares of all
kinds. They were easy and cheap to acquire a while back - they're a lot
harder to find now, those machines are all totally obsolete.


FPUIB (Free Pick Up In Berkeley)   no shipping.

Front Panels

[Rod Smallwood]

Hi Guys
  What a week!

First I had to reject a batch  of panels because some text was not 
centered right.


Then whilst the matt black on the front gave a really nice finish I felt 
the resistance to abrasion could be better.
So I've switched to a silk textured surface base material. It mimics the 
diffuse layer on the front side of the original board really well. But 
of course it resists abrasion better (because its the surface of the 
actual material and not just a coating)  and also it provides a better 
key for the inks to adhere to.  It gives the same effect of there being 
a front matt black layer as did the original. It looked  good on the 
sample.  It still leaves me the option to put black on the front if needed.


I took the opportunity to add rounded  corners and have them drill the 
big hole for the key lock


Next  the great US snow storm stopped shipments to the US (they are 
still not caught up) and then my email stated acting up. Some emails 
came through and some didn't.


Any way it looks like I am just about back on track.:

The first batch of predrilled silk textured front panel blanks are due 
now and the silk screen shop will run them when they arrive.
The new packaging has arrived. The shippers will start to accept new 
parcels for the US on Monday or Tuesday.


Finally they fixed my email late yesterday and its still OK.

Rod

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

[Jerome H. Fine]

>m...@markesystems.com wrote:


Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2016 11:44:44 -0500
From: "Jerome H. Fine" 
Subject: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

I run Windows 98SE on a 14 year old Pentium III.  I have
replaced the power supply twice and all three hard disk drives. 



QUESTION:  Is it even possible to run Win98SE on a current
Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard disk drives?  I realize that it might
be possible under a virtual machine, but I really want all of the
advantages that Win98SE provides.  One problem, of course,



Almost certainly not, at least practically.  Even if you can get it to 
boot and install, it will have no idea how to handle any of the modern 
peripherals, and drivers certainly won't be available.  So sound won't 
work, the screen will be limited to VGA-16, and I'm not sure about the 
keyboard and mouse (there's a reasonable chance that the BIOS will 
emulate the legacy PS-2 devices, just as it's abstracting the details 
of the SATA disks). 


Then I am really confused.  I have two older systems that
are able to run 64-bit Windows 7, an E8400 and a Q9550.
Both take SATA drives which are still available.  The mother
boards are ASUS5B.  I would guess they are both about
7 years old and I would hope that some of that old hardware
might be a bit easier to find.

I can also still boot from both system using an old DOS 3.5"
floppy media and run Ghost 7.0 with these old SATA drives,
but as far as I can understand, using the device drivers on the
floppy drive.

Is it likely that either of these two systems be able to run
Win98SE with the SATA hard drives, in one case 500 GB
each and the other system has 1 TB drives.  In that case, it
would still be possible to use current SATA drives, but the
1 GB limit on physical memory for Win98SE would need
to be patched.  By the way, the Pentium III that is 12 years
old has 768 MB of memory, so it is possible to run Win98SE
with more than 500 MB of physical memory.

As I mentioned, the only two applications I would run would
be the DOS variant of Ersatz-11 and Netscape 7.2 for e-mail
and newsgroups.

Jerome Fine

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

[Chuck Guzis]

On 01/28/2016 05:22 PM, Tothwolf wrote:

On Thu, 28 Jan 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote:



Windows 98 worked fine with a 1.4GHz Tualatin Pentium III (socket 370)
and i815e chipset. It also worked just fine on a Pentium 4 and I suspect
would work with a Pentium D or Core Duo using only one CPU core.


I didn't mention that I've got 98SE running on an 820 chipset 
(RIMM/RDRAM is silly cheap now) with a Tuallie 1.4GHz in a Powerleap 
slocket.  It doesn't much agree with the Crystal CS4622 audio, but 
perhaps that's just a matter of finding the right driver.



Windows 98 was supposed to support a maximum of 2GB of memory, however
it has a bug in the Vcache driver which causes problems unless you limit
the memory it can use to 1 or 1.5GB.


Exactly what I've done with 440GX system.  Using a different XMS driver, 
I keep a 1GB RAMdisk there.


On faster, more modern systems, I use VirtualBox.  Just not worth the 
extra trouble finding drivers--but I suspect 98SE will run on P4 systems 
as well.


--Chuck

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Liam Proven]

On 27 January 2016 at 23:00, Geoffrey Oltmans  wrote:
> Hmmm... agree to disagree I guess. I generally found the Workplace shell in
> OS/2 a bit cumbersome and maddening compared to a lot of the GUI
> alternatives.


I have to agree.

Classic MacOS, particularly in MacOS 8 and 9, was perhaps the most
polished GUI I've ever used.

I also retain great fondness for Acorn's RISC OS desktop, with its
unusual and distinctive elegance:
* "maximise" only makes a window as big as it needs to be to show all
icons without scrolling
* drag-and-drop file saving -- no need for a directory browser in the dialog
* the first GUI with anti-aliasing & full-window moving & resizing (as
opposed to outlines)
* the first Icon Bar, before even the NeXT Dock, AFAIK

WPS was impressively powerful and had an impressive design, but the
actual implementation was a bit patchy and clunky. Sorry to have to
say it, but I found the Windows 9x Explorer more actual /use./ The
idea of the Start menu, implemented as a directory of directories, was
*inspired*. Shortcuts are clunky but they work -- if the
implementation had originated on NT and NTFS, it would have worked
better.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Liam Proven]

On 27 January 2016 at 18:38, j...@cimmeri.com  wrote:
> Correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly (probably am), but wasn't NT a
> descendent of DEC VMS?

Oversimplifying freely:

DEC OS team lead Dave Cutler wanted to take VAX/VMS multi-platform.
DEC rejected this. So he allowed himself and his core team leads to be
headhunted by Microsoft.

Microsoft had recently fallen out with IBM over OS/2. OS/2 1.x was a
joint MS/IBM development. IBM kept the 80386 version, OS/2 2.x. MS got
the portable, CPU-independent version, OS/2 3.x, which was barely more
than a skeleton draft at that point.

MS hired Cutler and gave him the OS/2 3 project. Cutler & his team
retained some of it, but redid a lot, reusing ideas, concepts and even
filenames from VMS -- but no code, obviously.

The result was named "Windows NT".

Entertainingly, WNT is what you get if you shift the letters of 'VMS"
1 position forward in the alphabet.

Actually, though, it was developed on multiple CPU platforms, and one
was an in-house board design based around Intel's RISC chip, the i860
-- codenamed the N10. NT allegedly stood for "N Ten" before MS
marketing retconned it to "New Technology".

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Stefan Skoglund (lokal]

tor 2016-01-28 klockan 01:52 -0500 skrev John Blake: 
> Vetusware is highly unreliable and tries to charge for accounts, which 
> isn't worth it at all because most of the things I've gotten from there 
> haven't worked.  Try: https://winworldpc.com/library
> 
> Their images are tested, I've used the OS/2 Warp 4 images to install on 
> an old thinkpad 760.  I'd also suggest you try some other OSes, Nextstep 
> 3.3 should work (and may have network drivers), as well as Unixware, GEM 
> (on top of DOS), and possibly even AT SVR4 or one of the later Xenix 
> variants.  If you do decide to go with OS/2, you should also be able to 
> find native applications and development tools there too.
> 
> ---
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
> 

AIX 1 ?

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

[Liam Proven]

On 28 January 2016 at 17:45, Jerome H. Fine  wrote:
> I run Windows 98SE on a 14 year old Pentium III.  I have
> replaced the power supply twice and all three hard disk drives.

I have answered this at length before.

Do not even *TRY* to run Win9x on modern hardware. Most things won't
work, there are no drivers, and it remains horribly inefficient.

The same codebase as Netscape 7.2 still exists. It is called Mozilla
Seamonkey. It is a more modern, updated version of the *same program*.
I have previously posted links to detailed instructions on how you
could migrate your entire profile, complete and intact, onto Seamonkey
(or Thunderbird, the stand-alone mail program) without needing to
change or reconfigure anything.

NT-based Windows is a lot more pleasant, more reliable and on a modern
multicore CPU much faster and more responsive than Win98.

I suspect most people would recommend Windows 7, which has
substantially the same look and feel as Win 98 and would require
minimal re-familiarisation.

As for Ersatz-11, there is a Win32 version, or you could run the
existing version under a VM in Virtualbox, a free hypervisor.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

[Chuck Guzis]

The latest rig that I've run 98SE on is a  Intel P3 (440GX) with 2GB of 
memory.  I can do it, but it took the "unofficial final service pack" to 
reduce the amount of memory to something reasonable.


Drivers, I think would be the stumbling block on modern hardware.  I'd 
use VirtualBox in any case to deal with that issue.  I've certainly done 
with other old systems.


--Chuck

Re: Decimal Adjust Accumulator on the 4004

[Brent Hilpert]

On 2016-Jan-28, at 6:44 PM, Kyle Owen wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 8:33 PM, Brent Hilpert  wrote:
>> 
>> The original looks correct to me.
>> 
>> I think you or the documentation are confusing the hardware carry flag
>> with the carry out of the 4th bit (nibble carry).
>> A binary addition of two BCD digits will require correction either if the
>> result is in the range 0xA to 0xF or if there was a carry out of the 4th
>> bit.
>> The hardware carry flag is the carry out of the 8th bit and is irrelevant
>> immediately after the addition.
> 
> 
> But this is a 4-bit architecture...? A carry out of the 4th bit does affect
> the carry flag.
> 
> The JS simulator uses an 8-bit value to hold the 4-bit accumulator, which
> is why they check if there's anything in the upper nibble, then clear the
> upper nibble of the accumulator.
> 
> Or did I miss something?
> 
> Thanks,

Sorry, yes, I was forgetting it was a 4004 and failing to distinguish between 
the real hardware and the emulated version of the registers, and should not 
have been referring to the '8th bit'.
(I was assuming the emulator was using a larger-than-4-bit container for acc.)

So then it would seem to depend on what the emu does at the end of an addition 
instruction (or any instruction that affects the accumulator) - that is, does 
it mask out the higher nibble at the end of the add instruction?
If it does, then you should be correct that the DAA implementation is faulty, 
as it would not detect addition results in the range 0x10 to 0x12 as needing 
correction.
If it does not, then the original code (might) be OK, and your additional test 
for C_flag would be superfluous but not incorrect.

I could see someone writing their emulator either way: always keeping an 
oversized container for the acc 'value-correct', or not caring what happens in 
the higher, oversized bits.
However the rest of the original code you presented suggests they do care, and 
are keeping the acc value-correct.
So I can't give a sure answer without looking at the rest of the emu code, but 
it looks like you may be right, the DAA impl. may be faulty.

Either that, or I need to have dinner before exercising brain cells any further.

Re: Decimal Adjust Accumulator on the 4004

[Kyle Owen]

On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 8:33 PM, Brent Hilpert  wrote:
>
> The original looks correct to me.
>
> I think you or the documentation are confusing the hardware carry flag
> with the carry out of the 4th bit (nibble carry).
> A binary addition of two BCD digits will require correction either if the
> result is in the range 0xA to 0xF or if there was a carry out of the 4th
> bit.
> The hardware carry flag is the carry out of the 8th bit and is irrelevant
> immediately after the addition.


But this is a 4-bit architecture...? A carry out of the 4th bit does affect
the carry flag.

The JS simulator uses an 8-bit value to hold the 4-bit accumulator, which
is why they check if there's anything in the upper nibble, then clear the
upper nibble of the accumulator.

Or did I miss something?

Thanks,

Kyle

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

[Adrian Stoness]

the amd 64's ran 98 se. it installs in less 23 seconds or somthing me and a
friend did it ran it for quiet a while
i7 are multi core dunno how 98 would handle that.

On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 7:37 PM, Chuck Guzis  wrote:

> On 01/28/2016 05:22 PM, Tothwolf wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 28 Jan 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote:
>>
>
> Windows 98 worked fine with a 1.4GHz Tualatin Pentium III (socket 370)
>> and i815e chipset. It also worked just fine on a Pentium 4 and I suspect
>> would work with a Pentium D or Core Duo using only one CPU core.
>>
>
> I didn't mention that I've got 98SE running on an 820 chipset (RIMM/RDRAM
> is silly cheap now) with a Tuallie 1.4GHz in a Powerleap slocket.  It
> doesn't much agree with the Crystal CS4622 audio, but perhaps that's just a
> matter of finding the right driver.
>
> Windows 98 was supposed to support a maximum of 2GB of memory, however
>> it has a bug in the Vcache driver which causes problems unless you limit
>> the memory it can use to 1 or 1.5GB.
>>
>
> Exactly what I've done with 440GX system.  Using a different XMS driver, I
> keep a 1GB RAMdisk there.
>
> On faster, more modern systems, I use VirtualBox.  Just not worth the
> extra trouble finding drivers--but I suspect 98SE will run on P4 systems as
> well.
>
> --Chuck
>
>

Re: Decimal Adjust Accumulator on the 4004

[Brent Hilpert]

On 2016-Jan-28, at 5:30 PM, Kyle Owen wrote:

> I'm currently writing a bit of code for the 4004 at the moment, and playing
> with it in the online Javascript emulator found here:
> http://e4004.szyc.org/emu/
> 
> According to http://e4004.szyc.org/iset.html (which I believe is copied
> straight from the MCS-4 Users Manual), the DAA instruction should increment
> the accumulator by 6 if carry is set or if the accumulator is greater than
> 9. Carry should be set following the instruction if the resulting addition
> generated a carry; otherwise it's unaffected.
> 
> Let's say the accumulator is currently 9, carry is not set. I add another
> 9. Accumulator is now 2 with a carry. Running DAA should turn this into 8
> with carry set, indicating that 9+9=(1)8. Am I thinking through this
> correctly?
> 
> I ask, because according to the simulator's source code, DAA won't do that,
> if I'm following it correctly:
> 
> function opDAA() { //DAA Decimal Adjust Accumulator
>  if(A_reg > 9) A_reg += 6;
>  C_flag=0; if (A_reg & 0xf0) {A_reg&=0xf; C_flag=1;}
>  incPC();
> }
> 
> It says that it'll only add 6 if the accumulator is greater than 9, not if
> a carry is already set. It will then reset carry and set it if and only if
> there was a carry.
> 
> Have I found a bug in the simulator? Am I misreading the MCS-4 Users
> Manual?
> 
> In any event, this is my proposed fix to better match what the instruction
> description says:
> 
> function opDAA() { //DAA Decimal Adjust Accumulator
>  if((A_reg > 9) | (C_flag)) A_reg += 6;
>  if (A_reg & 0xf0) {A_reg&=0xf; C_flag=1;}
>  incPC();
> }
> 
> Seems to work as I would expect it to.

The original looks correct to me.

I think you or the documentation are confusing the hardware carry flag with the 
carry out of the 4th bit (nibble carry).
A binary addition of two BCD digits will require correction either if the 
result is in the range 0xA to 0xF or if there was a carry out of the 4th bit.
The hardware carry flag is the carry out of the 8th bit and is irrelevant 
immediately after the addition.
Note whether or not correction is needed is synonymous with the state of 
*decimal* carry from the addition.

To rephrase the original code:
- If the 8-bit result of a preceding binary addition of two BCD digits 
located in the lower nibble of the source operands is > 0x9 then add 0x6 to the 
result.
This corrects results which were both in the range 0xA to 0xF and 0x10 
to 0x12 (the max result of adding two BCD digits is 9+9=0x12).
The lower nibble of the acc now correctly reflects the desired decimal 
digit value.

- We now need to adjust the hardware carry flag to reflect whether 
there was a decimal carry (so it is valid for input to a subsequent BCD digit 
addition).
Because of the conditional addition of the 'correcting 6', all results 
which required correction are now > 0xF in the acc (have overflowed into the 
higher nibble) (0xA+6=0x10),
so we set the hardware carry flag accordingly, as well as clear out the 
extraneous bits in the higher nibble of the acc so it contains only our desired 
decimal digit.

I've been through this binary-BCD addition correction stuff numerous times in 
reverse engineering discrete and SSI calculators -
it's far more fun when it's being done with serial bit-streams in hardware.

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[Stefan Skoglund (lokal]

ons 2016-01-27 klockan 14:42 +0100 skrev Liam Proven: 
> But trying the modern version today brings the bad memories flooding
> back, I'm afraid... Of multi-thousand-line CONFIG.SYS files, of
> juggling drivers (PATA versus SATA today, for example), of patchy or
> missing hardware support etc.
> 

The previous evening i tried to install vmware esxi 5.5 on an Lenovo
Thinkserver (ts140.)
An exercise in futility trying to install stock esx 5.5 on that thing
(it needs an patched install image of esxi if its inbuilt ethernet is to
work  and then it is the question about that software raid which it
has.) ESX doesnt like software raid :-)
ESXi 6 went without an hitch.

MU-BASIC V2 and RT-11 V03B distribution disks.

[Mattis Lind]

I found some 8 inch floppies with distribution kits for MU-BASIC V2 and
RT-11 V03B. I imaged those and put them here
http://www.datormuseum.se/documentation-software/rx01-and-rx02-floppy-disks
if anyone is interested in playing with MU-BASIC. There are both RAW disk
images and to be used in SimH and like and also DMK/IMD files.

The system that floppies came with is this little (
http://www.datormuseum.se/computers/digital-equipment-corporation/pdp1103-l)
system once used at Scania in Södertälje.